The wake-up

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The Engineer's bodyguard gave Frank Thorpe the jitters. The man wasn't doing anything that should have given him cause for concern- he leaned against a black 850 BMW sedan, lost in the pages of a porn magazine, while the Engineer stretched nearby. Same as usual. Thorpe bent down, pretended to retie his running shoes, heart pounding. The bodyguard had to be three hundred pounds at least, with a head like a hammer, and Cyrillic tattoos ringing his squatty neck, busy now staring at Tits and Clits Annual. Thorpe smiled at his own nervousness, strung out on adrenaline, imagining the worst. You'd think he'd learn. The moment of truth… it applied to Thorpe even more than to the target.

The Engineer took off down the path that circled the park, a soft intellectual in a bright red jogging suit, arms pumping twice as fast as his legs. He sprinted about thirty yards, just far enough to be out of sight of his bodyguard, then pulled a cell phone out of his jacket, walking now as he punched in the number.

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