Contract to Kill (34 page)

Nathan flew directly over the center of the quarry.

“I’m getting some good video footage. We’ll take a look after we land.”

A few miles southeast of the quarry, Harv told him to turn around and head back. Nathan executed a steep 180-degree turn, increasing the g-force.

Grangeland groaned, but she didn’t sound as bad as the first time they’d flown together.

“You okay back there?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah, I think so. Can you keep the maneuvering to a minimum?”

“Sorry. No more steep turns, I promise.”

“Thanks. I didn’t take any Dramamine. It makes me a little drowsy, and I want to be fully alert.”

“Here we go, Nate. Twenty seconds to the turn . . . ”

“I’m on it.”

“Right about . . . here.”

Nathan gently pushed the cyclic to the left, added some left pedal, and watched the compass spin.

Sitting on Nathan’s left, Harv filmed the quarry’s southern hemisphere as they overflew it in the opposite direction.

Nathan burned the landscape into his head, making mental notes of the prominent geographical features. Accessed by a dirt road that wound its way up a canyon, there was no mistaking the borrow pit’s distinctive form—a giant, craterlike wound on the south side of a mountain. A lake, about the size of a soccer field, dominated the center of the pit.

The pit had roughly the same size and shape as a football stadium. At the open end of its south hemisphere—where the water nearly flowed out—several small buildings stood in various stages of decay. A rusty conveyor for moving and piling excavated earth had collapsed. Some wrecked hulks of cars dotted the area. The pit’s access road terminated at a large expanse of level ground where the buildings, the cars, and the collapsed conveyor sat.

It was hard to judge, but Nathan believed the overall depth of the quarry was somewhere around 150 feet measured from the highest point on its north rim. Thirty-foot-high terraces ringed the pit, each terrace measuring some thirty to forty feet wide. A fall from one of those ledges would break bones and likely be fatal. The man-made cliffs were nearly vertical.

Nathan saw a separate road following the rim of the quarry, but it didn’t connect to the tiers below. About a quarter mile west of the pit, they overflew another road running north and south, but it didn’t appear to be associated with the quarry.

The more Nathan thought about it, the more this place made sense. It was an ideal location to conduct business away from prying eyes, but only if sentries were posted along the rim. Otherwise, it could become a shooting gallery. It was defensible and isolated. Conversely, there was only one way in, or out, of the place.

“What do you guys think?” Nathan asked.

“It looks like a prime spot,” Harv offered, voicing his exact thoughts on the high sniping positions.

“Grangeland?”

“I agree with Harvey. I’d definitely want shooters overlooking the pit. From the west rim, they’d have a clear line of sight along the access road all the way to the Colorado River.”

“Harv, how far’s the river?”

“I’d say . . . two miles.”

“Did anyone see any vehicles in the immediate area surrounding the quarry?”

“Besides the junked cars . . . no,” said Grangeland. “But I saw a few cars and RVs parked at the river. It looked like a campground. There were some tents. I’m pretty sure I saw boat ramps at both of the lakes.”

“Those would be Squaw Lake and Senator Wash Reservoir,” Harv said. “I’ve camped here before, a long time ago. Squaw is the smaller lake below the dam.”

“Did you film those?” Nathan asked Harv.

“Yeah, I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

“We’ll land a mile west of the quarry, take a look at your footage, and hump in from there.”

“Let’s hope your ballistic vests are . . . improved models,” Grangeland said.

“Indeed they are,” Harv said. “We upgraded them right after your incident.”

“Great timing,” she said dryly.

Nathan didn’t have the heart to tell Grangeland that Mason and crew were probably using armor-piercing rounds; she didn’t need the added distraction.

“Start descending,” Harv said. “I spotted a good place to land on our first pass.”

“Power lines?” Nathan asked.

“Negative, no poles or transmission towers are present. Turn to two-three-zero, keep descending.”

Nathan slowed and bled off more altitude. “I see it—that dry wash?”

“Yep.”

“Looks good. We’re going to kick up a sizable dust cloud. Grangeland, do you see any cars or people?”

Her voice sounded tight. “No.”

Nathan slowed and continued to descend. The spot they wanted sat in the middle of a sandy wash shielded by sloping twenty-foot-high banks on either side. The borrow pit sat about a mile to the east across a relatively flat expanse of desert. The wash flowed north to south, so Nathan pivoted the Bell, allowing it to touch down with the front of the skids first. He estimated he had thirty feet of clearance on either side of the main rotor.

