“Right,” Darian said, pointing to the rounded cocking lever atop the weapon. “That’ll load a round.”
Moises chambered the first .45 ACP round and tightened his grip on the weapon, both hands squeezing tight. Too tight.
“Ease up, Brother Moises. Control is what you want. You don’t have to hold it as tight as a baseball bat.”
“Okay.” Moises looked around the desolate clearing, hidden from the hilly road north of the city by a row of thick vegetation, searching for a target. The headlights of the Buick illuminated another juniper stump a few yards beyond the one just mutilated. He shifted his feet like a batter digging in for leverage and guess-aimed from a low hold, then squeezed the trigger.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
“Man!” Moises said loudly as the empty weapon stopped bucking. “Whoa. That is awesome.” He looked closely at the target, which was not quite as torn up as the one Darian had taken under fire.
“Not bad,” Darian commented, taking the Ingram back. “Pretty good shooting.”
“That thing has a kick.”
“A big-ass kick,” Darian expanded. “But it hits harder on the receiving end.”
“No kidding.”
Darian inserted a fresh magazine and handed the weapon back again. “You should hear the sound without the suppressor on.”
Moises’ fingers scratched at the padded cylinder. “The silencer, you mean?”
“Incorrect term, Brother Moises. But unimportant right now. You’ll learn plenty about weapons and how to use them right, and with the most effect. Right now you’ve just got to get used to it.”
“Is this what we’re going to use tomorrow?” Moises asked.
Darian nodded. “You’ll have one, and I’ll have one.” He paused for a moment, studying the boy’s face carefully. “You’re ready for this?”
“I’m ready.” Moises pulled the cocking lever back and quickly chose a new target, laying thirty rounds on and around it in a flash. A cloud of dust billowed from the ground and drifted through the blazing beams emanating from the front of the Buick. He ejected the empty and held it out for his leader. For the man he was beginning to think of as a father. “Gimme another, Brother Darian.”
“Right on, Brother Moises,” Darian said, smiling. A soldier was coming of age right before his eyes, and there could be no more beautiful sight than that. Other than the one they were going to create in the morning.
John Barrish had his own personal instrument of power in hand at the same moment, though his preparations were of a quieter variety. He had cleaned the silenced Beretta thoroughly over the last hour, checking for dirt and rust, aligning the sound and flash suppressor at its front end, working the action. He loaded three magazines, each with thirteen rounds of .380-caliber hollow-point, also known as 9mm short. In reality, though, he would need only two rounds. Hopefully. But if more were needed, he would use them without hesitation.
The front door opened and closed, Toby coming into the dimly lit front room a second later. “The suitcases are in the car, Pop.”
John nodded. “Where’d you get it?”
“From a dealer in Lancaster. It’s new, so we won’t have to worry about plates.”
“You paid cash?”
“Check from the bank,” Toby answered. “I just told them it was from a purchase order. None of that paperwork for a ten-grand transaction. Hell, they were just glad to sell a car.”
“And a place to stay?”
Toby stiffened his body and pretended to haughtily pull at a nonexistent lapel. “Arrangements for Mr. Benjamin Howell to lease a house have been made through the relocation services of Jefferson Properties of Harrisonburg, Virginia.”
John smiled at the short performance. “Your doing?”
“Are you kidding? I told you Stan does this stuff good.”
Toby saw the gun lying on his father’s lap, resting on a towel. “Pop, I… I mean…” Toby could never remember saying the words he now wanted to utter to his father. Maybe that was best. “I’m glad it’s starting.”
John Barrish looked up at his son, understanding what he was saying without actually doing so. He remembered the awkwardness well from his own youth. “Your mother and Stan are already in bed, son. You’d better get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”
“G’night, Pop.”
John smiled as his oldest boy left him alone with his thoughts for the last night in this place. In the morning they would be gone, on their way to bigger and better things. Things no one could even imagine.
TWELVE
King’s Opening
Valley Oaks Memorial Park was just visible through the light drizzle, and just beyond its piano-shaped property line the Ventura Freeway was as it usually was at this early hour. Toby could see a steady stream of cars moving from right to left, heading toward Los Angeles from the bedroom communities of Thousand Oaks and beyond. Fewer crossed left to right. The city was almost everyone’s destination, a thought that made him smile.
“You ready, son?” John asked, closing the back door of the Aerostar.
“I’m ready.” Toby walked around the minivan, which they had parked on the dirt shoulder of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, and joined his father. They slide-stepped down the damp bank of the shoulder to a runoff ditch, then scrambled up the opposite side and over a barbed-wire cattle fence before moving up the slope. The grade was slight, and in ten minutes, their movements shrouded by the increasing misty drizzle, they had covered a quarter-mile, nearing a development of homes situated across Lindero Canyon Road from the Lake Lindero Country Club. Large homes that sat on large lots, Toby could tell through the falling haze. One house in particular drew his attention as he and his father stopped beneath an aged oak to scan their approach route.
“See the gully?” John asked, getting a nod in response. “That runs right up to that back wall. On the far side there’s a high spot you can use to get over the wall.”
“I see it.”
“You know what to do from there.”
“Yeah.” Toby checked the time. “It’s almost seven.”
“The nurse doesn’t come until nine on Wednesdays,” John said, reassuring his son that there would be no surprises.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
The father-and-son team moved off, angling down the reverse slope of the hill, reducing the distance to the homes as they moved. There was sufficient cover, mostly in the form of oak trees and some sage, and they traversed the open spaces as quickly as the footing allowed. In eight minutes they were at the back wall.
“Three-three-four-one,” John reminded his son.
“Got it.” Toby continued on along the seven-foot block wall that encircled the back portion of the house at the end of Catarina Drive, while his father went in the opposite direction, toward the side of the property. The eldest Barrish boy trotted up the mound of earth at the northwest corner of the lot and peered over the wall. All was clear, with no apparent obstructions between the wall and the two-story house. A fifty-foot space to cover, Toby estimated, but then who would be watching?
He swung a leg onto the wall and rolled over, landing on his feet, and immediately trotted toward the side entrance his father had described to him. Located on the north wall of the four-car garage, the door had a single deadbolt lock. But that was to be no problem. Toby took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, closing it and feeling for the light switch that was supposed to be there, all the while beginning the thirty-second countdown. The fluorescent fixtures over the Jaguar and the Ford Explorer hummed, then flashed on. Beyond them Toby saw the flashing green light marking the location of the alarm box. He reached it as the count came to twelve, and punched in the four numbers on the keypad. The flashing stopped, they went solid green. He had ten more seconds to enter the next command, which was utterly simple. System off. He pressed the skinny black button, which made the panel go dark.