Tyler could see through his thermal scope that the Irishman's two security people, the ones he thought of as Football Player and Weight Lifter, were in the exact same places they had been for the afternoon meeting. Obviously they had never had a gunnery sergeant screaming at them for months on end that you never, never, never, occupied the same position twice. Never. The Corps had been big on repetition.

Weight Lifter was just inside the bar gate giving access to the refuge. He had it open, and if he followed form, he would shut it when the Irishman's visitor arrived. Football Player was forty feet down the road from the Irishman's position, sitting uncomfortably- based on his constant shifting-in a clump of palmetto bushes with a submachine gun across his knees. The Irishman was sitting on the front hood of his car. All three of them were waiting for a meeting that wasn't going to happen. Well, not with who they wanted to meet or in a way that was going to make any of them very happy.

Tyler reconsidered that as he centered the thermal sight on Weight Lifter's head. The man seemed uncomfortable and Tyler wanted to help with that.

Tyler breathed out very slowly and, when his lungs were empty, waited for that pause between heartbeats and the blood surge in his veins. He pulled the trigger back, a lover's caress, and the subsonic round raced down the barrel, out the suppressor, and hit Weight Lifter in the head less than a second later.

Two heartbeats after his first shot, he fired the second. Football Player's head slammed forward, chin bouncing off his chest, and then hung limply.

Time to get up close and personal.

Tyler put the rifle down and went into the water, sliding down his night-vision goggles as he headed toward the Irishman.

"So what's up?" Gloom said when he met Lucy on the bridge, keeping an eye out for traffic as the wind picked up.

"The jig," Lucy said.

"What jig?" Pepper said, and they both looked down at the little girl, shielded from the wind by Lucy's body, decked out in newly laundered WonderWear topped with a white cardigan and her jeans, plus LaFavre's mirrored sunglasses.

"It means we're almost finished,' Lucy said, looking down at her double reflection. Then she looked at Gloom, dropping her voice so that Pepper couldn't hear. "Tonight, Nash is going to take the helicopter during the stunt and go pick up an Irish crook who is going to meet a Russian mobster to give him fifty million dollars worth of Pre-Columbian porn."

Gloom was silent for a moment and then he said, "Okay."

"The theory is that no one will get hurt since the last thing they want is cops on takeoff."

"It's a theory," Gloom said.

"But I don't like it, so I want as many people off this bridge as possible." Lucy nodded down the almost deserted span. "We don't need to actually film it, so we don't need makeup, we don't need sound. Just enough so that to the uneducated eye, it looks like we're filming a movie."

"Okay," Gloom said.

"How many people is that?"

Gloom thought about it. "The lighting guys can set up the lights and go back to base camp. We'll put the camera on a truck bed. I'll handle the camera and the clapper. You direct."

"What about me?" Pepper said. "Aunt Lucy needs me to bring apples and water."

"Thank you very much," Lucy said. "But tonight, there's no eating on the set. Not during stunts. It's too dangerous."

"Okay," Pepper said, looking unconvinced.

"And I suppose we need stunt crew," Gloom said.

"Count on it," Lucy said. "Nash, Doc, Karen, they're all in-"

"Hey, look," Pepper said, peering around Lucy's legs.

"Evenin', ma'am," somebody said from behind her, and she turned to see LaFavre, tipping his hat to her.

"Major LaFavre," she said, not sure what the hell he was doing there.

"They said down in base camp that y'all were up here," he said, and then he looked down to where Pepper was tugging on his pants leg.

"Thank you for my sunglasses," she said. "They're very cool."

"You look quite fetching in them, my dear," he said to her and then smiled at Lucy, but his voice was level and serious, not flirting at all. "You wouldn't happen to know where my buddy J. T. Wilder is now, would you?"

"Not exactly," Lucy said, feeling a flare of alarm. "He was going to meet someone."

"He appears to be concerned for your safety," LaFavre said.

"I'm concerned for my safety, too." Lucy relaxed a little. "Hell, I'm concerned for everybody's safety."

LaFavre looked down again at Pepper, who was yanking on his pants leg again.

"I cannot see," she said, hemmed in by six adult legs.

LaFavre reached down and picked her up effortlessly and set her on his shoulders.

"Cool," she said and wrapped her arms around his head, knocking his pilot's cap askew.

"Is this where the trouble's going to be?" LaFavre said, squinting up at the bridge.

"That's our guess." Lucy took a deep breath. "They're going to bring a helicopter in with a cargo net…" She stopped when he shook his head, making Pepper giggle.

"Too much wind. Damn near impossible to do it in no wind. With this…" He shook his head again. "Never gonna happen."

"Then where?" Lucy looked around. "We're shooting here. This is where they wanted it set up. This bridge, right here."

"I don't know." LaFavre looked around again. "Hard place to get off of. Block both ends, you got yourself a trap. Only way off is up in chopper-which I doubt your stunt pilot can do-or over the rail with a rope."

Lucy looked at Gloom.

"No idea," Gloom said. "Okay, you directing, me on camera, Nash, Karen, and Doc on stunts."

"And J.T.," Lucy said.

"Plus Bryce."

"No," Lucy said.

"That'll be the giveaway," Gloom said. "Unless you're going to tell Bryce that we're not really shooting the last stunts, he's going to throw a fit. And then if he knows you're not shooting the stunts, he's gonna throw a fit. So basically, he throws a fit-"

"Oh, hell," Lucy said.

"-And everybody will know in five minutes."

