Page 69 of The Fourth Option
He watched for shadows, listened for footsteps, voices.
Nothing but jazz.
Paladin stood rigid beside him, silent but alert. The dog’s body language was unmistakable—something was wrong.
Walker leaned in and murmured, “Volg.” Heel.
He kept to the garden, pushing to the back of the house to get a good angle on the kitchen through a window that allowed someone at the sink to look out over the flowers.
Oversized Edison lights hung above the island, where he noticed an open bottle of wine and an empty platter. The swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room was closed, unlike on his first visit.
He turned back to the street, which was now partially obscured by a southern magnolia. Had there been any suspicious vehicles parked on the street? Had he not been so consumed with thoughts of Belle, John, and the CIA, he might have noticed. Or maybe not. Parking on the street was common in this neighborhood. His van was probably the most suspicious vehicle out there.
Damn it! Get your head in the game.
He thought he heard a male voice inside the home, but when he stopped to listen, all he caught was jazz over the chirping of crickets and the long rattle of cicadas.
A thousand thoughts swarmed in his head, but an overriding one was that of Leigh Ann’s meeting with Irene Isaacson.
Still might be nothing.
Then what of the male voice? Leigh Ann hadn’t said anything about having another guest.
Maybe it was the TV.
You could just knock on the door.
You could call the police.
Leigh Ann reached out to you for a reason, and it wasn’t so you could call the police.
She was afraid of the police. She was convinced they had killed her son.
Staying low, Paladin at his side, he wound his way along a garden path and covered the rear corner to the home in a few seconds, maneuvering through the landscaping lights over a small patch of grass and around fluted canna lily buds, angular bird-of-paradise flowers standing five feet high, and the leafy hostas and ferns hanging over fine-grain cedar bark. He paused near the side of the house, next to a shovel, bucket, rake, and pruning shears.
Paladin wasn’t interested in the plants. His snout pointed like a spear at the rear porch, utterly silent, a predator on the hunt.
Stop. Look. Listen. Smell.
Walker heard a door swing open and saw a shadow fall across the back porch.
The shadow took the shape of a man with a slung weapon. A guard? Lookout? Just like Afghanistan and Iraq. Why was his weapon slung?
The man walked across the veranda, briefly illuminated in the light. He was mid-twenties, maybe thirty, Hispanic, shaved head, neck and face covered in tattoos. He walked to the far edge of the porch, unzipped his fly, and began to relieve himself.
There is not going to be a better time. He’s at his most vulnerable.
What if this is a mistake?
It’s no mistake.
Kill him? Question him to get intel and find out how many more are inside?
Take him with the Glock?
That warns anyone else on-site and gives up the element of surprise.
If there were more, Walker needed to stack the odds in his favor.
