Chapter 41
Between Max’s planning and Myles’execution, the op runs smoother than many I ran in the Navy. I can only admire how meticulous and methodical the two of them are. Their time in England, as much as Max bitched about it, made them a team. They anticipate what the other is going to do; they finish each other’s sentences.
By the time we land in Bangor around one in the morning, Ten still hasn’t responded to Max’s text. Max unrolls a couple of sleeping bags and stretches out on the floor of the plane. Having napped through an hour of the plane ride and nearly the whole of the flight, I’m not sleepy. Myles paces around outside, probably wired from the two hundred cups of coffee he’s had.
When I see him unpacking an unusual-looking gun through the open door of the plane, I climb out of my seat and join him.
He sets up a small target on the gray wall of the hanger, paces back to me and moves the steel case back a few feet. “Ever used one of these?” he asks me.
“Not sure I’ve ever seen one of these. What is it?”
He picks up the gun, which has a normal looking grip and then two very strange, long, skinny barrels. Beneath the two barrels is a tube that looks like a scope except it’s on the bottom of the gun. No way to look through it.
“Dart gun,” Myles tells me. “Hundred-foot range. Quiet and effective. Fires a thirteen-millimeter dart.”
He shows me how to load the dart, which is a needle and syringe with a pink fluff on the end.
When he fires it, there’s a puff of vapor. The dart sticks to the middle of the target; the pink fluff quivers. We both chuckle, watching it.
“What’s in the syringe?”
“Your drug of choice. Ketamine.”
“My—?” It takes me a moment to connect the dots to the drug that poisoned the punch at Rick’s party. “Yeah.”
“It’s a veterinary dose. Used to take down horses. I don’t expect him to survive it. You’re clear on that, right?”
I nod.
“Okay, give it a try.”
He hands me the strange gun. I take a minute to hold it and get used to the weight. I aim several times before trying to fire. The length of the barrel takes getting used to. Finally, I fire at the target.
I hit the second ring and watch the pink fluff quiver.
“Good enough,” Myles say. “Go for center mass. Chest or back, anywhere is fine. Gun and dart are made to punch through animal skin. It’ll penetrate clothes. If you hit on the first shot but the dart falls off, reload and hit him again. The objective here is to take him down quickly and quietly. I don’t give a fuck how much of a dose he gets.”
“Got it.”
Myles packs the gun away, plucks the darts out of the bullseye and sticks them in a yellow sharps box in the gun’s case.
“I’ve got two guns. C says you’re a better shot than he is. You can carry one or you can just be my backup?—”
“I’ll carry one,” I say. “I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t.”
Myles nods. “Appreciate that. I decided the outcome of this as soon as I got my boy’s text. If you’d told me I was on my own, I’d still be here. Experienced eyes and hands are always welcome but I don’t want to stumble over you.”
He won’t.
“Whatever you need me to do, just tell me. I’m not proud. I know when I’m out of my league. This is your op. Tell me what to do.”
Myles snaps the gun case shut and hands it to me. When I take it, he lays a hand on my shoulder.
“Not many people have seen me work,” he says, meeting my eyes. “I won’t pretend what I do is pretty but I try to keep it clean and clinical. I don’t extract information. I don’t torture. Elimination and disposal. That’s what we’re doing. C got used to following my lead in England. If you can do the same, once we find the target, this will be fast. I can’t promise easy but I don’t ever draw shite out. That’s how ops go bad.”
“Okay, I understand. I’ll follow your lead. I won’t get in your way.”
“I appreciate the faith. You should try to get some rest. Tomorrow’s likely to be a long day.”
“Do you sleep during ops?” I ask.
He shakes his head. His gaze drifts down to the gun case. “Not much. I’m used to it. Don’t worry about my focus.”
I take him at his word. He’s the expert and I saw how good he is at his job when he and Max had their adventure in England. With a nod, I take the gun case back into the plane, stow it with my bag, and climb into the nest of sleeping bags Max has made on the floor. Neither of us are used to sleeping alone anymore and I figure if my morning rocket ends up pressing into him, or his into me, Max won’t punch me.
When I wake, groggy from the broken sleep, stiff and disoriented, Max and Myles are close to the front of the plane, huddled over a phone, speaking quietly.
I crawl over and prop myself against one of the seats, rubbing my bad leg.
“D is awake,” Myles says into the phone.
Ten’s voice responds. “Welcome to the party, D.”
“Good morning, A. What’d I miss?”
“Target acquired,” Ten says. “I’ve given B and C the coordinates. Small complication in that the target’s not alone. I’m hopeful the girls will leave soon, though. I think they’re the kind of company you pay by the hour.”
