With my windows rolled down and a blessed breeze flowing through, it was tolerable as I ran the shooting through my head for the umpteenth time. Metallic green ghetto car-obviously amateurs to be driving such a recognizable and easily tracked auto. Loud bass music: So they were also not concerned with anyone hearing them coming.

I closed my eyes and tried to do a bit of relaxation therapy and self-hypnosis: The darkened back window rolls down and the muzzle of what, a rifle, at least eight inches of barrel, a V-site on the front, the well-machined bap, bap, bap of semiauto; and then the baaaaaaap of full auto ripping the tree leaves.

I opened my eyes. The shitheads inside the car might have been simpleminded gangbangers, but the weapon was not. It wasn’t some cheap TEC-9 or Lorcin pistol they could buy for 150 bucks on the street. It was a hell of a lot more sophisticated, an MP5-style rifle and a hell of a lot more accurate. So how had they missed?

An incompetent shooter would usually start firing low; the recoil might jerk his aim up into the trees. But this guy started high, and stayed there. Also, what was with changing the semiauto rounds to a full spray? Yeah, it’s just the flick of a switch on a quality weapon-but why?

Maximum fear factor? Had the whole thing been a warning, the shooter spraying the trees above our heads to show how easily it could be done? Christ knows, I’d done enough in my past to piss people off. In my last assignment, everyone but Sherry and I died. And I hadn’t put myself in the sights of any drug dealers since I’d moved to Florida. That, of course, left Ms. Carmen and her still-mysterious brother. But as far as I knew, white-collar Medicare criminals weren’t blowing away informants, or one another, in the streets yet.

Still, there was that coincidence thing. I blinked my eyes fully awake, swiveled my head again, went through the list, and then checked my watch.