“Yeah?” She looked like she was ninety-five percent big eyes and five percent hope.
“Good job. As usual.” His smile was back. She could tell he was trying to soften up enough to not scare the shit out of everyone. He was mostly successful.
They all gathered in the scene shop. Al had talked with Edith already. The conversation had been hushed, intense, and very, very fast. They had come up with a loose plan and a bunch of data. They were going to wing it, but they would wing it with their eyes wide open.
“OK. Short on time. No questions unless we have to stop for them. Edith found three residences that are owned by Bannerman, perhaps four, but we think three. They’re in Malta, Freeport, and Arlington. The one in Freeport is his official place. It’s the one the PO knows about. Freeport and Arlington are one hundred miles away, give or take, and Malta is seventy miles, give or take. Any of them could be our ultimate destination.”
Edith jumped in, “This is a big fucking empty state, so this could go down in any cornfield anywhere. The chances are the best that we’ll be near a town, there will be some kind of cover, and noise won’t be a problem. We’ll know for sure in a couple minutes, but be ready for anything.”
Al jumped back in. “My guess is that me, Gil, and Sheena will be instructed to go to a location together in one car with no one following. No cops, of course. And no weapons. He thinks he can check for vehicles following and official vehicles. He also thinks intimidation will make us bring as little fire power as possible. I have these two guns.” He pulled out a Smith and Wesson 9mm M and P with no thumb-safety. It was a good “fun gun,” but with no safety, it was a wee bit dangerous. The other was a hammerless Smith and Wesson .38 special. Al really liked this gun. It was fun to shoot, but it was also a good back-up piece. It was all he’d brought, so they’d have to do. “He’ll talk to you on the phone, which you will have on speaker the whole time. That part is integral, speaker on. He’ll want you to throw your weapons. Do it. Try to control your throws, I’d like to get these back if I can.”
“You talk like we’ll make it through this.” It was Sheena. Al ignored her, and Sunny went over and put an arm around her.
Al continued. “As soon as we know where we’re going, Edith and I are going to split in her Boxster and get way the fuck in front of you. I am going to hope that I can push a little till we clear the city, then I’ll take back roads and punch it. With two of the properties, one hundred miles away and seventy miles away, we’ll get to either of them at least fifteen minutes before you do. We’ll do some recon on the way. You will have a phone charger, and the phone will be charging the whole time.”
Edith “I checked coverage maps and there are no dead zones anywhere we are going to stop. Of any of the possible routes we’ll take, the most ‘dead pockets’ we’ll hit is three, but they’re really fucking small. No outages in any networks and no scheduled tower maintenance tonight, so we’re clear.”
“Here is where it gets a little scary. Edith and I get there first and try to get in position. We’ll have to park at least a mile away and jog in. So there is a chance you will have to talk with this asshole before we take him out. Shrek’s Al imitation is pretty spot-on, so I don’t think Eric will notice the difference. Anything said in the car will be heard by Bannerman if you have him on speaker. Edith has a Bluetooth for each of you so you can hear us talking on another phone to you. It’s a little complicated. Can you explain it, E?”
Edith put two phones on the table. They were marked with big pieces of masking tape. One said “Asshole” the other said “Good Guys.” She had a corresponding phone that said “Good Guys” she clearly demonstrated as she placed it in her pocket. “The ‘asshole’ phone is Al’s phone. It will be called by Bud’s phone. That is Bannerman, AKA Asshole. The other phone is the one that is hooked up to us. We’ll all be on Bluetooth. You all know how to turn on your ear pieces?” They all nodded. “Far out. Now, if Asshole is on the phone, you can’t talk to us. We will hear everything he says to you and everything you say back. We can give you instructions he won’t hear. If you have a pressing question that you can’t fit in as a disguised ‘double question’ to asshole, tough shit. Ask it later. We’ll have the good-guy line open the whole time. If the call drops, we will call you back. I’ve set that phone to silent with no vibration, so if you lose us, look at the screen on that phone. Do not call us. Leave the Asshole phone on the seat in front and the Good Guys phone in the glove box. Clear?” Everyone gave an affirmative response.