“Other than the paid companions, anyone in the house?” Myles asks.
“Not that I’ve seen but there’s a visible security system,” Ten responds.
“Disable or lure out?” Myles asks, lifting his eyes to Max.
“I’ll evaluate it on site. If it’s linked to the local PD, disabling it might set off an alarm. If it’s hard-wired, luring him out’s the better option.”
Myles nods. “Car’s just pulling up. We’ll give the delivery boy ten minutes to clear off. We’re twenty minutes away. See you in thirty.”
Ten grunts. “What’re you planning to do when you get here?”
“First we’re going to evaluate the physical security and decide on the approach. Once we have the target isolated, we’re going to tag him and bag him.”
“We’re not taking him back to the fucking, uh, authority where we came from,” Ten growls.
“No, we’re not,” Myles agrees. “We’re the garbage men.”
There’s a short silence while Ten processes what Myles has said.
“Yeah, okay,” Ten says. “I’m on board with that. Bring lunch when you come. There’s nothing around here. Fucking suburbs.”
With chuckles that sound strained to my ears, we sign off.
“Stay low and out of sight of the cabin windows,” Myles tells me. “A couple of prospects are dropping off a car since I don’t want a rental car paper trail. I don’t care if the prospects see my plane number since we drove to Jersey but I don’t want them seeing our faces.”
I nod and slide down to sit near them on the carpeted floor. I spread my legs and ease into some of the stretches Hendry taught me.
“While you’ve been sleeping, I’ve set up a backup evac plan,” Myles tells me as Max slides down on the floor in front of me, spreads his legs, and offers me his hands for a deep stretch. I let him pull me forward slowly and groan as the tension in my back and hips releases.
“I’m listening,” I assure Myles between groans.
“If we get separated, I’ve set up a rendezvous point away from the air strip. There’s cash, food, and water there. GPS has been sent to your burner. If any of us go for more than two hours without contact from any of the others, we stop what we’re doing and head to the rendezvous point. If that means leaving the target behind, even after he’s down, that’s what we do. Clear?”
I nod. “Clear.”
“We wait at the rendezvous point for six hours. Once any one of us arrives at the rendezvous point, the GPS in our burners will trigger a count-down that’s sent to all of the burners so everyone can see how long we’ve got to rendezvous. If you cannot reach the rendezvous point before the end of the countdown, go to ground. If you’re injured, seek medical help. If you’re not, best bet is to hitchhike back to New York. We’re clear to be back in New York in seventy-six hours. The hunting license will have expired and that’s enough time for C’s injury to be treated.”
“Okay,” I say, panting a little as Max and I turn around until we’re back-to-back, lock elbows and start twisting side-to-side. Tension releases down my bad leg in a series of pops.
“I’ve primed my guy on the back end,” Myles continues. “We’re calling him F. He knows we’re coming in for disposal. He’s been paid. We hand off the target in a body bag. F won’t open it. F’s club has the controlling interest in a crematorium. The target will be run through the crematorium’s oven and ash grinder and the ashes buried in the crematorium’s rose garden.”
Max grunts. “That the same club who have a cozy bunker somewhere in Ohio?”
“One and the same,” Myles confirms.
I gather this is the same motorcycle club that provided a safe room for Max when he hacked two animal research labs to expose the weakness in WEDGE, a defense-department security program. I don’t ask for names. Max was clear when he told me, Mac, and Manny about it that the bikers were cool and professional but also armed and unflinching when they saw Max’s teacher-turned-nemesis in a gimp hood and zip-ties. They do the jobs they’re paid to do; they’re not people you mess with.
“Since you’re the only one of us who can fly,” I say. “If this goes south, you’re out of the equation, and one of us needs to drive the, uh, target to the club, how do we find them?”
“I have an idea for that,” Myles responds. “But I need to see what car they bring.”
I don’t understand why the plan would depend on the car but I trust Myles so I nod.
We go silent as the thrumming of a car motor and the crunching of tires on gravel sound through the plane’s cabin. I continue to stretch, wanting to be as limber as possible before we meet Ten. I’ve been on plenty of stake-outs. Stiffness and greasy food are the order of the day.
Myles starts a timer running on his phone. Before it reaches three minutes, a message flashes up on all our burners.
F: Car delivered. Prospects heading back to base.
Myles acknowledges the text.
“Grab whatever you need for the day. Wheels up in five,” Myles tells us.
