by James Kent
‘What?’ asked Randall.
‘Nothing.’
Pedro pulled in and stopped briefly, deciding where to park. He didn’t want to look conspicuous by parking too far away from all the other vehicles, so he swung to the right like they had, and parked on the same side, but with plenty of space either side in case they needed to take off in a hurry. No point making life difficult by restricting your movements when the proverbial shit hits the fan. Or maybe the invisible force was acting on him too . . . You will park facing south! . . . “I will park facing south!” He smiled inwardly at the thought.
‘No sign of the creep’s ride,’ said Pedro.
‘Maybe he’s not even here. Or maybe he’s parked up someplace else.’
‘Let’s go find out.’
They climbed out of the vehicle and looked around to get their bearings and the feel of the place, like predators sniffing the air, then they headed for the bar entrance and went inside. The door closed quietly behind them.
Pink Floyd was playing on a juke box. The place was filled with cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer and losers. Pedro felt his phone vibrate again as he stood looking around the bar. Now what? He thought. But it was Cricket, probably ringing with news. Pedro answered it. ‘What?’ he asked bluntly.
‘I can’t keep up. Eddie seems to be calling everyone from all over the place! He’s even called here! But he’s either there in Kingman or there’s someone else involved because I’m getting hits on his private phone from somewhere way north, in a town called Caliente, and then I get hits on the old phone as well, but there in Kingman. He can’t be in both places. So, either he’s in Caliente or he’s in Kingman . . . or he’s some kind of wizard on a flying carpet. Or there’s someone else using the old phone which is what I think is happening because there’s something else going on . . . Eddie called someone on his new phone from Caliente, but I didn’t record what was said and I don’t know who it is he called.
‘Then he’s in Caliente because there is some other asshole here giving us the run-around, ringing us on Silva’s old phone. Must be the same guy. How he ended up with it, I dunno. But we kinda bumped into him half an hour ago, outta the blue . . . he just pulled up beside us and gave me the evil eye then took off, like a provocation. He seemed to know who we were so I’m guessing he was watching us check out the motel . . .’ Pedro paused as he thought about it, then he said, ‘Which means he must know Eddie somehow, or knew him before. Or he’s a cop.’
‘Ok, that explains that bit at least,’ replied Cricket. ‘The StingRay picked everything up, but I was out of the room doing other things for the Boss,’ he lied, ‘so I didn’t get to hear what was said. I mean it got logged as a call, but not recorded, sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Pedro. ‘This other guy says he’s got Eddie and will give him to us. He’s obviously lying about that. We’re in some shitty little bar down the road from Kingman where this prick is supposedly meeting us, but he aint here that I can see. Anyway, keep tracking Eddie’s phone and tell the boss we’ll go get him later because we think we know where this other guy is. Tell him he may be a cop. Maybe the same cop Eddie’s girlfriend hung out with, for all we know. But we’re about to ruin his day for him! Then we’ll go sort Eddie out in that other town! But tell Decker to get his shit together and be ready to go hit Eddie himself if we get bogged down here with this other dude.’
‘On it! ’ replied Cricket and hung up. Then he went to have another go at updating Silva. If he was awake.
Pedro pocketed his phone and looked around the bar again. He wasn’t sure exactly who he was looking for, other than having a residual mental image of some random guy who’d been driving a big Ford; a memory of some dude giving him the evil eye and the universal gesture of “shooting” him with his forefinger and thumb. None of which sounded like any kind of cop. But he was obviously big and had light-colored hair. Probably had issues. That’s all he could tell. He was a question mark. Someone clearly connected to Eddie but to what extent? Who was he? Why was he here making threats? But Pedro didn’t recognize anyone who fitted that loose description, so he went up to the bar and asked the bartender, ‘Yo bro! How y’all doin? I’m looking for a guy. Supposed to meet him here. Big guy. Sandy or light-colored hair. Seen anyone like that?.’