No one traversing the road they’d overflown would be able to see the helicopter. It could be seen from the air, but night was coming soon. Still, to be safe, Nathan intended to cover its fuselage with desert camouflage netting.

Dust and loose weeds flew in every direction as Nathan brought the two-and-a-half-ton machine into a hover. Grangeland’s description of a giant leaf blower seemed accurate.

“Looking good,” Harv said. “We’re clear on the left.”

The helicopter jolted slightly as its left skid landed on a small rock and slid off.

“Talk about a pucker factor,” Grangeland said. “Is landing this thing as difficult as it looks?”

“Not really,” Nathan answered. “You try not to think about it. You do it by feel, using a visual reference to the ground. I focus on a spot about fifty to sixty feet away and then slowly lower the collective until the ship can’t fly anymore. I know that sounds overly simple, but the weight of the ship just settles to the ground.”

“If you say so.”

“If Holly had been here, she could’ve made this landing.”

“Holly knows how to fly this thing?”

“Yep, I’ve been teaching her. She doesn’t have a license yet, but she can fly it. Tell you what, on the way back I’ll give you some time on the controls . . . ” He grinned. “If you think you can handle it.”

“We’ll see.”

Nathan started the shutdown procedure. After the main rotor stopped, they climbed out into an arid landscape. Nathan glanced at his watch: 1602. Sunset was around seventy-five minutes away.

All three of them were dressed in desert MARPAT. Grangeland’s combat uniform fit her well because she was roughly the same size and build as Holly. Several years ago, Nathan had bought Holly two sets of both woodland and desert MARPATs as Christmas presents. Holly had been thrilled and immediately put them on—with nothing underneath. He smiled at the memory, but it vanished. Whatever the outcome between them, he just wanted her to be happy.

Not now
, he told himself. He needed to remain focused on the task at hand: taking out the trash.

“Let’s get the ship covered,” Nathan said. He opened the luggage compartment and froze. A chill raked his skin. “Helicopter!”

“Shit!” Harv said.

Nathan yanked a camo-netting bag from the compartment. “Harv, get the other.”

“What can I do to help?” Grangeland asked.

“Get on the other side. I’m going to toss the net. We don’t have time to cover the main rotor.” Nathan threw the camo netting as if casting it from a fishing boat.

Coming from the east, the helicopter’s whooping grew in volume.

Harv tossed his netting over the rear of the ship. It draped the tail rotor and vertical stabilizer perfectly.

“Good toss,” Nathan said. “Mine’s caught on the cable cutter.”

Harv raced to the opposite side and opened the door. He lifted the net as best he could, but it kept getting caught on the fin-shaped device.

“Good enough. Everybody under the net!”

They huddled under the belly of the ship. “It’s going to pass north of us,” Harv said. “It’s deep, sounds like a big one.”

“Could be a Navy or Marine Super Stallion from Yuma MCAS.”

“Did we fly through their airspace?” Grangeland asked.

“No. The air station is well south of here and Yuma Proving Ground is east of us. They saw us on radar, but pilots fly these corridors all the time to stay out of military airspace.”

The thumping grew louder, then reached a peak. “Harv, can you see it?”

“It’s a Stallion, but it’s half a mile away and not changing course. Might be heading out to El Centro or Miramar. No way to know.”

The whooping of its big main rotor faded, and silence fell across the desert once more.

“You feelin’ it, Grangeland?” Nathan asked with a smile.

“If you’re talking about this tingling all over my body, yes.”

He offered her a high five. She grinned and smacked his hand.

“Let’s get these nets squared away.”

They used large rocks to secure the corners. When they were finished, the netting resembled a sheer tent over the aircraft.

“That looks amazing,” Grangeland said. “No way anyone’ll see it from the air.”

Nathan took a moment to gauge the temperature and wind. Around seventy degrees and ten miles an hour out of the northeast, respectively.

“Let’s get underneath for a minute.”

They ducked under the mesh and formed a huddle next to the ship.

“Here’s the video I shot.” Harv wirelessly linked his video recorder to his laptop, opened the Bell’s door, and placed the computer on the rear seat. “We can slow it down, freeze the stream, and take screenshots.”

