There were several vehicles parked on the broken asphalt around the garage, new vehicles, black sedans, a Chevy passenger van, and another G-ride Suburban. There were a couple of men standing around the cars, smoking, talking, long guns visible slung from their backs.
“Damn, there’s a lot of them,” I said.
Bob extended the bipod legs on his sniper rifle and hunkered down, scanning through his scope. “I’ve got three in the parking lot. At least one moving inside the garage.” After a moment he stopped, then cranked up the magnification. “Hector, take a look at the window on the left.”
“Hector?” Reaper laughed. “Your real name is Hector?”
“Shut it . . . Skyler,” I answered. Reaper was immediately silent. Valentine snorted as he tried to suppress a laugh.
“Yeah? Well, what the fuck kind of name is Nightcrawler?” Reaper asked defensively.
“It’s French,” he replied, looking through the scope on his rifle. He then turned to my teammate. “You know that’s not actually my name, right? Just like you. Reaper isn’t your real name. Skyler is your real name, and I think it’s pretty.” Valentine cracked a smile again.
I shushed Reaper before he could retort. Bob moved aside and I got behind the Remington. It took a moment to find the right window on 14X magnification. The glass was gray with filth and hard to see through. “That’s her.” Jill was slumped in a chair, long black hair obscuring her face. Seeing her there filled me with fresh anger.
The terrain leading up to that window was rough enough that it gave me an idea. I didn’t want to endanger the lives of these men any more than I had to. I moved into a crouch and examined each of them in the fading light. “Okay. Here’s the plan. I’ll sneak up on that building, break in, and secure Jill. If everything works out, I can get her out of there before they ever even know we were here.”
“That’s just stupid,” Bob said. “There’s no way you could sneak in there under their noses.”
Reaper just looked at him and grinned. “Dude, you have no idea. Your brother could steal cookies from the Keebler elves.”
Hawk reached over and tapped Valentine on the arm, gesturing down the hillside. “Check out that ravine,” he said. He’d always had a good eye for terrain.
Valentine nodded. “While you’re crawling through the weeds, we’ll take Marilyn Manson here and head down that way. It’ll put us closer so we can back you up if this all goes to shit.” He looked to Bob. “You good enough with that rifle to give us some cover?”
My brother nodded. Before I had dropped off the grid, Bob had already been a champion rifle competitor. When we were teenagers, I had spent my free time boosting cars, while he had shot coyotes for the local farmers. Bob was better than me at most things, and shooting was probably toward the top of that list, and that was before he had joined the Army and become some sort of Green Beret or something.
“He’ll do fine. We all will.” This was it. This wasn’t a heist, it wasn’t a job. These men were here to help me. This was a rescue mission. I’d led many crews, but usually for money. I didn’t know how to motivate people with pure intentions. Awkwardly, I put my hand out, palm down. “Thanks, guys.”
Reaper enthusiastically put his on top of mine. “Anytime, chief!”
It took a moment before Bob followed suit. “No problem, bro.”
Valentine looked at us incredulously. “Are you guys for real?”
“I’m not really good at saying thank you, okay?”
Valentine glanced over at Hawk, who just shrugged, then back at us. “You guys are so gay.”
Reaper yanked his hand back, embarrassed. Okay, so maybe it was corny. I took one last look at my friends—and Valentine—nodded, and disappeared into the weeds.
Chapter 28:
The Calm
VALENTINE
Lorenzo’s little buddy tagged along as Hawk and I made our way down the ravine, practically crawling along as we went. There were several cars parked outside of the building that Jill was being held in, and there were armed men standing watch outside. They didn’t seem particularly alert, but it wasn’t quite dark yet and I didn’t want to blow our cover.
I was most worried about them spotting Reaper. Where Hawk and I were dressed in earth tones and flat colors, Reaper was dressed entirely in black. Black sticks out pretty clearly against a dusty brown hillside in the Nevada desert. Worse, the kid just didn’t know how to move. We had to crawl along more slowly than we would have otherwise, making sure Reaper utilized available cover and concealment.
Lorenzo, on the other hand, moved like a ghost. I tried to track him as he crept down the hill parallel to us, but quickly lost sight of him in the sage. Grudgingly impressed, I had little doubt Lorenzo would make it all the way down without being spotted.
LORENZO
There was probably only a few minutes of weak daylight left coming over the hills by the time I crept up on the cinder-block wall. My load-bearing equipment was coated in dirt, twigs, and dead sage. I hadn’t been seen.
“Looking good,” Bob’s voice said in my ear. “Guards are leaning on the cars out front. I don’t see any movement in the back room. There are a few men inside the next room.”
Crouching below the window, I cradled my nose-heavy AR in my strong hand and reached up and tested the window. It was the multi-paned, hinged type. It moved slightly. It was unlocked. Just then my phone began to vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket, glanced both ways, still clear, and flipped it open. “Hello?” I whispered.
“Mr. Lorenzo.” It was the digitally altered voice. I could hear the real voice through another broken window fifteen feet away. “Where are you?”
“I’m going through Las Vegas now,” I whispered. “Bad reception here.”
“You will proceed to Quagmire, Nevada, and wait for further instructions.” The normal human voice came through the window a split second before the distorted voice.
“Sorry, you’re breaking up.” I closed the phone and put it back in my pocket.
“Lost him. He says he’s in Vegas,” the voice said. “Send the strike team to Quagmire.”
“Should we take the girl, sir? He said he wanted to see her alive.”
“They all say that. Keep her alive long enough to talk on the phone if we need her. Then put a bullet in her. Remember, we want this Lorenzo alive. Eddie won’t give us anything for him dead.”
Eddie? How could Gordon the government guy be involved with Big Eddie? This didn’t make any sense. Valentine must have picked that up from my microphone. “I recognize that voice. Gordon’s here. You don’t touch him. He’s mine.”
“Let me get Jill first. Then you can go on a killing spree,” I whispered.
“A bunch of men in SWAT gear are loading into the passenger van,” Bob noted calmly. There was the sound of a door sliding shut, and then a large engine revving. They were going to set up an ambush for nobody. I crouched lower as the headlights briefly swung past the cinder-block wall.
This was as good as it was going to get. “I’m going in.” I sprung up and took a quick look through the dirty window. Jill was still slumped in a chair. There was nobody else in the room. The room was filled with old trash, rusted metal, and broken bits of wood. Thick spiderwebs clouded the corners. I pushed the heavy panes open slowly, rust binding in the hinge, begging to let out a screech. I gritted my teeth, pushing, praying for silence. Finally it was open wide enough to scramble through.