‘You a cop?’ asked the barman for the second time that night.
‘Nope!’ replied Pedro. ‘Just a guy looking for another guy.’
The barman stared at him for a few seconds, like he did to Swann. He didn’t like the look of him, all aggressive and leaning across the bar, invading his personal space. But he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the folded note scribbled on a paper napkin and handed it across the bar as he continued to stare. Pedro snatched it up and read it. “Hey asshole, you left your lights on!” it said.
What the fuck? He thought. Pedro’s face went red as he realized he’d been stitched up, made a fool of. He dropped the note on the counter then he turned and nodded at Randall to go back outside. The barman sniggered and shook his head as he picked up the note again and ripped it in half, no doubt wondering what kind of bullshit was going down between this bunch of losers using his bar as a meet.
They stood outside in the dark, away from the glare of the bar’s well-lit entrance and the harsh neon sign, listening and thinking; cautious and hesitant because they weren’t in control. No one likes not being in control, especially when it’s your job to be and other people rely on it, like Diablo for instance. Losing control of a situation is a sackable offense. It’s even worse when you have no idea how it happened, or why. One minute you have it completely in hand, and the next minute some random asshole muscles in on your territory and makes you look like a damn fool.
Pedro said to Randal, ‘I’ll go check the Jeep. You go around the back. See if the creep’s hiding in the shadows. But be careful!’ he warned. ‘We have no idea who he is. Kill him if you see him!’ Randall nodded as he slipped the Glock from under his leather coat. He quietly chambered a round and released the slide gently and slowly, then he started walking along the side of the building, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. A predator on the hunt. He held the Glock in the two-handed method favoured by military and law-enforcement; steady and solid, always pointing where the eyes are looking. Well trained and practised.
Pedro slid the stiletto fighting knife from inside his boot and crept silently toward the Cherokee, his knife held firmly in his right hand, in the combat “sabre” type grip, ideal for close-in blade work. The Glock would be better, he thought, but without a suppressor they are just too noisy. Not ideal, despite Randall’s preference for punch over silence. And since Pedro had never been beaten in a full-on knife fight, he felt confident. Unless, of course, the other guy had a silenced pistol instead, and then things could get dicey.
And then he saw the state of the Jeep and felt the rage rise to the surface, felt his blood boil. ‘Jesus Christ, why do people keep slashing my fucking tires?’ he said loudly to no one. ‘First it’s the goddam Ferret and now it’s this asshole!’ He walked around the vehicle, inspecting the tires. All blown out. And then the windscreen, shattered with a small, black, tell-tale hole on the driver’s side. A nine-mil. Nice! He thought. ‘I’m gonna kill this son-of-a-bitch!’ he said to no one again.
Angry and frustrated, Pedro moved away from the Jeep and headed back toward the bar. He started to walk around the side, in the opposite direction taken by Randall, hoping to pin the guy who shot his tires out; pinning him between himself and Randall, unless of course he was no longer in the area anyway. And then what? Maybe the creep had scarpered like a coward after shooting up their ride. But he hoped that if they could kill him, they could take his Raptor. That would solve the problem of the blown-out tires on the Jeep.
Pedro was deep in darkness as he moved slowly and quietly along the side of the building, illuminated only by distant lights and the small crescent Moon low in the sky. As he came to a pair of lar
ge gas cylinders and a well-used dumpster, he stopped and listened. He stared out into the darkness for some moments, waiting to see any sign of either Randall or the guy. Eventually he heard a faint startled cry, more like a whelp or a stifled squeal coming from somewhere near a large shipping container standing out by some velvet mesquite trees, some two hundred yards distant.
Either Randall or the other guy, he thought. Hopefully the other guy. Maybe Randall had just shot him.
