The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(96)

A stout man in a cowboy hat got out and went to the back of the trailer. He opened it and escorted out a horse.

Dox glanced over at Labee and Larison. “Are we all seeing the same thing?”

Larison continued to stare out the window. “I think someone is delivering us a horse.”

“That’s fine,” Dox said. “Long as I’m not hallucinating.”

Another pickup came into the lot and stopped, its engine idling. The man waved to its driver, then took hold of the horse’s halter and led the animal to the front door. He knocked.

Dox and Larison stared at each other. Try as he might, Dox couldn’t come up with what to do. Or even to say.

Diaz broke the logjam. She went to the door and called out, “Yes?”

“I have a horse here,” a voice called back from the other side of the door in a light Mexican accent. “It’s from Tom.”

Diaz glanced at the rest of them, but no one seemed able to offer guidance. She gave a quick Whatever shake of her head. “Put your guns away,” she said. As soon as they had complied, she opened the door.

“Buenos días,” the man said. “I am Miguel. May I come in?”

Diaz glanced over, but again no one offered anything. She stepped aside and said, “Please.”

The man came in, followed by the horse. It took a few seconds before they were both completely inside. Diaz closed the door behind them.

“Thank you,” the man said. “This is Margarita. Usually she stays in the stables. But Tom told me to bring her in. You don’t mind?”

Margarita swished her tail, but other than that seemed not terribly interested to find herself in an office. Diaz glanced around impatiently, and, when no one offered to help, switched to Spanish with the man. Dox followed most of it. Tom had asked Miguel to drop off the horse. The tack was in the pickup; the pickup and the trailer were theirs; here are the keys; try to get her back to us by three, when the kids arrive for their riding lessons.

Miguel turned to the rest of them. “She’s a good girl,” he said. “Very gentle. Give her a sugar cube and you’ll have a friend for life.” He turned to Diaz and doffed his hat. “Hasta luego, se?orita.”

“Muchas gracias, se?or,” Diaz said. She closed and locked the door behind him. They watched the man get in the second truck, and kept watching until the taillights were gone.

Dox turned and looked at Margarita. It was a reasonably surreal sight. “Well,” he said, rubbing his chin, “as Nicolas Cage put it in Con Air, ‘On any other day, that might seem strange.’”

Diaz was stroking Margarita’s shoulder. Margarita dropped her head. “That’s good,” Dox said. “That means she likes you.”

Diaz smiled, still intent on the horse. “Yeah?”

Dox nodded. “You bet. Though it doesn’t exactly answer the question of what she’s doing here. Maybe old Kanezaki thought this outfit needed a mascot. Well, they ought to be here to explain soon enough.”





chapter

sixty-six





DELILAH


Delilah slept well on the flight from Virginia. Hunger was the best seasoning, and exhaustion the best soporific.

The first pale light was showing in the eastern sky as they left the plane and walked onto the tarmac. There were three vehicles waiting. A gray Toyota minivan. A FedEx truck. And a bright yellow Porsche 718 Cayman GT4.

Kanezaki reached under the truck, felt around for a moment, and retrieved a magnetic lockbox. “Okay,” he said, opening the lockbox and taking out a set of keys. “No fighting over the cars. The Porsche is for Delilah.”

John was scanning the parking lot. He was attuned to good clothes, but cars meant nothing to him. Delilah appreciated both.

She looked at Kanezaki. “Your idea of a low profile?”

He handed her the keys. “More hiding in plain sight. You won’t be out of place in Woodside. Shit, you can drive a stick, right?”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he said. “Of course you can.”

Dash, who had been staring at the car, signed something to Evie. Evie looked at Kanezaki. “Are we going far?”

Kanezaki shook his head. “Fifteen minutes up the highway.”

Delilah didn’t know sign, but she caught the drift. “It’s okay with me,” she said to Evie. “If it’s okay with you.”

Evie smiled and nodded to Dash. The boy laughed delightedly, and he gave Delilah a double thumbs-up.

“Why don’t I take the FedEx truck?” Kanezaki said to the rest of them. He handed John a set of keys. “You take the minivan. The others should be waiting for us. It’s an office park on O’Brien Drive in Menlo Park, straight up 101. Follow me. I doubt anyone’s going to get lost, but if there’s a problem, each vehicle is outfitted with encrypted walkie-talkies. No cell towers, no way to track a signal. Good to go?”

Delilah got in the Porsche with Dash, who was all smiles. Resilient kid, she thought. Just twenty-four hours earlier, he and his mother had killed someone who was trying to do the same to them. Or to do them some kind of harm, anyway. If he’d been Israeli and the IDF had gotten wind, they’d be eyeing him for Sayeret Matkal. If that worked out, Mossad would recruit him for Kidon. For whatever reason, the thought made her sad.