She knew her exit plan. They were all three running out of time. But she now the most.
She stepped out. One, two, three steps into the sidewalk, then walked toward the two terrorists. They took no notice of her as she drew abreast of them.
In one motion, she pulled out two Glocks with suppressors attached. Placed the point of a gun against Osama’s chest, and shot him, then the other point blank, the brick wall of the building behind them. No collateral damage. Then two more shots, one each to the heads.
In the next motion, she dropped the folded piece of paper on Osama’s body and screamed “Murders! Guns!” at three young women walking by. In one motion, she grabbed the flare tucked into the back of her jeans, tore it open, and ignited it. She tossed it over Osama’s body as a distraction, and stepped quickly back toward and into the alley. She could hear the women screaming behind her.
She raced through the alley as she had planned, discarding the disguise as she ran, entered the side door into the back of the restaurant’s kitchen and out the back door before the employees had any idea what was happening. It would take a careful inspection to see a similarity between the woman who emerged from the back of the restaurant and the hooded figure who had dashed into the alley.
Luckily there was a cab a block up the street.
The cab had been pure luck. An unnecessary, but nice, touch of luck. But May had made sure luck was not involved back in what she’d left on the dirtbags’ dead bodies. The note she left mentioned the detonators on Osama’s body and the fact that the Grand Central cops could now stop their search for the three bombs. They could be easily located using the Times Square map provided with the note.
It also thanked the Grand Central cops who had cleared one of the two Glocks and her papers that morning. All was left behind on Osama’s dead body. Along with Samms’ card.
*
Two hours of nothing for Cheese. Absolutely nothing.
The time for the scheduled hand off had now long passed.
That meant absolutely nothing. They could have changed the time, which wouldn’t matter. Or they could have changed the location, which would.
He checked his phone. And, as expected, there were no messages. Samms, Tom, and he had agreed no communications unless there was news.
The dirtbags being late didn’t qualify.
And there’d be nothing from May for hours.
Assuming all went down as planned in New York.
So he sat and waited.
Not much different from being on active duty.
*
Three hours later, his phone pinged.
Samms. “May is back.”
“Success?”
“A hundred percent. You?”
“Nothing.”
“We’ll get back to you.”
He sat.
Twenty minutes later, his phone pinged.
May. “They postponed it 24 hours.”
“Exactly?”
“Don’t question my facts. I’m too busy for that.”
“Busy celebrating?”
“Something like that.”
“Same spot? Same time tomorrow?”
“Roger. Wish I was there.”
“Actually…”
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
Chapter 11
May arrived at Cheese’s hotel room just after two in the morning. Knocked on the door.
She hugged him when he pulled her inside.
He practically crushed her with his enthusiasm.
“Somehow I knew you couldn’t pull this off without me,” she said.
He smiled. “You had anything to eat?”
“Does airport food and trail mix count?”
He pointed to the bag of fried chicken. “Make yourself at home.”
“You going to ask how my job went,” she asked through a mouthful of chicken, licking the grease off her fingers.
“No need. You’re going to tell me whether I ask or not.”
So she walked him through it for fifteen uninterrupted minutes.
“Tom hear anything back from the New York JTTF agent who told him to buzz off?” he asked when she had finished.
“Yes. Asked him to come in to discuss anything else he might have.”
Cheese nodded. A cold August day in hell, he surmised to himself.
“Anything new from your Mexican dirtbags?”
“I need to check one last time, but I think not yet.” She pointed to her backpack. ”Can you please set me up?”
She went into the bathroom while Cheese set her computer and iPhone up. Plugged everything in.
It was all set up when she came out, drying her hands and face.
Patted the top of his head as she walked by.
Then turned around, came back, and hugged him hard. She then sat on the second double bed, the one nearest the window. All her stuff was set up.
Cheese cleaned all three guns while she worked, the second Glock now no longer a vestigial weapon. Occasionally looking over at her. A bomb going off outside the window wouldn’t have fazed her. She was in full intelligence gathering mode.
After an hour she looked up. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, as in nothing? Or nothing as in nothing’s changed?”
She made a face. “Plenty of communications, but nothing’s changed. The delay was due to a pickup of four more kids this morning south of the border that was unexpected. A great deal of back and forth with both sides complaining.”
“About what?”
“The three guys up here said they had a delivery to make and an unhappy gringo customer to please who doesn’t like change. The two guys down there, whining about how hard it is to babysit a truckload of kids and then having to make room for four more.”
“That’s interesting. Is there any way we can get the ‘gringo customer’ while we’re at it?”
“I just got the address for that exchange, too. Maybe.”
“Now that there are two of us, maybe we can do it. Let’s call Samms.”
“At five in the morning her time?”
“I’m sure she’s worried about us, and maybe, just maybe she and Tom will be together and we can ask them about that.”
May made a face. “I don’t want to know if there’s a that between them.”
