THIRTY-ONE

What with his unplanned meetings with Jim Campbell and William Smith, Monk was late for his noon-to-eight shift and had to join Team 3 in progress.

Today it was drugs … the absolute frustration of drugs: the wholesalers who sold them and the traders who bought and resold them to the pathetic bastards in the community who used them. Team 3’s job was to tail the local gangbangers to the buy site, photograph the deal, and support the task force arrest team when they swooped in at the end.

The Colombians were supposed to show up at four o’clock, but Monk had known better than to count on it. Three hours late was about right for drug lords … if they showed up at all.

Four o’clock came and went, as did the next hour, and the next. The Colombians finally left their rented house in the Southeast part of the District, Team 4 on them with the help of an airplane, following them to the warehouse district near Union Station, where Monk and his team were waiting. Waiting in vain, as it turned out, as it so often turned out in cases like these.

The Colombians were two blocks from the meet when something must have spooked them. There were four of them in a black Mercedes sedan, and the car turned right at the very last moment, away from Union Station before heading straight back to Southeast and their rented house.

“Three-o-one from four-o-one,” Monk heard on the bureau radio in the Saab, before responding to his signal number as team leader of Team 3.

“Go, four-o-one,” he told Debbie Glengarry, his counterpart on Team 4.

“Package put away for the night,” she told him. “See you at the barn.”

Monk acknowledged her message and laid the radio mike back in the console. He hated drugs, but not as much for the reasons he should have as for the days he’d spent like this one. You sit around watching for hours, days, weeks sometimes, waiting for the scum of the earth to transact a five-minute deal, and half the time the irresponsible motherfuckers can’t get it together long enough to go through with it. He loved SOG work—it was the closest thing to gambling for getting the juice he required—but drug cases sucked. He hadn’t seen tomorrow’s schedule yet, but he suspected it would be a reprise of the same thing. Monk shook his head. Maybe the bastards would try to cook up some meth tonight and blow themselves all the way back to Bogotá.

He stretched his arms and shoulder muscles. It was amazing how stiff you could get just sitting in a car for a few hours. He started the Saab and began the short drive back to the loft. He checked his watch. Almost seven-thirty. Lisa would be home. They could have a drink or two together before deciding on what to do about dinner. He reached for the phone in his pocket to call her, but it rang before he could get to it. He smiled. Lisa had to be thinking the very same thing.

But it wasn’t Lisa.

“Monk?” Kendall Jefferson asked before he could say a word. “I know you’re finished for the day, but I need some help.”

Monk stared at his tired reflection in the rearview mirror. “I’m on my way home.”

“I only need an hour?”

Monk made the translation automatically. In special operations terms, an hour meant at least three, and more than a few times could turn into an all-nighter. He could feel the fatigue everywhere in his body, along with his desire to get home to Lisa.

“Sure,” he said. “What have you got?”

“Chinese IO. All of a sudden he’s headed for the Kennedy Center. On his way to the opera.”

Monk wanted to groan. Another Chinese intelligence officer. The old SOG joke came to mind. What’s the point of catching a Chinese spy? An hour later you just have to do it again.

“Who’s on him?” Monk asked.

“Seven … but they didn’t know about the opera until just a few minutes ago. They don’t have anybody dressed for it.”

Surveillance teams were ready for most contingencies, but it was impossible to be prepared for everything. In this case, Team 7 had been caught short, and there was no question about going to help them.

“I’ve got to run by the barn to get suited up. Tell Seven I’ll be at the Kennedy in forty minutes.” He paused. “And see if they can get a seat number … or some idea where the guy’s going to sit.”

Twenty minutes later he was in his locker at the SOG, pulling out the tuxedo he’d been issued, the formal clothing that everyone kept in their lockers just in case. He changed quickly, and eighteen minutes after that he was at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, next to the Watergate Complex on the east bank of the Potomac.

Brian Shanahan, the Team 7 leader, handed Monk a photograph of the spy, a ticket to the opera, and—thanks to the cooperation of a woman in the box office who’d been helping the bureau for years—the number of the guy’s seat inside.

Monk took his seat just as the opera started, a dozen rows behind the Chinese IO, in a perfect position to make sure the man didn’t slip out of the place unobserved. That he didn’t go back to his car before 7 could drill a big enough hole in the tail light to make it a cinch for the airplane to follow him when the opera was over.

But the spy didn’t go anywhere, and halfway into Aida, Monk found himself hoping to God he would. Dead tired, his mind filled with his failure at Bally’s, Monk kept asking himself why Verdi hadn’t gone to an editor somewhere along the way. When at last the curtain fell, the IO returned to his car and left the parking lot, Team 7 strung out behind him like water skiers behind a speeding boat.

Monk didn’t bother returning to the SOG for his clothes. He drove straight toward Logan Circle instead, back to Lisa at the loft, and it was close to twelve when he parked the Saab in the basement garage. On the way upstairs he realized something was wrong, that his fatigue had somehow disappeared. Now he found himself wide awake and filled with nervous energy. He’d never get to sleep unless he burned some of it away, until he grabbed his bike and took a midnight ride. The problem would be doing it without disturbing Lisa.

