by L. J. Martin
The door is on the second guy on the floor but now Pax has a foot on it, keeping that haji pinned to the floor, yelling at the top of his lungs.
My guy on the sofa is yelling as well, so I remove the muzzle of the Glock from his forehead and smash him in the mouth. Blood flies and teeth collapse inward, and he covers his mouth with both hands, spitting and gagging. Eyes are still wide but at least all he's doing, soundwise, is gurgling.
The guy under the door is screaming. “Shut that fucker up,” I snap at Pax.
He kicks the door aside and as that guy tries to get up, whacks him with his Glock one way then backhands him with the heavy weapon the other way, and his eyes roll up in his head and he goes to his back, unmoving.
One dead, one unconscious, one with his mouth full of blood and teeth...but still the latter is the only one I can question and his speech is gurgled.
Just for effect I eject a shell from my Glock and place it between my guy's eyes. “We know you did the bombing at the costume party. Did you bomb the bus?”
The guy can barely talk, his eyes rolling.
Pax reminds me, “I got one, uninjured, in the bedroom. Let's grill him?”
“Tape and tie these two up. The one with the holes through his back will be no trouble.”
We soon have them with their mouths covered with duct tape, and cable-tied back to back, at both wrists and ankles.
“Stay with them, Skipper,” I command, then add. “I'm calling Vanessa to haul ass with the van. On second thought, gather the long arms and our belts and heave them into the van so they can flee the scene.”
He nods and Pax and I hand him our belts and M4's. Then we head for the bedroom and the first guy Pax secured.
He's rolled off his bed, but still bound tightly, trying to scream. I rip the tape off his mouth and he's yelling in Arabic. I cover his mouth and bend close. “You speak English so speak it now, truthfully. We know you bombed the costume party. Did you bomb the bus?”
“Fuck you,” he says. So I put the Glock against his shoulder, careful to make it just a flesh wound, as bone smashing might make him pass out. The roar of the Glock shakes the small bedroom, and his screams are deafening.
I again cover his mouth with a hand. Then instruct, “The next one will blow off your balls,” I shove the muzzle between his legs. “The bus?”
I loosen my hand from his mouth and he chatters in English. “No, no, no, that was not us. We wanted it to be, but it was not. It was not. Please, do not shoot me again.”
“Who was it?” I demand, and his eyes widen even more.
“I do not know…I do not know. I would say. Please, do not shoot me again.”
Taping his mouth again, I shout at Pax. “Let's go.” And we head for the backyard and the hole in the fence, as I dial Vanessa.
She answers and I instruct. “We're finished here. Go home. We've got the van handled.”
In seconds the three of us are loaded up and back slowly out of the driveway. People are coming out of their houses and one dude with a do rag on his forehead is standing in front of the Mehrzad house, his hands on his hips. I ease the van away, then slam on the brakes as the house explodes, blowing the guy in front off his feet, the roof ten feet in the air, and the walls outward. The roof, in jagged panels, collapses back onto the rubble. I wait long enough to make sure the do rag guy is crawling away, then gun it. As we round the first corner, I see the lights of a Vegas PD car flashing. They must have been called with the sound of the first shots.
One of them must have gotten to the explosives.
Careful to maintain the speed limit, we’re soon out on the main drag, and thankful to see a pair of firetrucks roaring our way, lights flashing. I move right and slow to a crawl, then gun it again.
Pax finally speaks up. “What the fuck happened?”
“Too much bomb crap in that corner, I’d guess. Who knows. What I do know is they got hoisted on their own petard. Mama paid the price for her son’s indiscretions, and I’d feel bad about that, except she said, ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ which means to me she at least knew what was coming down.”
Skip leans forward from the back and is not sympathetic. “Y’all lay down with dogs and you get fleas.”
Pax chuckles in a low tone, and adds, “And you let your kid become a bomber and you get blown up right along with him.”
