Pirelli said, 'We gotta be on top of them before he can unload. We will be less than a minute behind him, and he'll have no reason to hurry. With any luck, he'll want to take a leak before he unloads.'
'I hope,' Virgil said. 'But it worries me.'
'With these kinds of deals,' Pirelli said, 'there's always about a twenty-eight percent chance of a disaster. That's just the way it is. However we have to do it, these guys are worth eliminating.' He looked at the satellite picture, then said to Virgil: 'But you're right. It's worth worrying about.'
THEY STOOD AROUND talking to the agents, then Virgil borrowed Pirelli's laser pointer, and Virgil and Stryker went over the ground around the house-a ditch here, a big rock there, where they could site long guns.
There was a long seam of darker grass extending from the barn area, up the hill, and into a clump of brush southeast of the farmstead. One of the agents asked if it were a ditch that could be used to approach the houses.
'Don't know,' Stryker said. 'We did our recon on the north side.'
Pirelli was on the phone with somebody doing surveillance on the two target cars as they approached Feur's farm. One of them was working the math on a simultaneous arrival, and at twelve-forty, Pirelli said, 'North side, take off.'
Six agents got up, and walked out.
Pirelli said, 'Five minutes, guys. We're on the road in ten. Drivers, fast, but no lights. Keep spaced out right until we're at the exit, then close up tight. You know all this, so let's remember it. Everybody: be careful. We don't want to lose anybody out there, and this is a tough bunch. Virgil, Jim, you hang back a little-not way back, but a little back. We've choreographed the entry, here.'
Five minutes later, Pirelli said, 'Let's mount up,' and they streamed out of the room, no jokes, no talk.
Moving fast.
19
BEFORE THEY SETTLED in the trucks, Virgil and Stryker squeezed into standard-duty body armor. Though it wouldn't stop any heavy loads, it'd be good against shotguns and pistols. Some of the DEA guys were wearing heavier stuff: they'd be the first in.
Stryker asked Virgil to drive: 'I want to be able to work the radios to my guys-just in case.'
FROM THE WORTHINGTON on-ramp to the exit nearest Feur's place was thirty-five minutes at legal interstate speeds, half an hour at the normal illegal driving pace. Pirelli, talking to his outside pacemaker, modulated the speed of the DEA trucks, seven of them, all blacked-out GMC Yukons.
'Keep spaced out, my happy ass,' Stryker said, watching the trucks ahead of them. 'We look like a Shriner parade.'
'As long as Feur doesn't have lookouts on the interstate, we'll be okay,' Virgil said. A minute later, 'Real purty day, ain't it?'
'Sure is,' Stryker said cheerfully. He popped his safety belt, knelt on the seat, dug around in the back, and came up with the M-16. 'If you see me firing this into a gopher hole, you just say to yourself, 'Don't bother about that-it's just old Jim popping off a few rounds in an effort to get reelected.''
'Gettin' some smoke on your ass.'
'That's right,' Stryker said.
'I still don't think Feur did the Gleasons, Jimmy. I don't think we're out of the woods on that guy,' Virgil said.
'Whatever. I plan to take full credit on the meth lab, at least in the hometown papers,' Stryker said. He pulled the magazine out of the M-16, thumbed the cartridges a few times, said, 'What have you got back there? Shotgun isn't much use on a house.'
'Shotgun, Remington semiauto.30-06.'
'That'll knock the corner off a brick,' Stryker said, with approval. 'FMJs?'
'Yeah.'
'I got sixty rounds. Wish I had a couple more clips.'
'This is an arrest, not a war,' Virgil said.
'Whatever,' Stryker said. He slapped the mag back into the rifle, jacked a round into the chamber, clicked on the safety.
'I hope this thing works like Pirelli says,' Virgil said. 'I can appreciate your needing to get reelected, but nailing that psycho is more important than keeping a few oil-field workers from taking their vitamin pills.'
Ahead, the GMCs slowed, and Virgil slowed with them, the speed dropping to fifty-five. We really do look like a Shriner parade, Virgil thought. Hope nobody's watching.
As far as they ever found out, nobody was. They were four miles from the exit when the speed picked up, and Pirelli called Virgil on his cell: 'Feur got home fifteen minutes ago. Franks is coming up to the exit. We're going in. You guys hang back a bit.'
'Ten-ninety-six,' Virgil said, and shut his phone.
'What does that mean?' Stryker asked. 'I never heard of a ten-ninety-six.'
'Means, 'Fuck you,'' Virgil said. He closed on the GMCs.
Stryker said, 'I'm gonna try to crawl in the backseat. Stupid we're both sitting up front.' He pulled the headrest out, tossed it in the back, and crawled awkwardly over the seat. 'You want me to uncase the Remington?' he asked.
'Might as well,' Virgil said. 'Hope to hell we don't need it. There're two magazines in the side sleeve, all set.'
FOR THE FIRST MINUTE or so north of the interstate, Virgil thought, it was unlikely that anyone ahead would notice them. Then they hit the gravel road and a plume of dust exploded from under the trucks' wheels, along with a roaring sound, like a nearby train, and everybody behind the first two trucks slowed down. The interval grew, and drivers began to move into the left lane, one truck fishtailing, and Stryker shouted, 'Watch that, watch that…'
'He can't hear you,' Virgil shouted back.
'I can't see a thing…' Stryker was holding on to the passenger seat, peering out from the back, into the thickening cloud of road dust.
THEY TOPPED the rise south of Feur's place, and if nobody had seen them yet, they would pretty soon; but they were also less than a minute out, closing fast, and when Virgil moved right to get out of the funnel of road dust, Stryker shouted, 'Franks' truck is in the yard, it's in the yard…'
THE FIRST TWO DEA trucks hit the yard, and the agents were out, shouting at Franks, who'd just gotten out of his truck. Franks may have said something, and a dog rocketed out of the truck and jumped one of the agents, who went down, rolling with the dog.
The third truck went past the driveway turnoff and set up on the road. The fourth stopped across the driveway, and the fifth stopped short, the agents out in the road. Virgil swerved around the back truck and put the Explorer in the ditch opposite the end of the driveway, and shouted, 'Out the left side, left side,' and they both got under cover, saw running agents on the road, and then the gunfire.
There were two dogs out, one of them on an agent's face, the other wheeling in the dirt in a fight around Franks' truck, and then the screaming agent, dog on his face, managed to throw it off and another agent shot at it, missed, and the dog went for him, and another agent fired.
Four or five of them were in the yard when a machine gun stuttered from the house and one of the agents went down and the others started screaming and firing at the house, little pecks of paint and dust and wood popping off the front of the house, windows shattering. Franks, who'd been standing hands-over-head, turned toward the shed and hit the front door. The door popped open-unlocked-and Franks disappeared, and two agents were down.
Stryker was on the ground in the ditch, the M-16 to his shoulder, and he opened up on the top row of windows in the house, blowing out most of a magazine in a single hose job.
Virgil scrambled across the street, into the ditch on the far side, keeping a truck between himself and the
