Farnsworth laughed. “Sonny, you try it and you’ll be the one bleeding. Now you and surfer boy here listen and listen good. Pete Roscoe knows you’re here and he’ll be ready for you when you go after him.”
“He doesn’t know we’re here,” Romeo said.
“Yes he does,” Zoe said. “He was watching you guys climb up that hill earlier.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t you grab him then?” Cody asked.
“If we had, you two would have come after us and tried to take him away,” Farnsworth said. “I’m only warning you now because these girls asked me to do it.”
“We don’t want you to get blown up like you almost did at that shack,” Zoe said.
“What? You were there too?” Romeo said.
Zoe realized she had said too much and clamped a hand over her mouth.
“I don’t know what your game is, Farnsworth, but we’re not buying your act,” Cody said. “Pete Roscoe has no idea we’re here, and we’re going in tonight to grab him. And yeah, if you get to him first, we’ll take him away from you.”
“Goodbye, old man,” Romeo said.
Farnsworth smiled. “I tried to warn them, girls, but they’re going to have to learn the hard way.”
Kayla took Cody’s hand.
“We’re not lying. Roscoe knows you’re here.”
Cody freed his hand, then just stared at her.
Kayla stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.
“Don’t get killed.”
Zoe did the same with Romeo, as Farnsworth looked on.
The old man climbed behind the wheel of the van and the girls slid in beside him.
“We’ll see you boys around,” Farnsworth said, as the van rolled away.
When he judged it was safe to do so without being seen, Cody dropped down and shimmied beneath the car, where he found the tracking device.
“No way,” Romeo said, as he realized what Cody was holding.
“Yeah, that’s how they got here; they followed us.”
“Did you believe what they said about Roscoe knowing we were here?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Hell no,” Romeo said. “We were trained better than to just go charging in blind.”
“You stay here in case that old truck leaves the trailer. I’ve got some shopping to do.”
“You’re going to rig up a distraction?”
“Like Spenser says, deception and stealth are our best tools.”
“I know, and in a few hours, Roscoe will be ours.”
“Do you think they’ll just charge in there, Granddad?” Kayla asked Farnsworth.
“Honey, you don’t have to worry about those two, they know what they’re doing.”
“Why do you sound so sure?” Zoe asked.
“I’m a good judge of people. That kid with the evil eyes is a smart one; a punk like Roscoe won’t get the better of him.”
“I’m still worried,” Kayla said.
“Don’t be. I’ll be watching those boys’ backs. As soon as it gets dark I’m going over to that trailer.”
“What? But what if Roscoe sees you?”
“He won’t, and neither will those boys. I’ve been doing this type of work a long time, honey. I know how to move in the dark.”
“I don’t like it, but what about us?” Zoe said.
“You’ll be busy too, and if things go the way I expect them to, Pete Roscoe will be hog-tied in this van in a few hours.”
Kayla grinned, and as they often did, the girls spoke the same words at the same time. “What do you need us to do, Granddad?”
Farnsworth laughed. “You’re going to like this.”
A few hours later, after sunset, Pete Roscoe had finished rigging a propane tank to blow up the trailer. He left a battery-powered lantern burning and the radio on, to make it seem like someone was inside. After easing out onto the trailer’s rickety metal steps, he set up the wire that would trigger the explosion and closed the door.
When he reached Nate, he saw that the man was crying.
“What are you bawling about?”
“I’m really going to miss my trailer.”
“You’ll be better off without it.”
“What do we do now, sit in the truck?”
“No, we’re going out in the field there in case those boys decide to come over the hill. If they try that, we’ll blast them with our guns and bury them out in the desert.”
“I hope they do come that way. Then my trailer won’t have to be blown up.”
“Yeah, but they’ll probably come stomping up the driveway,” Roscoe said.
He was wrong, because Cody and Romeo had already crested the hill and were headed their way.
