guilty of something. And he wasn’t guilty of anything. At least not here. Not yet.
Hank slid down from the hood and hobbled to the side of the road. For fifty yards the pavement was marked with curving black skids. The shoulder was strewn with prism poles and range poles. A folded over measuring wheel, impaled in the dirt, turned feebly in the soft light. The road was marked by splotches of dayglo red, orange, green, and yellow paint. Leveling rods hung from the brush and survey stakes littered the landscape like the remnants of some lunatic cartographer. There was the gammon reel and the plumb bob and the laser plummet too. All of it rented, and all of it now damaged or destroyed.
Hank kicked at a blue lumber crayon and smeared it across the pavement. Up and down the road, there wasn’t a car or light in either direction. He scratched his head and turned back toward the car, studying the transition of the skid marks on the pavement into the swaths of upturned sand that marked the spiraling path of the vehicle. Did he really see a leg hanging from the coyote’s mouth? Hank walked back to the car and peeked inside. The coyote and the leg remained, almost poignant in their absurdity. He laughed out loud. The sound muted and absorbed by the desert. A guy couldn’t even scream for help. What would be the point?
He lingered for a moment by the side of the car, focusing again on the trail of debris. Then, just for the hell of it, he patted down his pockets until he found his cell phone. He powered it up. Why not? The LCD came on. Its glow only magnified the desolation around him. The phone beeped twice and Hank stared at the display where a tiny digital satellite dish spun round and round trying in vain to find a signal. Below the dish was a single word: “searching.”
Hank laughed and thought, Aren’t we all?
II
The office job was killing him.
Twenty years of excitement had left Victor Jones unsuited for almost everything. More and more lately, he found himself staring from his office window out at the shipyard and the water beyond, daydreaming about stakeouts, spending nights in a van, stale coffee, straining to hear whispered conversations coming in through the headphones, bursting through doors, the rush of the chase—on foot, in cars, careening through the streets, adrenaline exploding—and the look in the target’s eyes at that final moment, when he knew the game was over, the jig was up: busted.
Three years and it seemed like ancient history now. Victor sitting at his desk, answering the phone, strolling beige hallways bathed in fluorescent light. Victor wearing a brown tie and eating a sandwich at his desk. Victor surfing the Internet. Victor staring out his window, scratching his ear on occasion. Victor going home at five-thirty, fighting traffic all the way to the subdivision and the three bedroom tract home his FBI retirement was buying. Victor with his two kids, Daniel, six, and Jennie, four. Victor kissing his wife, who’d begged him to retire and take a normal job—for her, for the family, for his own health and safety. Victor Jones, Chief Security Officer for Southwest Petroleum in Long Beach, California. Victor Jones, forty-six, making $95,000 a year; living the good life. Victor, who didn’t even carry a gun anymore, felt naked and impotent most of the time.
“Radiation? You can do that?” Victor wasn’t really interested, but followed the conversation nonetheless. His head leaned all the way back and he stared at the ceiling, resisting the urge to spin his chair all the way around like a child.
“Well, that’s what they told me at the lab.” Tom Crossly, sitting straight in the chair opposite Victor, picked at his cuticles as he spoke. “I mean, I’m no scientist, but those guys sure as hell are. That’s what they said.”
Victor looked up and studied Tom for a moment—the tan skin, pressed shirt, the slight highlights in his sandy, beach-bleached hair. He’d always thought Tom was a little too well groomed to be taken seriously as a man. “I dunno,” he said. “Sounds weird to me. I’d have to get one of the heads of the lab to sign off on that. I’m not going to authorize something that’s going to taint a pipeline full of oil.” Victor smiled, amused by the idea. That would sure stir things up. Maybe he’d get fired. Maybe he’d have to go