"Looking real s.e.xy."

I responded, "Cheese on bread."

"Lemme part ya walls."

"You taking six for nine. Leff me alone now."

The Six Roads Library was my destination, a three-minute walk from the safe house. Nonstop traffic came through the island"s unique six-point roundabout to get to Highway 4 and Highway 5. Hundreds of brick homes with tin roofs stretched into the distance, cane fields facing those communities. This area used to be an old village, now sectioned off and sold to create retail and housing. Many waited on buses, minivans, and Zed-Rs heading toward Bushy Park, the Crane, Bayfield, Oistins, Culpepper Island, wherever they went in the heat. Many walked, some with rags in hand to wipe away sweat, some underneath umbrellas to hide from the Caribbean sun. They hid from the sun the way I was hiding from the rest of the world. Today I was on foot. I mixed with people heading toward Knight"s Pharmacy, Emerald City Supermarket, Sh.e.l.l, Barbados National Bank, Chickmont Food Store, and Chefette.

The public library sat back off the road, was hidden in plain sight, sandwiched between the entry to Princess Margaret Secondary School and a small building for the Southeastern Farmers" Cooperative, that property having gra.s.s at least a foot high.

On edge, the shootout from the bank in Trinidad still playing in my head frame by frame, I scanned the area one more time. My eyes went to the building that housed the co-op. The building was one level, thirty feet away from the library. The metal roof was flat, not an A-frame. Perfect for a sniper. Princess Margaret Secondary was behind the library, the two lots separated by a metal fence. Much noise was going on over there. I walked to the fence and saw that students were out being recorded, doing their version of the Harlem Shake. I hadn"t expected them to be outside.

That was not good.

I gritted my teeth, looked at my watch. I had thirty minutes before the killing started.

I hoped the kids would be done and back inside by then.

I went into the small library, a library about the same size as the two-bedroom safe house I had been forced to live in. Walls were made of cinder blocks, hurricane-proof, bulletproof. Fans blew and the inside was cool enough, but my adrenaline made me an oven. Six older Dell computers faced the main road and the plaza at Emerald City. Hadn"t antic.i.p.ated much traffic at the library. Connected to the Internet. Went online. Found a website and played the wretched video from the shootout in Trinidad.

Horns blew as an SUV turned left, pulled into the unpaved car park, and negotiated the uneven terrain, taking to its mild incline. I glanced at the time. If that was them, they were thirty-seven minutes early. The first letter on the license plate was an H. That meant it was a car for hire, a rental.

I took the safety off of my.380, placed it in the small of my back, then went to the cubbyhole where I had left my backpack, reached inside, and took the safety off my other two weapons, and then I picked up my backpack, put it on, the straps adjusted to cause the bag to hang and cover my gun.

Maybe I had been lucky in Trinidad.

Maybe my luck was close to its end.

This might be my final moment in the sun.

I pa.s.sed the weather-beaten railing, held my backpack in my left hand, went down the steps. Would be easier to draw my gun now. Music kicked up louder. Beyond the fence, kids jumped around and recorded their version of the Harlem Shake. Bad f.u.c.king timing to make a video. I was concerned with stray bullets. .h.i.tting an innocent child, as innocents had been shot in the bank in Trinidad.

I didn"t know how aggressive to be, but I knew one fact.

In this business, he who shot last died first.

Today she who fired last would be the first to die.

The Toyota RAV4 parked. Three doors opened at the same moment, like they were on the synchronized door-opening team for the Special Olympics. Three pairs of expensive shoes touched the gravel and gra.s.s at the same instant, then three men closed three doors at the same moment.

The first man wore high-end rags by Dormeuil. He was tall, at least six-foot-four, and sported a dated George Carlin ponytail. In his thirties. Something Jason Stathamesque about him, the c.o.c.ky walk, the square chin, the excessive forehead, the nose that had been broken and reset and broken and reset, the way he looked like he longed for a good fight. He was an ugly handsome, had a face that some women might like after a few hard drinks but would never want to see on their daughters.

