The FBI agents stepped out the door and into the cool night.
Nick could hear the lonely sound of crickets chirping in the front yard, and a lump rose in his throat. He was thankful the agents were on their way out.
"Thanks again, and enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Jensen."
He almost reminded her again to call him Nick but didn't bother. He watched them walk to their unmarked car, then closed the door and prepared to face another night alone. Enjoying his evening was out of the question. Nick's goal was simply to get through it.
Chapter 18
The full moon shone brightly down from the glittering nighttime sky, casting an eerie glow over the scrub brush littering the desert floor, its pale white light providing a stark illumination of the sparse Arizona scenery. Visibility was close to that of daytime, even though it was well past midnight. The landscape appeared alien, almost lunar in nature, despite the fact that the Tucson city limits were only a few miles to the northwest.
Vehicular travel over this portion of the two-lane county road was nearly nonexistent; most people on the roads at this time of night preferred the wider lanes and high speed limits of the interstate highway that followed a more or less parallel course, weaving through the countryside of the Southwest just a few miles away.
On this deserted highway, heavy black smoke poured from the scene of a recent automobile accident. Two late-model sedans had come together almost precisely in the middle of the road, and both cars were slewed sideways, apparently from their desperate and unsuccessful last-second attempt at avoiding each other. Now the road was almost completely blocked, with little more than a narrow passageway available on either side.
Two miles east, moving slowly in the direction of the accident, an olive green military transport truck with a large cargo bed covered by heavy-gauge camouflage canvas lumbered past a gigantic billboard advertising Joanne's Diner--Bottomless Cup of Coffee with Trucker's Breakfast Special! Immediately after the truck passed, two men emerged from behind the sign, walking quickly through the moonlit semidarkness to the center of the highway.
Dimitrios carried over his shoulder a large Road Closed sign bordered with reflective tape. He placed it in the center of the highway, facing east, while Brian carried an armful of orange rubber traffic cones and placed one every six feet along the pavement, moving outward from the large sign in both directions until the entire road was blocked off.
The men worked quickly and efficiently, and inside of forty-five seconds, they had completed the task of eliminating any ve-hicular access to the crash scene. Out to the west of the staged auto accident, identical signage had already been set up, complete with rubber cones blocking off access to the four-mile stretch of highway from that direction as well.
Their task complete, Dimitrios pulled a radio from his back pocket and spoke quietly into it. He told Tony that the transport truck would be arriving at the scene momentarily and the road was now clear. The entire operation took just over one minute.
The men disappeared into the night behind the billboard.
Chapter 19
"I'm tellin' ya, the Cubbies are never going to win a World Series." Private First Class Eric Young pounded his fist on the truck's steering wheel to emphasize his point to the man in the passenger seat, Private First Class Milt Stanley, who seemed completely uninterested in the fortunes of the Chicago Cubs or in anything else Young had to say for that matter.
"Yeah, well," Stanley said in his distinctive Alabama drawl,
"baseball's a pussy sport, anyway. Who gives a shit about the Cubs?
You wanna talk sports, let's talk Crimson Tide football. Nick Sa-ban's brought that program back to where they belong, which is on the top of the heap in the SEC. They might just be better right now than they have been at any time since the Bear." He referenced the late, great coach of the University of Alabama football team, Bear Bryant, the way a devout Catholic might talk about the Pope, with awed reverence and maybe a hint of fear.
"You know," he continued, "I could have played for the Tide if I hadn't blowed out my knee my senior year of high school."
Young snorted. "Christ, Milton, you couldn't have gotten into the University of Alabama on the best day you ever had, even considering the virtually nonexistent admissions standards they have for football players, you dumb fuck. I'll bet you can't even spell
'football.'"
Stanley adopted an injured look on his expressive black face. "I can spell 'kick your ass,'" he answered without any real conviction, his attention diverted by what appeared to be a serious car accident a few hundred yards ahead on the lonely road.
Young slowed the truck as the scene came into focus in the glare of the headlights. There had definitely been a two-car wreck, and it looked as though it must have occurred just minutes ago, as acrid black smoke hung thickly in the desert air, issuing from somewhere beneath one or both of the damaged cars.
Standing in front of the accident scene were two men, clearly the drivers of the vehicles that had been involved in the wreck.
They were trading punches, completely oblivious to the camouflaged U.S. Army transport truck slowing to a stop a few yards away.
"Just go around these two dumb motherfuckers," Stanley drawled. "Let them beat the crap out of each other. What the hell do we care?"
"I don't think I can make it without going off the road into the desert," Young answered, "and I don't really want to take the chance of getting stuck in that sand. If that happens, we're screwed."
At that moment, the confrontation between the two men escalated. One caught the other with a roundhouse right and knocked him to the pavement. That man immediately leapt back to his feet, swinging from the heels.
Young reluctantly stopped the truck a few feet away from them. He opened his door, leaving the truck idling, its big diesel engine rumbling softly in the cool desert night.
"What the fuck are you doing?" asked Stanley.
"What does it look like I'm doing? We can't get around these idiots, so we're going to have to break up this fight and help them push their cars to the side of the road. It's either that or be stuck here until one of them kills the other. I like watching mixed mar-tial arts as much as the next guy, but we don't really have time for this."
