by L. J. Martin
"Since when do you and I need an agreement, legit or not?"
"Since I knows you're probably gonna fuck everything up and my insurance won't be worth dog doo unless I gots an agreement. And I guess you gots cash to pay up front?"
"I got a license. I got cash. Dick Strong from Tallahassee, Florida."
"I don't give a damn if it's George Clooney from Hollywood, so long as it passes muster and you sign the name on the license on my rental agreement so's my insurance is good to go."
"I can be at your yard in thirty minutes. You got security cameras?"
"Sure."
"Then I'll be disguised a wee bit. Don't let it bother you."
"Unless you come as Beelzebub, it don't mean squat."
"I'll be a little ugly, not that ugly. I need to hire a couple of guys, who meet your standards, five hundred each for the next twenty-four hours. Guys who can operate the equipment. And they gotta go with the gear in an hour or so."
"You gonna get them shot?"
"No, but they gotta be able to keep their mouths shut."
"I got a couple of guys who need the work. But they are good guys and I don't want them to get hurt or end up in the joint."
"Make it a grand a day and so long as they do their job, they won't get hurt or crossways with the law."
"Your word is good enough for me. Now I gotta go explain to the big boss why I gotta go back to work."
"Do it, and tell Aletha I still love her."
"You ain't big enough or near black enough for my mama to love you back, so don't get your hopes up."
"Tell her anyway."
"I will, bro, see you in a half hour."
With a buddy in Hollywood who's into special effects, I'm well stocked with disguises. I've got a cigar size box in my van with a bill cap with plastic props that flare my ears until I look a little like Dumbo, with nostril inserts that make my nose as wide as Bojangles, and with cheek inserts making me look a little like the Godfather. It's enough to screw up facial recognition software and right before I get to BHB I pull into a mini-market to fill the tank, then take the time to rearrange my face.
I conclude my business with Bojangles and return to Sol's place while the boys, Frank Pattison and Dallas McQueen, who I've hired, wait in the parking lot in the trucks. If the way they loaded the truck is any example, and the calluses on their hands an indicator, both of them know how to get a job done. And the best news, they ask no questions.
Sol's assignment is to track the Albanians and keep me apprised of their movements. It's a little over a three-hour drive from Laughlin to Quartzsite, and their meeting with the other half of the Albanian contingency is set up for six PM, which means they'll have to leave by 2:30 or so.
Luckily, as I'm heading back to the parking lot, my phone rings with the Theme from Odin. It's Skip.
"I'll be in Laughlin in an hour and a half."
"It'll take me at least that long to get there, in fact I'll be at least a half hour late as I've got to go to the mini-storage. Be at the curb in two hours. We've got lots of work to do tonight."
"10-4."
I pick a spot to meet Frank and Dallas and head for the mini-storage to stock the van with any of my weapons and tricks I might need, and am off to try and make things as right as I can.
And it may just take all the tricks I know, to do so.
With Sol on his way to Laughlin to keep track of the Albanians, I'm on my way to pick up Skip. I question if two of us are enough, but two's what it's gonna be.
We need to do a recon of the site, and it's gotta be by eyeballs. Even Google Earth won't suffice.
We're a convoy. Skip and I in the van, the flatbed loaded with the big rubber barrels and the lighted highway information sign towing a trailer loaded with a skip loader, and the dump truck. I let Skip take the wheel of the van so I can catch an hour of zees in the cot in the back of the van—cramped as the Harley Iron shares the space—and Frank Pattison is on the wheel of the flatbed and Dallas McQueen is driving the dump truck. Bojangles assured me they were expert with the operation of the sign and the skip loader.
We’re all gonna have to be very, very good at what we do.
24
The fastest route from Laughlin takes you south into California for a while, down to Needles, California where you pick up Highway I-40, then onto US95 south toward Parker, Arizona, then south the Blythe, and on south to Quartzsite. You're in three states during the short trip. Basically following the Colorado River as it meanders to Mexico.
But I don't plan to go as far as the third state.