No one else had anything in their hands, but he carried a black briefcase. That stood out. It was big enough to hold guns and ammo, maybe blocks of C4, if that was their intention.

The second man wore clothes by Zenga. Big like a linebacker. Barely looked twenty-one. Neck big, like a thigh. Daniel Craig expression, one that said he was the bada.s.s who killed the bada.s.ses and p.i.s.sed on their graves, his hairline receding like the banks of the Mississippi during a severe drought.

The third man was average height for a man, around five-nine in his shoes, so that meant that he was really about five-eight. He was slender, wore rags by Loro Piana, a suit with a great lapel, inner linings of a silver hue. He was the only black one in the lot, the only one who could remove his overpriced suit, throw on cargo pants, sandals, and an I BAJAN T-shirt and blend in with the West Indians.

All overdressed men were either pallbearer or casket-ready, depending on how this went.

The man in the Dormeuil suit made it to where I stood, his walk square-shouldered, led with his nose. He scanned the urban area, not impressed. This side of the island was nothing like he"d seen in the travel brochures. I don"t think it was even in the brochures. He probably thought the entire island would look like the five-star resorts where the Brits spent their winters to avoid having to put on a winter coat.

Dormeuil evaluated me and spoke first. "Black parents give birth to white baby."

Ice water replaced my blood.

Zenga said, "Your old man is as black as a day-old cup of coffee and your momma was so dark if you poured coffee on her it looked like sweat, and you came out looking like Barbie?"

The boys in fancy suits looked at me like I had a cleft lip, then laughed the same laughs that schoolyard bullies had. My stern expression let them know that I hated them just that fast.

Zenga said, "If you"re Goldilocks, I guess that makes us the three f.u.c.king bears."

Then they all laughed, three tenors enjoying an insult, one that could be their last.

Zenga raised his hand and I saw five dots tattooed in his flesh. Four of the dots were the corners of a square and the fifth was in the center. The four dots represented the walls of a prison, the one in the center was the prisoner. No tattoo tears, the sign of a murderer, were on his face, but those could have been removed, the same as, for now, my fingerprints were gone.

I said, "Before we go any further, I need to hear your designations."

Dormeuil told me his first, then Zenga, then the handsome black guy spoke up.

Zenga and Dormeuil had burners underneath their jackets. Small guns in holsters created a bulge, same as it had done for the LKs. I could beat them to the draw. No. I could beat one of them to the draw. Then the shootout. Dormeuil sounded like Brooklyn. Zenga was Chicago, the side near the now-defunct Sears Tower. The black man, his accent was West, Texas, from the Bible Belt.

Dormeuil said, "You"re the infamous MX-401. You"re Reaper."

I asked, "Why did they send Manny, Mo, and Jack to purgatory to chat with me?"

"To collect debts and solve problems and keep pallbearers and ministers busy."

"Am I the problem?"

"You are a problem, have been a problem since you f.u.c.ked up in Trinidad, but there is a larger issue. We took care of one thing in Miami and now we"ve been a.s.signed to end this lingering problem."

"I have no idea what"s going on. The new problem is here in Barbados?"

"The problem here isn"t new."

"So it"s connected to a problem in Miami?"

"Not connected to Miami or New York."

"What happened in New York?"

"There was a bad debt. We shut it all down, and we"ll shut this down."

"Okay. One more time. Some sort of problem exists and it"s here."

"It"s new to you, but not new to RCSI. The s.h.i.t has. .h.i.t the fan."

"The man behind the double red doors sent you here, and the problem here isn"t new."

"This problem? It"s been going for months."

"Is that why I"ve been detained?"

"You"re one big headache, but on this day, the other problem has garnered priority."

"Who is the client?"

"We are."

"You three trying to pa.s.s for a Vegas Rat Pack are clients for the Barbarians?"

"You could say that RCSI has hired the Barbarians to look out for the interests of RCSI."

"I"m in the dark. We have hired ourselves to do what, exactly? Against whom?"

"Someone who is costing the organization millions due to an oversight. Big investment, the largest RSCI has had to date, and there is a clog in the wheels that has brought business to a standstill."

