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ONE
LOS ANGELES
THE WORK VAN WAS a new Mercedes, white and high roofed, with the bloodred words TURNKEY LOCKSMITH hand-painted on its side
At a little before 7 ah the Hollywood Hills northwest of LA, the steady drone of its diesel engine briefly rising in pitch as it turned onto the long climb of Kirkwood Drive in Laurel Canyon Two hundred feet below the intersection of Kirkwood and Oak, the van coasted to a crackling stop on the gravel shoulder of the secluded road and shut off its engine A ot out
As the bald Hispanic driver flipped down the visor to get the sun out of his eyes, he spotted a h the steep hillside’s thick underbrush across the street
Go for a lung shot, he thought as he i bow his girlfriend had gotten him for his birthday Track the blood trail down between the infinity pools and twenty-person funkadelic hot tubs before lashing it to the van’s front grille See how that would go doith George Clooney and k d lang and the rest of the Laurel Canyon faithful
He was feigning a bohen the elegant deer suddenly noticed hiht, and depressed the intercom button under the drink holder
“How’s this? Line of sight OK?” he said
“Yes Maintain here until the hand-off, then head for position two,” interco directly behind the driver in the sealed-off back of the high-tech surveillance van
There was a dull h-definition video camera concealed in the van’s roof On the console’s flat screen in front of her, an off-white stucco bungalow a hundred and fifty feet up the canyon slowly came into view
She panned the caalow’s short, steep driveway of bishop’s hat paver stones, the broken terracotta roof tiles above its front door, the live oaks and lemon trees in its side yard She’d been here several tiet house as well as her own at this point
She was halfway through the tea-filled Tervis tu when a truck slowed in front of the target house It was a new Ford Expedition SUV, glossy black with heavily tinted s After it reversed up the driveway aler-side door opened and out stepped a lanky ray business suit He adjusted his Oakley sport sunglasses for a moment before he reached into the open door and retrieved what appeared to be a military-issue M-16
Then, up on the porch above hialow’s front door opened and Detective Michael Bennett came out of the house
The woman almost spilled the tea in her lap as she quickly panned the camera left and zoo out behind him His kids were in cartoon-character pj’s, their tan and striking blond nanny, Mary Catherine, in a bathrobe, drying her hands with a dish towel One of the Bennett boys—was Trent his na out over the stair’s cast-iron rail, until Mary Catherine pulled him back by his collar
The cacophony of the fa in her earphone as she turned up the voluun mike
“Arrivederci,” Bennett said playfully to his rambunctious family as he went down the stairs “Sayonara, auf Wiedersehen And, oh, yeah Later, guys”
The woman in the van watched silently as Bennett sue out at his fa forty, but still tall and tri at her lower lip, she didn’t stop focusing until his dimples and brown eyes slid out of the bottom of the frame into the SUV
As the Ford rocketed out into the street, the copper-haired wo the captain’s chair around toward the threeon the steel bench behind her
If it hadn’t been for the glistening snub-barreled Heckler & Koch e men could have been professional football players Wide receivers in the huddle waiting for the quarterback to call the next play