35
Psst, Over Here
MOUNT VERNON, NEW YORK, MARCH 2018
Tanner had sent Cord up to the house to meet with Geary while having two objectives in mind. The first, was that Cord’s presence would distract and further confuse Geary, and secondly, it would force his bodyguards to split up, as it had.
While two of the men were off checking the property, the remaining two had led Geary indoors, not knowing that Tanner and Andrea had come in through a rear window to wait for them.
Tanner whistled once, and the four men and one woman standing by the door turned and looked in his direction. Tanner was crouched at the end of a hallway, in the threshold of the kitchen, with Andrea behind and to the right of him. They both held their guns up and were ready to use them.
Cynthia grasped Geary’s arm. “Those are the cops I told you about.”
“He’s no cop; that’s Tanner,” Cord said.
“We’re here for Geary,” Tanner told the guards. “Don’t be stupid and you’ll live.”
One of the men guarding Geary, the one who had driven the limo, raised his hands in surrender, however, the one with the rifle was bringing it up to fire. Tanner placed a round on the left side of his forehead and the man dropped like a stone.
Cord attempted to run away even though his hands were cuffed behind his back. Andrea fired three rounds at him. Two of them caught Cord in the torso. He went down hard and crashed into a table, then lay face up. Given the amount of blood soaking the carpet beneath him, Cord would bleed out in minutes.
Geary grabbed Cynthia and ducked behind the burly limo driver, then tried to open the door. Tanner placed a round between the driver’s legs and caught Geary in the calf. The man howled in pain, but he kept trying to open the door.
Thinking he had been shot at, the limo driver went for his gun. Before his hand could close around the grip, Tanner shot him in the chest twice and the driver collapsed backwards. Cynthia screamed as the blood hit her, and the driver’s weight against her drove her down to the floor.
Geary had finally managed to open the door, but when the driver fell back against Cynthia, she in turn pressed against Geary and knocked him off balance. The door slammed shut as Geary slid to the floor.
By the time Geary made it to his feet, Andrea was standing nearby and pointing her gun at him.
“Remember me, asshole?”
Apparently, Geary didn’t, because he gave Andrea a blank look.
“I’m Andrea Barker. You had my father killed.”
“Oh,” Geary said.
Those remaining alive startled from the sound of the rifle going off, as well as the noise of the picture window shattering.
Tanner had claimed the rifle from the floor and was shooting at the guards who had gone off to check out the property. Having heard the gunshots, the men were returning to the home to investigate. Their training and caution had placed them twenty feet apart from each other. However, Tanner’s marksmanship was such that he could hit both men before either could take cover.
And yet, the rifle had been unfamiliar to him, and so he had to place another shot in the first man he’d hit, as he had only wounded him in the thigh. With both men dead, Tanner turned to deal with Geary, and receive
d a surprise.
Cynthia Geary had claimed the gun from the holster of the dead limo driver. She had one arm wrapped around Andrea’s throat and was pressing the barrel of the gun against Andrea’s side.
“Drop the rifle or I’ll kill her,” Cynthia said.
And to Andrea’s surprise, Tanner did just that, and as the rifle dropped to the floor, Dalton Geary dove for it.
36
The Choice
DOUGLAS, ARIZONA, APRIL 1999
Romeo kept watch while listening intently, as Cody prepared a distraction for Roscoe and his friend Nate. A soft glow illuminated the hill they had crawled over due to the light of the shopping center’s signs. Still, across the expanse where Nate’s trailer sat, the darkness was almost total.
It was after one a.m. and the shopping center’s stores were all closed, with traffic sporadic out on the highway. Nate’s trailer was distinguishable due to the glow of a light burning inside it.
If Farnsworth hadn’t been lying, then that light was a ruse to draw them in, and Roscoe and his friend were in wait nearby and ready to pounce.
