a little of Stonehenge, but only if Stonehenge had been built over one hurried weekend by an amateur bricklayer on acid.
“What the hell is this place?” Danny asked.
“Out here you never know. This part of Nevada’s full of surprises.” Agent Kearns stopped the van well away from the other vehicles and put the shifter into park. “It could be something the military threw together for part of a nuclear test, could be a target for a bombing range that used to run through here.” He clapped Danny lightly on the shoulder. “What do you think: Are you ready for this?”
“I already told you what I think.”
“Don’t worry so much,” Kearns said, “or you’re going to look nervous. Listen, this is a milk run. We’ll be in and out of here in five minutes, and then we’ll go get us a hot dog and a cold beer before I drop you off at the airport-”
He’d stopped talking because something had caught his attention out the front windshield. One of the men they were meeting had appeared by the corner of the main cinder-block building, and with a broad gesture he beckoned them to come on over. Another of the men was behind the first, standing there with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Okay, then,” Danny sighed, “let’s rock.” He opened the door, stepped out, and waved back to the guy who’d greeted them, then put on the light jacket Kearns had loaned him. It was a size too large, but that was fine for his purposes. He reached in and slipped Kearns’s satellite phone from its charger on the console and put it in the left- hand pocket, then flipped open the glove box and removed the pistol. “Do you have an extra clip for this?”
“No, I don’t. What are you doing?”
The pistol went snugly into Danny’s belt in back, not in the middle but closer to the right side; the long jacket hid it completely. “I’m getting ready for this whole thing to go to hell in a handbasket. If everything’s fine you can say I told you so. But in the meantime, if I can make a suggestion, why don’t you take that.38 out of your ankle holster and put it where you can get it if you need it.”
Thankfully, the older man was listening, and even if he wasn’t quite convinced that there was going to be trouble he was at least open-minded enough to move his small revolver to the right-hand pocket of his bomber jacket.
“I thought you said you didn’t know much about guns,” Kearns said.
“That’s not what I said. I said I wasn’t an expert.”
Expert wasn’t a term to be bandied about among Danny’s gun-savvy friends. An expert might be someone who could call their shot from ten yards and then, from a cold start, draw their pistol from concealment and put a bullet right where they said it would go, all in seven-tenths of a second or less. Molly Ross was one of those, and a few years back over one hot and memorable Tennessee summer, she’d taught him everything he knew. He’d been getting even more death threats than usual that year, and she’d wanted him to be safe. So, while he wasn’t an expert, his draw was pretty fast-it was the part about hitting what he shot at that still left a lot to be desired.
“Okay,” Kearns said. His demeanor was a bit more grim than it had been a few minutes before. “Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 41
Their model bomb wasn’t that heavy, maybe eighty or one hundred pounds, but it was unwieldy to carry between them. When they came within sight of the men they were here to meet-and like last time, there were only four of them, not the expected five-one of them motioned to a spot on the ground to show where they should leave their burden. When they got to that spot, they put it down.
One of the other men had a brand-new-looking satchel at his feet, a bag of the sort that might be holding their twenty thousand dollars for the exchange. The last two men were the ones with the automatic rifles.
The weapons these guys were sporting appeared to be some knocked-together variant of an AR-15, but with a very short barrel, stock target sights, custom noise suppression, and a nonstandard magazine. Good luck trying to buy something like that off the shelf. Not the most versatile choice for all-purpose combat, obviously laughable for hunting or target practice, but flip it to full auto and it would do every bit as well as a sawed-off shotgun for antipersonnel work at close quarters.
Situations like this one, for example.
The armed man to the left held his gun like he’d been born with it in his hands. The other one didn’t seem at all at ease, either with his weapon or his assigned enforcer’s role. His hands were deep in his pockets and his rifle hung haphazardly by its sling over his shoulder, as though it had been put there against his will and he had no desire to deal with it.
Upon their arrival Kearns had made a bit of small talk with each member of the group, and soon all agreed it was time to do the deal they’d come to do.
“Here’s your money,” said the man on the end. He’d introduced himself as Randy at their meeting the previous night. As Kearns walked over to retrieve the satchel Randy motioned to his men to pick up their merchandise and stow it in the back of the cargo truck.
The rear door was opened and two of them carefully carried the bomb up the mover’s ramp, set it down, and flipped on a hanging work light in the compartment to check over their purchase. Meanwhile, Kearns had come back with the satchel to stand at Danny’s side.
“Ain’t you gonna count it?”
This deadpan question came from one of the guys with the guns, the one doing his level best to come off like a natural-born bad-ass.
Kearns shrugged. “If we’re short, at least I know where to find you guys tomorrow morning, am I right?”
That brought a little chuckle from everyone-everyone except the man who’d spoken up.
Danny’s attention was on the other contents that were now visible in the truck’s rear compartment.
Down the center, on a welded-together, waist-high metal rack, was what appeared to be a long, silvery torpedo. Not really, though; the nose was too blunt and flat and its far end was tapered and ringed by large aerodynamic fins. It looked like something from a war museum, an overbuilt piece of heavy-duty air-dropped ordnance from a bygone era of the Cold War.
That wasn’t all. Tucked back in the corner, away from the light, some thing was wrapped up and bound in a black plastic tarp on the floor. It could have been a lot of things, but to Danny’s current frame of mind, what it looked like most was an occupied body bag.
He glanced at Kearns, and by all appearances he was seeing the same thing.
A loud ringtone from the phone on the belt of the man named Randy broke the silence. He held up a polite index finger, as if to say, Sorry, I’ve got to take this, turned, took a half step away, and answered.
And that, Danny thought, would be a call from el-Amir.
Kearns bent and put the satchel down between them, shivered a bit, breathed some warm air through his hands, and then put them into his jacket pockets. When he looked at Danny, just for a second or two, there was such a crystal-clear communication between them that he almost heard the words form in his head.
You were right. Now we’re going to let these guys give us just one more bad sign, the tiniest sign, and then we put their lights out. No “freeze, FBI!,” no warning shots; we shoot to kill until they’re all down, or we are. And you and I both know who gets it first.
Danny took his right hand from his pocket, casually scratched the side of his nose, feigned a leisurely yawn, and then let his arm hang back down by his side.
Randy, the one still on the phone, looked back over his shoulder.
He was listening intently, not talking; his eyes went first to Stuart Kearns, and then over to Danny, and then he turned back around, with his back to them, as he’d been before. A few more seconds passed, and still facing away, Randy’s free hand came up slowly and touched the shoulder of the man to his right, the mouthy guy who looked like he just couldn’t wait for the lead to start flying.
And that was it.
When you’ve practiced enough it gets to look like one fluid motion, but there are four distinct parts to a quick draw, at least to the one that
