Snake eyes, p.20
Snake Eyes, page 20
“What now?” Carl demanded.
“They’re going to come for us,” Bob said. “We need to be ready, quickly. Boone, you take the row of cars on the west perimeter, circle behind them. It’ll give you a firing angle on them as they try to enter the yard. Petkovic, you round the main building to the far side where it meets the road. If they follow us straight in, that will funnel them into both your fields of fire. Carl and I will set up behind the campers.”
They climbed out of the station wagon. Boone frowned, hesitating.
“What?” Bob asked.
“Body armor’s in the bag in the back. Don’t like working without body armor.”
“My advice would be to not get shot,” Bob said. “Earpieces in! Get going! We probably don’t have long.”
36
PHILADELPHIA
Jerry Grosso lounged in his personal sauna and sweated off the stress of the evening. He was tired and would normally have gone to bed. But his men had made rapid progress.
Arno stuck his head into the room. “Boss, I have an update.”
Grosso motioned for him to enter then winced, his broken finger swollen and painful.
The fully dressed security chief began to visibly perspire. “Sir, Iris Lombardo from Harrisburg has a team on them, a dozen of her best guys. They’ve got them cornered in some little rural shithole — Plainview. Plainfield. Something like that.”
“Good. And the woman’s with them?”
“No, sir. One of their stoolies caught sight of all four of them at a diner just outside Harrisburg, which is how she got onto them. But it’s just four guys. No Tiffany. The little bald guy she was with in the casino floor security tapes is nowhere to be found, either.”
“Damn it!”
Arno’s every pore was now drenched. “Sir?”
“The others, I could give half a damn. Opportunists who will pay with their lives. But that slut deceived me. She positioned herself as an erudite sophisticate, a worthy consort.”
“Sir?” Arno sounded no less confused than when the conversation had begun.
“She lied to me, Arno, and I won’t have that. Make sure they keep at least one of them alive so that we can extract her location from them. Doubtless, she has them all wrapped around her perfect fingers.”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
The entire mess was going to take months to extricate himself from, Grosso knew. The don and four capos who’d been his guests were now all owed favors, money and substantial interest to boot.
But more than that, they would want assurances that he hadn’t lost control of his patch. That he was still a man to be feared and respected. If they sensed weakness, they’d start talking, collaborating, honing in on the best routes to splitting up his turf.
A mistake like the game could have ended with him dead in a ditch in Jersey, he knew. He’d make sure she paid publicly for that, and painfully.
Bob tapped the earpiece’s mic button and left the channel open. “Boone, what are you seeing?”
“We’ve got four cars. Looks like ten, eleven guys. They’re parking on either side of the entrance. Probably figure the headlights make them sitting targets.”
Bob raised the M4 carbine and sighted down the attached scope. A few feet away, at the other caravan’s back corner, Carl was watching him, his expression caught under the light from a nearby post.
He seemed annoyed.
“It’s the FLIR scope, isn’t it?” Bob said. “It’s really pissing you off that I was right about that.”
“Maybe I just need less help,” Carl said.
“Yeah? Well… I’m about to even up the odds a little. Those dudes aren’t as far away as they think.”
Bob shifted his aim a few degrees due west, along the very edges of the long dirt driveway that ran around the main building, towards the yard. Along the hedge row, to the right of the building, a solitary figure was creeping, crouched, towards Boone’s position.
Bob licked the tips of his right middle and index fingers and held them up, feeling the strength of the breeze and its direction. Maybe ten klicks southwest. The man wasn’t far enough away for it to really matter, not at that wind speed.
He aimed center mass, drew his breath in, held it and squeezed the trigger. The carbine’s retort was loud, a crack splitting the night, the figure staggering a few feet, then collapsing onto the road.
“That’s one,” Bob muttered.
Ahead, they could hear the men panicking, scurrying for the cover of a half-dozen vehicles parked near the main building.