Pedro stared intently towards the source of the sound, waiting to hear more in order to figure out what was happening and who had made the noise. A few seconds later he heard the faint but unmistakable thud of a heavy object hitting the ground. He listened again and waited, deciding what to do. He looked down at the stiletto still clasped in his hand and thought better of it as a weapon. He decided to make his way cautiously back to the Jeep to retrieve his Glock from the glove compartment. ‘To hell with the noise!’ he said to no one as he slid his knife back into his boot sheath. With two against one, he had felt confident enough with just a blade, especially considering his experience. He generally preferred a knife over a gun when possible because of the stealth aspect, but now he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know what had just happened near the old shipping container, and who was still standing. This other guy was unpredictable; they had no idea who he was or how good he was in a fight.
He took a compact pair of folding eight-power binoculars from the glove compartment and headed off into the scrublands where it was dark. He would circle around and approach from behind, at a distance.
Safety in the desert shadows.
29
Swann saw Randall before he heard him. He was impressed with Randall’s ability to merge into the shadows and move without a sound, kind of like himself. He watched him approach, clearly unaware that Swann lurked just a few yards away, lying in wait.
A few minutes earlier, he’d seen both Pedro and Randall emerge from the bar - no doubt after reading the note he’d given the barman. They’d stood there for a few seconds deciding what to do. Swann had moved further into the darkness and crouched behind a large dumpster and peered around its side. He held the gun in his right hand, his arm resting on his knee. Then he saw Randall pull a gun from under his coat and head in the other direction, obviously planning to skirt the building to look for him and his vehicle. He watched Pedro reach down to his boot and pull out a long, lethal looking knife while walking towards the Jeep Cherokee. Interesting choice of weapon, thought Swann. We’ll see how good he is. But first I’ll deal with this Randall guy.
There’s an old adage about taking a knife to a gun fight. It’s not usually a good idea because things tend not to end well for the guy with the knife. Swann recalled a famous case, some years before, of a machete-wielding nutjob who held up a prominent big-city gun shop. The guy with the machete started swinging it around, threatening to gut the manager right there if he didn’t open up the till and empty its contents into the canvas bag he was proffering. The shop manager, who was cleaning a gun at the time - its component parts spread out neatly on the counter top - calmly reassembled the weapon without saying a word and without taking his eyes off the robber. He nonchalantly inserted the ammo clip, chambered a round and shot the guy in the stomach like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. It had taken the manager less than ten seconds to reassemble the gun fully, from start to finish. Darwin Awards right there! thought Swann at the time. Then the manager kindly rang for an ambulance, and the cops.
Needless to say, the machete guy lost interest in robbing the joint because his focus was suddenly on his abdomen which was bleeding out all over the nylon carpet. Problem solved in a few seconds as far as the shop owner was concerned. But a whole new chapter in the machete guy’s life was about to start. Or end, depending on the outcome. All the shop needed was a new carpet. The manager was later arrested for attempted murder and for using “undue force” against an intruder. “Undue force”? So, what should he have done then? wondered Swann. Asked him nicely not to rob the joint? Written him a poem? Ignored him? Allowed him to help himself to all his hard-earned cash and then hope for the best? As far as Swann was concerned, the shop manager had carried out his brand of rough justice, while the machete guy had taken his life into his own hands thinking he could rob a gun shop with no consequences. He took a risk and lost. The manager was later acquitted after public outrage in his defense brought about a change of attitude by the police. It was argued that he had “feared for his life and had employees to protect against a deranged machete-wielding madman intent on committing murder, and that he’d had no option but to act, which he did without thinking etc. etc.”. End of story.
