The Devil's Code

handed her the tool towel. “Take the disks,” I said.
    “You found them!”
    “Move back; I’m coming up.”
    I had to stand on my tiptoes to get my hands around the joists at the edge of the hatch. I heard the key in the lock, got a grip, and did a pull-up and then a push-upthrough the hatch. The door opened outside, and Lane whispered, “Now what?” and I whispered, “Shut up. Shine your light on the hatch.”
    She turned her light on the hatch board. I picked it up, and carefully settled it back into its slot. As long as nobody was doing a thorough search . . .
    W hoever was down below us was as quiet as we’d been. After a few minutes, Lane said, “Are you sure they’re down there?”
    I nodded: “I heard a key in the lock.”
    A minute later: “I don’t hear anybody,” she said.
    “Quiet.”
    I was standing on a joist. A long plank ran down to the end of the house, to a head-sized vent that looked out over the front yard. Half hunched against the low overhead, I eased down the board and peered through the vent. A sports utility vehicle—maybe a 4Runner or a Pathfinder, I could only see the front end of it—was parked in front of the green house, a spot that had been empty when we came in. There was no other movement on the street, although I could see a television through a window across the street. Then I heard the door open below me, softly, and a man stepped out onto the curved driveway. He looked back and said, “Hurry, goddamnit.”
    As he turned to talk, I caught an image of his face, eye-blink quick. A second man pushed the door shut, and they hurried toward the SUV. The second guy was carrying what looked like . . .
    “A gas can,” I said aloud. “Ah, shit.” I turned back toward Lane.
    “Get out, get out,” I said, “Get the hatch up, get the hatch up, get . . .”
    “What, what . . . ?”
    She was looking toward me, still whispering, as I scrambled frantically down the plank, and she was not lifting the hatch.
    “Get the goddamn hatch . . .” I was almost on top of her before she lifted it up, still uncertain.
    “Drop through,” I said, urgently. “Hurry—they’re going to burn the place.”
    She got it: no question. She put her feet over the edge, held on with her hands for a second, dangled, and then dropped into the bathroom.
    “Disks,” I said. I handed the bundle down, then dropped into the bathroom myself. I stepped into the hallway, and the air was thick with gasoline fumes and something else. “Out the back.”
    “What?” She’d taken a step toward the front room, to see what was happening. I took a step after her, caught her arm. Just beyond her, a burning rag hung from a string that must have been taped or thumb-tacked to the ceiling. The “something else” odor was burning cotton. As I caught her arm, the string, already burning, parted, and the rag dropped to the floor.
    The gas went with a whump, like a giant pilot light—or napalm, for that matter—and I jerked her back, and her sweatshirt was burning and I beat at it with my hands as I dragged her through the firelight to the back door.
    She was screaming and beat at her shirt with her free hand. I twisted her and got the bottom of the back of the shirt and ripped it up over her head and off, and she groaned and said, “I’m burned,” and I led her out the door and around the house and said, “Run, run, run,” and we ran through the backyards of the green house and the next house over, and then around onto the sidewalk and down the street.
    In one minute, we were at the car. In three minutes, we were a mile away.
    “How bad?” I asked.
    “My arms, my hands, my face,” she said. “I don’t think it’s too bad.”
    “Gotta find a good light,” I said.
    We found a good light at a hot-bed motel a couple of miles from the airport. I checked in with the Harry Olson ID. The clerk was locked behind a thick bulletproof glass window, and I said, “We’ll want to check out early; we got a real early flight.” He grunted, said, “Drop the key in the box,” pointed at a locked box hung on the side of the motel, and went back to a gun magazine whose lead story was, “Exposed! Handgun Control Inc.’s 5-Year Plan to Disarm America: Read It and Weep.”
    Inside, we got the good light. Lane had been burned on the backs of her hands, her forearms, and under her chin. Her eyebrows were singed, and the dark hair over her forehead had taken on some new curls. The burns were pink,