“Thanks, Bob,” Boone said. “I didn’t see that guy. I think there’s another. I’m going to lean out—”
There was a rapid volley of gunfire, white-orange markers indicating Boone’s position as he tried to gun both men down.
“Stay in cover and save ammo!” Bob ordered. “Let me spot him first.”
“I’m being careful,” Boone hissed.
There was another crack of gunfire, three more shots. “Shit,” Boone said over the open channel. “Have to reload. Shit.”
With only one arm, that would mean juggling his gun, trying to pin it under the sling to extract the mag, Bob realized. “Retreat!” Bob barked at him. “There’s too many to waste time—”
The crack of gunfire interrupted him. Bob saw the barrel flashes near the building, where Boone had been positioned.
“Boone!” he barked. “Boone, come in.”
He moved the scope across the corner of the building. He could see a single boot jutting past it. A moment later, a shorter man leaned around the corner. Bob centered his target and fired twice, the figure going down.
“That’s two,” he said grimly.
He glanced over at Carl. He had a quizzical expression.
Bob shook his head. “I don’t think he made it.”
Carl eyed him angrily. Then, in a smooth, quick motion, he raised the carbine to shoulder height, aimed down the metal sights and fired twice, three times.
He ducked back into cover, the driveway ahead erupting with gunfire, bullets pinging off something nearby, off the road, lodging themselves in the high-sided camper.
“That’s another,” said Carl.
Bob leaned around the giant van but had to duck immediately back into cover, a volley of pistol and rifle fire pinning him down.
“I’ve got three guys closing on me. I think they’ve gone around the building,” Petkovic’s voice rang through the earpiece.
“Get out of there and back up to us,” Bob said. “Watch your left flank, Boone’s down.” He looked over at Carl. “We need to give him cover fire. On three. One, two…”
Both men leaned around their respective camper simultaneously, the carbines set to burst fire, each trigger squeeze unleashing three rounds in a split second. They raked the cars as Petkovic turned and sprinted to join them, leaning into it, hurling himself towards safety with every step.
The St. Jude’s medal swung haphazardly with each motion. Petkovic kept running. He looked backwards over his shoulder for a split second. As he turned back to face them, the chain flew from around his neck, momentum carrying it over his head and into the soft dirt.
Petkovic stopped running. “My MEDAL!” he yelled.
“LEAVE IT!” Bob screamed.
Petkovic dropped to his knees in the dirt. “I can’t! I have to find it. It was my father’s!”
“Petko, GET THE FUCK OVER HERE!” Carl barked. “Just let it go!”
“I CAN’T. I can’t leave—”
The bullet passed directly through the back of Petkovic’s neck and out through his throat, his jugular ripped open. He collapsed to the ground, his gaze empty, the light already disappearing from his eyes.
“PETKO!” Carl screamed. He fired wildly, sighting and resighting, moving the barrel towards each point of light he could see. “MOTHERFUCKERS!”
Bob knew they couldn’t help Carl’s friend. He swung the crosshair slowly across a point thirty yards ahead of the campers. There. He flicked the rifle over to semi-automatic. He squeezed the trigger and another man went down. There. He squeezed the trigger again, another dropped.
To the right of the driveway, one of the cars had caught fire, the fuel in the tank feeding it, the frame consumed. A pair of men sprinted away from it. Bob led the first by two inches and fired, his body collapsing beside the road in.
He ducked back into cover and reloaded. Bob glanced over at Carl, who was doing the same. “What’s your count?” he said.
“Who the fuck cares!” Carl raged. “They fucking shot Petko! I’m going to kill every one of those fuckers.” The bank robber leaned around the corner and dropped to one knee. He clocked movement to the left of the driveway, firing one burst, then another, then a third.
“Two more down,” Bob said. He lowered the scope. “Keep alert; we’re down to the last few. They’ll come quiet, try to catch us close.”
He saw a rustle near the main building again. Bob reached into his fanny pack and drew the flashbang. “Avert your eyes,” he told Carl.