Cheese laughed and dialed the phone.
“Yes?” a very sleepy Samms answered. “May didn’t show up?”
“No, we’re both here,” Cheese said.
“Samms?” May said.
“Yes?”
“All’s good here, but there’s a new wrinkle. We have the site and timing of the drop between the dirtbags, but now I just also got the site and approximate time of the drop to the client. An American north of Phoenix. We might be able to take him out, also.”
“I don’t see how, guys. Once you’ve taken out the five Mexicans and turned the kids over to the ICE guys, you can’t just drive happily through Phoenix. And you can’t assume the client will be there if he doesn’t hear from the Mexicans.”
“I haven’t thought it through completely, Samms, but there might be a way,” Cheese said.
And he walked her through it.
*
They drove to Cheese’s abandoned parking lot southwest of the airport just enough after dawn to avoid having to use lights. He repeated his ritual search of everything in the surrounding area, this time with May’s two eyes through the binoculars as added insurance.
“Our only decision is where you should be sitting,” he said.
“You already told me the options.”
“I’m not talking to you.”
She took another gulp of coffee, shuddering at the knowledge that she would only have to pee out there in the desert even more.
She once again envisioned how it would go down and the hundred ways it might not. Started to ask a question, then decided not to.
“What?” Cheese asked.
“Nothing.”
“You were about to
ask me something. What?”
She looked thoughtfully out over the desert, thinking about how easy she must be to read. Maybe only easy for Cheese. She turned to look at him.
“What if the cab of the truck and/or the truck are bullet proof?”
“I’ve been worried about that from the beginning.”
“And?”
“I don’t see how they do the exchange without getting out in the open.”
“If they’re paranoid, they don’t all five get out at once.”
“Or cautious.”
“Or cautious.”
“No plan ever survives the first shot. We may have to disable the truck without risking hitting any of the kids.”
“First priority is the two drivers. Second is the other three dirtbags. Fail safe is to disable the vehicles. They won’t get far on no tires if it comes to that.”
“Not with every cop in the area looking for them.”
“And us, if it comes to that.”
“Right.”
Cheese opened his door, got out, tossed Samms’ card on the seat, popped the trunk and the two repeated the ritual of arming Cheese and, this time, getting May her Glock and the ammunition back pack. All three guns were fitted with suppressors.
They were more than two hours early.
They worked themselves up the arroyos back to Cheese’s ambush location.
“Let’s stop here,” Cheese said. “I want to make sure we’re alone. You take the south and the east, I’ll take the other semi-circle.” He pointed to the west.
“Where am I going to be?”
“One of two places. Let’s assure we’re alone first. Then I’ll show you and you can choose.”
*
Twenty minutes later Cheese nodded and pointed down the arroyo to the east.
May whirled, assumed the firing position.
“No, sorry,” Cheese said. “Let’s head that way. I’ll show you your new home.”
They worked their way around to the other side of the drop-off point.
“You have two choices, May. Here, or over there,” pointing to a vague point about fifty yards to the north.
“I like this one better.”
“You haven’t even seen the other one.”
“This is closer and I should be shooting at the backs of the two in the truck from here. With much less chance of hitting any of the kids.”
“The other one puts you at the back of the three in the car.”
“They’re yours. You’ve got the M16.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He looked down at her. “Okay, kid. Good luck and don’t shoot me by mistake.”
She hugged him and didn’t say anything as he headed back up the arroyo.
*
May lay down in her arroyo. They still had almost two hours until the drop.
She checked the Mexicans’ communications. Nothing since the last confirmation of the time several hours ago. She and Cheese expected the three in the car to perform some reconnaissance to make sure all was clear, but she doubted they would be doing it on foot. More likely drive-bys in their car. All together in case of trouble.
It would be inefficient for the three of them to wander around the area together, and dumb for them to wander around in these arroyos one at a time. And she had no evidence these five guys were dumb.
So, betting on a car patrol, she took a fifteen minute power nap on her back, hand on her pistol just in case.
It’s an accepted fact that snakes are quieter than men when roaming the desert. May knew this. She had factored in the likelihood of a cartel member on foot coming upon her and seeing her as a threat before she could deal with him. That was low.
But she hadn’t considered on being unlucky enough to have a run-in with a snake during a brief nap. And of course, she knew that snakes were not generally inclined to mess with animals a hundred times their size. So that probability was low as well.
May had factored all that in the calculus of her risks from taking a nap.
What she hadn’t thought about was the not so low probability of a lizard chasing a fly near or on her as she slept. If she had, she would have viewed the potential harm from such an event virtually zero.
Unless, of course, the lizard, with its lizard brain, perceived itself as the sole predator and the fly as the sole prey. Both the alert, predatory lizard, and the sleeping May were unaware of the fact that the predatory lizard had now become the prey.