"Is that the holdup with my paycheck? Are you telling me RSCI is bankrupt?"

"No one has seen a paycheck or cash payout for two months. Don"t feel special."

"This has to do with the drug hit and the cricketer?"

"I don"t know anything about that. And if I did, I would say I don"t know anything about that."

"Tell me the details on what you do know, starting with Miami and New York and whatever the reason is no one has been paid by RCSI in the last two months. What the f.u.c.k is going on?"

"Not your concern, MX-401. If you need to ask anything, all you need to do is ask how high to jump and when you can come down and where on this planet you have permission to land."

"I"ve been doing bird like I"m O. J. Simpson. You need to tell me something."

"I can tell you this, the Barbarians have big, big money invested here, and that money has been tied up. People down here have chosen to rob the wrong company. We don"t know how they do it down here, but RCSI is willing to burn this crummy island down to make a point."

I looked at the smoke in the distance. "The Barbarians started the fires."

He nodded. "Doesn"t take much to start a fire."

The black guy grinned and said, "When land is dry like this, not much at all. Easier than killing. Not as much fun, but much easier. All you have to do is catch a few mongoose, set their tails on fire, and watch them run through the cane fields and ignite it from end to end."

"You guys . . . we"re . . . we"re . . . RCSI . . . the Barbarians are burning the island?"

Dormeuil said, "That particular team has been here for the last two weeks."

I looked at the black guy. "You were on that team."

He didn"t confirm, but he didn"t deny.

I said, "You set mongoose tails on fire and made them run through the cane fields?"

He shrugged. "Cruel, but it works. Very effective. Very effective."

"Why didn"t anyone tell me I wasn"t on this ham-shaped rock alone?"

Dormeuil said, "They were deciding what to do with you."

"What the f.u.c.k does that mean?"

"Trinidad is still an issue, the LKs are hunting you, the bank is hunting you, your photo was posted internationally, rewards have been issued. If you"re caught, that could hit RCSI and the Barbarians in ways you can"t imagine, so, MX-401, congratulations you f.u.c.k-up, you"re a big issue."

"Between cane fields, cow lick, and businesses, there have been over twenty fires a day."

He nodded. "This place is a pyromaniac"s playground."

The black guy said, "I used to work for the fire department in Hope, Arkansas."

I said, "So, you are the expert fire starter."

"I just enjoy my job, that"s all. Fire is a beautiful thing. It"s alive. It has life. Nothing like watching a beautiful fire dance and cleanse a place of sin. I used to go to Detroit and burn the vacant houses. So many houses to burn. Was relaxing. It takes away stress. When you set someone on fire, watching the fire wash the skin off the bone, it"s arousing, better than s.e.x."

"You make it sound like you set fires and m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e."

"I am not ashamed to admit what arouses me."

I asked, "Why the fires? Burning down the island makes no sense to me, none at all."

Dormeuil said, "You will know when you need to know, if you ever need to know."

"Why the secrecy? I mean, we are a band of brothers here."

"You"re not one of us. Two dead LKs. That botched Trinidad job should have had us here putting you in the ground, preferably after we ran your disarticulated body parts through a tree shredder."

"That"s not a nice thing to say to a young female a.s.sa.s.sin. Not nice at all."

"They have gone back and forth on what to do to you every d.a.m.n day. Every d.a.m.n day I have had to hear your name, Reaper. You were done. Good thing someone up top liked the way you handled things over in the Grenadines, and they said something about the job two days ago, so you impressed someone who needed to be impressed. You were lucky and closed those accounts expeditiously."

""Expeditiously." Great adverb."

"I have a ton of "em-adverbs of purpose and frequency and adverbs of place and adverbs of time and adverbs of completeness, and many don"t end in -ly. Impressed?"

"Nope."

"I"m not awed with you, either."

"Don"t like me? Have a seat with the rest of the b.i.t.c.hes waiting for me to give a f.u.c.k."

"You went off the rails and killed two lieutenants and the LKs are in war mode. You"ve been here since you f.u.c.ked up that simple a.s.signment in Trinidad, wherever the f.u.c.k that is."