Gage looked up at the ICU, then down at Spike. “How many shootings did we work together?”

“Hundreds, I guess. Would’ve been thousands by now if you hadn’t gone private.” Spike’s eyes widened as he finished the sentence, knowing Gage had trapped him.

“And how many victims survived slugs in the chest?”

“Well…I mean…there must-” Spike threw up his hands. “Your heart’s aching over what life did to Jack even before he got shot, but your mind keeps churning like a goddamn mainframe, calculating the odds of whether he’ll survive.” Spike’s face reddened in frustration, almost in anger. “And nobody’s gonna see the rage you feel until the end of this thing, and maybe not even then. Sometimes you scare the hell out of me.”

Spike pulled out his car keys and gripped them in his hand.

“Ever since we were kids you thought differently than me; saw the world differently. Different from anybody I ever met. For a while I fooled myself into thinking we were following the same path when SFPD recruited us, but we weren’t.

“I’ll help you however I can, Graham. But for the first time in our lives I think you’re holding things back from me.” Spike’s lips went tight for a moment, then he took in a long breath and exhaled. “It makes me afraid that the road less traveled is going to take you off a cliff.”

CHAPTER 3

S tuart Matson, president of SatTek Incorporated, faced Assistant U.S. Attorney William Peterson across a conference table on the eleventh floor of the San Francisco Federal Building. Peterson was flanked by an FBI agent on one side and an IRS agent on the other.

On Matson’s right sat his attorney, Daniel Hackett. His other flank was exposed.

Thunder reverberated through the steel-framed building and into the book-lined room as Peterson pushed aside his unfinished morning coffee. He aligned two government-issued Paper Mates along the top edge of his legal pad, and said, “Mr. Matson-”