‘Th’ Rafsaludi, they let this heah Gomez go, hunh’?’
Falmouth nodded.
‘Kinda dumb of them, wasn’t it,’ Hinge said.
‘It’s inconsistent with the rest of their behaviour.’
‘Yuh think he’s one of ‘em?’
Not a bad start, Hinge. ‘Without going into a lot of detail, the whole snatch reeks of a setup,’ Falmouth agreed. ‘Yes, I think it was an inside job. The chauffeur and, my guess is, four others. I think he made a Freudian slip when he said there were four kidnappers, but you’ve got to remember, all this information is second-hand. I haven’t seen Gomez and he has no idea I’m here.’
‘What’s with the chauffeur?’ Hinge asked.
‘All he knows is that a company man is flying in from the States, supposedly to handle the transaction. The bloody son of a bitch has volunteered to drive him to the meeting this afternoon.’
‘We gonna let ‘im?’
‘Sure. If we say no, he may get curious. Best to keep him under hand; we may need him if this thing goes strange.’
He walked over to the bed and opened the brief case. It was fitted with a tray that held a machine gun in a fixed position. The trigger was rigged to the handle. The gun was no more than eighteen inches long, with a metal- frame stock and a flash suppressor and silencer on the barrel. The gun sight was cone-shaped and almost as long as the barrel itself. There was a switch on the side. The clip was longer than the gun itself, but was curved back under the stock, obviously to keep the gun compact. There were ‘o more clips in the tray as well as two pistols and a small metal box. Falmouth detached the trigger mechanism and took the tray out of the briefcase.
‘Have you used this weapon before?’
‘I never seen one quite like it.’
‘It’s an Ungine. Brand-new. Totally silenced and flash-suppressed. You can’t hear it five feet away and you can’t see it at night. Effectively, it fires a thousand rounds a minute. The clips hold a hundred rounds each, forty-five calibre. That’s six seconds of continuous fire per clip. All you have to do is tap the trigger and you get an eight- to ten-round burst, or you can set it to fire single shot.’
Hinge whistled. His eyes were wide with anticipation as Falmouth handed him the machine gun. Hinge looked at it as a jeweller might look at a twenty-carat diamond, turning it over, hefting it to feel the weight.
‘Seven pounds,’ Falmouth said.
‘How about range?’
‘Four hundred meters.’
‘Fantastic.’
‘The laser scope is adjusted to fire the weapon automatically by temperature. It’s set for ninety-eight-point-six. All you have to do is swing the weapon around. Whenever the beam hits a human being, pow. The trigger will override the laser, so it can be used either way. There are two switches in the handle of the briefcase. One turns the laser on, the other is the trigger.’
‘Neat.’
Falmouth took out the small box and opened it. Inside were a dart gun that looked like a cigar, four darts, a small bottle of clear liquid, an electrical device about an inch long that looked like a tiny buss fuse, two buttons and two FM tuners, neither of which was any larger than a calling card.
‘Lookee here,’ Hinge said, taking out the cigar. ‘I usually make these myself. Never saw a store-bought one before.’
‘This is probably more accurate than the homemade variety,’ Falmouth said. He took the cigar, fitted one of the darts into the end, and then turned toward the lamp on the far side of the room. He blew sharply into the cigar- shaped gun, and the dart whistled across the room and imbedded itself in the lamp- shade.
‘It’s very clean up to seven or eight feet,’ he said, and then added, ‘with- a little practice.’
‘What’re we usin’?’ Hinge asked, pointing to the bottle.
‘Sodium dinitrate.’
‘Good stuff.’
‘If you hit an artery or blood vessel, it will knock the subject out in about five seconds. Hit a nerve, and paralysis is almost immediate.’
‘I go for the throat. Right here,’ Hinge said, tapping a spot near his Adam’s apple. ‘Yuh got a good chance of catching this nerve here. Yuh miss, the jugular’s right next to it. I like to go for the nerve. Five seconds can be a long fuckin’ time if the subject’s hip.’
‘I agree.’
‘So, how d’we play it’?’
‘If my information is correct, you’ve been the inside man on two switch operations.’
‘Yes, suh.’
‘I figger you work the inside, I’ll be the shadow.’
‘Sounds like a winner,’ Hinge said. And then, smiling, he added, ‘I’m really lookin’ forward to this, man. Workin’ with you, I mean. Like teamin’ up with Wyatt Earp, fer Chrissakes.’ And he laughed.
