their brains and pinpoint her location by other means. Mann was smart, and was regarded in extremely small circles as the best. Lane Madden was a vain little bitch, probably still out of her mind from the injection. This shouldn’t be too difficult…
They needed to operate within the parameters of the narrative. Narrative was everything.
But first, they needed to get rid of the intruder.
He had shown up unexpectedly. Parked right in front of the garage, then went to the mailbox and flipped the top like he owned the place. Which was not the case. The owner was a man named Andrew Lowenbruck, who was currently landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. Who was this guy? Did the actress figure out a way to call for help? Had she left him a note in the mailbox somehow?
This intruder was fucking with Mann’s narrative. She needed him identified, then eliminated from the scene.
“Okay, go ahead,” she told O’Neal. “Take it.”
Number of vehicles stolen in Los Angeles every year: 75,000.
Hot-wiring cars? For punks and crackheads. O’Neal preferred to go high tech: hacking the onboard navigation system, popping the locks, and firing up the engine courtesy of a hunk of metal flying twelve thousand miles above the surface of the earth. It took maybe fifteen, sixteen seconds from the first keystroke. He was getting better at it all the time. New skills, new ways to pay the bills.
Then again, O’Neal shouldn’t go breaking his arm to pat himself on the back. Rental cars were notoriously easy picking. Nobody thought twice about override commands and remote starts—if anybody was looking. Which they weren’t.
The only disappointing thing was that the vehicle was… well, a Honda. Perfectly okay car, don’t get him wrong, if you were a suburban dad who worked in a cube and equated kinky with jacking off to photos of a New Jersey Housewife. The instant he slid himself behind the wheel, O’Neal felt that much lamer. Good thing he’d be driving it for only a couple of minutes—off the road and into a safe haven. In this case, a storage facility on Vine, right under the 101.
O’Neal made an efficient search of the interior, reporting details to Mann over a hands-free unit as he worked.
“Okay, nearly full tank, one twelve on the odometer. Small black duffel bag in the passenger seat.”
Then O’Neal popped the glove box and found the rental papers—the driver had simply stuffed them in there, like every other human being on the planet.
“Vehicle rented to a Charles Hardie, eighty-seven Colony Drive, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania one nine one five two.”
“Good,” Mann said, then thumbed the vitals into the phone, sent it off to the researcher. Within minutes, a short but complete summary of Charles Hardie’s life would be winging its way back.
Soon the man who called himself “Factboy” had the basics nailed down. Factboy knew better than to bore Mann with the minutiae of Charles Hardie’s life—high school attended, last book checked out of the library, blood type. What mattered now was what Hardie did for a living. Why he was here, at this address on Alta Brea Drive, right now, in the middle of their business.
“He’s a former consultant with the Philadelphia Police Department,” Factboy said. “Now he’s a freelance home security specialist, working with an agency out of Dallas.”
“Home security?” Mann asked. “We didn’t trip any alarms.”
“No, he’s not a guard. Hardie’s just a house sitter. The owner of the house, one Andrew Lowenbruck, is away for a month. Hardie’s here to watch the place.”
“And he shows up now, of all times?”
“Seems legit to me. Lowenbruck left just last night according to the agency’s records. Hardie caught a red-eye, made it here this morning.”
“So he wasn’t called in because of the target,” Mann said.
“There’s no indication. No phone calls have been made from the residence, or from the target’s phone.”
Factboy
They needed to operate within the parameters of the narrative. Narrative was everything.
But first, they needed to get rid of the intruder.
He had shown up unexpectedly. Parked right in front of the garage, then went to the mailbox and flipped the top like he owned the place. Which was not the case. The owner was a man named Andrew Lowenbruck, who was currently landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. Who was this guy? Did the actress figure out a way to call for help? Had she left him a note in the mailbox somehow?
This intruder was fucking with Mann’s narrative. She needed him identified, then eliminated from the scene.
“Okay, go ahead,” she told O’Neal. “Take it.”
Number of vehicles stolen in Los Angeles every year: 75,000.
Hot-wiring cars? For punks and crackheads. O’Neal preferred to go high tech: hacking the onboard navigation system, popping the locks, and firing up the engine courtesy of a hunk of metal flying twelve thousand miles above the surface of the earth. It took maybe fifteen, sixteen seconds from the first keystroke. He was getting better at it all the time. New skills, new ways to pay the bills.
Then again, O’Neal shouldn’t go breaking his arm to pat himself on the back. Rental cars were notoriously easy picking. Nobody thought twice about override commands and remote starts—if anybody was looking. Which they weren’t.
The only disappointing thing was that the vehicle was… well, a Honda. Perfectly okay car, don’t get him wrong, if you were a suburban dad who worked in a cube and equated kinky with jacking off to photos of a New Jersey Housewife. The instant he slid himself behind the wheel, O’Neal felt that much lamer. Good thing he’d be driving it for only a couple of minutes—off the road and into a safe haven. In this case, a storage facility on Vine, right under the 101.
O’Neal made an efficient search of the interior, reporting details to Mann over a hands-free unit as he worked.
“Okay, nearly full tank, one twelve on the odometer. Small black duffel bag in the passenger seat.”
Then O’Neal popped the glove box and found the rental papers—the driver had simply stuffed them in there, like every other human being on the planet.
“Vehicle rented to a Charles Hardie, eighty-seven Colony Drive, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania one nine one five two.”
“Good,” Mann said, then thumbed the vitals into the phone, sent it off to the researcher. Within minutes, a short but complete summary of Charles Hardie’s life would be winging its way back.
Soon the man who called himself “Factboy” had the basics nailed down. Factboy knew better than to bore Mann with the minutiae of Charles Hardie’s life—high school attended, last book checked out of the library, blood type. What mattered now was what Hardie did for a living. Why he was here, at this address on Alta Brea Drive, right now, in the middle of their business.
“He’s a former consultant with the Philadelphia Police Department,” Factboy said. “Now he’s a freelance home security specialist, working with an agency out of Dallas.”
“Home security?” Mann asked. “We didn’t trip any alarms.”
“No, he’s not a guard. Hardie’s just a house sitter. The owner of the house, one Andrew Lowenbruck, is away for a month. Hardie’s here to watch the place.”
“And he shows up now, of all times?”
“Seems legit to me. Lowenbruck left just last night according to the agency’s records. Hardie caught a red-eye, made it here this morning.”
“So he wasn’t called in because of the target,” Mann said.
“There’s no indication. No phone calls have been made from the residence, or from the target’s phone.”
Factboy
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