Unfortunately, by the time Cyrus had taken care of the passenger in the glow of the vehicle’s headlights, the driver had already been out his door, bringing an M4 assault rifle with him. Cyrus had beaten the man to the punch, though. Drawing a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from a holster on his hip, Cyrus fired both chambers in rapid succession. The beanbag rounds from the weapon released at short range had caught the driver square in the chest, knocking him off his feet and sending the rifle flying from his hands. Like the Taser, the ammunition was an effective, non-lethal weapon when used at close range.
Cyrus left the passenger bound, gagged, and dumped in the ditch. He temporarily zip-tied the hands of the unconscious truck driver and left him lying in the road. Then, bathed in the vehicle’s headlights, Cyrus had cleared the road of the staged motorcycle wreckage.
By the time the driver came around, Cyrus was kneeling beside him in the middle of the still deserted country road. It was the perfect location to hijack a truck. But who would be after a shipment that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place? That was the question the driver must’ve been asking himself as he looked at Cyrus with a mix of fear and anger in his eyes. Cyrus held one of the driver’s boots in one hand and reached deep down into it with the other.
It took only a minute for Cyrus to finish what he was doing, showing the man every step of the process as he pressed a short, wide plug of C4 plastic explosive all the way into the very toe of each of the driver’s boots. When he was done, he held the man at gunpoint—a 9mm semi-auto since he had already discarded the beanbag gun. Not giving the man a choice, Cyrus forced him to once more slip on the boots and lace them up tight.
All of that had been about thirty miles back. Once they’d gotten on the road again, the driver, Chuck was his name, had all kinds of questions. But they were the ones you would expect given the unusual circumstances. Why are you doing this? Do you know where I’m going? Do you know who I’m meeting? Do you know what they’ll do to you?
At first Cyrus had taken all of the questions as rhetorical. To start with, Chuck had asked them so rapidly that there hadn’t even been time for an answer. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Cyrus thought the explosives that were currently wedged against the tips of the man’s toes should have spoken volumes.
“Well? Do you?” Chuck persisted. He shot a quick glance at Cyrus before returning his eyes to the road.
So much for being rhetorical.
“Tell me something, Chuck?” Cyrus watched the man, making no effort to hide his amusement. “Are you suggesting that I hijacked this truck at random, on a road in the middle of the night, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere?”
Smack-dab? He chuckled. He was almost certain he’d never used that word before in his life. The rural surroundings were having an effect on him.
Chuck shot him another quick look. He clearly didn’t understand the question.
“I think you’d better focus on the road and worry about the C4 between your toes, Chuck. If everything goes well and you behave yourself, you’ll walk away from all this in one piece.”
Cyrus paused for dramatic effect. “But if you mess with me or you rat me out at the meet? Let’s just say walking will be the least of your worries. Okay?”
Aside from stealing another quick look at him, Chuck didn’t answer. Since his life would soon hang in the balance, Cyrus needed to make sure that Chuck was entirely clear on his predicament.
“Tell me that you understand, Chuck,” Cyrus said. He was speaking to the man with patience, but using the tone of a parent with an unruly child.
After watching Chuck lace up the improvised explosives that had become his military issue boots, Cyrus let the man watch as he’d taken off his own hiking boot. At first, the confusion was clear in Chuck’s face…but only until Cyrus produced a small, flat wedge of aluminum. After pulling a long, thin pin from the length of the wedge, Cyrus had squeezed the wedge between his fingers and showed Chuck the pressure sensitive trigger. Then Cyrus slid the wedge into the heel of his boot, slipped the boot back on his foot, and laced it up again. The point was made very clear.
Chuck had looked at him in horror, at first thinking his own feet would be blown off the very first time Cyrus stepped down hard on the heel of his boot. But that wasn’t the case, Cyrus had explained. Chuck would be entirely safe as long as he did everything that he was told to do. But it was important for him to realize that Cyrus had the ability to trigger the explosives before anyone could stop him, and use a device that no one would find on him during a patdown.