“One good thing,” I say, “there won’t be a lot of DNA evidence left behind.” Which reminds me…I pull onto a side street and into an alley, get out, and go to the back and wipe away the mud I’ve smeared on the license plate, then open the back doors and have Skip hand me some magnetic items. When we drive away we are a white van with green and yellow signs and stripes on both sides. Clark Pest Control is now carefully leaving the scene.
I drop Pax off at his office then Skip, and I head for the ministorage and clean out the van, just in case. Then head back to Weatherwax Internet Services.
I mount the back stairs to find a worried Pax, talking with Vanessa and Gilbert. He turns to me as I top the stairs.
“No one’s heard from Sol, and he’s not answering his cell.”
“Fuck,” I say. Then am sorry I unloaded. It’s back to the ministorage, then off to Moapa.
38
We send Gilbert to Sol’s apartment just to make sure he hasn’t headed home without touching base with us, but I know it’s an exercise in frustration as he always stays in touch as he was told to do.
Before Pax, Skip and I head out, we put Vanessa to work on the computer on John Thunder-Growing’s place.
I’ve given them the chip copy with Silly Thunder-Growing’s phone contents so they have husband John’s number and her contact list. And, surprisingly, she has a number for Flannigan and it proves to be a new number, probably a new throwaway.
As we reload the van we plan our operation, as much as possible as all we have on the Thunder-Growing property is Google Earth, and it’s likely out of date. But the Thunder-Growing property is our only lead.
I caution my pards, “Guys, I didn’t get to R and S the Thunder-Growing place and know little about the layout of the casino. I think Sol was waylaid from there, but odds are, if they grabbed him, he’s at the Thunder-Growing place.”
Skip, sitting on the rear fender and saddle bags of my Harley, leaning up between the van’s bucket seats, laughs. “Not the first time we’ve gone in as a QRF. So Reconnaissance and Surveillance is a luxury. A Quick Reaction Force is what we are so we’ll just roll over anything and anyone getting in our way. As we well know, site intelligence is generally an oxymoron anyway.”
Pax is not so jovial. “From your lips to God’s ears, brother. We’ll be on the rez, and that’s another country. We might as well be back in Iraq.”
“Wrong,” I say, “they speak English and only a few of them will be trying to tear off our heads and piss down our necks. Most of them will hope we’re there to pump dollars into the slots.”
We’re not yet out of town on I-15 when my phone vibrates.
39
“Reardon.” It’s Vanessa on the cell.
“We rang John Thunder-Growing, his wife, and Flannigan, and all of them picked up and we got a hit. All are in range of the Moapa cell tower. Do you have the Fin with you?”
“I do.”
“Then if you can get in range of their phones, we can upload FinSpy and you might have eyes and ears on wherever they are and whatever they’re up to.”
“We’ll be another forty-five minutes. Try and pin their location down in forty minutes then give me another head’s up. You’ll have to walk me through this software if I get in range.”
“Pax can do it.”
“Ten-four.” I turn to Pax, who’s in the suicide seat. “Can Pax do it?”
“What.”
“Install FinSpy if we get close enough to the high value targets.”
He laughs low. “I’ve always hated that term. I figure these assholes are the lowest value motherfuckers on earth…hardly HTV
s.”
“So, I’m exaggerating. You didn’t answer.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” he snaps. “Who the hell do you think trained those brain children?”
“Ha, I forgot. I only keep you around to troll for women who want money over looks, ability, and brains.”
“Just drive. Let’s find Sol. If those fuckers….”
“Yeah, me too.” I clear the International Race Track complex on the north side of town, and kick it up to ninety.
Funny how a coming action takes us back to Iraq and Afghanistan, and into military mode, using acronyms.
We all have our Kevlar vests, battle rattle belts with frag and shock grenades, M4s with optics and interchangeable night vision, helmets with a fold down night vision monocular, Motorola radios with ear pieces in the helmets, and Glock 18 sidearms switchable to fully automatic. We carry a half dozen thirty round magazines for the M4s and four extra sixteen round magazines for the Glocks. Skip and I carry old fashioned, but our preferable, Ka-Bar knives strapped to an ankle. And, of course, our cell phones.