Bob pulled the pin and tossed the flashbang immediately, letting it cook as it rolled across the hard-packed dirt. Both men looked away and covered their faces with their forearms. Even outdoors, the flash was extreme, a flare that bathed the main building in a moment of blinding light.
Bob swung around the end of the camper in time to see two men down, on their knees, near the edge of the building. He shot one through the head. The other began to crawl away as quickly as he could manage.
Bob jogged after him, stopping and pausing when within ten feet, shooting the man twice through the back at chest height, center mass.
The man stopped crawling.
Carl uncovered his eyes in time to see Bob pop around the back end of the camper and jog towards the building.
Cover him.
He moved to Bob’s corner and watched as the other man methodically gunned down the first of two attackers. Bob’s pace slowed to a quick walk as he pursued the second man, who was crawling away, blind.
Bob raised the rifle.
Is he going to shoot him in the back? Carl had never been sentimental. Killing someone was pretty much always a necessity, not a choice. The first few times, you felt sick about it, and about the concepts of living and dying in general. And then you learned not to think about it.
But something about the crawling man’s futility struck him wrong.
He raised the carbine and sighted the back of Bob’s head. Eventually, he’s going to be convinced I shot his friend, and he’s going to come for me.
Do it. He’s about to shoot that guy in the back, without hesitation. He’d do this to you.
His finger curled around the trigger. Do it. What am I waiting for?
Something was stopping him. What the fuck is wrong with me? Just shoot him.
Carl lowered the rifle. Because you’ve never shot a man in the back before, that’s why.
Thirty feet away, Bob stopped walking, sighted the crawling man again and shot him twice through the back.
To be sure, he walked up to the man’s prone body and shot him in the back of the head.
Carl heard the slightest pull of a spring, to his right. He ducked backwards just in time, the pistol shot just inches from his face, the noise deafening, a piercing pain in his right ear, all sound replaced instantly by a high-pitched whine.
He staggered to his left then turned, in time to see the third man raise the gun to eye level. He was at least six feet away, too much distance to close.
His attacker yanked the trigger, Carl stopping short, expecting the sting of the bullet, shocked to instead find himself still standing there, the other man holding a pistol with the slide back, the magazine empty.
He charged forward and dove at the man, trying to pin him down, Carl reaching for the dagger in his boot. But the other man was bigger, stronger. He grabbed Carl’s wrists and used his weight to flip both onto their side, then over, forcing his way on top of the bank robber, leaning forward with his full weight, a forearm braced against Carl’s jugular, choking him.
Carl pried at the man’s arms, fingertips slick with dirt and sweat, unable to get purchase. The man’s strength was steely, unyielding.
He heard a “thomp thomp thomp” sound, like a helicopter blade stuck in molasses. The man’s strength disappeared and he slumped over onto the ground, dead. A trick of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth and began to stream into the dirt.
Bob was standing over both men, the carbine’s barrel still smoking. “WHO UR SSS,” he seemed to say, any sound crushed by the whining of Carl’s damaged eardrum. He held out a hand. Carl took it, letting the bigger man pull him to his feet.
“I CAN’T HEAR SHIT,” Carl yelled. “FUCKER FIRED SIX INCHES FROM MY EAR.”
Bob signaled with one finger, tapping his own ear, then making a turning motion.
Carl turned his head. Bob yelled into his other ear. “GIVE IT A FEW MINUTES AND YOU MIGHT BE OKAY,” he said. “WE HAVE TO GO, NOW.”
Carl looked over toward the main building. Petkovic’s body lay halfway between it and the campers.
Bob shook his head. “NO TIME. ONE OF THEM WILL HAVE CALLED FOR HELP. WE NEED TO ROLL.”
They jogged to the station wagon. Bob began removing bags from the back seat.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Carl yelled.
“THAT WAS TOO EASY FOR THEM. I FIGURE THE VEHICLE’S MADE SOMEHOW, SO WE’RE TAKING ONE OF THEIRS.”