As May slept, several flies alternately alighted on and flew off her legs and chest. The lizard crept very slowly through the sand, one leg at a time lifted and then advanced. One at a time. Long tongue flicking out to smell the surrounding air and locate a specific fly’s location.
The rattlesnake weaved silently toward the inviting lizard and the non-threatening human. The lizard was moving methodically, lizard-like toward the human. The human was not moving at all.
There was no thinking going on. Two reptilian brains receiving and encoding information exactly as reptilian brains had been doing since the beginning of reptilian life on the planet.
The human’s brain was more capable of obtaining and evaluating all the information it needed for this coming, low probability but potentially deadly, confrontation. But this human brain was not engaged. It was asleep. Ten minutes into a fifteen minute nap.
The lizard carefully placed its right front foot on May’s right front pant leg. On her thigh.
Very delicately. Had she been awake, watching amused, she probably would not have been able to feel it.
The lizard’s tongue flicked out.
The rattlesnake slid to within two feet of the lizard and slowed down. Now sliding more slowly, more deliberately through the sand.
*
Cheese looked at his watch. An hour and a half before the scheduled drop. Still no sign of another soul.
He stretched, shooed off a lizard that had been watching him, and carefully peeked over the edge of his arroyo.
Nothing.
No sign of the dirtbags. No sign that May was still over there. Nothing.
He picked up his phone and started to text her. Then stopped. They hadn’t verified that their phones were on mute. Damn. A ping sound coming from an arroyo out here would sound a deadly warning in the unlikely event the Mexicans were scouting on foot.
He looked again. Then did a careful three-sixty.
Nothing.
He looked down. The lizard had come back. Looking at him curiously.
“Hi there, little fellow.”
The lizard cocked its head, as if it was expecting Cheese to hand over some flies.
Cheese slowly slid down. So slow that the lizard held its ground. Cheese looked around for a long piece of vegetation to hold out to the lizard. Found one and slowly pushed it through the air toward the lizard’s flickering tongue.
What on earth could be going on in that reptilian brain that you’re risking your life to hang around me?
He cocked his head precisely as the lizard had, and the lizard cocked his head in the opposite direction.
Cheese laughed softly. Who is training whom here? He slowly pushed his finger out toward the lizard. But the sound of an approaching car caused Cheese to pull back in a hurry and the lizard scampered off away from him.
Cheese stood slowly to look over the arroyo’s edge.
*
May came out of her sleep without moving as she heard the car slowly moving above her.
She looked up to see a lizard on her thigh, a fly dangling out of its mouth.
She smiled at the audacity, then sensed more than felt the lizard snatched into the air in the maw of a lightning rattlesnake strike.
The snake’s head, lizard dangling from its mouth, fly still in place, crashed to earth between her feet, its heavy body over her thigh where the lizard had been.
May involuntarily let out a grunt as the snake raced over her legs, lizard in its mouth, not looking back.
&n
bsp; She put her hand over her breast, could feel her heart racing. There had been no time to get frightened. It was all an adrenaline rush. And besides, May had always prided herself in not being scared of snakes. But still, my God, what a, well, what a surprise.
She had no idea if anyone in the car had heard her groan when she suddenly exhaled.
She checked her pants leg where the lizard had been. It wasn’t impossible that the damn rattler had accidentally bitten her in its enthusiasm to grab dinner.
But, luckily, no. No evidence of a snake bite or a tear.
No time for that now anyway. She slowly rose to peer over the edge of the arroyo.
She saw the car with three occupants slowly driving along the road. Two of them had binoculars. It looked like they were making a steady, very slow fifteen miles an hour.
She squatted back down.
Texted Cheese, “You see them?”
The return vibration read, “Yes. I think they didn’t see us, right?”
“No, us or my rattlesnake.”
“Really?”
“We can chat later. They’re more than ninety minutes early.”
“Roger.”
Then silence.
She watched the car drive out of sight.
Her phone vibrated ten minutes later, “You shoot the rattlesnake or bite its head off?”
“Fuck yourself…then, after that, get ready for work.”
After five minutes with no response, she texted him, “I sent it over to you if you must know.”
*
Cheese heard a truck approaching from the southeast. Driving slowly, steadily.
The car had been by again five minutes before. Other than that no traffic had appeared.
He peered up. No sight of any vehicles. Just the sound of a truck off to his right. Getting closer.
If May was looking over the edge of her arroyo he couldn’t see her.
“Showtime,” he tweeted.
He got an immediate check mark back.
He checked the M16 and the Glock for the thousandth time, flexed his fingers, rotated his head in a series of neck stretches.
He wasn’t going to be any readier than this.
Finally, the truck appeared to his right. Slowing down as it approached the drop-off point.
No sign of May. God, she was good.
And on his left, the car approached, going too fast. He ducked down as it sped by.
The Point Of A Gun: Thriller Page 8