Before you get to Parker, while still in California, I happen to know just the right spot to handle the heist and dispatch the Albanians—with luck, Fitor and his boss Ahmeti, in California. Then, hopefully, onto the Quartzsite airport and Gashi, if he shows.
Vidal Junction will do just fine.
Knowing there's a California Highway Patrolman who hangs out at Vidal Junction, the site of an inspection station, we’ve got to be careful. But I know the area and that's a great big advantage.
I've been there before, where I started a fight between a dozen or more cartel guys who ended up doing most of my work for me as they thought they were mad at each other, thanks to Pax's machinations on Photoshop and the computer.
Highway 95 is a two-lane road, with a few tight spots that'll be easy to block...or should I say easy to detour the traffic with a nearly phony blockage. And just before that tight spot is a turn off to an abandoned talc mine. And the road there, at least the first half mile even though gravel, looks good enough to serve as a detour.
We recon the tight spot then I show Frank and Dallas a good place to get off the road and unload the skip loader so they can fill the dump truck. Then another spot where they can park the dump truck just beyond where they'll block the road. It's critical that things go like clockwork as this is a highway and blocking it for long will be a cluster fuck that's untenable and worse, one that will be difficult from which to escape. Needless to say, it will attract the California Highway Patrol who might take umbrage if there’s a gun battle going on nearby.
While Skip and I recon the gravel road to the mine, Frank and Dallas load the dump truck then program the trailered LED highway sign.
We've got lots of time as all of this is done by mid-morning. Vidal Junction is a wide spot in the road, with an inspection station operated by the State of California, a gasoline service station, and a gas and diesel truck stop with cafe and small motel. So we head for the cafe to fuel the body as Skip and I have no idea how long it will be before we chow down again.
The hell of it is I can never eat much when I have an op staring me in the face, particularly an op where the other side has all the odds. They've got the numbers, but we've probably got the firepower with some trick electronics, fully automatic weapons, a sniper rifle that either Skip and I are better than average with—Pax is the expert and I wish he were on it—and an RPG in case things get really serious. But I don’t want to use it as paper money burns, and with luck the van will be chock-full.
Skip has no problem with chow and while I fight my way through a couple of eggs, a side of bacon, and a piece of wheat toast, he dusts off biscuits and gravy, a chicken fried steak that covers the plate, three eggs, and a short stack. I'm surprised he can walk but am not surprised when he suggests, "We've got a few hours so let's head back to the road to the mine so I can catch some zees."
I laugh. "Okay." Then I turn to Dallas and Frank. "You guys have some reading material or a deck of cards?"
Dallas was the talkative one. "I brought a Playboy and a Sports Afield. We're good to go."
"I'll call you and give you at least an hour's notice."
"Yeah, we got it."
So we head back.
The road to the mine is flanked by small hills and some small ravines cross it, some edged with mesquite, some with smoke trees, and one small hill crowned by a pair of cottonwoods. From the cottonwoods it's only a hundred yards to w
here I plan to stop the Albanians.
One of my favorite gadgets is a black Parrot Jumping Sumo Bluetooth Robot Insect Mini Drone, a mouthful of a name for a device that's only about fourteen inches wide at the wheel base and about eight inches tall, which is at first glance a little more than a video camera mounted between two wheels but in fact is much more. It's radio controlled, will actually jump obstacles, and will move at over six feet a second.
I find a spot under a greasewood bush, a spot where it has easy access to the road, and top it with a fist sized gob of Semtex and insert a telephone activated detonator. It's now a bomb that can see and crawl, in fact run and jump.
For a couple of hundred bucks I have a device that the Corps would likely pay a couple of hundred thousand for, if it were created for the defense industry. The second Insect Mini Drone I hide under a sagebrush, with equal easy access, forty feet down the road from the first, just in case the Albanians come in two vehicles, and even if not it'll be a backup bomb.
The third is merely an observation device.
You can't have too many eyes on the enemy.