"Bryce then, but not Aether."

"Would Althea be the young lady in Blow Me Down?" LaFavre said.

"Uh," Lucy said, not sure what he was talking about.

"Yes," Gloom said.

"Very talented.' LaFavre reached into his jacket and pulled out a card, which he gave to Lucy. "Should anything untoward happen this evening, you can reach me at that number."

"Thank you," she said, even more confused.

"And should you need assistance at any time afterward," he said, his voice kind, "I will be at your service."

"Thank you," she said, really confused now but even more touched. "Uh, Major LaFavre, do you know something I don't know?"

"We take care of our own, my dear." He looked up at Pepper, who was still hanging on to his cap. "Would you like to return to base camp, young lady?"

"Yes, please," Pepper said. "It's very windy."

"Yes, it is," Lucy said, looking out over the river.

"I'll tell everybody else to stay in base camp tonight," Gloom said, as LaFavre tipped his hat and started down the bridge with Pepper on his shoulders. "Pack up now so we can get out of here early tomorrow."

"That's good," Lucy said and thought, Where is J. T.? And what had happened that he'd sent his best friend to watch out for her?

"You okay?" Gloom said.

"Nope," Lucy said and followed LaFavre off the bridge.

Wilder saw a light glow directly ahead, which went out after a few seconds. Finnegan and his damn cigar. Stupid. As he moved through the chilly water, watching out for gators and other nasty critters, he hoped the asshole was enjoying his smoke.

I hen he froze.

There was someone or something else out here. He couldn't say how he knew that, but he for damn sure knew it. The last time he'd felt this, he'd been on his way to Baghdad International when he'd ordered the driver of his Up-Armor Humvee to slam on the brakes. Fifty feet short of an improvised explosive device waiting to blow them to hell.

Wilder's nostrils flared as he slowly looked left, then right, searching. He caught a faint whiff of Finnegan's cigar.

Darkness was for predators. That had been true of every place around the globe Wilder had ever gone. But was this predator human or animal?

Movement to his right. Wilder had the stock of the MP-5 tight into his shoulder, the weapon just above the black mirror of the water's surface. A ripple, a wake, something moving. Wilder slowly let the air out of his lungs as he spotted the small dark spots of the alligator's snout and eyes. Not far away and moving south, just like him. Finnegan was drawing the predators in.

Wilder continued forward, the submachine gun at the ready.

He had halved the distance to Finnegan, but the going was slow. He could clearly see the red glow of the tip of Finnegan's cigar. Who was he waiting for? Nash?

He glanced right. The damn gator was keeping pace.

But so was something else. Wilder blinked as he swiveled his head back to the front and then went a quarter turn back right. What the hell? A dark blob was farther away than the gator, also in the water, moving in a line toward Finnegan. Wilder strained to see through the goggles. Not another gator.

Shit. A man, head covered just like his was. Nash? Pepper's ghost? Whoever it was, he was much closer to the damn Irishman than Wilder was. He pressed forward as his mind churned. Was Nash making his own move on Finnegan? Or was it the CIA? Had Crawford lied and the Agency was going to bring in Finnegan and squeeze him?

That didn't make sense. Fuck, nothing had made sense since that first night on the bridge except for the all-too-brief interludes with Lucy. That and Pepper; she made sense, too, in her own way, more than all the adults around her.

Mission focus. Or else there wouldn't be another interlude with Lucy or conversation with Pepper.

The fucking gator was still keeping pace. Wilder knew he wouldn't make it to Finnegan before the other person did. Hell, it was going to be a close race beating the gator there.

He almost felt sorry for Finnegan. But he never slowed for a moment.

Tyler glanced to his left rear. Gator. He smiled, wondering if it was his one-eyed buddy. He could feed the fat Irishman to her. There'd be enough food there for all her babies.

The glow of the cigar was like a beacon. Dumb fuck. The ground was sloping up now and Tyler could move faster. He wasn't worried about the old man spotting him-without night-vision goggles there was no chance.

Tyler reached the embankment, less than five feet from the Irishman, and paused. He drew the High Standard.22 pistol and quietly drew back the slide, chambering a round.

Then he paused and looked back to the north. He could see the V in the water from the gator's wake, coming this way. But beyond it was something else. Someone else. Close to the gator and closing. Which meant he had less than two minutes.

Tyler sprinted up the embankment, weapon at the ready, and drew a bead on the Irishman, who must have heard something because he spun about, sliding his fat ass off the hood of the car.

"Who goes there? That you, Connor? I don't know why you needed to meet-"

Tyler fired, the small round hitting the old man in the kneecap. The Irishman made a surprised sound and the leg went out, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Johnnie-boy!" the Irishman screamed. "Peter!"

This was not a time for subtlety. Smash and grab.

Tyler ran up to the writhing figure and aimed. He put a round through the man's other kneecap and the Irishman screamed again.

"Who the fuck are you?" he gasped through clenched teeth.

"Your security's dead. Scream all you want. No one's coming."

Tyler realized that wasn't quite true, but he figured whoever else was coming through the water wasn't there to help the Irishman, either.

Tyler holstered the pistol and drew his knife. He put his knee on the Irishman's chest. He placed the tip of the knife against the man's left eyeball. "Lie and lose it. And that's just the start, old man, so make it easy." With his right hand, he reached into the old man's coat and retrieved his cell phone.

"Listen," the Irishman gasped. Tyler noted that there was no longer a hint of brogue. Just a heavy dose of fear. "Listen, we can deal. We can-"