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laptop."
    "No kidding."
    "And all the toys."
    Hubert Russell laughed. Maybe at me. Maybe not. Then he hung up. I flipped my cell phone shut and steered my car through the night, toward the highway and the sainted Irish of Chicago's South Side.

CHAPTER 12

    N elson closed the red binder he'd been reading from, stood up, and looked out at a million-dollar view of Chicago's skyline. He had found the place by accident--a white ghost of a building on the edge of an orgy of gentrification, the last remnants of the city's Cabrini-Green housing complex, patiently awaiting Mayor Wilson's wrecking ball. The high-rise still had heat, still had electricity, and was forgotten by everyone, save the rats. It was perfect for their time frame. Nelson just had to make sure Robles was careful. So far, so good.
    A floorboard creaked, and Nelson turned. His shooter was slouched in the doorway.
    "Cable?" Nelson nodded toward the silent TV set up in the corner.
    Robles smiled and glided across the room. "Relax, old man. We ain't paying." Robles reached down and turned up the volume. CNN was still carrying wall-to-wall coverage of the shootings. The banner headline read: KILLER ON THE CTA .
    "This is so fucking wild." Robles squatted on the floor and stared at the screen. A picture of a young Latino girl flashed up. The caption pegged her as a sniper victim. The girl wassmiling. The talking head said her name was Theresa Pasillas. She was a senior at Whitney Young High School and had just been accepted at Stanford. Now she was dead. Already they were laying out the black and marching through the streets of Pilsen, the city's largest Latino neighborhood. Nelson turned down the volume on the set.
    "Tell me about today," he said.
    "Turn it up and we both can learn about it."
    Nelson turned the set off altogether. They had spoken once by phone after the second shooting, but Robles hadn't offered up a lot of detail.
    "You didn't tell me about the building manager," Nelson said.
    "What about him?"
    "The news said he was found inside the apartment."
    Robles took a sip from a bottle of water. "Dude came in, started sniffing around. I took him with the knife."
    "No anger?"
    The smile moved easily across Robles' face. "Knife went in and the old bastard dropped."
    "What about Kelly?"
    "What about him? I already told you. He tracked your footprints down the alley. I put the gun on him."
    "And?"
    "And what? Didn't seem to bother him much." Robles pulled out a long knife and pointed it at a locked door on the other side of the room. "She still here?"
    "She's here."
    "Can I have her?"
    "What did I tell you?"
    "You said I could have her."
    "Later."
    Robles drew himself up into a sulk. "I could take her anytime I want."
    "I know, but you won't."
    Robles flicked a wrist and buried his knife a half inch into the wall. He'd done his first killing for his country--as a Ranger with the Eighty-second Airborne in Mogadishu. Upon his return to the States his taste for blood only deepened, and trouble began to tick. The military knew something was wrong, which would have been okay if they could have turned it to their advantage. But they couldn't. So they hit him with a general discharge. After that, he wandered up and down both coasts. Hunting, Robles liked to call it. By his own count, he'd killed maybe a half dozen women before coming to Chicago. Taken a few kids along the way, as well. Nelson put a stop to all that. He replaced common lust with calculated bloodshed and succeeded where the army had failed, harnessing the violence, molding Robles to suit his purposes. The ex-Ranger was a dangerous, if mostly willing, pupil. And even brought his teacher a very special gift.
    "You still got the case I gave you?" Robles said.
    "Never mind about the case."
    "But you still got it." Robles' gaze found the cover of the binder Nelson had been reading. It was a classified Pentagon report titled "Terror 2000." Robles reached for it, face lit from within. "What're you thinking about,