Between the explosives in his boots and his knowledge of the trigger, Cyrus could understand the man’s irritation. But he wasn’t entirely sure Chuck had a full grasp of his circumstances.
“I’m just here to make the same deal as you and your buddy,” Cyrus explained. “If you play it cool and follow my lead, you’ll be just fine. As soon as we’re out of that place, you can take your boots off, and we’ll go our separate ways.”
Taking another glance at him, Chuck seemed like he had something to say. Instead, he settled for a longer, more penetrating examination of his hijacker.
“These aren’t nice guys you’re messing with,” Chuck warned. “If you don’t have a damn convincing explanation for why you’re here and why Jackson ain’t, you’re going to get us both killed.”
Cyrus smiled. Now they were getting somewhere. Chuck was finally accepting the situation.
“I’ve got that covered. Just play along and everything will be fine. I don’t want to hurt you. Keep in mind that I didn’t kill your buddy Jackson back there, I just hogtied him and left him in a ditch. He’ll be fine, come morning.”
Hogtied? My God, Cyrus mused. At this rate, I’ll say ‘yee-haw’ before the night’s through.
Chapter 2
District 1198 Garage
11:37 p.m.
Watching from the thick brush of the tree line, Hondo had maintained a visual on the abandoned bus garage for the last seven hours. He was part of a twelve-man team that surrounded the facility in preparation for the operation that was due to kick off at any minute.
The four acre paved parking lot laid out before him had seen better days. The asphalt was cracked, eroded, and entirely washed away in some areas. Likewise, the twenty-thousand square foot structure located in the center of the grounds had been devastated by the elements. The facade was made of brick that once made the structure look like an urban office building. But that thin ornamental finish had since fallen away in small sections, giving way to the elements and exposing corrugated steel walls. The grounds had once been the central location for the storage and maintenance of school buses in the tri-county area; tonight, it would see far more excitement.
Hondo had watched the sad looking building and surrounding grounds for so long that it had given him a lot of time to think. He couldn’t understand how the county, or perhaps the state government, could’ve invested so much in the construction of it all only to later abandon the facility all together and simply leave it to rot. No doubt someone had justified the move, claiming that it made financial sense, but he couldn’t see how the math could possibly work out to anyone’s advantage—not once the facility had been built and was already operational. The buses, he reasoned, still ran, and they still needed to be parked somewhere. It was just one of so many rusted cogs that were part of a vast machine—a world that seemed forever off-kilter.
Mulling these issues, Hondo had kept his patience, waiting for the information provided in their intelligence report to be proven accurate. And then, two hours earlier, headlights had appeared in the surrounding wilderness. The bus garage sat in a secluded area about a mile off the county highway; not the sort of place people wandered by on accident. A team member stationed near the only road leading to it had radioed in to report the approach of three four-wheel-drive vehicles and a large white box truck.
Hondo had watched as the small caravan advanced on the abandoned bus garage. The lead vehicle st
opped before the gate, and a figure climbed out to remove a padlock that secured the eight-foot perimeter fence. With that, their suspicion had been confirmed. When his team first scouted the site, while everything about the location was in a progressive state of disrepair, the padlock and chain securing the swinging front gates had been the only metal within miles that was shiny and completely rust free.
Ever since, Hondo had watched the building—sometimes through infrared binoculars, and sometimes through powerful heat-sensing optics that let him see the silhouettes of the men moving inside the massive structure.
“What have you got?”
The voice came from behind, and while Hondo hadn’t been aware of the man’s presence, the interruption didn’t alarm him in the least. “Hey, Captain,” he whispered, as his squad commander belly crawled up beside him and took cover beneath the same short stack of scrub brush. “Nothing new here. But judging by the time, we should be ready for kickoff.”
“Hmm,” the man grunted. “I hope you’re right. I can’t say I’ve got a lot of confidence in this friend of yours. I think we’re all just wasting our time.”