Stanley grunted noncommittally.
"You stay here and I'll be right back," Young told him, following protocol, which dictated that at least one man remain with the vehicle to safeguard its contents at all times. He climbed down out of the cab and approached the two men, barking authoritatively to get their attention. It didn't work, as they continued pounding on each other as if he were not even there.
Young hesitated, placing his hand on his sidearm but leaving it holstered. There was no way on God's green earth he was going to draw his service revolver on two unarmed civilians, especially two men who didn't pose any kind of threat, at least not to him. His military training had included nothing even remotely resembling instruction on how to deal with the situation he found himself facing now, and he was unsure how to proceed.
On one hand, this truck and its contents were expected by their superiors at Fort Bliss, Texas, first thing tomorrow morning, and if it was late, there would be hell to pay. The circumstances causing the late arrival would not be given much consideration, if any.
But on the other hand, getting involved in an altercation between two civilian motorists would likely be viewed as a mistake in hindsight, especially if he were to injure one of them while trying to break up the fight. And what if one or both of them became bel-ligerent and refused to move their damaged vehicles? What then?
All these considerations ran rapidly through Young's head as he cautiously approached the pair. He thought about calling the base for guidance, but he finally decided the best thing to do would be to take decisive action and get moving again. It was late, he was tired, and he had no desire to get his ass hauled into the woodshed when he got back to Bliss because he couldn't decide how to handle a freaking traffic accident.
The problem was these two guys were really going at it. The scene looked like something out of an MMA bout on Pay-Per-View. Fists were flying. Now that he was up close, Young could see that the two dudes were pretty good-sized guys. Young reluc-72
tantly waved Stanley down from the cab to help him subdue the two guys, since it was patently obvious he couldn't take them both himself, at least not without drawing down on them, which he had already decided would be a very bad career move.
With Stanley's help, though, these two clowns would be disabled in a matter of seconds--his partner was about six foot six and two hundred eighty pounds of sculpted muscle. Young had no idea whether Stanley had actually gotten a scholarship offer from Alabama or not, but he was definitely big enough to have been a football player.
Scowling, Stanley climbed down from the truck. "Goddamn it, let's get the fuck out of here," he complained. As he strode up next to Young, both of them roughly five feet from the fighting motorists, the two men suddenly stopped trading haymakers and pulled semiautomatic pistols from their pockets, turning in unison and facing the two young Army privates.
In that instant Young knew he had made a very serious mistake.
Chapter 20
When the radio call had come in from Dimitrios, telling them that the Army transport truck carrying the Stinger missiles had passed the billboard located two miles west and would arrive at their location in approximately two minutes, Jackie and Joe-Bob started their vehicles simultaneously and pulled them smoothly together nose to nose over the double yellow line separating the opposing lanes of traffic on the sparsely traveled two-lane highway. The cars were positioned perpendicular to the yellow stripe so as to take up as much of the available space in both directions as possible.
The two men had practiced their upcoming fight scene for hours on end until both were quite confident they could pull it off in their sleep. They shut down their engines and leapt out in unison, Joe-Bob carrying a smoke bomb in his right hand, which he ignited with a Bic lighter and placed in the road between the two front bumpers. Instantly, thick black smoke began billowing into the air, creating the illusion that one or both of the vehicles had sustained serious damage.
It took no more than a few seconds for the front ends of both cars to be obscured by the heavy black shroud, and as the smoke was accumulating, the two men checked their weapons one final time. Each man placed his Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol under the waistband of his trousers, snug against the small of his back under his shirt. They then pulled their shirttails down, making the weapons invisible but easily accessible.
In the distance the transport truck lumbered over a shallow rise and into view. It was still too far away for them to make out any detail, but they knew it was the right truck; it had to be, since there was now no one else traveling on this closed-off section of highway.
Joe-Bob looked at Jackie, a smirk creasing his face, then disappearing. "Let's dance," he said, shoving the other man hard. The two began exchanging blows, hesitantly at first, then with increasing gusto as each connected with the other and adrenaline and instinct took over.
Jackie and Joe-Bob had been selected to run this portion of the operation due to both men's advanced fighting skills--Joe-Bob's having been perfected in the military, and Jackie's learning to scrap and fight on the streets of the Bronx running with some of the most brutal gangs in New York from the time he was eight.
They heard the truck pull up behind them, its headlights washing them in a bright white glare as they traded haymakers. By now they were actually fighting; there was no chance the truck's occupants might suspect the whole thing was being staged for their benefit. The brakes on the big vehicle squealed long and loud as it slowed to a stop.
Blood mixed with sweat flew off the bodies of the fighting terrorists in great arcing droplets, illuminated in the truck's headlights. They grunted and strained and paid no attention to the Army vehicle idling just a few feet away.
A couple of minutes that felt like much longer passed. Then a door opened, and a young soldier stepped down from the truck and crossed the pavement warily. He stood, ignored by Jackie and Joe-Bob. A few seconds later, the door on the far side of the truck opened, and the other occupant climbed down as well. This was what they had been waiting for.
