Hard to tell through the windshield, but it looked like she wasn’t wearing a bra.
And what a set of rockets she had.
Kinlaw threw his hands up to stop her. “Excuse me, ma’am. You can’t be back here.”
The news van squeaked to a halt and Kinlaw approached the babe’s window, waiting for her to roll it down.
Damn, she was hot. Steaming, in fact. Short-cropped, blond hair, body of a goddess, cute little radio-com headset that made her look sexy as hell.
And those tits. Ouch.
She eyed him quizzically. “I’m sorry. What was that?”
“This is a restricted area,” Kinlaw said. “Pull to the side and cut your engine.”
“But I’ve got a story to-”
“Trust me, you’re not gonna find it back here.”
“But I’m late and everything’s blocked out front and my producer’ll kill me if I don’t get something on tape before the noon broadcast.” Her face flushed as she said it, a twinge of desperation in her voice.
Ahh, Kinlaw thought. A woman in distress.
He smiled. It was a smile he normally reserved for off-duty hours, the smile he took with him to the dance clubs and used as often as he could to charm his way into the sack.
He took a casual glance at her tits again, noting that her nipples were diamond hard. Then he said, “Tell you what. Pull to the side and cut your engine.”
“But-”
Kinlaw silenced her with a firm but patient wave of the hand, making sure to infuse his words with just the proper amount of charm. “I’ll make a call,” he continued, “and see if we can get you some kind of exclusive.”
Kinlaw knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that ever happening, but he could make the promise now and apologize later over dinner and drinks. And dessert, of course.
She looked at him. “Really?”
Kinlaw nodded and relief shone in her eyes.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. Protect and serve. That’s what I’m here for.” He extended a hand. “Name’s Randy, by the way.”
She shook the hand, holding it a split second longer than necessary. “Tina,” she said, her eyes telling him she was definitely interested.
Oh, yeah, Kinlaw thought. I’m in.
Maybe getting stuck back here in the boonies wasn’t so bad after all. If he played this right, by midnight tonight those hefty ta-tas of hers would be warming the palms of his hands.
He was busy picturing every exquisite detail of the evening ahead when a muffled explosion came from inside the bank building.
Kinlaw turned. What the hell?
The blast knocked the vault door right off its solid-steel hinges. Gunderson saw it at half speed, like a scene from an old Peckinpah flick-the door teetering, then falling to the linoleum with a booming crash.
Somewhere behind him a phone was ringing, but Gunderson ignored it, enjoying the spectacle. He relished his ability to slow the world around him to a crawl whenever the mood suited him.
He grinned at the exaggerated looks of surprise on the faces of bank tellers and customers. Marveled at the fluidity of motion with which Luther and Nemo wielded fire extinguishers as they put out stray flames and climbed into the vault to fill their duffel bags.
He watched as, backpack full of Semtex in tow, Sara glided past the Plexiglas teller windows toward the rear of the bank, moving with an easy grace that only his slow-motion point of view could provide.
Gunderson felt high. As if he’d taken a dozen hits of ecstasy. But he never took drugs of any kind when he was working, didn’t need them to see the world this way. This was his gift. His power. One he used sparingly and never took for granted.
And it wasn’t his only gift.
Better yet was what the bitch who’d raised him-his nasty old bat of an aunt-called his Inner Eye, an acute intuition he had inherited from her, a sensitivity to the vagaries of human emotion that sometimes offered him a peek into the darkest corridors of the soul.
It was a gift that had made the old woman an outcast, the neighborhood crackpot. He himself had been smart enough not to flaunt this gift, learning to use it with stealthy precision to gain trust and manipulate. Because, after all, Trust was his true weapon of choice.
Despite his hatred for the old woman, who had been as cruel as they come, Gunderson shared her fascination for the workings of the mind and soul, and the belief that there was a world beyond this one, where both could thrive and flourish.
And where anything was possible.
The phone continued to ring. Gunderson snapped out of his reverie, turned toward the nearest desk where an extension light blinked.
It was the cops, of course. Most likely the Feds.
He checked his watch. Still on schedule. The police response had been quicker than he’d expected-someone had probably triggered the silent alarm the moment Sara started shooting-but everything was going smoothly, all according to plan.
Not that this surprised him. The Book of Changes was rarely wrong. His interpretations might be off sometimes, but you could never blame the Ching.
Patting his breast pocket, he heard the faint chink of the I Ching coins he always carried with him and wondered if he should bring them out for one last consult. Instead, he fished for his pack of Marlboros, shook one out, then tore off the filter and lit up, listening to the phone ring.
He picked it up at ring number forty-seven.
“Let me guess,” he said into the receiver. “ATF? FBI? Mom?”
“Jack Donovan, Alex. I’m guessing the explosion we heard was the vault?”
Well, well. Mr. ATF himself.
Special Agent Jack had been trying for quite some time now to put a damper on Gunderson’s plan to reeducate the country. So long, in fact, that he’d become a regular source of irritation. Despite their mutual interests and a couple of semi-close encounters, however, this was the first time they’d actually spoken.
Donovan’s vaguely condescending tone was annoying as hell, but Gunderson kept his cool. “How you been, Jack?”
“Better than you’ll be if you don’t release those hostages. You’ve blown it big-time, my friend. There’s no turning back now.”
Gunderson laughed. “Turning back? I’m moving forward. Just like a shark.”
“You let those hostages go, we’ll talk about getting you out of there in one piece.”
Gunderson sucked on the Marlboro. Exhaled. “You sound awfully sure of yourself, Jack. You know something I don’t?”
“Only that you’re fighting a lost cause. Why don’t you give it up like a good boy and let those people go? They aren’t involved, anyway.”
“We’re all involved, whether we like it or not. You call ’em hostages, you’re right. They’re hostage to a country you, and people like you, created.” He took another hit off the cigarette, then flicked it aside. “But I don’t mean these folks any harm, so I’ll tell you what-you want ’em, you got ’em. Just remember one thing: the water’s cool and clear right now, so don’t for a minute think you can slow me down.”
He hung up. In the movie of his life, Gunderson was Che Guevara and this idiot was Barney fucking Fife. Donovan had been haunting him on the evening news for months now, spreading the Gospel According to the ATF. Didn’t he realize that sooner or later the tide would turn as more and more citizens began to see the U.S. government for the inbred den of hypocrisy it was? The country had wasted valuable resources blasting sand rats in the Middle East, when it should have been looking inward. The real threat didn’t come from outside. It came from right here, within our own borders. From our own selected officials.
