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Hannah didn’t even have time to ready herself before Erasmus hit her hard on the head with the butt of Lacey’s SIG. Lacey knew she’d lost it. Otherwise she would have forced herself to be silent.

“I’ll enjoy cutting her throat,” Erasmus said, standing over an unconscious Hannah. She was drawn up in the fetal position. There was a trickle of blood from her nose.

“So you will kill her,” Lacey said, and smiled at Marlin. “I’m not going into your maze. There’s no reason to. She isn’t leverage. You’re going to kill her too. You heard your sweet daddy.”

Erasmus raised his hand to strike her, but Marlin grabbed his wrist. “Marty’s mine. I’ll handle her. Lookee here, Pa, a little druggie. You want to take care of her?”

A young black girl, dressed in ragged filthy jeans and an old Washington Redskins jersey, with holes in the elbows, was crouched by the door of the warehouse, her eyes huge, knowing she was in the wrong place and knowing too there was nothing she could do about it. Erasmus walked to the girl, took her by the neck, and shook her like a chicken. Lacey heard the girl’s neck snap. It was unbearable. She closed her eyes but not before she saw Erasmus toss the girl aside like so much garbage.

“I’ll see if there are any more scum inside,” Erasmus said and slid through the narrow opening into the huge derelict building. The area was godforsaken, bleak, an air of complete hopelessness about it. All the buildings had been abandoned by people who had just given up. All were in various stages of dilapidation. There were old tires lying about, cardboard boxes stacked carefully together to cover a homeless person. It was the nation’s capital and it looked like the remains of Bosnian cities Lacey had seen on TV a while back.

Marlin took her chin in his palm and forced her face up. “Guess what, Marty?”

“My name’s Lacey.”

“No, you’re Marty to me. That was how you came on to me in Boston. That’s how you’ll go out. Guess what I found?”

She just stared at him mutely.

He pulled her Lady Colt out of his pocket. “I remembered this little number. This is the gun you shot me with in Boston. You were hoping I’d forget, weren’t you? You wanted to blast me again, didn’t you? Well you aren’t going to do anything now. I win, Marty. I win everything.”

“You won’t win a thing, you slug. I’m not going to walk into your maze.”

“What if I promise you that I’ll let her go?”

She laughed. “Your daddy’s the one who’s going to kill her, Marlin, not you.”

“All right, then. I have another idea.” Marlin twisted her chin, then slapped her. “Come on, Marty, Show Time.”

Erasmus came out of the warehouse, dragging a ragged old man by his filthy jacket collar. “Just one, Marlin—this poor old bastard. He’s gone to his reward. I bet he’d thank me for releasing him if he had any breath left.”

Erasmus lowered the old man to the rotted wooden planks outside the warehouse, then kicked him next to a stack of tires. “Take your girlie, Marlin, and have her walk the walk. I want to get out of this damned city. It’s unfriendly, you know? And just look around you. People ain’t got no pride here. Ain’t nothing but devastation. Don’t our government have any pride in their capital?”

Marlin smiled down at Lacey, raised the .44 Magnum, and brought it down on the side of her head. She was hurled into blackness before she hit the ground.

“Now, I’ve got to do this just so,” Marlin said to his father as he leaned down over Hannah. “Yes, just so. I can’t wait to see her face when she finally comes to the center of the maze, when she finally comes to me.”

Four local police cars cruised in silently, all of them parked a good block from the warehouse. Men and women quietly emerged from the cars, Lewis Jacobs bringing them to where Savich had just arrived in a taxi, a tall middle-aged black man next to him.

“Jimmy Maitland will be here soon, along with about fifteen Special Agents,” Savich said quietly. “Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

• • •

Lacey awoke slowly, nausea thick in the back of her throat,