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  The nd was ft in all dires. Low silver clouds slid across the sky towards a knee-high horizon like they were part of some other world. It was the kind ht blue day that had a feeling of motion eveanding still.

  Philip sat in the ter of the SUV with Luke in the driver’s seat, parked o a 24-pump gas station fag ay field. Msions with faces of brid vinyl siding stared hungrily over a subdivision wall at the bare earth and weeds, waiting to pounce.

  He had called one of his guys who had taear the target’s POE to ask for the name of the er that worked in the area.

  “Peter, no, fuck, lemme see.” The guy had talked to someone in the background while a child’s whine and the drone of daytime tv came through in choppy echoes. Whe ba the line, he said the er’s name aul and gave Philip the o his secure line. Philip put on his best “I’m a little bitch trying to hide my money from the divorce wyers” void made the call. ”Uh, I heard you do wallets and stuff.” That was that.

  Luke heard Philip yelling on the phone as he pulled out of the lot. Less than a mier, he got the call from Lindsey. She sounded mad and he regretted he wasn’t there to see her green eyes burning uhose cute little eyebrows. He smiled aed his hand on the big matte box built into the ter sole, like a movie cowboy holding his hand over a revolver.

  “Thanks for bag me up,” Philip said.

  “Don’t make me regret it.”

  Philip leaned forward and opehe back of the sole.

  “How pissed do you think she’ll be when I drop this guy over a fug ham and swiss?”

  Luke gnced back as Philip took a small dark handgun, a SIG P365, out of the bck box and racked the slide. A rou boung onto the floor.

  “Shit.” He went down to pick it up.

  “I keep all my chambers loaded. This ain’t a goddamrip.” Luke said.

  Philip put the mag ba, racked the slide, ejected the mag, put the round ba top, and spped it bato the gun.

  “His guard will probably follow him and brain you when you sit down.” Luke rolled smoothly through a turn.

  “Won’t you be keeping a? Or are you gonhem pop me just to make a certain blonde woman smile?” Philip put the gun in his jacket pocket and took out a cigar tube.

  “I’m just saying you better shoot fast.”

  “You remember I started out as aht?” He put the cigar in his mouth and took out a lighter.

  “That was a long time ago, I heard. Those don’t roll down.” Said Luke. Philip had been poking the window trols repeatedly. He swore and cracked the sunroof.

  “You know, he doesn’t know what you look like. Why don’t I just do it?” said Luke.

  “He may not know what I look like, but he knows I don’t look like you. He heard me on the phone and my voice wouldn’t e out of your fa a million years.”

  Philip held the cigar above the fme and rotated it slowly.

  “Also, he should find me familiar when he sees me.” He smiled and blew on the glowing red end.

  Luke looked back for a moment. He had fotten, even though he had just been telling Lihat Philip was good.

  ****

  Gradie saw the gun waiting in the bag every time his mind drifted off. He worked on auto pilot. Numbers flew out of his mouth and his fingers fluttered on the keys, but there was nothing in his brain but jail cells and court appearances. He g the timer. On hold 16 minutes. His shirt peeled off the chair as he stood up, expeg to see arg down the aisle. It was just the same spread of browns and greys. Someone leaned on the door to a cubicle offid ughed over their coffee. He sat back down and decided to look in the bag again. Maybe he had imagi.

  He reached in and his fingers felt cold pstic. He snatched his hand away and zipped the bag closed. It must be hot. Some meth head dropped it into his bag yesterday when he left it out in the car, and now he was sitting at work with a murder on. He had to get it out of the office, but what if security stopped him for one of those searches they started after those ptops went missing? If he got caught with it, they would raid his house, search his puter, find all his journals and poems and figure “Yea, this guy was gonna shoot up the pd got cold feet”. He would be on the news, run through the courts and never get another job. Never get id agaiher. You only got the fan mail and shit if you actually killed someone.

  He wiped sweat off his forehead and tried to take deep breaths.

  Maybe he would just get fired, keep it quiet. Get a job w fast food or in a warehouse. Might not be so bad having a job that was anything but this. His breathing slowed, ached himself work a thousand jobs in a thousand other lives until he fot where he was or what he was afraid of.

  ****

  Bolton sat in the er of the feren and leaned his forehead on the windowpane. Gss towers blended chameleon-like into the sky and cars inched across the highway. All those people. He usually didn’t have time to think about it, but now…

  One of the Operators came in looking like any other office worker. It was so ving that Bolton thought he had the wrong feren. The door shut behind him like an air lock as he stopped dead, frozen by Anthony’s gre.

  “Were you monit whe a call?” Anthony’s voice was like a building colpsing.

  “Uh, yeah, about lunch?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He just made pns with someone for lunch. Something about money. Probably for his drug gig. What? Were you not on that?” He looked around. Anthony stepped towards him. He was six and a half feet tall and built like a powerlifter. His shaved head said ex-, but his suit whispered CEO.

  “Where was he going and with who?”

  “I don’t know. I only got his side. I don’t get the recs off his cell. Isn’t it encrypted?”

  It was. The team hadn’t thought about trying to monitor it because a tap would be another point of failure, and they had a lid on everyone who khe number. Or so they thought.

  “You didn’t hear any names?” said Anthony.

  “No. Wait! It was, uh—” He hugged himself and looked up at the humming fluoresce. Anthony just watched.

  “Oh, it was Davis! That’s that guy in cims, right? No shit, that’s David. Maybe—”

  “Who is Davis?” Anthony asked the room.

  One operator typed frantically into a ptop.

  “He’s a former t of Paul’s. From a year ago.”

  “Were any of you aware of his existence before hearing his name just now?”

  No one breathed. Anthony spoke to the room and into his headset.

  “Anyone on a team go hot a on the road. Intel, get into his phone and find him. Everyone else get set up, but don’t spook the sery. Let them fire first. Exit team on me.”

  Everyone moved at once. Some went out the door while others slid the top off the fereable and grabbed guns out of the slots.

  “So, are we doh this pce?” one operator whispered after Anthony had stepped out.

  “Yep. We’re outta this bitch.” another one said as he holstered a pistol.

  “Why? If we take them out, why not just stay here?”

  “Because they tracked us already. It’s better just to start from scratch. They’ll just send in aeam.” The operator slid an in 12 and two 20 round drum-mags into his work bag.

  Bolto out the door without grabbing anything. If he got to the boiler room fast, he might get to use that SAW after all.