Carl began walking to the other side of the lot.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Bob demanded.
“CHECKING ON BOONE. IN CASE.” Carl scampered the fifty feet to the other side of the property. He stopped walking. His head dropped for a moment.
He turned and walked back to the station wagon.
They drove for another hour, sticking to secondary roads, Bob’s eyes warily scanning the rearview mirror of the Lincoln Continental and the road ahead in equal measure, each intersection a potential ambush.
He checked his battered old Seiko. It was nearly midnight.
Carl bellowed, “PULL OVER. I HAVE TO PISS.”
“You’re still yelling!” Bob said as loudly as he could without yelling himself.
“Sorry. My right ear… I think it’s really fucked.” Carl was rubbing it. “I think he ruptured my eardrum. HURTS LIKE A FUCKER TOO, LIKE SOMEONE STUCK A KNIFE THROUGH IT.”
Bob checked their perimeter as he slowed the car and pulled over. There were no signs of life, no movement, no lights. It was near pitch black, just the faintest cloud-muffled moonlight and the twin cones glaring from the car’s low-beam headlights.
Carl got out. “BE RIGHT BACK.”
Bob watched in the side mirror as Carl walked to the back of the car then turned to face the ditch.
How the hell did I get here, working with this piece of work, after midnight, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania? He tried to cast his mind back over the week prior, second-guessing his choices. Taylor’s shooting couldn’t have been foreseen; he could’ve grabbed Arthur Wilkie earlier, perhaps, or just jumped ahead to taking the gang down, given up on first trying to uncover who pulled the trigger.
But Eamon Stoll had been an unpredictable factor. The Jerry Grosso situation even less so. Carl’s entire crew was just imbalanced — just undependable — enough to have guaranteed something was going to go wrong.
I think I have to file this one under—
He paused in mid-thought, realizing he’d gotten distracted.
It had been too long.
Where’s Carl?
37
STOLL COLONY - NEAR SOMERSET, PENNSYLVANIA
Tiffany sat on the edge of her cot, slumped, feet on the floor and elbows on her knees. She puffed on a cigarette and contemplated how to handle things.
Instinct said there would be some point during the night when no one was around, that Stoll was counting on them not knowing the community, or how to quickly put distance between it and them.
But her heart was pushing her towards patience. Stoll clearly wasn’t going to kill her; he thought she was leverage, although knowing Carl, she somehow doubted it.
But Stoll would wait until he had the cash before pulling any triggers.
That meant there was still time, to escape, but to do so with enough money to disappear.
And that meant waiting for Carl.
She glanced over at Arthur and felt a pang of regret.
If she hadn’t chosen familiar turf, she wouldn’t have targeted Arthur as her “white knight” patsy. And if she hadn’t targeted him, he wouldn’t have somehow tipped off the security guy at the casino. Everything had gone wrong from there.
She shook her head.
Idiot.
You’re an idiot, Arthur.
Any reasonably corrupt bank clerk would have made do. But I had to seduce the most cringey nice guy who ever lived.
The main door to the stables creaked with weight of age, swollen wood and gravity taking their toll on the old hinges. The door swung half open.
Eamon Stoll stepped through, then reached back and closed it behind him.
It impressed her, that he went places on the colony without a bodyguard or other protectors. He did not seem to demand fawning attention, either.
Still… Having him think you admire him could make life easier when the time comes to get the hell out of here.
Arthur was rousing as Stoll approached.
“Wake up!” Stoll demanded. He nodded at Tiffany. “You are smoking.”
“Yes. I smoke. Your men took my phone and keys and lighter, but not my cigarettes.”
“How—” Stoll saw the oil lamp on the old desk against the wall, just beyond their cots. “Ah.” He turned his attention back to her. “Put it out. That is not a request. Should you cause a fire, there is every unfortunate possibility you would survive, while my horses should perish.”
“My apologies,” she said. She stepped on the cigarette and ground it under her shoe, then picked up the butt and made sure it was cold, pocketing it.