I slept in my clothes, as did Max. I take a minute in the plane’s tiny bathroom so I’m not stinking out the team, grab my go-bag and the gun case, and meet Myles at the bottom of the plane ramp.
He takes my bag and the gun case and stores them in the large, midnight blue SUV that’s parked at the mouth of the hangar. He hands me a plain black hoodie. I shrug out of my jumper and put the hoodie over the long-sleeved Henley I’m wearing for warmth.
The hoodie’s noticeably heavier than a normal sweatshirt.
“Body armor?” I ask.
Myles, who is wearing his own black hoodie, nods. “Move around and get a sense of the weight so it doesn’t throw off your aim.”
I do as he says. It’s like wearing a wool coat and nothing like wearing Kevlar.
“What is this?” I ask as I windmill my arms. “Much too light to be steel mesh.”
“Spider-silk? Space-age polymer? Fuck if I know,” Myles responds as he slides behind the wheel and fiddles with the dashboard. “It’ll stop most blades and low-caliber bullets. That’s all I care about.”
Seeing the sense in that, I nod.
“We get into a firefight, pull the hood over your head,” Myles says. “Same material.”
“Do you anticipate a firefight?” I ask.
Myles shakes his head. “Never say never. Until we’re able to do some recon, I’ve got no idea what Selman has or what he’s capable of. But run most predators to ground, and they’ll turn and fight. I’m not assuming anything because he’s decided to run. This may be a safe house he established a long time ago full of guns, ammo, and cash. I’m not assuming fuck all.”
I take a deep breath. Over the smell of oil and a tang of disinfectant, there’s the smell of Maine: pine trees and the brine of the ocean. “I spent two summers at sports camp here when I was in high school,” I tell Myles. “Have you spent any time in Maine?”
Myles shakes his head. “I’ve passed through a few times.”
“People in Maine are a different breed. Resilient. Secretive. Anti-authoritarian. You can count on most of them to mind their own business. But if Drew’s known here and we’re outsiders, that won’t go well for us.”
Myles finishes whatever he’s doing and sits back. He pulls his hair back into a ponytail and fastens it with a black tie from around his wrist before putting on a pair of sunglasses. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. “I’ve programmed the club’s GPS location into the car’s sound system. It’s the first playlist. Be sure to delete it if you end up having to drive the car to meet up with them, although they’ll probably torch it just to be safe.”
“Okay,” I agree. “You’re thorough.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t be?”
“No. I saw how well you took care of C.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Myles says. “That I’m not dead or in jail should tell you all you need to know.”
I grunt in acknowledgement. “Any thoughts about retirement?” I ask.
“Lots,” he admits. “But the people who still call me are persistent bastards. Hard to tell them no. I understand one of them called you.”
Remembering the call from the deep-voiced gentleman on the D.C. number, I nod. “Persuasive guy.”
Myles chuckles. “I can imagine what he threatened you with.”
“Smell the audit.”
“Uh-huh. He hits mandatory retirement age in two years. He’s grooming a successor; he’s already tried to rope me into jobs for her and some of his other friends but they don’t have the direct connection to me that he has. He can guilt trip me into taking jobs. They don’t have that kind of leverage. Thing is—” Myles takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Once I’m no longer on the payroll, so to speak, I won’t have any more excuses to wriggle out of my family responsibilities. I figure you’ve investigated me, so you know what those are.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “No love lost between you and your old man?”
“No. Fucking monster,” Myles responds. “C better not be taking a dump. What the fuck is taking him so long?”
I chuckle. With Max’s ever-perfect timing, he pokes his head out of the plane’s open door and gives Myles the finger. “I’m cleaning up your messy fucking internet signature, dickhead.”
“Thirty seconds and I’m leaving you behind,” Myles snipes back.
I know banter is their love-language but this feels a little more loaded. The nerves of the op working on both of them maybe.
Despite the finger, Max is out of the plane and in the car in just under thirty seconds. He directs Myles to a mom-and-pop store just off the secondary road we take out of Bangor. They have paper bags of sandwiches and snacks ready for us. I pay cash and we’re back on the road in less than two minutes.
“I picked that place because I couldn’t find any sign they had a CCTV system,” Max tells me once we’re back in the car. “Did you see any cameras?”
I shake my head but Sacrum was wired to the eyeteeth without me seeing any cameras, either.
“On the way back, if we have time, I want to stop and sweep that place for signals,” Max tells Myles.
“Relax keyboard warrior,” Myles responds as he steers the big car with one hand gripping the wheel and bites into a breakfast burrito. “I’ll make time.”
Max grumbles but settles into his own food.