With that he withdrew the buttstock a few inches, then drove it hard into the back of Ginger’s skull, knocking the fellow either out or, more likely, into a grogginess so intense and a pain so heavy he could do nothing for minutes.
Swagger wished he had time to disable the rifles or at least twist all the knobs to hell and gone, but he didn’t. Instead, he snatched the film, slid out, and locked the heavy door behind him. Whether Ginger lived or died did not at this point seem an issue to ponder.
He went quickly to the shelf, plucked off a radio unit next to the blinking receiver by which the professional security people stayed in contact. He looked around until he saw a heavy ring of keys. Then he slipped out the door.
Piles of stars filled the western sky. A wind pushed cold air across the plains, fresh out of the mountains close by, whose darker bulk obliterated the low starlight. Vegetation, moved by that cascade of air from above, filled the sky with the sound of its own rustling. Far off, a coyote howled, and his mate responded.
Swagger sucked the cold air, glad of its plentitude, hoping for energy. Then his adrenaline took over.
He set out on a course to the vehicle compound next to the barn, stopped to retrieve a knapsack he had wedged into a culvert on the way down. He opened it, removed an ice pick.
At the compound, it took a second to find the right key, and then he unlocked the padlock and lifted the gate back. He walked past each vehicle-five four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, two jeeps, a pickup truck, and a Cherokee-and thrust the penetrating needle of the ice pick into each tire. It sank without difficulty into the tires, and it produced in him a reverie of vengeance as he fantasized it was going into the thoracic cavities of his captors. In a very few seconds had disabled all the vehicles save one of the ATVs.
He knelt, used the grip of the tool to shatter the plastic housing of the ignition, found the wires tangled beneath, did some pulling and jiggling before he freed the leads up, then sparked the vehicle to life. Maybe it was loud enough to awaken the sleeping Irishmen, maybe not. It didn’t matter by now.
Throwing the ice pick in the knapsack, he threw the whole thing on his back and his leg over the saddle of the ATV, a thing built by Honda called a Foreman. It was essentially a broader, slower, but more agile four-wheel motorcycle, its broad base giving it stability, designed to negotiate the back country, the vehicle that made hunting fields accessible to lazy, out-of-shape suburbanites. He kicked it into gear and twisted the throttle at the handlebar’s end and peeled out of the compound, turned, and headed out into the wilderness. No noise arose behind him, and he roared onward in the dark, his pains forgotten, his angers quelled, his righteousness unstoked. He was only thinking one thing: time to get my rifle.
45
At five, Raymond’s alarm woke him and told him it was time to relieve Ginger. He rose, dressed, brushed his teeth, ran a wet comb through his hair, smiled at his cheeky beauty in the mirror, and thought of the many gals he’d had and the many more, with all that swag, that awaited. Then down he went, whistling and calling, “Is the coffee hot still, Ginger, or must I make it meself?” and first discovered that Ginger was missing, then saw the empty cell and open door on the security monitor, turned quick to check the vault, saw it locked, then heard the pounding from inside.
Things happened in a blur after that. Raymond pulled Anto and the others from sleep. They got the vault open in time to save the gasping Ginger’s life, though the man was cross-eyed with a skull as bloody as if the red Indians had taken his hair from the pounding the sniper had administered.
The team made quick checks, discovered the useless vehicles, the stolen radio set, got Swagger’s message as relayed by the slow-of-wit Ginger, and realized they’d just inherited a new game.
“Do you see?” said Anto, the first to figure it out. “This was the bastard’s plan from the start. Remember how daft I thought it, him coming in all clumsy and stupid, him giving up without much fight, him just a sponge in our hands? Give it to the bold bastard, his plan was canny-to let us work him hard, him believing it was in him to last us out, and last us out he did. Then, knowing where the film was, he became himself again and ceased with the stupid and the slow. He got out, took down poor, unsuspecting Ginger, and now he’s the one with the cards.”
“The bloody magician,” said Raymond, a little awestruck, “but a hard man he’d be to know what was coming and ride it through.”
“Hard he is,” said Anto, “hard and smart, but he’ll be dead, I swear. It’s Twenty-two he’s fighting here, not some ragtop A-rab boy petters.”
“What now, Anto? Do we track him? I’m thinking them tire tracks would make the job easy.”
“We do not. He has a rifle cached, I’m sure of it. We track him, he puts us down one at a time, from way out. I’ll not have that.”
“Then what is left for us to do?”
“Well,” said Anto, “what we must do is figure where he’ll set up and be ahead of his thinking, not behind it.”
“Anto, yis cannot read minds. That’s a hell of a spread out there in all directions. He could be anywhere. Guess wrong and you’re the dead one.”
“Yeah, Anto, Ginger’s got a point. The smart move, I’m thinking-”
“Jimmy, don’t wrinkle your brow with thinking now. It ain’t becoming. And no, I don’t read minds, and yes, it’s a hell of a big spread and he could be anywhere. But think of him, think of us. Snipers all. He fears us; what’s he want? Where does he seek safety? How would he feel at his most comfortable? And who would know of such a place?”
“Anto, I-”
“That fellow who manages the ranch operation for his lordship. He must know the land like his wife’s wrinkly arse. Get him by phone, please, Jimmy. He’ll have an answer.”
Jimmy searched the database-the task normally would have fallen to the brighter Ginger, but Ginger’s head was a little messy-and in time, the phone was handed to Anto.
“Mr. McSorley, it’s Anto, of Mr. Constable’s security team, sir, and I do apologize for the early nature of the call.”
Anto listened to the old grump pretend to be undisturbed, fight for time to clear the grogginess, remind Anto that he, Anto, had told him to clear the property of working men for a few days, and then settled in to listen.
“Sir, I’ve heard from Mr. Constable this very morning and he’s asked me to set up a security exercise to keep the boys sharp and for him to watch when he returns. Thus I wonder if I might explore the knowledge ye’d be havin’, livin’ here your whole life, and help us find a chunk of land out there suitable. Yes, thanks, Mr. McSorley, what I need is distance, space, a long way for the eye to see and no place to hide in nature. Not glades and trees and rocks and foothills but an open valley, short grass, and it would be helpful if it weren’t too far out, because transpo’s an issue as well. Oh, I see. Yes, that’s right. ‘The Goggles,’ you say. Perfect, you say. I’d have looked at the map a hundred years and not have known, but you’ve got me right to it, and I’m thanking you kindly, sir, and will tell Mr. Constable of your cooperation. Good day to you, sir.”
He hung up.
“What would ‘the Goggles’ be, Anto?”
“Look to the map, boys.”
The geodesic survey chart was quickly pulled from a drawer and unrolled.
“He says there’s a couple of broad valleys about, twenty mile out, the first one, the second another four mile along. He guessed a compass radial from security HQ to be around two-fifty, not quite true west, but a little shaded to the south, over rough territory, foothills and the like. He thinks they was formed by comets striking the earth a million years ago. A double tap, you might put it.”
“There, Anto,” said Raymond, pointing out the irregularity on the map, “and can you not see why they’re called the Goggles?”