Nathan leaned in for a better look. “I have a pretty good idea where to position everyone, but we should scout the area before we make the final decision. Ramiro told Beaumont the exchange is going down about an hour after sunset, so we’ll need to choose locations near large rocks or boulders. That way, if Mason or Alisio’s men have thermal imagers, the rocks will help mask our signatures.”

“Our ghillie suits will help too,” Harv said.

Nathan and Harv’s handmade ghillie suits were vital pieces of gear. Consisting of pants and a poncho-like coat, once donned, they broke up the sharp edges of a human form by employing thousands of tattered pieces of fabric. A motionless wearer looked much like a shaggy bush or small tree.

“I think one of us should be positioned inside the pit somewhere, maybe near or in one of those abandoned vehicles.” Nathan thought for a moment. “Scratch that. Those might be the first places they’d search.”

He asked Harv to zoom in on certain features like the abandoned cars and the buildings. As Nathan suspected, all the structures’ windows had been destroyed long ago. Same with the vehicles.

“Maybe there’s a good place to hide inside this collapsed conveyor belt,” Harv offered.

“We’ll give it a look from the rim.”

“So what are the rules of engagement here?” Harv asked.

“We’ll have to see how things shake out,” Nathan said. “We know Alisio’s arriving with the cash, Philharmonics, and diamonds, and the South Koreans are bringing the counterfeit pesos in duffel bags. Mason might want all of it, but if he had to settle for one or the other, he’d pick Alisio’s half of the equation. It’s much more portable than the bulky duffel bags.”

Grangeland nodded. “The cash, diamonds, and gold would be my priority too.”

“Right. So you might expect him to wait for the exchange to occur, then raid Alisio’s payment from the Koreans on their way out. The wild card, though, is Alisio’s presence at the exchange.”

“The revenge motive,” Harv said.

“Exactly. If Mason got word that Alisio’s going to be here, then he may see it as an unplanned bonus.”

“Why’s Alisio coming?” Grangeland asked.

“There’s no way to know. Beaumont told us this counterfeit-money thing is a new venture for Alisio; he probably wants to be there for the first exchange.”

“And Alisio’s presence would be seen as a show of good faith,” Harv said. “That he’s willing to stand behind his money, so to speak. But speaking of Alisio, let’s say Mason does hit the Koreans after the exchange. Alisio’s not going to stand idly by while someone rips off his business partners, right? For one thing, he’s gonna feel threatened. For another, if his people don’t fight back, the South Koreans will assume he’s behind the heist. They might end up shooting at each other.”

“Which could be Mason’s plan,” Grangeland said.

“It’s entirely possible. They thin each other out, and he mops up the rest.” Nathan thought for a moment. “Pulling this off is a tall order for Mason’s team of three. Like us, they haven’t had a lot of time to plan.”

“Are you thinking they’ll bring some extra bodies? BSI personnel?” she asked.

“That’s another variable we can’t predict,” Nathan said. “We’ll deal with what we’re facing as best we can.” He wished he had a squad of Recons to supplement their effort, but this had been an under-the-table operation from the start. Lansing had made that abundantly clear.

“Back to what’s gonna happen down there,” he said. “If what Ramiro heard is accurate, the South Koreans will have a North Korean gemologist with them, and he’ll need time to examine the diamonds and Philharmonics. He may not check every one, but I doubt the South Koreans will leave without checking a large random sampling. That means a long wait while both parties are in the quarry. Given that, do you still think Mason waits to make his move until after the exchange?”

Grangeland spoke first. “Yeah, I do. We can safely assume there will be multiple vehicles arriving, and Mason will need to know which one to hit on the way out. He won’t know that until the end when everyone is leaving.”

“So he’ll hide and observe until they’re ready to leave, then make his move.”

“Yes,” Grangeland said. “That makes the most sense to me.”

Nathan nodded in agreement. “Me too. Like Mason, we’ll have to sit tight and observe what initially happens. We don’t know who’s who either. But keep in mind that our targets are Mason, Hahn, and Lyons. We’ll try not to kill anyone else, but if the situation warrants it, we shoot first and ask questions later.” Harv knew the gig, but Nathan needed to be clear Grangeland fully understood their situation. He looked at her, waiting for an acknowledgment, but she seemed to be evaluating what she’d just heard. “Special Agent Grangeland, we are in a shoot-to-kill situation. Period. All you have to do is imagine what they’d do to you if they take you prisoner. I’ll guarantee you’ll wish you’d killed them.”