We drive with the helmets on the floorboards, of course, but still, were a Nevada Highway Patrolman to glance into the van, he’d likely call in half the force before attempting to stop us. Luckily the side glass in my van is heavily tinted.
Just before we come on the Moapa Reservation, my phone vibrates, and it’s Vanessa.
“I just did a hang up on all three of them again. They are still in range of the Moapa cell tower.”
Which means they are only a few miles from us now.
“No sign of Sol?”
“Nothing. Gilbert went so far as to pick the lock on his apartment. No sign.”
“Okay. We can’t risk the time to link the FinSpy to Taj in Malta. He’s likely sacked out. You stand by your computer as we’ll link to the company email—”
“No way,” Pax says, loud enough that Vanessa can hear. “Link to [email protected]. That’s an address that goes to Taj and to our office. We at least will have some deniability.”
“You get that, Vanessa?” I ask.
“Ten-four,” she replies.
I glance at my watch. Eleven AM. Knowing what I know about interrogation I can’t imagine puffy-soft Sol standing up to any harsh grilling for long. If they have him, and if he’s still alive, and I cannot imagine another reason for his disappearance.
“How the hell are we going to bust into this guy’s place at midday?” I ask as we pass the Moapa casino turnoff and close the distance to the tiny town, and Highway 168. The Thunder-Growing property is four point six miles north of Highway 168, the turnoff being an unmarked gravel road seven miles northwest of Moapa and Highway 15. The highway basically follows the Muddy River, both a fact and the river’s name.
Pax shrugs and Skip offers no help. So I suggest, “Let’s unload the bike. I’ll dump the gear and keep my 18 under my shirt in the small of my back and break the M4 down into a saddle bag.” We’ve replaced the conventional stocks with folding ones, making them not only easier to conceal, but better for close urban work. “You guys stay with the van and out of sight and, what the hell, I’ll walk up and bang on the door as if I’m low on gas. If you hear the radio and repeated transmit clicks, be the posse and come to the rescue.”
“We can be the cavalry,” Skip says.
“Okay,” I suggest, “there are hog and sheep pens a hundred feet behind the house to the west, and a forty-acre fenced pasture behind that, with a half dozen head of cattle grazing the sparse grass. The big barn is to the north, about another hundred feet. All this from the last Google Earth shot, which might be five years old, he had some heavy equipment…a small dozer, a good size backhoe, and a dump truck parked behind the barn. One of you come in from the back, one of you charge in the van. Let’s not earn taps with friendly fire.”
Pax laughs. “You two are too damn big and ugly to miss.”
“Right.” I give him the finger.
I’m watching the odometer so we don’t miss the turn, when Pax suggests, “I should go in like the fat, dumb, and happy guy low on gas. I don’t do well in pig shit and I know how to use the FinSpy. It would take a week to get it into your thick skull. Besides, I can limp up and they’ll feel extra sorry for me.”
He’s right. “Don’t fuck up my bike, dickhead. You never could ride worth a damn.”
“Screw your bike. Don’t let them fuck me up if things go sour.”
“Then again,” I laugh, and add, “should you be out of the picture, Cindy and I would commiserate in the hot tub with a couple of tall cold ones.”
“That’s cold, is what that is,” Pax says and Skip laughs.
Then Skip asks, “Cindy?”
“Too ugly for you,” I say.
“Right,” he says. “If we’re going to flip for her, I’m in.”
We make the turn. I’ve noticed there’s a ravine that works around to the rear of the house, looking to be fifty yards or so behind the hog and sheep pens and running through the pasture with the few head of cattle.
“While you’re charming whoever’s in the house, I’m going to fire up the drone—”
My phone vibrates, and again, it’s Vanessa. “Can you talk?”
“Fire away,” I reply.
“Two things. The FBI is here with a search warrant. What do I do?”
