Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover by Mike Cooper Page A

all.”
    “What?”
    “If you think they’re dangerous, they’re dangerous. Don’t fuck around.”
    “Sure. I already told the beezers downstairs, and called the management company, too. They won’t get inside again.”
    “No, that’s fine, but what I mean is, this isn’t a trading opportunity, okay? At least not now. You find something out about Clayco, call me first. I’m feeling a little exposed.”
    “Sure, okay.”
    “I mean it.” I didn’t think Johnny would sell me out for a few points of alpha.
    Probably.
    “Take a vacation,” he said. “Tour the sites. See the Liberty Bell.”
    “It’s
Pittsburgh,
not Philly.”
    “Whatever. I’m just saying, maybe you don’t want to meet this woman in person.”
    “Really good-looking, huh? You just want the field to yourself.”
    “Never.” He laughed. “I’d sooner sleep with a pit bull.”
    “I thought you already did.”
    “So I know what I’m talking about.”
    After we hung up I tried to finish the kata, but I was too distracted. Shotokan is mostly about mental focus, and the conversation with Johnny had ruined mine.
    I thought about the woman in New York. She was making fast progress, hardly slowed by all the chaff and evasion in my background. Zeke said she had a reputation.
    Dave said Silas Cade had a reputation.
    I wondered what she was doing, right then. Arriving in Pittsburgh, this hotel’s address in hand? Eating breakfast? Finishing a two-hour combatives workout?
    Whatever, she was probably being more productive than me. I sighed and got up.

CHAPTER NINE
    I t was time to leave. Fuck the threats. Stop in and say goodbye to Dave, then back to New York.
    Johnny and Zeke were well meaning, but I needed to be back on home turf. If Catwoman was looking for me in the city, I’d damn well meet her there. The hills and forests and decaying steel mills out here were unfamiliar, and you make mistakes when things are unfamiliar.
    Some long driving, then, later today. I hadn’t flown into Pittsburgh, and I wouldn’t fly out. As far as possible, I never fly. Depending on your viewpoint, you could regard that as a success story for the TSA.
    See, all the ID checking and scanners and take-your-shoes-off and the pat downs and shampoo confiscation—none of that’s going to catch a terrorist. Because the thing is, a terrorist who blows up airplanes, he does that
once
only. By definition. Nobody knows who the next terrorist is going to be—certainly not the TSA, which is always fighting the last scenario.
    So the watch lists are pointless if you’re worried about Al Qaeda or Timothy McVeigh. But they’re great for screwing with citizens who just like to travel without the whole world knowing. False IDs work if they’re good enough, sure, but they cost real money—and even then, you still have to go through that damned endless line, with cameras and inspectors and full-body radiation. It’s a risk.
    I hate risk.
    Instead, I’d driven here three days ago. Six hours on the turnpike, a long drive. In my own car, which was registered to a legitimately incorporated limited liability company in White Plains, all excise fees paid up, license plates shiny, the inspection current. I put it in the Pittsburgh airport’s central parking—long-term is always too far away from the terminals, and no one cares if a vehicle’s been left for a week or two—and walked over to the Alamo desk on the baggage floor.
    True, I’d had to use a false license. But it didn’t go into a federal database, and it wasn’t actively cross-checked against anything except the credit card’s payment history—which another PO box LLC was careful to keep fully paid. Now I’d return the rental, pretend I was getting a flight out, and no one would ever be the wiser.
    I pulled into Barktree Welding midmorning. The welding tank Dave had used for the barbecue cart still stood abandoned in the middle of the gravel out front. The bay doors were all open again, perhaps for fresh