The two Army privates moved forward unwittingly, and when they reached a point approximately five feet away, Jackie growled,
"Now!" They dropped their fists simultaneously, each man pulling his weapon from behind his back and leveling it in the stunned face of the private closest to him.
Shock--and an instant later fear--etched itself onto the faces of the soldiers.
Jackie and Joe-Bob pulled their triggers, their moves choreographed with the same split-second timing they had displayed in their staged fight , and two human heads exploded in a spray of blood and pulverized silver grey bone. The two victims dropped instantly to the ground, both men dead before they hit the pavement.
Still breathing heavily from the staged fight, Jackie and Joe-Bob shoved their pistols back into their waistbands and grabbed the ankles of their lifeless victims. They dragged the men off the road and into the scrub brush dotting the side of the highway, leaving two wide swaths of blood. There the trail of blood disappeared, soaking into the loose terrain.
They jumped into their cars and fired up the engines. Tony, who had been sitting motionless in the backseat of Jackie's sedan, had already clambered into the Army transport truck, still idling in the middle of the road. The three vehicles moved out, traveling single file to the west along the highway for two miles, where they picked up their compatriots waiting behind the big billboard and then continued into the quiet desert night.
Chapter 21
The vast desolation of the Arizona desert was pockmarked by clumps of scrawny scrub brushes sprouting randomly from the ground, casting skeletal shadows from the washed-out light of the full moon. Thousands of stars glittered in the cold sky. The few buildings visible in the alien landscape were spaced far apart, appearing delicate and insubstantial. Three vehicles--a sedan in the lead, followed by an olive drab U.S. Army truck with a canvas-covered cargo box, followed up by another sedan--approached a massive parking lot.
As they turned into the property, three sets of headlights flashed across a mammoth sign: Welcome to Cactus RV Center--
Arizona's Largest! Below, in only slightly less enthusiastic letters it proclaimed, RVs, Campers, Motor Homes of all Sizes for Sale or Rent--Long-or Short-Term! All Price Ranges! The three vehicles snaked around the campers and motor homes. In less than a minute the convoy had arrived at the back of the lot.
The vehicles parked neatly in a row next to a plain panel truck.
One by one, the drivers shut down their engines. The truck they parked next to was obviously a recent addition to the RV center's lot and just as clearly did not belong. It had been stolen the day before in Tucson and would be used to transport the Stinger missiles Tony's group had successfully acquired. The Army transport truck was much too conspicuous for Tony's taste, and he knew it was imperative they lose it immediately. Once the bodies of the two murdered soldiers were discovered, the authorities would seal the entire area off like a drum, and they would risk being apprehended.
The men piled out of their vehicles and stepped onto the tarmac, stretching their backs and yawning. Cactus RV Center may have been Arizona's largest, as the sign proclaimed, but the facility's owners certainly hadn't spent much of their income over the last few years on pavement maintenance. The acres of blacktop were cracked and rutted from exposure to the relentless desert heat, with sandy potholes forming dangerous and randomly located land mines all over the lot. To step in one meant the possibility of a turned ankle or worse. An injury now was something the group could not afford.
Tony pulled out a Maglite and examined the area immediately surrounding the four vehicles until he was satisfied there was no possibility of injury to himself or one of his men. Shining the light around was
a risk, but it was a minimal one. This portion of the big parking lot was mostly invisible from the road, with dozens of bulky campers and RVs forming a very effective screen, and ve-hicular traffic was virtually nonexistent anyway.
His men stood next to the vehicles smoking cigarettes and mumbling quietly to each other until he was ready.
After a couple of minutes, Tony swung the tailgate of the transport truck down and said, "Let's get this done." He left the rest of his crew to do the heavy lifting and strolled toward the front of the deserted facility, semiautomatic weapon slung over his shoulder and toothpick hanging out the corner of his mouth.
The men set to work unloading the crates containing the precious cargo from the Army vehicle and into the stolen panel truck.
There were no markings of any kind on the truck; it was completely anonymous and would blend nicely into the landscape as the team moved west to east across the United States until arriving back home outside Washington. There they would go to ground and prepare for the next step in the operation.
First things first, though. They needed to get the missiles loaded into the new truck and put as many miles between the dead soldiers and themselves as possible before morning. The U.S. Army didn't take kindly to its soldiers being murdered, particularly on American soil, and the search for the murderers would be more intense even than the search for the thieves who had taken the Stinger missiles. These were weapons that were useless without the appropriate guidance system, and the government had no way of knowing the group was in possession of that critical component as well, but they would find out soon enough.
Tony leaned against the side of a massive camper and watched as his four men worked quickly and efficiently at their backbreak-ing task. Dimitrios knelt in the back of the Army truck sliding the Stinger crates along the floor of the cargo bed to the open tailgate, where Joe-Bob and Jackie trundled them the short distance to the waiting panel truck. There, they dropped the crates on the cargo bed with a thud. Then Brian slid the crates along the wooden floor, the wide pine strips worn smooth from years of service, as close to the front of the cargo box as possible, securing each crate with bungee cords to ensure there would be no shifting of the material as they made their way across the country.
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