Looking over at his commanding officer, Hondo pushed the dark, floppy jungle hat back on his head and grinned. “Not to worry Cap’n. He’s a good man. He knows the plan and he’ll follow through.”
“Hmm,” the Captain repeated. There was still no conviction in his tone. “Maybe if you told me how it is you know this kid? Give me something to work with here. I don’t like putting my men in harm’s way over an unknown. All of this is hanging on the likes of a goddamn kid, for God’s sake. A kid, I don’t know from Adam.”
“Sorry, sir,” Hondo said. He returned his gaze to the garage. “That’s classified intel from another op. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, bullshit,” the man grumbled quietly. “The kid’s, what? Barely out of high school? Classified op, my left nut.”
Hondo fought his own smirk. He didn’t dare face his C.O. and risk the man’s ire. “You know his age is what made him perfect for his job,” he reminded the man. “Yormanski was going to take the lead on the operation until he got shot. Without him, we didn’t have another operative who was young enough to play the part. It was either Cyrus, or we scrap the mission. How long did you say the boys in intelligence have been tracking this guy?”
“Okay, first of all, Yormanski didn’t get shot in the field—or in an operation for that matter.”
“Right, he was shot by his girlfriend, the way I heard it. Shot in the ass, as rumor has it—”
“That’s beside the point,” the Captain snapped.
An uncomfortable silence followed. It was one that Hondo knew better than to be the first to break. He understood the Captain’s uncertainty and knew that, if he were in his place, he would feel exactly the same way.
“Okay,” the Captain finally said in the ghost of a voice. “Yormanski’s a putz. If he couldn’t keep his girl from shooting him in the ass, maybe we’re better off this way.”
Both men chuckled.
A voice sounded over the headsets in both men’s ears. “We have a personnel carrier on the approach,” the voice offered in a concise report. “ETA, three minutes.”
“Game time,” Hondo whispered.
The Captain was already slipping backward across the ground on his way out of the hide. “Let’s see if your boy lives up to all the hype, lieutenant.”
Chapter 3
District 1198 Garage
11:52 p.m.
The heavy six-wheeled military transport vehicle rattled down a mile long stretch of potholed asphalt that had once constituted the driveway leading to the now abandoned parking garage. As they rounded the last remaining gentle bend in the road and the truck’s windscreen cleared the thick forest, Cyrus found the rusted and leaning chain link fence that surrounded the facility a welcomed site—even though it was guarded by a pair of men with automatic rifles. It marked the end of that horrible road. One that would’ve made for an unpleasant journey in a well-equipped SUV, it had been a downright torturous ride in the abused military transport.
Chuck’s trepidation at the sight of the armed guards was obvious. His foot eased off the accelerator, and the heavy vehicle slowed immediately.
“Take it easy, Chuck,” Cyrus warned. “You play it cool or we’re both going to get shot. Keep driving. Pull up to the gate nice and smooth. There’s nothing wrong here—nothing for you to worry about, and nothing to get these guys upset over. If they get upset, we’re in deep shit. You get me?”
Though he didn’t reply, Chuck’s foot once more found the accelerator and the truck resumed its previous pace. Cyrus wasn’t sure if Chuck’s silence was in response to the explosive that was currently stuck between his toes, or if the man was just normally taciturn. He just hoped they lived long enough to find out.
“When we get to the gate they’re going to raise hell,” Cyrus explained. “They’ll want to know why I’m here and Jackson isn’t. Just be cool and play along.”
This time, at least Chuck offered a nod in acknowledgment.
The moment the truck reached the gate, they had a pair of rifles leveled at them. And Cyrus’s predictions were proven to be entirely accurate when a third man appeared out of the darkness and climbed up to the window on Cyrus’s side of the truck. He held a pistol only inches from Cyrus’s face and demanded an explanation. Feigning more concern than he actually felt, Cyrus explained that he was a cousin of Jackson’s, the man who was supposed to make the delivery. He said that Jackson got held up and couldn’t make it so he’d been forced to fill in.
