He ducked as Keller swung at his face, but the bodyguard followed it up by sinking his fist into Morgan’s gut. Morgan doubled down involuntarily, and Keller elbowed him hard in the back. Morgan fell forward on the paved ground.
He lay there for a second, dazed, until he felt Keller’s arm wrap around his neck, getting him in a choke hold. He groped for the dart gun, hoping to use it as a bludgeon. His hands hadn’t found the gun, but they had closed around something—the tiny belt of darts.
Keller raised him to his feet, the meaty, muscular arm tightening its grip on Morgan’s neck, cutting off his air and circulation. He could feel himself fading away as he thrashed, trying to break free, to no avail. He only had one chance. With fumbling fingers, he flipped the plastic covers off each needle in the belt. Holding the curled-up belt in his fist, he stabbed it, as hard as he could, into Keller’s neck.
Keller released him and staggered back with a roar of pain. Morgan relaxed. But Keller didn’t and retorted with a hell of a right hook to Morgan’s temple, which caused him to trip on a discarded cardboard box and fall forward. His head fuzzy, phasing in and out of focus, Morgan was dimly aware of Keller bending down and picking up a two-by-four. Morgan rolled onto his back just in time to see this mountain of a man, looming for what seemed like miles over him, raise the piece of wood far above his head, ready to come down and crush Morgan’s skull. Still dazed from the punch, Morgan could only raise his hands ineffectively, waiting for the blow.
It didn’t come. He looked up at Keller and saw that he had an oddly blank look on his face. He blinked hard three times, frowning in dumb confusion. Then his fingers slackened, and the plank fell to the ground. He tumbled forward, onto his knees, and collapsed on top of Morgan.
It took more strength than Morgan expected to roll him off and onto his back beside him. Morgan got up and wobbled to the far end of the alley, aching all over. The alley opened to a back street where Conley sat in the idling car.
“What the hell happened to your face?” asked Conley. Morgan touched his face and noticed that blood was trickling down his nose, which was tender and swollen.
“I thought you said the effect of the tranquilizer was instantaneous,” said Morgan, his voice muffled because his nose was blocked by the blood and swelling.
“Well, you know,” said Conley, “as with all your narcotics, your mileage may vary. There’s a first-aid kit in the glove compartment.”
Morgan took out the kit and applied some gauze to his nose. “Do you have a lock on Hodges?” he asked.
“Here, take a look for yourself.” Conley handed him a device that didn’t look much different than a latest-generation cell phone. It showed two dots moving on a digital map. “He’s about a mile to the north. It shouldn’t take us long to catch up. Think you can navigate with that leaky nose of yours?”
Morgan nodded and poked gingerly at it, checking for damage. At least it didn’t feel broken. “Yeah, I got this. You’re going to want to take the next left.” Morgan unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt, took it off, and put on a fresh black T-shirt he had brought along.
“Think he’ll lead us to our man?” asked Conley.
“He’d better,” said Morgan. “Because I’m getting tired of this shit.”
CHAPTER 31
Morgan and Conley caught up with Hodges’s town car in a few minutes, and Conley maintained a distance of a few blocks between them. They avoided visual contact—there was no need for it while they had the tracker. They drove for nearly an hour, as the city gave way to an industrial suburb. As the cars grew sparser, Conley had to keep a greater distance to avoid being seen, until they were almost a mile behind their quarry. Finally, the little dot on the map came to a stop.
They were driving alongside a row of warehouses, run-down and separated from the street by a rusty old chain-link fence topped with equally rusty barbed wire. He could see Hodges’s car peeking out of a gaping section of one labeled Warehouse 6, which was about two hundred feet away. As Conley drove past without slowing down, Morgan saw Hodges get out of the driver’s seat and stride furiously into the warehouse, where two guards were posted at the door. Conley turned into a narrow side street and parked the car.
“Got the camera?” asked Conley. Morgan pulled out a digital SLR with a massive telephoto lens. They got out of the car and slinked toward Warehouse 6, which was now half a mile away. They were halfway there when Conley held up a hand, in their old signal that meant “stop.” “Hold on,” he said. “I think someone else is coming.”