The loft was dark when he opened the door. He pulled off his shoes and headed for the bedroom before veering toward the bathroom. He wasn’t paying attention, however, and two steps from the bathroom door his foot came down on the loose board in the hardwood floor. He recoiled from the sharp screech as the edge of the board rubbed against the one next to it. Damn it! He turned toward the bed, hoping Lisa hadn’t heard, but it was too late.

“Puller? Is that you?”

He walked toward the bed. “Sorry, sweetheart. I forgot about that damned board.”

“It’s okay. I just now closed my eyes.” She looked at his tux. “Another night at the opera?” He nodded. “Come to bed,” she told him. “You’ve got to be exhausted.”

“I’m going for a ride first. I’m too wired to sleep.”

“You’re going riding now?” She turned to look at the red digital numbers on the alarm clock. “It’s midnight.”

“I just need to burn off some energy. Go back to sleep. I won’t be more than an hour or so.”

Lisa plopped back onto the bed and pulled the covers up. Monk stepped quietly to the wardrobe and changed into his black riding shorts and matching T-shirt, grabbed his thick-soled cycling shoes, and went back to the living room for his bike. A few minutes later he was out on the street again.

He would take Q Street to Rock Creek, Monk decided, then cross the creek on the Dumbarton Bridge—the buffalo bridge everybody called it—and continue on to one of the many bike trails in Rock Creek Park. He could sprint around the empty pathways for half an hour, then head back. If he put his mind to it, that would be plenty.

Monk had to be nuts.

Behind the wheel of the black Camry she’d just stolen, Sung Kim shook her head. Half a block in front of her on Q Street, the FBI agent was making it too easy. Riding a bicycle at this time of night, in clothing just as dark as the streets, was plenty dangerous enough on its own. Doing such a thing was either crazy or brainless, and she was certain he wasn’t stupid.

She reached for the lever to the left of the steering wheel and turned her headlights off, then began to close the distance between them.

Monk felt the car behind him before he heard it.

He turned to look, but there was nothing there.

What the hell? He couldn’t be mistaken. It must have turned down a side street. Or pulled over and …

No. There it was. No headlights. Right behind him, coming fast. Some drunken bastard on his way home.

Monk pulled as far right as he could as he moved past the first of the famous buffalo statues at the near end of the bridge. He kept his eyes on the low wall just off his right handlebar, careful not to catch the edge of the narrow sidewalk and rebound into the car’s path. He pumped harder to keep his momentum going as he approached the center of the bridge. The car swung out to pass him. Monk waited for the driver to go around, but the car seemed to hesitate. He felt a jolt of fear … there was no more room to his right.

What the hell is the guy thinking?

He turned to shout, but had no chance to before the car hit him.

The impact against his back tire slammed the bicycle toward the low wall. An instant later his front tire struck the wall and the lightweight racing bike shot like a kite into the air. Monk wrenched his feet out of the toe clips, but in the next second he was upside down, still astride the bicycle, above the wall, then over it, and plummeting toward the creek below.

Time seemed to slow down.

He felt like he was floating as he fell toward the water, but he hit the shallow creek back first with a blow that knocked the wind out of him. He sank fast, under the water now, struggling to shed the bike and stand up. Stumbling, falling, getting back up. Gagging, gasping, he slipped to his knees, then toppled face forward. Chill water washed over his face and up his nose. He struggled until he was upright again, then dragged the bicycle to the nearby bank of the creek and stood shivering on the grass.

Jesus Christ!

Monk tried to focus his mind, to stop his body from shaking, but he couldn’t seem to make his brain send the commands that would get him up the slope and back onto the street.

He wasn’t sure how long it took but he made it to the slope at last, and stood for a moment to inspect his bike. The front wheel was bent double from where it had hit the wall, and the impact from the car had ruined the back wheel, but the frame was intact. Sinking to the grass, he lay there shivering, snot running from his nose, creek water from his hair. He released his chin strap and pulled the helmet from his head, then stared at the creek, at the slope he was on, and the bank on the other side of the creek.

He’d been lucky, Monk realized. Very lucky. Had the accident occurred a moment sooner, or a few moments later, he’d have missed the water, would have fallen to the ground instead. He’d have been killed. That imbecile behind the wheel would have killed …

The thought died as a new one took over.

Where the hell was the car?

Where’s the son of a bitch who hit me?

It took Monk a few moments to understand what had happened. In all likelihood the driver hadn’t even seen him. It wasn’t impossible. People didn’t notice cyclists, it was the first thing a rider learns. The driver couldn’t have seen him, or he’d be here now, helping him, making sure he wasn’t dead. As a matter of fact, the accident was nearly as much his fault as the driver’s. He’d been preoccupied again, his mind filled with everything but what it should have been, and this time it had almost killed him.

Unbelievable!

Sung Kim had stopped the Camry a block away, watching as Monk pulled himself out of Rock Creek. There was no way he could have survived a fall from that bridge, but he had.

She made a U-turn and turned the headlights back on. Monk was walking now, on the sidewalk, carrying his mangled bicycle as he started back to his loft.

Sung Kim accelerated, then slowed down behind him. Reaching for the silencer-mounted Beretta in her lap, she slid the passenger window down and held the pistol low until she was abreast of him. He was walking with his head down, oblivious to her presence. She lifted the Beretta into place, her finger curling around the trigger, before she lowered the weapon. Damn it, she thought, it would be so much easier this way.

But it was an accident her people wanted.

And it was an accident she was going to give them.