Al turned to Shrek. It was eerie. Sheena had airbrushed the mask, securely attached it to Shrek’s face with spirit gum--a type of theatre makeup glue--and used some other makeup techniques to get everything as realistic as possible. There were some differences in body type. Shrek was about an inch and a half taller and a little fatter, but it was as close as it got. “Shrek, last time. You sure?”
“Let’s rock, man.”
“So you three, Shrek, Gill, and Sheena, will all ride in Shrek’s Kia Optima. We went with that instead of Sunny’s because the Kia is a four-door and I don’t want someone stuck in the back with no way to get out. Shrek, driving will be weird with the mask, but Gill has a little whiff of alcohol on his breath and Sheena doesn’t drive. I suggest Shrek drives, Gill rides shotgun, and Sheena is in the back seat.
“And until we get the other details, which should be any second, we can go no further. So we wait for the Asshole phone. I’m going to take the call on speaker and try to adjust my voice to match Shrek’s imitation of my voice. He won’t be looking for a double-cross this far ahead of the operation. He’ll be more tense when we’re where all this goes down. Questions?”
Gill said, “Nope. I think we’re all good.”
Everyone else nodded their assent. Sunny added, “I feel like I’m copping out by not going in, but I agree with what you said, Al. I’ll be here in case anything bad goes down, and I have the list of all the local police and sheriffs’ jurisdictions you’ll be near. Call and say where you are, and I’ll call the local rollers.”
“Last thing.” Al looked at all of them. “I intend to kill this fucker. Even if he’s unarmed on his knees begging, I’m putting a bullet in his head or a knife in his chest. If that bugs you, well, I guess you can always shoot yourself, cuz I can guarantee, if given half a chance, this guy will spill your guts on your shoes. I swear that on my mother’s name.”
Edith was going to add something else when the phone that said Asshole rang. The ringtone was one that sounded like an old-school phone. It was a mockery of what phones used to be. It was like one of those eels that looks like part of a reef until it reaches out and bites your fingers off.
Al said, “Showtime.”
He picked up the phone put it on speaker and the voice on the other end said “Are we all met?”
“Tell me a story,” Al said. The plan was laid out and then the phone went dead.
“Alea iacta est,” Edith said and started rapidly walking toward the doors.
“What does that mean?” asked Sheena, who had stared on the way out, as well.
Shrek said from behind his Al face, “The die is cast. It means it’s in the hands of fate.” Sunny called after them, “Safe journey!” The finality of the noise the doors made when they closed was followed by a low keening sound. It took Sunny a moment to realize it was coming from her.
71
Eric was ready. He was sitting in front a large high-definition monitor. He had a clear shot of the gate that led into the property in Malta. It was a night-vision camera that could be switched to regular vision remotely. He could also change the focus, zoom, and pan, all from his comfortable desk chair, at his comfortable desk in his comfortable house that he would soon leave behind.
He had thought it all out. There wouldn’t be any activity at his house until well into the next day. He might get a call sometime the next day, but Bud wasn’t due back in until the next day, and the bodies they pulled wouldn’t be identified until the end of t
he next day at the earliest. That sort of speed would take an act of God. It would most likely be two to three days before anyone picked up on anything.
He had given very specific guidelines to Al and his crew. He had given them a time frame. They had between seventy-five and ninety minutes to get there. It could be done easily at the posted speed limits. According to a real-time traffic program he had found online, the estimate was just about dead-on.
He had set his watch alarm for seventy minutes. He’d come and sit when it went off and just wait for everyone to get in place. He was going to wait until the gate was opened and everyone was in the car before he set fire to the barn remotely. He’d continue a short conversation with them. Let them know that their pig friend was in the barn and was going to burn alive. After they were all awash in fear, Eric would do his big reveal, say who he was and what he’d been up to. Then he would say they could slowly pull forward as he was setting off the fertilizer bomb under the car. They’d have enough time to figure something was going to happen; then they’d all get blown to little tiny pieces.
