“When it was manufactured, it had thirty-two-inch barrels,” Milo said. “Before it was turned into this hand cannon.”
I passed it around so the others could admire it. “Can it handle modern ammunition?” I asked.
“No. It would explode like a grenade. I got everything so I can make shells just like they were in the 1880s. The same gunpowder, paper shell casings, wadding. Everything is perfect. Cut down like this, the shot pattern is wide enough to take out a room full of men with a single blast if I let both barrels go. But you have to be careful. If you shot it with one hand, instead of keeping the other on top of it for ballast, the gun would rear up and backward, maybe break your wrist and split your head open.”
My thoughts turned back to his apartment and his hand reloading outfit. When I was there once, he was loading shotgun shells with flechettes, razor-sharp darts, instead of normal lead shot. In this weapon, they would cut a room full of men into fish bait. “Load it with rock salt,” I said. “That thing’s a menace. Even rock salt will tear through clothes and scorch the hide off somebody. Use birdshot at most.”
The dark circles around his eyes furrowed and he wanted to argue, but he didn’t want to ruin our fun today. Arvid handed it back to him. He put it back in his jacket and hung it up in the closet.
He came back and handed each of us a passbook and paperwork from a bank in Bermuda. Arvid, Kate, and Anu got them, too. “We all have offshore accounts now,” he said. “I put seventy-five thousand in each of them to start. Go to your accounts online and change your passwords and you’re all set.”
I thought Kate might be distressed by killing machines and repositories for stolen money. Instead, she seemed fascinated. “Why Bermuda?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t have to leave the country,” Milo said. “Opening an offshore account in Bermuda doesn’t require you to be present at the bank. An account can be opened by mail.”
Milo was on a roll and about to embark on one of his biblical length rants, citing the mandate I had given him to be in charge of acquisitions. Kate escaped, went to the kitchen to cut a cake she had made for the party. He ranted and words zinged through my head: window mounts, suction cups on glass, audio surveillance, wireless video, wireless audio, Bluetooth stealthware.
Just when I thought he would never stop, he asked us to look out the window. He pointed out two vehicles. “Those are ours,” he said. The first was a Crown Victoria.
I felt my eyes roll. “Oh, Milo, not a Crown Vic.”
The cliche of all law enforcement vehicles. Aside from actually being used by many American police departments, Crown Vics have also appeared in dozens or even hundreds of films and TV shows as cop cars. It’s an embarrassment.
Milo laughed so hard that he held his belly, trying to stop. “I know,” he said, “but I couldn’t help myself. This isn’t just any Crown Vic. This is the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. It’s got heavy-duty parts and two hundred and fifty horses under the hood, plus a higher idle, and the transmission has more aggressive shift points and is built for firmer and harder shifts. For God’s sake, it’s even got Kevlar-lined doors for gunfights. It’s only got twenty thousand miles on it, and I got it for four thousand euros. Besides, I’m going to be the one driving it most of the time.”
I conceded defeat.
“Maybe everybody will like this one better.” He handed Sweetness a set of keys. “You look like Gulliver in Lilliput driving around in your little worn-out shitbox.”
He pointed down at a good-looking SUV. “Behold the 2008 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara. It’s got four- wheel drive and four doors—I thought that would be handy for putting in Anu’s car seat—and an extra-wide wheelbase. And it’s a convertible, fun with summer coming on. It’s high on safety features: an electronic stability program and seat-mounted side air bags, a navigation system and Sirius satellite radio. And a MyGIG multimedia entertainment system to make driving fun.”
Sweetness crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, flummoxed, as if this were some sort of trick, afraid Milo was teasing him. “This is for me?”
“It belongs to the group, but I bought it for you to keep and be the primary driver, and I registered it under your name. So yeah, it’s yours.”
Still perplexed, he said, “Thank you.”
Milo didn’t acknowledge him. He turned toward me. “You like your Saab, so I didn’t get you a vehicle,” and then to Kate, “and I didn’t know if you drive or want a car.”
“I have a license, but I just use public transportation, since you really don’t need a car in Helsinki anyway.” She pointed at the small mountain of packages that still lay on the floor. “Should we take a break for cake and coffee?”
I said, “That guy I mentioned will be here in a little while. Let’s wait on him.”
Milo’s face said
“Me too?” Arvid asked.
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“You’re one of us, one of the team.”
Arvid smiled at him as he would a child. “I am? How so?”
“Kari said you’re our bookkeeper. Anyway, we all think of you as one of the team.”
Arvid’s smile widened, indulgent, and he nodded assent. “All right. Then I’m one of the team.”
Milo paused, cautious. I saw him consider whether he should vocalize something. “I’ve been thinking. The team should have a name.”
When I felt emotions, I would have teased him without mercy. “What name do you suggest?”
“How about …” He paused again and pretended like he hadn’t been thinking about it. “The New Untouchables. Or, since Arvid is one of us, the New Veterans.”
Arvid looked at me. This last was an insult to him and the men who had suffered through the ordeal he and his brothers in arms had experienced. I felt certain he was considering ripping off Milo’s head and shitting down his neck.
I tried to lighten the situation. “Remember the movie
“Yeah,” Milo said, and his tone told me he wondered where I was going with this.
“The first rule of Fight Club was ‘Nobody talks about Fight Club.’ What if they hadn’t given Fight Club a name? It would have been
It was the truth and he realized it as such. “You’re right, forget the name thing. It was a stupid idea.”
I glanced at Arvid. He was placated.
“Would everyone like to open their boxes, or should I just open one and show you everything?”
“Arvid, Sweetness, and you need to take them home,” I said. “Maybe it’s better if you just open mine.”
I checked the time. Four o’clock. Moreau wasn’t the kind of man who would be late. He was a spook. He was watching us from somewhere, waiting for us to finish so he wouldn’t intrude.
Milo took each item out, one by one, and gave us a running commentary on each as he did so. Our knives: “The Spyderco Delica Black Blade. Overall length, seven and one eighth inches. Closed, four and a quarter inches. Blade length, two and seven eighths inches. The Delica4 has a non-reflective VG-10 flat saber-ground blade coated with black titanium carbon nitride.”
He went on citing its virtues from memory, basically reciting the entire manual. He did the same with: night- vision goggles, Nomex coveralls, shoulder holsters, belt holsters, ankle holsters, gloves, Kevlar masks, zip-lock plastic handcuffs, bulletproof vests, utility belts, glass cutters, lock picks, electronic pick guns, key wax, ear protection, Maglites, saps that were extendable steel rods, Kevlar vests, Tasers, flash-bang stun grenades, double magazine pouches and spare magazines, Gemtech silencers that would render our weapons so quiet that we would only hear the clatter of our automatics’ slides recycling, and in discussing these he hinted at the weapons that we would receive to go with them. In his mind, setting us up, sitting us on pins and needles of anticipation.
Kate tried to escape to be with Anu, but he called her back. Milo had a small box for her containing a Taser and pepper spray, because it’s a dangerous world out there. The others were bored enough to cut their own throats with their Spyderco Delica Black Blades, but I was fascinated. Each item had been chosen with utmost care. I had
