While the guard was concentrating on the sight and increasing sound of the incoming aircraft, Graver nodded at Murray who slipped out of the door of the back room and signaled to Remberto. The two men went to opposite sides of the hangar, Remberto on the left side of the van as viewed from the office and Murray on the right Each hid behind a piece of equipment that they already had picked out and which would provide only momentary cover, Remberto behind a four-cylinder caddy for an acetylene welding rig, and Murray behind a generator for an arc welder. If anyone decided to take a look around, even a cursory one, everything would happen fast. If all went as planned, it would anyway.
Graver’s eyes were straining to see in the dull light of the hangar. From the moment Murray stepped out of the office door everything was out of Graver’s hands. Arnette’s men were perfectly willing to be led by Graver as to operational strategy, but when it came to tactical decisions they were on their own. They had had a long talk and an agreement about that. Graver was responsible for the decisions that set everything into motion, but the action itself was a second-by-second unfolding over which he had no control.
Landrone taxied his Mooney up to the door of the hangar as Pace had done his Malibu and the guard stood just inside the hangar, ten feet from the prop. Again the pilot cut the engine. The Mooney was a smaller aircraft than the Malibu, and the doors swung open from either side of the cockpit. Landrone and his copilot were the first out.
“Has Pace come in already?” Landrone asked, walking toward the guard, removing his baseball cap by its bill and wiping his forehead in the crook of his arm.
“Come and gone,” the pilot said, turning to the van, unlatching the doors, and flinging them back. “Eight boxes.”
“Okay. We’ve got eight too.”
The other guard and client were climbing out of the plane now, both stooping to come under the wings of the plane and into the light.
“Everything’s set,” the first guard said.
The second one nodded. “Okay, let’s unload this shit then.”
At that point both guards had their backs turned to Remberto and Murray, one on each side of the plane, both just inside the hangar and dimly illuminated by the light coming out of the back of the van. Pace’s guard was on Remberto’s side, Landrone’s guard was on Murray’s.
What happened next had been discussed in advance, the probabilities analyzed, the practical matters posited and agreed to.
“Police-freeze!” Remberto and Murray yelled simultaneously, charging out from behind their concealments straight at their respective guards with their firearms extended. Graver and Last also burst out of the office yelling, “Police! Police!” to make the place sound like it was filled with law enforcement officers.
But the guards did not freeze.
As naturally as their hearts beat, their hands clapped onto their Uzi’s which hung across their shoulders on straps, and they began spinning and dropping to a crouch. Neither Remberto nor Murray waited for them to get more than halfway around before they fired three times each as fast as they could from a distance of little more than twenty feet, their volleys knocking both guards off their feet and killing them instantly. Only Murray’s guard managed to fire his Uzi, though he had not managed to raise the muzzle, and the sputtering burst from the barrel chewed off his left foot and splattered concrete splinters and blood all over Landrone and his copilot and the stunned man in the business suit.
Within seconds the two pilots and the client were on the ground being handcuffed as Graver and Last relieved the two dead guards of their Uzi’s.
Graver quickly flicked off the runway lights and stepped over to the pilot.
“I want this plane out of sight,” he said. “We’ve got our cars in that hangar right over there.” He motioned to their right. “Are either of the other two hangars empty?”
“Both,” Landrone said.
And then they heard the hum of Redden’s Pilatus.
“Goddamn,” Murray swore, breathing heavily. They were all breathing heavily from working fast and from the adrenaline. Killing always drove the adrenaline.
Murray’s expression was one of surprise. The fate of Eddie Redden had been a hotly debated question during the planning stages several hours earlier. They all wanted the last load of money, but Murray had contended they should take it at Hobby airport where it was supposed to be delivered to Redden and loaded into his plane. But to do that, one of them would have had to go with Redden and take the responsibility of commandeering the load without help. Murray contended that could be done by one person having the advantage of total surprise. Graver wasn’t so sure, and besides, he didn’t want to spare the man here at Bayfield in the event that they ran into a much different situation than they were anticipating. The plan already had forfeited Neuman to Ledet’s flare raid over Las Copas.
Graver contended they should send Redden alone. After a long private conversation with the pilot in which Graver assured him that if he disappeared-with or without the money-that he, Graver, would hunt him down even if he had to go to hell to get him and, conversely, assured him if Redden helped them he, Graver, would do his utmost to see that he got every break possible when it was over, Graver felt that Redden was worth the risk. Murray swore they would never see his crab-red face again if they let him fly off in the Pilatus.
Suddenly the Pilatus screamed low over them and shot out into the Gulf.
“I don’t believe it,” Murray barked.
“There’s no time to get this thing across the tarmac to the other hangar,” Graver yelled, frantically helping Last and Remberto stand the three men up and cuff their hands together behind their backs. “Cuff them back to back, and get them into the storeroom,” he snapped to Last, and then ran back into the hangar and flipped on the runway lights he had just turned off.
Remberto was already pulling one of the dead guards around the corner into the darkness and Murray was grabbing the other, both bodies leaving a snail’s slag of blood and dirt. Graver ran to the rear of the plane and lifted the tail as Remberto came back, followed closely by Murray, each man getting on the leading edge of either wing and pushing the plane out onto the tarmac. When the plane was out far enough for the wings to clear the turn, Graver swung the tail around, and they all began pushing from the trailing edge of the wings, rolling the light craft out into the darkness, into the weeds between the two hangars, past the four bodies, all the way down the length of the hangar and around to the back.
Running to the front doors again, Graver grabbed the garden hose and began washing down the blood. A wet cement skirt in front of the hangar would not raise the immediate questions that a bloody one would.
Graver felt like he was in a dream. Jesus Christ He could not believe he had just let two men be killed so that he could have a slim chance at catching the man they worked for. Now, washing down the blood, he belched a mouthful of bile and bent over and spat it on the concrete, fighting to hold back the rest of it as he hosed it away from his feet His face was hot, and he fought a persistent, destabilizing nausea.
He heard the Pilatus approaching from the water, just as Remberto and Murray returned from between the hangars.
“Murray,” Graver yelled, “the guard with Redden will probably know the other two guards.” He handed one of the Uzi’s to Remberto and slung the other over his shoulder. “We can’t let them see but two of us, and only from a distance.”
“I’ll get in the dark just around the corner,” Murray said. “It’s a toss-up which side of the plane the guard will get out of, but I want to get to him as soon as his feet hit the ground. We can’t give him too much time to think about what he’s seeing here.”
Everyone agreed, but as Murray disappeared around the corner they didn’t have time to discuss how to handle it.