“Come with me,” said Waldron.
They followed him to his dark, windowless room, which smelled of Marlboros and Axe body spray. A dime would bounce off Waldron’s bed if tossed onto it; against the wall, many pairs of sneakers were perfectly aligned. It was more barracks than bedroom.
Waldron closed the door, locked it, then went to his closet and retrieved a couple of duffel-sized ripstop bags. He dropped the bags on his bed and unzipped them.
“Short notice,” said Waldron. He looked up at Dupree and shrugged elaborately. “If you’d given me some time, I could’ve got you one of those SAWs.”
“For real?” said Dupree, putting a little edge into his voice. He doubted Waldron could have come up with an M249, a machine gun capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute. But then again, they were in America.
“Yeah, for real,” said Waldron.
“What do you have for us, Bobby?” said Lucas, hoping to cut the tension and move things along.
“Shotguns, to start,” said Waldron. “Mossberg Five Hundreds.” Waldron pulled a pump-action twelve-gauge from one of the bags. “I know you guys used Benellis...”
“We used anything we could get,” said Lucas.
“The Mossberg will do,” said Dupree.
“Military spec,” said Waldron.
“Pistols,” said Lucas.
“I got you a choice of revolvers, Luke. I know you like the no-jam insurance.”
“Talk to me.”
“S and W Combat Magnums. If you’re looking for a hand cannon, I’ve got a three-fifty-seven.”
“Too much.”
“A thirty-eight, then.”
“Let me see it.”
Waldron handed Lucas a six-shot Smith & Wesson Special with a four-inch barrel and soft rubber grips.
Lucas hefted it in his hand. “I like this.” He placed it on the bed.
“Now the semis,” said Waldron. “You jarheads favor your Italian pieces. I came up with a couple of M-Nines in pristine condition.”
Waldron handed a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol to Lucas. He ran his thumb over its black checkered grip. He turned the gun sideways and worked the slide. When it locked open, he inspected the chamber.
“Looks clean,” said Lucas.
“I stripped and bored them myself,” said Waldron.
“Military-issue mags?”
“Beretta, dad.”
“Better,” said Lucas. “We’ll take ’em both. That okay by you, Winston?”
“Yep.”
Waldron grinned. “The barrel on one of these was pre-threaded to accept a suppressor.”
“You got it?” said Lucas.
“Right here,” said Waldron, producing an SRT Arms silencer from the bag. Lucas took it and examined it with interest.
“What you need that for?” said Dupree.
“Need got nothin to do with it,” said Lucas.
“All with holsters and bricks,” said Waldron. “Shaved numbers on the pistols. You get popped, you’re on your own.”
Lucas nodded. “Understood. We’re gonna need some goggles.”
“Sure, I got NVGs.”
“Throw those in.”
“Kevlar?”
“Two vests,” said Lucas.
“You need me to show you how to work the goggles?” said Waldron, looking at Dupree. “The Marine Corps only issued them to officers, right?”
“If you can figure it out, we damn sure can,” said Dupree.
“Let me ask you somethin, Winston,” said Waldron. “Why’d your mama name you after a cigarette?”
“Why do you look like that character on the Frosted Flakes box?”
They showed each other teeth.
“Put it all in one bag, Bobby,” said Lucas. “We gotta get on our way.”
Lucas gave him cash.
On the way out of the house, Lucas, carrying the long, heavy bag, stopped to say good-bye to Rosemary Waldron, now drinking a beer, seated in front of the living room television set.
“Sure you two don’t want a couple of cold High Lifes?” she said.
“No, thank you,” said Lucas.
“What you got in the bag, Spero?”
“Bobby loaned me his Xbox and some games.”
“You boys have fun.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Dupree. “We will.”
They headed to the Jeep.
At his apartment, Lucas packed the night vision goggles into his gear bag and found Dupree a pair of Leo’s old gym shorts. Leo had size on him, but the shorts were still too small for Dupree.
“I’m supposed to wear these?” said Dupree.
“It’s just for today.”
“I’ll look like John Stockton and shit. Why we got to pretend like we’re sportsmen?”
“I’m not pretending,” said Lucas. “You are.”
Lucas and Dupree loaded the kayak onto the foam blocks atop the Jeep and fitted Lucas’s old bike, a Trek hybrid, into the hitch-mounted rack. Dupree wound the rubber strap around the top tube of the Trek and snapped it over its male plug.
“Let me ask you somethin, man,” said Dupree. “I’ve seen you riding your bike in your white T-shirt and plain-old shorts. Why you don’t wear those outfits I see other dudes wearing, with the numbers and spandex?”
“When you throw a football around your yard, do you wear a full Redskins uniforms with pads?”
“Only in my head.”
“I’m not in the Tour de France,” said Lucas.
They drove downtown to Pennsylvania Avenue, which was Route 4, and took it out of the city to 301, in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Turning off the highway, just twenty miles from D.C., they were suddenly in a sparsely populated, hilly terrain of forests and farmland, tobacco barns, old houses, and churches. The occasional liquor and bait store, and johnboats up on trailers, told them they were near water. Lucas wound up a rise on an asphalt road bleached by the sun, along wooded land, and as they came to a clearing on the high ground, they saw the ribbon of the Patuxent River below.
“Jug Bay,” said Lucas.
They came upon another forest, and Lucas slowed down. He checked the Google Map he had printed out that morning, and pulled over on the shoulder. Up ahead was a driveway of gravel with a posted mailbox at its head.
“Could be it,” said Lucas.
He drove on. A half mile or so up the road, at the end of the tree line, sat an old service station with plywood in its windows and a flat island that had once held two pumps. A two-toned Ford Lariat pickup with a FOR SALE sign in its window was parked in the small lot. Lucas pulled in and studied his map.
“All right,” said Lucas. “If Lumley gave me the right information, King and them are staying in a house at the end of that gravel road.”
“I don’t see any other houses ’round here.”
“There are, according to this map. But not too close by. That’s good.”
They drove down to the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary and unloaded their recreational gear. Dupree grudgingly changed into Leo’s shorts and took off on Lucas’s bike.
Lucas put his kayak in at the boat ramp and headed out into a freshwater marsh carpeted in cattails, reed, and arrowhead. He had removed the bandage from his palm, and his hand on the paddle felt sure and strong. He saw a great blue heron, turtles, and a northern water snake. A front had taken away much of the humidity, and the sky was clear with full sun. It was one of those days that made Lucas believe in something higher. Whether or not there was an afterlife was irrelevant to him. When he witnessed this kind of natural beauty, he knew. This life was no cosmic accident.
Lucas and Dupree met up again in the late afternoon, changed clothes, and drove back over to Route 301, where they found a restaurant with wood-paneled walls that had salads, baked potatoes, and steaks. They ordered no alcohol and told the waitress to take her time. They were waiting for night.