“No.” Durrie scooted his hands under the plastic, grabbing the body by the legs. “He’s not staying in this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to go over the finer points of my job,” Durrie snapped. “Just do what I say.”
With Durrie leading the way, they carried the body into the barn, and placed it roughly in the same place Owens had been.
“I don’t understand,” Larson said.
“I don’t care. Here.” Durrie gathered up the plastic and handed it to the agent. “Put this in the trunk, then go get Timmons.”
Larson all but ripped the plastic from Durrie’s hands, then stormed out. Durrie rolled his eyes. He had no idea how a guy like Larson had lasted even a few months in this business. There was little doubt a bullet with the assassin’s name on it was waiting somewhere in the not too distant future.
Durrie searched the body. As he’d suspected, the man was carrying two pistols. He removed both of them, and a knife in a sheath strapped around his ankle. The only other things the man had been carrying were two hundred dollars in cash. That, Durrie left.
Standing, he took a quick look around, making sure there was nothing that would destroy the impression he was trying to create. It all looked good. He glanced once more at the body.
“Tough luck for you,” he said.
He could have used Owens for what he had planned. But Owens was the job, and the job was to make him disappear. This guy was collateral damage, and therefore Durrie could use him in whatever way he saw fit.
He stepped back outside just in time to see the others dump Mills’s body in the trunk. A few seconds later, Larson showed up with Timmons propped against his side. The team leader was no longer unconscious, but he didn’t look like he had a complete handle on what was going on, either.
“Stick him in the car, then you three can get out of here,” Durrie said. Their car was parked on a parallel road a quarter mile behind the barn.
“No,” Morgan said. “Timmons is coming with us.”
“Fine. But you’d better get a move on it.”
They hesitated for a moment.
“Go!” Durrie yelled.
That seemed to be what they needed.
Before they’d even rounded the corner of the barn, Durrie was on his hands and knees with a piece of cardboard he’d found in the back of the car. He scooped up the blood Owens’s partner had left behind and carried it quickly into the barn. It took three trips, but when he was done all signs of what had happened outside were gone.
Now, the final step.
He opened the car’s back door, and from one of his bags withdrew two cans of lighter fluid, an unused rag, and a lighter. He carried these into the barn, doused the body, then moved around, spraying the rest of the building. As he did, he came across Larson’s coffee cup. Talk about sloppy. Standard procedure was to always take with you whatever you brought. Durrie knew the fire would probably burn it completely, but he couldn’t take the chance. He picked it up, then finished soaking the interior. Ready now, he lit the rag on fire, and tossed it on the body.
With a whoosh, flames sprang from the ground. Soon the whole barn would be ablaze. The authorities would find a body that had been shot, but that’s all. No identification, no reason why. Nothing to tie back to Durrie’s employers.
Durrie allowed himself a smile. Another mess he’d made right. This should be worth a nice little bonus.
But as he exited the barn his smile quickly disappeared. Not far away he could see flashing lights coming down Goodman Ranch Road.
Keeping his gaze on them as they drew closer, he moved sideways to the corner of the barn, ready to run the moment the cop car turned onto the property. But it never slowed, and instead shot past the entrance, not stopping until it reached the intersection another hundred yards down the road.
Durrie looked back in the direction the cops had come, expecting to see more lights heading this way, but there were none. He jogged back to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Keeping all the lights off, and his foot away from the brake, he started the engine. He then inched the car around so that it was pointing down the dirt road toward the main road.
The cop car was still at the intersection, like it was waiting there for something. Backup?
It was possible Durrie could take the car out the other way, across the desert and to the road the ops team had parked on. But the terrain would be uneven, and he knew the chances were great he’d be forced to use his brakes, betraying his position.
No. Either he drove out to Goodman Ranch Road, or he left the car and disappeared into the night on foot, making his way through the desert back to his van.
It all depended on the police in the cruiser.
It seemed to sit there forever, but finally Durrie saw it move through the intersection and head farther away. Not waiting to see what they would do next, he drove quickly down the dirt driveway, then turned right on Goodman Ranch Road and headed toward the city.
It was a good thing he’d gone when he had. He’d only traveled a quarter mile along the blacktop road when he saw in his mirror the first flames flickering out from the barn.
4
“Sorry, Officer. Not a thing.” The man in the doorway was wearing a black golf shirt and a pair of jeans.
From not far inside, a TV was blasting and Jake knew even if someone had shot a gun in their front yard, the guy wouldn’t have heard it.
“Are you here alone, sir?” Haywood asked.
“My wife’s here,” he said. “And my kids.”
“Is it possible they might have heard something?”
“Kids are asleep, but I’m sure Jenny would have said something if she had.”
“Jenny’s your wife?”
“Well, yeah.” The man gave them a look like that should have been obvious, then turned away from the door. “Jenny, come here for a minute.”
A moment later a woman appeared beside him. She was shorter than he was, and not quite as overweight.
“These officers are wondering if we heard any gunshots. I know I didn’t,” the man said.
“Tonight?” she asked. “I haven’t heard any. Why? Were there some?”
Haywood smiled. “We’re not entirely sure. Just checking a report, that’s all. Sounds like neither of you heard anything, so we won’t bother you any longer.”
“We’ll keep an ear out in case it starts up again,” the man said.
“Thank you,” Haywood told them. “You folks have a good night.”
He stepped off the small porch, with Jake following closely behind him.
“You do the talking at the next one,” Haywood said as he opened his car door. “It’ll be good practice.”
But Jake was barely listening to him. Instead he was looking across the top of the car into the distance. After a second, he said, “That’s a fire.”
“What?” Haywood whipped around to see what Jake was talking about.
“There,” Jake said, pointing. “I think that’s one of the buildings we were going to check out on the other side of the intersection.”
“Get in!” Haywood shouted.
As they pulled away from the house, Haywood grabbed the radio mic. “9-82 Adam. We have a structure fire on Goodman Ranch Road just north of Tyler Way on the east side. Possible connection to earlier call.”
“Copy, 9-82 Adam. Will start fire and back up.”
Haywood replaced the mic, and pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. When they reached the dirt road that led onto the property where the fire was, he slowed just enough to take the turn, then accelerated down the uneven surface.
“No way the fire department’s going to get here in time,” Jake said.
The building — it looked like a barn — was nearly engulfed by the flames. The wood that had yet to be touched looked old and dry and ripe for burning.