Eric went out to the small barn he had here. He used it for training with his weapons. He had all of them up in a cabinet. He also had a bench and some tools for cleaning them. Swords in general tended to rust fairly quickly if you didn’t perform maintenance on them. Eric was out here every week or so, and whenever he was here, he scrubbed all the exposed metal with fine steel wool and rubbed it with oil, leaving a light patina on the surface. None of his swords had a bit of rust or corrosion on them.
Eric had two sets of all the weapons he practiced. He never sparred with anyone. He knew he’d never have the chance. No one came over here, and no one would want to come out here and spar with sharp swords, let alone doing it with a convicted killer.
He’d cleaned and scrubbed half of his stuff earlier and figured he had the time to do the rest tonight. He was bringing the weapons with him. He intended to run all of the edged weapons through Marty’s body. He had fantasized about someone coming into the building and finding Marty impaled on ten different weapons. He loved that image. It always made him feel like the white-hatted cowboy in some old black-and-white Western.
He had a set of two-handed swords; some people called them claymores, but they weren’t precisely correct. He had a set of two beautiful shorter one-handed swords that were paired with stout shields. There were two sets each of rapiers with daggers, transition rapiers--a little longer and a little narrower than their rapier and dagger cousins--and, finally, a set of authentic 19th-century dueling small swords. Eric loved small swords. They were the fastest and most deadly hand-to-hand weapons ever developed by Western civilization. A small sword didn’t even have sharpened edges past the first third of the blade. From the tip to about a third of the way to the grip, the blade was sharp-edged, and the tip was wickedly sharp. Dueling with small swords was like dueling with giant sewing machine needles. When they were used properly, attacks and parries came at blinding speed, and much of the time attacks and parries were happening at the same time. A person would be thrusting the tip of the small sword with it angled to give them protection from an incoming attack. Historically, these duels didn’t last long unless one person was a vastly superior swordsman and spent time toying with their opponent until they got tired and just ran the blade through their eye, their mouth, or their beating heart.
He thought of these things while polishing the weapons, checking them for sharpness, sharpening them where needed, and making sure all of the hardware was tight and ready to go. He was finishing with his last weapon when his watch alarm started to ding. He had just finished truing and sharpening the small swords. Late tonight or early tomorrow, he would pack them up, then pull Bud’s car from where it was out of sight behind the barn and into the barn, where it would doubtlessly be found in a few days.
He wiped his hands and grabbed a club soda out of the fridge on the way through. He didn’t want to have any diction problems in case he got a dry mouth. No, sir. He wanted every word to be crystal clear.
72
“Here, Al. Pull off here. Pull way off into the corn. We can slap some of that black tape on the rear lights and the plate. Almost as good as being invisible.”
“Gaffer’s.”
“What?” asked Edith, as if she had missed some important piece of news.
Al looked at her from a face that was utterly calm and serene. She guessed his pulse was close to sixty right now, and if he had the opportunity, he could easily take a cat-nap. “It’s called gaffer’s tape. It’s great stuff. Good adhesion, but has a matte finish and a little texture.”
“Wow, man. Seriously, Al, are you OK? You seem a little stoned.”
“Nope.” He was tightening his shoes now. He didn’t want any slippage. “Just right here in the moment.” He looked at her. His eyes seemed to dance with an inner light. She knew she was looking at someone who had seen and done horrible things, but also someone who figured that at the end of every day, if his ledger was balanced, sleep would come naturally. “How you doing? I know you wanna come in, but we’re good if you wanna hang out here and talk to me over the headset.”
Gill, some twenty miles off, added through his Bluetooth, “Hey, you guys? We can hear you.”
“We can hear you, too, Gill. Now that we have that established, shut the fuck up.” She turned her attention back to Al. “Nah. I think I’ll attend with you. I may be of some kind of help to you.” She smiled at him. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
On the ride, Al had found out that Edith was in such good shape partially because she went to a climbing gym a couple of times a week when she could. “You any good at it?” He asked.
