Thirteen Million Dollar Pop Read Free Page A

similarities to legitimate grappling. He’d quickly moved in and out of
systema specnaz
—the mystical and supposedly deadly art they taught to Russian Special Forces—when he’d choked out the teacher with a simple guillotine. He tried Krav Maga when he was on loan to Israeli intelligence, and liked it for its aggressive mind-set, but realized he didn’t need it much after he broke the instructor’s jaw the third day when he’d been feeling mean and homesick. That’s when he knew it was time to get out and come back to Wales.
    Wales. He must be some kind of arsehole, because he loved the weather here, cold and rainy most of the time, even in thesummer, up on the top of the mountain in the Cambrians where he lived now.
    His training partner shot for a single leg takedown, and the Welshman sprawled, leaving a knee behind to clock the boy on the top of his head for his trouble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been taken down. At five foot seven, fourteen stone, it was like toppling over a fireplug. His training partner got back up a bit slowly after the knee to the head, so Dwyer took his own shot. His was a double, and he wrapped his arms around both his training partner’s thighs and cranked to the side like he was turning a lorry’s steering wheel, dumping the boy on his head onto the hard mats.
    Bloody fucking ’ell
, he thought as he leaped on top of his training partner and worked a crucifix, catching one of the boy’s arms between his legs and hyperextending it, and doing the same to the other using his hands.
I’m gonna have to go to America
.
    The training partner was stretched out and helpless but didn’t say “tap,” so the Welshman gave him a rap across the mouth, causing blood to run red over the boy’s teeth.
    “Fuck’s sake, Waddy!” the training partner said.
    Wadsworth Dwyer got up, certain as fuckall he hated leaving his mountaintop.

4
    Behr sat down at the kitchen table before 7:00 A.M . and appreciated the morning light coming through the window in a slanted shaft. He hadn’t gone to bed until near 4:00, and hadn’t slept much before waking unrested but automatically around 6:00 to a day that could easily have never come for him. He couldn’t help but savor his coffee, the sweet sugar underneath the slight bitterness of the roast.
    It hadn’t been a single team that had arrived in the garage late the night before but a wave of Caro boys who flooded in after the call had gone out and word spread.
    To do what?
Behr wondered. It wasn’t clear. To help with the investigation, perhaps. To herd up and feel the numbers of the organization standing strong against an outside threat. Or maybe it was simply to tack man-hours onto Kolodnik’s bill. Behr had caught a ride with one of them to his car, which was parked back at Kolodnik’s office, and had then driven home.
    “Hi,” Susan had said when he’d walked in, looking up from the body pillow she hugged, aware of how late it was. The television was on in the bedroom.
    “What’s this?” he asked. She often fell asleep to the TV, and she’d been sleeping not watching, but a glance gave her the answer.
    “
Women Behind Bars
. Mostly wives who killed their husbands.”
    Susan was a fan of true crime and reality shows. “You thinkingabout bumping me off?” Behr asked. “Studying where they slipped up?”
    “We’d have to be married first for that,” she said.
    “Right.”
    “Why are you so late?” she asked.
    He’d sat down on the edge of the bed and after catching a look at the large swell of her belly beneath the bedsheets, told her everything, trying to make it sound as routine as possible, which it wasn’t, and she knew it.
    Behr went for his second cup of coffee. His shoulders and neck and his knees and wrists felt raw this morning. It wasn’t a question of injury, but as if all the adrenaline that had fired through his system, the absolute tensing of every muscle, had an effect similar to a full body