Inside Outt

me.”
    “It’s not me.”
    “Okay, I’ll go around the block and see what he does.”
    Ben made a right on Greenbrier, then a right on Patrick Henry. The Toyota stayed with him. He could make out a driver and a passenger, both in shades. He made a right again, back onto George Mason. The Toyota stayed with him.
    “Okay, it’s official,” he said. “The blue Toyota is a tail. Looks like two men in the car. I’m telling you so you’ll know I didn’t put them there. Also, from the route I just drove, they know I’m aware of them now.”
    “How did they follow you?”
    Ben wished he knew. He thought of Hort again, but it just didn’t make sense. A tracking device in the car, then? Satellites? And who were the guys behind him, anyway? Blackwater? Ground Branch?
    “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m just the courier. I was told to follow your instructions and that’s what I’m doing.”
    There was a pause. Larison said, “Is your navigation system up?”
    “Yes.”
    “Head west again. You see the high school at Washington Boulevard and McKinley?”
    Been dragged the phone’s touch screen to the right. “I see it.”
    “The parking lot behind it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Turn into the parking lot from Madison and circle around it.”
    “All right.”
    Ben drove and the Toyota stayed with him. Even if he’d known who was behind him, and he didn’t, he wouldn’t have liked the idea of the parking lot. There was no way to know where Larison might be waiting inside or along the way, and the man seemed to have a penchant for high-caliber, armor-piercing ammunition. Overall, though, Ben judged it unlikely that Larison would try to greet him with a bullet. He’d want to first confirm that the courier actually had the diamonds. It was post-confirmation when things were maximally likely to become unpleasant.
    As for the occupants of the Toyota, of course, that was a little harder to say. He patted the Glock in the shoulder holster and drove.
    He headed south on Madison and turned into the parking lot per Larison’s instructions. The lot was a rectangle, bordered by a chain-link fence, with the entrance and exit on one of the short sides. It had four rows—two along each of the long sides and two up the middle—and might have held fifty cars full, though there were only a half dozen at the moment. Ben drove along, the Glock in his hand now, his head swiveling, scanning for Larison. The Toyota pulled in behind him.
    He passed a white pickup parked to his right. No occupants. He checked left. Right. Forward. Nothing. He checked the rearview—
    Larison, in jeans and a windbreaker and a baseball cap, popping up from the bed of the pickup like a deadly jack-in-the-box—
    Shit, shit, shit—
    Pointing a pistol at the Toyota, two-handed grip—
    Ben’s head snapped left, snapped right, looking for a way to turn, trying to determine whether, how to engage—
    Bam! Bam!
    He checked the rearview. Damn it, whatever he was going to do, he was already too late. Larison had put two rounds through the windshield. The Toyota veered to the right and crashed through the chain-link fence into a tree. Larison dashed up behind it, the gun up at chin level. A shot came from inside the car, blowing out the driver-side window. But the guy must have been aiming over his shoulder and the shot went wild. Larison fired again, came closer, and fired twice more.
    It was like Costa Rica again. Every reflex, every self-preservation instinct Ben had was screaming,
Get out of the car! Engage!
But he couldn’t. Larison’s deadman trigger was protecting him like a bulletproof vest.
    Ben peeled around the far end of the lot, his tires screeching, and got the car pointed north, toward Larison, keeping one of the parked cars between them. He reached across and opened the passenger-side door. If Larison tried to circle behind him the way Ben had seen him do to so many deceased-immediately-thereafter people already, Ben would be out the passenger side and laying down fire in a heartbeat.
    But Larison didn’t try to maneuver. Keeping his gun on Ben, he walked calmly over and went around the front of the car. Ben tracked him with the Glock, his finger firm against the trigger, but didn’t fire.
    Larison leaned over and looked into the open passenger-side door. He was carrying an HK, Ben noted. The Mark 23. Forty-five caliber, maybe the same he’d used in Costa Rica. Up close, Ben could see dark circles under his eyes.
    “Hand over the