“I’m fast. I’m faster than all of the members, except maybe ten of the hardcore speed-climbers. I fall when I go super-fast. It’s like I know I have a harness on, so I cease to give a fuck about safety.”
“Can you climb in those shoes?”
“I do. They’re great for moving silently--that’s why I brought them--but, yeah, I climb in these.”
“You remember the satellite pictures you looked at of the properties?” Edith had found some very recent satellite photography from a recent fly-by; she’d hacked into some government agency to get the photos. They were marked as being two weeks old. The property had a single building standing about one hundred yards from the gate to the property. She’d taken some time zooming in and manipulating the image, then she gave Al a brief virtual tour, pointing out the best route of approach, and the best place to park and jog in. It was where they were now parked.
“The ones I talked you through? Yes, I do.” She was chatting with him over the center console, as if they were picking a good place to get biscotti.
“I figure he’ll be in there. I wouldn’t be in the open if I could be barricaded in a place like that barn. Also, he needs to have Bud somewhere where he wouldn’t get underfoot, provided he’s still alive.”
“Al…” Gill said plaintively.
“Shut your piss-flaps, Murphy.” Al barked. “So, you figure you could tape down anything that’s gonna make noise and free-climb that barn silently?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I want you to look for any kind of monitoring device. If we can blind him, we’ll have him at a disadvantage. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to hang his head out the window.”
“What if I get up there, and I can get a clean shot at him? Should I take it?”
“No.” He had let Edith fire the Walther out the window a few times as they were driving through the country. He wanted her to know how much it kicked and moved when it fired. She’d never shot a gun before. “The only times you’ve pulled a trigger have been to kill the air next to some dead corn. Shooting live things is different. Shooting live things from a weird angle at a distance in the dark is different still. None of it is easy. If you miss, Bud’s dead.”
“If he hears me on the roof, Bud’s dead, too. I mean, provided he’s alive.”
A
l turned off the dome light and got out of the Boxster. “You got a point. Best to just concentrate on surveillance equipment.”
“If I find any?” She was out now as well, putting on a small backpack with a few tools, extra ammo, tape, and a signal scanner that “sniffed” out surveillance equipment. The sniffer had some capabilities to jam and screw up signals. The last item was a can of silicone spray.
“Turn them off if you can. If you can’t turn them off or jam them somehow, you’ll have to break them. They might not break, and he’ll know someone is whacking on them, so off is a better deal.”
“Got it. I’ll go up and across the roof. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t have a clue. I’m going to look round for cracks in the wood to see through. I’m hoping I can find a clean shot at the fucker; I’ll take it. We’ll get within range, then slow way down. I want that threat-sniffer out in front of us. If he has motion lights out, we could be seriously fucked. I’m sure deer set them off sometimes, but I don’t want Mr. Bannerman to get all jumpy and kill Bud.”
“Provided he’s still alive.” Edith said this to Al with a big smile. “You listening to this, Gill?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Hey, Al. We get out of this and everyone is alive except Bannerman, I’m throwing you down and doing you in the barn.”
Shrek said, “Hey, if we all get out of here un-hurt, un-dead, and Bannerman’s head on a pike, I’ll slang my dick out the window and fuck the world.”
Al smiled back at Edith. “OK. Let’s hope for some world-fucking in about fifteen minutes. Edith and I are starting to jog right…now.” And the two of them were off into the night through the recently reaped corn fields, Al navigating with a wrist compass.
73
Shrek was testy. He was tired of the mask and the drive. Mostly, he was tired of the anticipation. He’d done his time in the Army during Desert Storm. He’d killed a few people, one up close. Unlike many of his compatriots, he didn’t have PTSD or any of the other horrors that can affect the mind after a tour in battle. If anything, it had given him an appreciation of staying calm in the face of danger. He thought the thing that made stuff like the war, stuff like this acceptable to him, was knowing he was justified in his actions.
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