And yet there are times when it’s entirely appropriate to use a knife to counter a gun, especially when making a lot of noise might be a problem and the guy with the gun has no idea where you are. Even a “silenced” pistol like a SIG Sauer with a short suppressor makes a loud “thwack” that penetrates the quiet of the night. A suppressor on a nine-mil merely makes it sound like a smaller caliber, like say a small-bore varmint weapon. But it’s far from silent and is a very distinctive sound, recognizable by anyone familiar with firearms. And that’s a problem when you have another guy close on your ass looking to do you harm with a nasty fighting knife. All he needs is your location which is made easier if you make too much noise firing off a round – suppressed or not. A knife on the other hand lends itself to stealth when used correctly, which is what Swann prefers; sneaking up like the Grim Reaper on some bad guy and sticking a blade into the side of his neck, or his kidneys. Swann didn’t care so much about the noise when he’d shot out the tires earlier because the two bad guys were inside the bar and wouldn’t hear it anyway; and he was confident no one else was around either.
On this occasion, stealth trumped the definitive “thwack” of a silenced pistol, and it definitely trumped the harsh, barking report of an unsuppressed Glock, like the one carried by Randall as he hunted down his prey. Dealing with Randall should ideally be done silently, assuming things went his way. If not, well then there’s always the nine-mil sitting right there in his specially designed hip holster.
Swann watched Randall moving in the classic semi-crouch, with his Glock held out in front, in the two-handed grip; he was making his way towards an old, rusting shipping container that had the words “MAERSK” on its side in giant, black lettering. Probably being used as a makeshift storage facility, but now a good vantage point for watching the bar’s immediate surroundings. Randall obviously knew how to handle a gun, but in Swann’s estimation he was an amateur when it came to tactical fighting. And he was about to make a potentially fatal mistake, just like the guy in the gun shop, but in reverse.
Swann moved off silently like a cat and headed for the old shipping container to lie in wait for Randall.
30
Randall never heard it coming. He was in darkness as he stood leaning against the container’s rear wall, peering back around its corner towards the bar’s southern side. He was listening for the slightest sound and hoping to get a glimpse of movement by the big guy who said he had Eddie. He watched and waited; the only sounds on the night air were the faint, distant, dull beats of music coming from inside the bar and the light rustle from the group of trees nearby. He saw Pedro in the distance, walking slowly along the side of the bar, stopping and listening near some gas cylinders and a dumpster.
And then, suddenly, Randall’s head snapped backwards like whiplash in a vehicle that’s just been rear-ended by a big-rig. He let out a surprised whelp like a wounded dog and saw purple stars in his eyes. An instant later, his head was knocked sideways, hitting the container wall.
A huge gloved fist had whacked into the back of his neck like a piston, stunning him, but not breaking his upper spine. It was like a massive electric shock. An instant later, he’d been hit in the side of the head which added more purple stars and dazed him. Randall was almost knocked out cold, but he was still standing, leaning agains
t the side of the container, his head spinning like he’d just acquired a sudden hangover.
Another moment later, he felt a solid kick to the back of his leg, just behind the knee joint, the one that he had most of his weight resting on. It made him stagger backwards as he lost his balance while a powerful gloved hand clamped tightly around his jaw from behind like a steel vice. He was taken completely by surprise; startled and confused, yet aware of immense strength in the fingers that clamped his jaw. His head was pulled backwards and twisted to the left, exposing his throat; the gloved hand pulled him back with incredible force. He was completely off balance and had no option but to allow his body mass to move in that direction and rest against the assailant who was now in control of the outcome. Swann’s right boot was hard against Randall’s, preventing him from stepping backwards to regain his balance. It had all happened so quickly and forcefully, he’d had zero time to react, no time to process the unexpected event and decide how best to deal with it. Less than two seconds from seeing purple stars to having his neck clamped in a vice. But he still held his Glock in his hand and was already bringing it up, despite being too disoriented to know exactly where to point it.
‘Drop it!’ whispered Swann in Randall’s ear as he pressed the razor-sharp point of the Ka-Bar against the side of his neck with some force, drawing blood; the flesh in-folding to the point. Swann could tell it hurt like hell, but he was ready to plunge it all the way in if Randall attempted to fight his way out of the headlock, or if he moved in a way that Swann didn’t appreciate, like trying to bring the Glock up, as he was trying to do.