It's a quadcopter with a GoPro video camera mounted thereon, and unlike the last one I owned, this one has a Bluetooth program that allows the operator to see on his iPhone in real time. It, too, is radio-controlled, via an iPhone app, as is the camera. She's fast, can fly high, can hover, and can record all she sees as well as transmit in real time. A hell of a device for chump change.
We're only two guys, but two guys armed like two dozen, and with mechanical eyes that don't care if they get in harm's way.
My phone jingles with and unknown caller and I answer.
"Reardon."
"They're driving out, Mike. They loaded a van with four large suitcases and other cases large enough to hold rifles. Ahmeti and another guy, a blonde guy who might be that Fitor guy, got in a black Cadillac and led out. Four guys are in the van."
It's just after noon, so they're leaving early. "Okay, are you following?"
"Yep, I'm staying back a block or so until we clear town, then I plan to give them at least a half mile...like you said."
"Pay close attention. When you're fifteen miles out of needles...watch your odometer...call me. Keep an eye on the other traffic and tell me how many cars or trucks are nearby. When you've gone another ten miles, turn around and haul ass back to Vegas. You don't want to be close when this comes down. You got it?"
"I got it, I don't like it—"
"Sol, I may need lots more help from you and you can't help Pax, or me, or all those kids without parents if you're coyote food out here in this God-forsaken desert. Got it?"
"I got it."
"Swear on your mother's life?"
"My mom died in a bombing in Israel three years ago."
"The hell you say. I'm sorry. Okay, swear on her memory."
"Okay, okay, I get it."
"Swear."
"I swear, I swear. Ten more miles then I turn around."
"Call me fifteen miles out of Needles."
"10-4."
"That-a-boy."
The van is parked over the hill with the cottonwoods on top—the desert around the mine is lined with two track roads—and I've unloaded the Harley Iron in case Skip and I need to go in different directions. We have belt clipped radios with the latest in wireless ear buds, and hands-free microphones. And we've both put on Kevlar vests and battle rattle belts, each with a pair of fragmentation grenades, and four extra thirty round clips for the M4's we carry. We flip for who's to man the .308 as we're both about equal in its use. I win, so I set up at the base of the cottonwoods.
And now it's the hard part. Wait.
25
It's just after one thirty PM when my phone jingles.
I answer. "Reardon."
"Mike, I'm coming up on the fifteen mile mark. There's a brown UPS truck, a semi, about a mile or maybe a mile and a half in front of the Cadillac, the white van is a hundred yards back of the Cad. There's a couple of SUVs in front of the UPS truck if nothing's changed. Red one and a tan one, I think. These guys don't seem to be in a hurry as they've been driving the speed limit."
"Okay, if anything changes, call me again. Remember, ten more miles then you haul ass."
As soon as he's off I call Dallas. "You've got couple of SUVs, a red one and a tan one my guy thinks, then a brown UPS truck that's your go sign. As soon as you see him coming get ready to light up the detour sign and one of you roll out the barrels while the other dumps the truckload in the road the instant the UPS guy passes. You gotta move quick as you've only got a minute or so."
"Good luck, Reardon," Dallas says, and hangs up.
Skip was set up on on the far side of the road, up a slope where he was concealed behind a pile of boulders. In less than ten minutes, my phone chimes
"Yeah."
"I can see the brown truck. We're a minute out. Good luck."
"Don't let any other vehicle follow them. Block the detour with the skip loader as soon as they make the turn, right?"
"You got it."
Minutes seem like hours when you're going into a battle. I don't expect to get another phone call and am surprised when the phone rattles.
"Reardon."
"Mike," Sol says, his voice stressed, "some guy in a red Corvette just roared past me going at least a hundred."
"Don't sweat it. We'll handle it if it becomes a problem. You spin it around and beat a trail."
"Got it. Hate it, but got it."
In minutes my phone vibrates again, and before I can say hello, Dallas yells into it. "The Cad and a van are on the gravel...and some asshole in a Corvette. We couldn't get in his way."
"Get the hell out of Dodge," I yell back, and take up a position awaiting the oncoming vehicles. The guy in the Vette shouldn't be a speeder. He's on his own.
