Months of digging had brought Sharp to the point where he was almost ready to tie the loose ends of a thousand unraveled deals together. Then he could truss McIntyre like a Christmas turkey and deliver him squawking to a grand ury.

It was early evening and the executive floor was deserted. Sharp would have left long before if McIntyre hadn't asked him to stay late to assist him at an important meeting. They took a private elevator thirty-six stories down to the reserved section of the garage that held McIntyre's armored limousine.

Kovack, a hard-looking bruiser who doubled as a bodyguard, held the rear door open. Sharp suspected that he was mute since he had never heard the man utter a single sound.

Sharp and his employer rode in silence in the back of the stretch limo, traveling eastward from the gleaming downtown Los Angeles office tower.

McIntyre stared into the distance through the window, his chin propped on his hand. Sharp fidgeted, twisting his fingers together, forcing them apart by an act of will, only to have them join again almost of their own volition. The pressure of leading a double life was getting to him.

Normally a talkative, outgoing man, he was uncomfortable with McIntyre's ability to remain endlessly silent.

Clearing his throat, he ventured a question. "Where are we going?"

McIntyre regarded him closely, but maintained his silence.

Sharp felt like a bug under a microscope. He had always been intimidated by his superior's reticence, which was combined with a ruthless and explosive temper locked behind a seemingly granite exterior. Employees who screwed up didn't last long before McIntyre fired them in a withering blast of sarcastic ire.