Molly had taught him. In the beginning the count is slow and you stop between the steps so your teacher can make sure you’ve got them right. After a few months and several thousand repeats, though, it starts to go so fast that if you blink, you might miss it.
Danny’s right hand swept back to clear his clothing and found the pistol grip just where he’d left it; he pulled the weapon free and brought it forward, the barrel coming parallel to the ground and his left hand joining the solid grasp; he extended toward center-mass of his target with the iron sight rising level to his eye; and at the end of the forward movement, as it all came together at his ideal firing position, without a pause he squeezed the trigger to its stop.
The boom of their first two shots was almost simultaneous, though Kearns had a much easier draw from his pocket. They’d chosen the same primary target, the man to whom Randy had given his too-obvious go-ahead, the guy who would have cut them in half with a hail of bullets if they’d given him half a chance to shoot first. As Kearns took off to his left, still firing, their designated executioner was crumpling backward, likely dead on his feet, but surely out of commission.
Danny broke right, aiming by the seat of his pants and squeezing off another shot as soon as any one of the scattering men appeared in his line of fire. He was a below-average marksman on a static range, but now he and his targets were moving and they were starting to return fire, so he was shooting a lot but not hitting much of anything.
But at least he’d gotten their full attention. In the next moment he ran out of ammo and good ideas at the very same time as the second man with the heavy artillery had finally found his wits and started shooting. A jagged line of bullet impacts stitched across the sand toward him, and as Danny dropped to the ground in a shallow gully he heard a tire explode and the windows shatter in their van just behind him. He saw Stuart Kearns step from behind the cover of one of the random concrete walls, and the FBI man made his next four rounds count. As the last gunshots echoed back from the mountains, three of the men were lying motionless on the ground, and one was unaccounted for, but only for the moment.
The silence was broken by the sound of a diesel engine turning over and starting. Danny watched Kearns limping toward the back of the truck, then grabbing on and hoisting himself up into the open compartment.
As the truck dropped into gear and started to roll Danny got to his feet and ran for it. The faster he ran the faster it went, and it had nearly accelerated to the point of no return when he caught up to the tailgate, stumbled forward to get a grasp on to Stuart Kearns’ extended hand, and felt himself pulled up and in.
CHAPTER 42
Noah had shaken his one remaining pill out of the prescription bottle halfway through the flight, and now as the last of the medicine was wearing off, a nasty withdrawal was setting in with a vengeance. By the time they reached the car rental counter he could feel himself starting to fade. Headache, chills, dizziness, a general sickening malaise-it was already bad, and he could tell it was going to get much worse over the next few hours.
Molly was driving, since he clearly wasn’t fit to sit behind the wheel, and to put it delicately, she drove with a purpose. If he’d been feeling good and in the right sort of daredevil mood her driving might have been easier to take in stride. As it was, though, between his worsening physical condition and being jostled around the front seat by all the surging and braking and swerving through traffic, he wasn’t having any fun at all.
Plus, she wasn’t talking. Since they’d started out in the car all he was getting were one-word answers, along with clear unspoken signals that there was nothing so important that it needed to be discussed at the moment.
They’d left the city limits of Las Vegas over half an hour ago, so his hope of a good night’s recovery in a five- star bed was more than thirty miles behind them and fading fast. According to the speedometer, wherever she was taking them she was trying to get there in way too much of a hurry.
“We’re going to get stopped,” Noah said.
She didn’t answer, and she didn’t slow down.
“Where are we going, Molly?”
“To help a friend,” she said curtly. “Now would you please just let me drive?”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
Before long they’d left the main highway and were barreling down some narrow desert road that was only a thin single line on the GPS screen. Before they’d gotten started she’d spent quite a bit of time and frustration entering their destination into the device. It was hard, she’d said, because it wasn’t a street address that she’d been given, only a latitude and longitude.
The sheet of paper from which she’d read those coordinates was still tucked into one of the cup holders.
Okay, then.
If she didn’t want to take a few seconds to tell him what was going on, he could damn well figure it out for himself. Before she could stop him Noah picked up the sheet and opened it up, tapped on the overhead map light, and held the paper near his eyes.
What was printed there appeared to be two cut-and-pasted text messages or e-mails, he couldn’t tell which. Maybe it was because his mind was working only at half capacity, but he had to read it all over twice. The first time through he couldn’t accept what he was seeing.
molly -
spread the word -- stay away from las vegas monday
FBI sting op -› * exigent *
be safe
xoxo
db
* FYI ONLY DO NOT FORWARD DELETE AFTER READING *
Big mtg today, Monday PM, southern
Nevada. If you don’t hear from me by
Wednesday I’m probably dead*, and this is
where to hunt for the body:
Lat 37°39’54.35”N Long 116°56’31.48”W
› S T A Y A W A Y from Nevada TFN ‹
db
* I wish I was kidding
“Unbelievable.”
She glanced over at him, but only for a second before she got her eyes back on the road. When he looked down he found he’d crumpled the paper in his hand so hard that it might never come unfolded.
“I can’t believe it,” Noah said. “You people got me again.”
CHAPTER 43
“Nine-one-one, this call is recorded, what’s your emergency?”
Wherever they were going, the ride was awfully rough. Danny was holding on tight to a cargo strap near the open door at the rear of the moving truck, the only place in the metal compartment with a signal solid enough to make a call on Kearns’s satellite phone.
“My name is Danny Bailey, I’m out in the desert somewhere northwest of Las Vegas, and I’m with FBI Special Agent Stuart Kearns. I’m in the back of a truck that’s on the move, and this truck belongs to a terrorist organization that might have their hands on a nuclear weapon.”
“What’s your location, sir?”