Cody was tying a pair of flashlights onto a cactus so that they would dangle at the height a man might hold one. Once they were secure, he added the batteries. He was careful to only tighten the flashlights’ tops enough to barely make contact, so that they flickered on and off when he shook them. As Cody tested them, he kept a hand over the lenses, so the light wouldn’t travel. Once done, he and Romeo moved away quickly, so as not to become targets themselves.
Cody whispered to Romeo.
“I hope this works. If the flashlights stay dark, I just wasted our time.”
“It worked when we tested it in the car; all we need is a breeze to shake the flashlights.”
That breeze came a moment after they stepped away, and the flashlights blazed to life as their contacts connected with their batteries. From a distance, it looked as if two people holding lights were walking along in the dark.
Romeo gave Cody a soft punch on the shoulder to celebrate, then the boys moved silently toward the trailer.
Less than ten feet away and lying prone on the ground, Farnsworth shook his head in admiration of Cody’s plan. He had come over the hill long before the boys arrived and had observed everything. While looking at the flashlights hanging from their strings, Farnsworth smiled.
“Clever boy.”
“Look! There they are,” said Nate, as he pointed out at the twin glows just over two hundred feet away. He and Roscoe had moved into position far behind and to the right of the trailer, where they sat in a pair of folding lawn chairs. They had been waiting for the explosion of the rigged trailer blowing up. Roscoe had been so certain that the boys would come charging in to attack the trailer, but now, it appeared he had been wrong.
Roscoe laughed. “They think they’re being slick by sneaking over the hill, but the dumb-asses are using flashlights.” Roscoe picked up his rifle. “This is going to be easy.”
Nate drained his beer before reaching for his shotgun, but when he looked out at the field, the lights were off.
“What happened?” Nate said.
“I don’t know. Maybe they turned them—”
Roscoe stopped speaking as the lights came on again. A breeze had activated the lights once more, but the gust was too strong, and the beams swung around wildly.
“What the hell?” Roscoe muttered.
“Look behind you,” said a whispered voice, which seemed to originate from the very air itself. It was Farnsworth warning Roscoe. If he had stayed silent, Cody and Romeo would have snuck up on Roscoe and Nate.
By issuing a warning, Farnsworth had increased the chances that Roscoe would flee and head off across the field. That was what Farnsworth needed to happen if his plan was to work. Pete Roscoe was more likely to blow up a target or ambush them. Farnsworth was betting that a man like Roscoe wouldn’t stick around to engage in a fair firefight.
“Who said that?” Nate asked. “Where’d that voice come from?”
Roscoe said nothing, but he was looking around, and he spotted Cody and Romeo headed toward them.
“They’re behind us, Nate, shoot them,” As Nate turned to look, Roscoe crouched low and moved off to the left.
Nate brought up his shotgun to fire, but he never got the chance as a round fired by Romeo hit him in the arm and made him drop his weapon. The boys were on him in an instant. As Romeo emptied Nate’s shotgun, Cody questioned him.
“Pete Roscoe, where is he?” Cody asked.
“He was just here,” Nate said through gritted teeth, as his wound made him wince in pain. It actually wasn’t much of a wound, as the round had sliced across Nate’s right biceps, and not entered the arm.
A breeze rose up, which caused the flashlights to come on again out in the field; visible on the edge of their glow was the fleeing figure of Pete Roscoe.
The boys were about to sprint off after Roscoe when Nate pointed at his trailer.
“Oh damn, that girl is gonna set off Pete’s bomb.”
Cody and Romeo looked toward the trailer and saw the silhouette of a female figure carrying a rifle. They were facing the side of the trailer and could tell that the girl was headed for the trailer’s door. As another figure came into view at the rear of the trailer, they could make out long red hair as she stepped into the glow coming from a window. While one girl took the front, the other was going to come in through a back window.
“That’s Kayla and Zoe,” Romeo said.
“They’re gonna blow up my trailer,” Nate said.
Cody and Romeo gave a momentary glance toward the fleeing Roscoe, cursed out loud, then sprinted toward the girls while yelling at them to stop. Romeo headed toward the rear to save Zoe, while Cody rushed to warn Kayla.