I hand the phone to Pax, hitting the speaker feature as I do. He listens for a second as she repeats the bad news about the fibbies overrunning the place, then replies, “Fuck ‘em and feed ‘em beans. We’ve got nothing to hide. Make sure you get a receipt for anything they take.”
“Yes, sir, but that’s not the worst of it. Detective Bollinger called and they found Sol’s car, burned up, not far from the Moapa Casino.”
“Jesus,” Pax says. We eye each other.
“Let’s move out,” I say and pull the van over and as we unload the Harley, Pax gives us what’s become his legendary lecture.
“Okay, you gung ho fuck heads, I don’t want to be burying anymore buddies…even you two. If the shit hits the fan, stay low, stay in constant contact, and let’s do our by God best not to shoot each other.”
“Ten-four, Pop,” I say. Pax, after all, is six months older than either Skip or me.
Pax turns to Skip. “Confirm.”
“Ten-four, old man.”
“Fuck you guys. Semper Fi.”
And we both reply, “Semper Fi.”
Pax dumps his gear, other than a handheld Motorola, folds the stock on his M4 and stows it in the Harley’s saddle bags, and untucks the blue long sleeve work shirt he wears under a multi pocketed vest. He clips his Glock onto his belt at the small of his back, pockets the radio, the FinSpy, and a couple of extra magazines in the pockets of the vest, mounts up, and rides.
40
We jump back in the van and move to the top of a low rise so we can see the Thunder-Growing place, then pull off the road. The country is wild with a few clumps of mesquite but mostly low hillocks of sandstone, none much over twenty feet high and most the size of a double car garage—looking like the devil, in a fit of anger, pushed up the earth in spots—most totally bare, some with greasewood or sage.
A jackrabbit bursts from a nearby greasewood and bounds away. A few meadowlarks sing, and a cooper’s hawk circles overhead. In the distance a turkey vulture circles—an ominous sign. I pan the horizon and there’s only one farmhouse in sight and it must be three quarters of a mile away.
My radio crackles and I double click in reply.
He’s talking low. “There are two vehicles…a yellow Dodge truck and a white Ford pickup, and a hot red Chevy Camaro parked at the barn, and an old pickup at the house. I’m headed for the front door.”
Skip and I—me with a good Leupold Mark 4 spotting scope with range finding capabilities—ease up on top the low ridge until we can just see the house and barn, about three eighths of a mile down the gravel road. We watch as Pax dismounts, stretches, then limps toward the front door. I mention, “The
front porch is eighteen hundred and twenty-one yards.”
“I can make that shot with the Lapua,” Skip says, and I don’t doubt him.
“Dig it out of the overhead,” I reply, and he heads back to the van.
The Lapua Magnum—a DRD Kivaari .338 Lapua Semi Auto—is certainly capable of the distance, a few yards over a mile, and Skip was a scout sniper school Force Recon Marine. If he hasn’t lost it, he can make the shot. At about 915 feet per second it’ll take the shot almost six seconds to reach the target. That’s an eternity and lots can happen—wind direction and speed, movement of a live target, etcetera.
As Pax nears the front porch of the house, a pass-through door in a larger drive-through door opens at the barn and a big guy steps out, but he doesn’t leave his position, merely leans on the door frame and watches as Pax bangs on the door. He has straggly blond hair down to his collar. If it’s not Frick I’ll kiss somebody’s butt on Las Vegas Boulevard. The good news: he’s a large target and likely slow moving.
Pax has lock keyed his radio which is in an inside pocket of a vest he wears, and we can hear the conversation.
I zoom the scope up to 60 power and confirm it’s Frick, Rudowski, and see he has a combat shotgun casually held down against his leg, slightly to the rear so it’s out of sight of Pax and the house.
The guy who steps out has a long braid down his back with a feather tied therein, a denim vest open with a prodigious belly pooching out and over his belt, soiled Levi’s, and scuffed cowboy boots.
“Howdy, sir,” Pax says, clearly heard over the Motorola. “I guess I’m a little lost.”
“Highway 168 is about four miles that way, Moapa another six miles left on the highway.”