The Caddi's in the lead. I put the first one through the radiator at a hundred fifty yards, then one into the driver's side tire. The big black Cad jerks left, then straightens by the time I bolt the third .308 into the chamber, and that one goes into the passenger side front tire.
By this time it seems they get wise to the fact that someone is firing at them and slide to a stop.
The van has to stop behind them, and I put one into the passenger side front tire but can't see the driver's side as the Cad's in the way, so I flatten the passenger side rear.
By this time the blonde guy, Fitor, the driver of the pickup loaded with explosives that wiped out Pax's place, has made my location and is firing a semi-auto handgun out the passenger side window, reaching across Ahmeti to do so.
I have no problem putting the crosshairs on Fitor, but before I can squeeze one off, a burst sprays the windshield coming from Skip's position. The front of the Cad goes still as Ahmeti must be hiding as low as he can get.
The rear of the van slides open and out pile two guys, one of them runs for the brush at the roadside but the other drops to a knee and begins spraying Skip's side of the hill with an automatic pistol...looks like an Uzi from my distant position.
I swing the .308 crosshairs on him and center punch him. His arms windmill as he rocks back against the van then slumps. The two guys in the front of the van are hunkered down and have the van in reverse, trying to get the hell back the way they came, when the red Corvette, its top down, roars up behind and brakes hard, almost sliding into the rear.
I can see the Vette guy stand up in the front seat to look out over the windshield, I'm sure wondering what the hell the noise is. Then I swear, even from over a hundred yards, I see his eyes widen and he drops down as the driver of the van runs back and tries to catch up with him. I guess the van driver is wanting a ride out of trouble, but the Vette guy is too fast and dirt flies from the rear tires as he spins the wheels, getting the hell out of there. The driver is running after him, waving his arms, but to no avail.
The driver realizes he’s not gonna get a ride and runs off the road into the weeds.
I don't recognize him, so I
let him go.
The last guy in the van is out of sight, probably retreated to the rear.
Ahmeti, who's promised to whack Pax and me, and whom I'm sure is a man of his word, has climbed behind the wheel of the Cad and is trying to drive forward on two flat tires. Just for the hell of it I put another one into the radiator, then another in the rear passenger side tire. He's making a little headway, none the less, but damn little.
If my count is right we've got a guy in the weeds, another guy still in the back of the van, and Ahmeti behind the wheel of the Cad trying to make a getaway vehicle out of what's now little more than a boulder in the middle of the road. It's moving, but about two miles an hour. The original driver of the Cad, Fitor, is face down in the road, I hope hurting real bad and dying real slow. One of the van guys is running for Needles. One of the van guys is still in the back of the van. One of the van guys is face down in the road thanks to my .308.
So there are only three threats left.
Ahmeti has decided the Cad won't get him out of danger and is climbing out. Unlike his partner, Gashi, this guy has no fat on him. He's at least my height, maybe an inch taller at six-foot-three, and moves gracefully, like he might have been a real athlete in his youth. He feints like he's going to run on up the road, which would put him even closer to us, but then breaks back. Only then do I realize the trunk lid is rising. He's popped the latch from the inside, and he disappears behind the lid at the rear of the car.
Then he comes up with what looks like an AK47...he doesn't get the bolt thrown before I nail him high in the chest the same time I hear a three shot blast from Skip’s M4. Ahmeti reels back at least ten feet and bounces off the front of the van and goes to his face in the gravel.
Four down, two to go. I have no interest in blowing the van all to hell as it's full of the dough, presuming that's what's in the suitcases Sol saw them load, but a demonstration might just get the guy out of the weeds and the other one out of the back of the van.
I drop the .308 and unsling my M4, better for close work, and advise Skip I'm moving in. I zig and zag down the hill until I'm only fifty yards from the vehicles and the bush where one guy is hiding, and yell out. "I got no bone to pick with you guys. Only two of you left, one in the brush, one in the back of the van. Throw down your weapons and come on out."