As he neared the trailer while still yelling, Cody wondered if he were going to get caught in the blast.
“Kayla don’t touch that door!”
Cody rounded the corner of the trailer and found Kayla and Zoe sitting on the front steps of the trailer. Both girls carried rifles, and they were smiling wide. Romeo appeared. When he saw Zoe, he grinned at her.
“Thank God, you’re safe; the trailer is rigged to blow.”
“No, it’s not,” said Kayla while pointing. “Granddad took care of it before we got here.”
Cody looked to where she had indicated and saw a homemade bomb with black and red wires coming out of it. Someone had placed it by the trailer’s door after snipping the wires that ran to a 9-volt battery.
The girls rose and began walking down the driveway and Cody got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He called to the girls.
“Where’s your grandfather?”
“Here he comes now,” Zoe said.
The white backup lights of Farnsworth’s blue van illuminated the driveway as he drove in reverse along the concrete surface. The girls ran to meet him. When they opened the rear doors to climb in, an overhead light came on. Lying on the floor of the van was Pete Roscoe. He was gagged and bound up tight inside a white sheet that fit him like a cocoon.
Kayla and Zoe laughed, then blew kisses at the boys, right before slamming the van doors shut.
“Damn it, no!” Cody said, he sprinted toward the van with Romeo beside him, but Farnsworth had the vehicle moving again. As Farnsworth turned left to drive onto the highway, he sent the boys a wink and a smile.
Cody and Romeo raced across the highway to where they’d left their car parked near a dumpster. After getting in, Cody turned the key. Nothing happened.
“No!”
He leapt from the car, opened the hood, and found that the battery was missing. Romeo saw it too, but he had an idea.
“The truck, Nate’s truck. We’ll take that.”
Back across the highway they went, and a glance told Cody that Farnsworth’s van wasn’t in sight anymore. Upon reaching the trailer, they found Nate standing by it. He was pouring beer over his arm wound.
“Give me your truck keys?” Cody
said.
“They’re already in the truck,” Nate said. “Hey, are you gonna steal it?”
The truck had been moved and parked off to the side of the driveway, so it wouldn’t get caught in the blast when the trailer blew up.
Cody ripped open the door, prepared to hop inside, then saw that the seat was already occupied. The battery from their car was resting on it.
“That old son of a bitch,” Cody said.
Filled with fury, Cody snatched the battery off the seat and began running with it back toward the car.
“Yo, Cody, why don’t we use the truck?”
“Try it. I’ll bet you it doesn’t work.”
Romeo turned the key. Sure enough, nothing happened.
Farnsworth had better than a five minute head start by the time the boys got moving. As the hours passed and the truth became ever clearer, the boys felt despair growing within. Farnsworth had outsmarted them, they had lost their chance at Roscoe. They had failed their test.
“We didn’t fuck up,” Romeo said.
“What do you mean?” Cody said.
“I wouldn’t do anything different back there, would you?”
Cody thought it over.
“No, I wouldn’t do anything different either, because we believed we were saving the girls, but we failed all the same.”
“I know,” Romeo said.
No Tanner had ever failed to complete a contract.
Would Spenser allow them to continue on in their training after this? The answer was a clear no. They had failed and failed miserably while being outclassed by an old man and his teenage granddaughters.
Had they been lesser men, they would have cried.
37
You Have My Word
MOUNT VERNON, NEW YORK, MARCH 2018
After dropping the rifle, Tanner went for the gun on his hip.
While Dalton Geary dove for the rifle, Tanner placed a shot into Cynthia Geary’s left eye, as she peeked out at him from behind Andrea. Tanner then lowered the gun and pressed it to the back of Dalton Geary’s head. Geary’s hands were on the rifle, but it would do him no good. If he so much as twitched, Tanner would kill him.
Young Guns 3Beyond Limits Page 13