The man with the gun didn’t seem to like the explanation, but he looked to Chuck sitting behind the wheel and asked if that was true. Chuck, a man that these people had apparently worked with in the past, confirmed Cyrus’s story with a grunt. It was enough to at least get them through the gate. The man with the gun cast an intimidating eye at Cyrus and told him to explain everything to a man named Stills who would be waiting for them inside. But, he warned, if Stills wasn’t happy with his story, the two of them would be talking again real soon.
Chapter 4
District 1198 Garage
11:58 p.m.
No sooner had the heavy military truck rolled into the dark confines of the abandoned bus garage than the heavy steel overhead door slammed shut. The wide, empty floor of the structure was cloaked in darkness; only a circle of light marked their destination fifty-feet beyond. A loose perimeter of sodium vapor flood lamps mounted atop temporary tripods highlighted the five armed men awaiting their arrival. Just beyond the glare of the perimeter light, Cyrus could make out the vague outline of a large white box truck.
“Is this what you were expecting?” he quietly asked Chuck without turning his head to look at the man.
Chuck didn’t answer. All Cyrus was offered came in the form of a vague shrug seen from the corner of his eye.
Chuck…the brilliant conversationalist.
When the truck reached the center of the circle of light, Chuck stepped on the brake and shifted the manual transmission into ‘neutral’. There was a horrible crunching sound as he applied the parking brake, and Cyrus’s concern for the questionable maintenance history of the vehicle was once more reinforced. Prior to putting Chuck behind the wheel, back on the remote country road, Cyrus had taken a quick look at the truck, including the undercarriage. It was unlikely that the military base would miss that particular transport any time soon. That, in and of itself, had concerning implications.
“Hands where I can seem them and step out of the truck,” came the order.
From the edge of the windscreen, Cyrus could see the man who had spoken. Tall, maybe six-foot-four with short cropped graying hair, he seemed to be the leader. He, and the remaining four men, had a similar look—all military or ex-military. And while each had the hardened look of an experienced solider, there was an edge to the grey-haired man that suggested authority. That, and the fact he was the first of the group to speak up, led C
yrus to peg him as the man in charge.
Making slow and steady moves, Cyrus pushed open the door and climbed down to the cracked concrete floor. Two men, each armed with an M4 rifle, tracked his movements with the barrels of their guns.
“What’s going on here?” Cyrus heard Grey-hair grumble from the far side of the truck. Presumably he was addressing Chuck. “Who’s the new guy? Where’s Jackson?”
Cyrus was immediately pushed forward and marched around the front of the truck where he was met by two more men shouldering rifles. Grey-hair gave Chuck a violent shove toward the front of the truck, and the man stumbled over to stand beside Cyrus.
“I don’t like the change in plans,” the man spat. “Explain—and make it quick!”
Holding his upraised hands in a placating gesture, Cyrus took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said in a dry, uncomfortable voice. “Easy enough. Jackson couldn’t make it, so I had to fill in. But it’s cool—we’ve got the shipment. Everything’s accounted for.”
“That doesn’t explain who you are,” Grey-hair growled, taking a threatening step in Cyrus’s direction.
Instantly taking a half-step backward in response, Cyrus raised his hands once more. “Sorry! I’m sorry. My name’s Brodie, I’m sure Jackson’s mentioned me before? I’m his cousin.”
“Cousin Brodie? Okay, cousin Brodie—tell me something? What makes you think Jackson would share the contents of his ‘family tree’ with me? I don’t know you—never heard of you in my life.”
Cyrus shuddered. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Well,” he looked Grey-hair right in the eye and scowled. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Jackson’s an asshole—always has been. I should’ve expected he would try to cut me out of the deal,” Cyrus added in a bitter tone. “He’s a real sonofabitch, too. I’m his inside man for this transaction, for God’s sake. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even have access to the hardware he’s selling.”
Dangerous Minds: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book One Page 3