Shock Warning Read Free

unthinkable, the President of the United States? Skorzeny had escaped again, Maryam had defected to her native country, and everything he had done for his country, all the bodies he had left in his lethal wake, amounted to nothing.
    Most likely, they had burned him, as they always said they would. It was the code of Branch 4, that once an op was burned he or she was no better than dead, and it was only a matter of time before the killer announced himself, two .22s in the back of the head, just like the mafia but more lethal.
    It was always your friend, and never your enemy, because what worse enemy could a man in his line of work have than a friend?
    This line was designed so that, if the incoming call passed all the security checks, the ring would continue to loop until it was answered. It didn’t matter that the person on the other end of the line would have rung off; the instant he picked up the secure instrument, he would automatically be connected, via a series of secure cutouts, with the person who had called. That way, the security checks ran in both directions, and both parties could be sure they really were speaking to each other.
    He picked up the line and waited. No beeps and blips, just utter silence . . . until, finally, a voice:
    “Is that you?”
    “Who else?”
    “You’re wanted.”
    “Bullshit. Try to kill me and you’re in a world of hurt. I know where all the bodies are buried.”
    “You should. You put most of them there.”
    “And there’s at least three more to go if you fuck with me.”
    “This is supposed to be a friendly call.”
    “Then start acting like it.”
    “Okay, I have three words for you.”
    “They’d better be good. Because if they’re not, I have three words for you.”
    “Skorzeny. Maryam. Devlin.”
    For a moment, he had nothing to say. “Have I got your attention now?” said the voice, the voice he knew so well.
    “Where?”
    The answer surprised him. “The La Brea Tar Pits, tomorrow, one o’clock . . . not in them, don’t worry. Look for the wooly mammoth and await your contact.”
    “Does he come armed or unarmed?”
    “He’s a she. Jacinta. Act like a gentlemen.”
    “And then what?”
    “You’ll know what to do.”
    “How? A miracle?”
    The line went dead.
    He stood there, still naked except for a towel around his waist, his hair dripping.
    “Dad? Dad?”
    Nothing. Emptiness, as usual.
    He poured himself a short whiskey. It was a short step onto the terrace. To the south, he had a panoramic view of downtown. Nobody cared that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. This was L.A. Nobody wore clothes in L.A., not really, just costumes.
    The Bruckner symphony he’d been listening to was still playing. The Fourth, all horns and majesty and a slow death march and a vision of the afterlife and just enough harmonic wild cards to keep a listener on his toes as he contemplated the face of—
    He raised his glass in a toast to the desert city by the ocean—water water everywhere and not a drop to drink—to Hollywood, and to the wide world beyond. The Hollywood Sign, from which poor Peg Entwhistle had thrown herself in revenge against its utter indifference, was behind him and off to his right, out of sight, which was where it belonged. Danny could see it from his house on Hobart Street in Los Feliz, could look up at it, just off to the west of the Griffith Park Observatory, the original rebel without a cause, white, gleaming, illuminated—a beacon in the L.A. darkness, reaching out to the heavens—redemption, if not quite salvation.
    Not like the pagan Hollywood Sign, which appealed to the basest instincts of every kid who got off the bus, every hack screenwriter, every hooker-in-waiting, the waitrons of the past, present, and future: buy here, buy now, but buy, buy, buy.
    If he had his way, the sign would not read HOLLYWOOD. Instead, it would read: FUCK YOU , SUCKER .
    “Here’s looking at you, kid,” he said.
    In the silence of the night he could say things