No Way to Die (36 page)

* * * *

Traffic was lightish for the first twenty miles or so as we headed north. The folks on the other side, heading south into Seattle, were not so lucky. Of course, the tide would reverse this afternoon as all the commuters flooded north out of the city, making their way back home. This same road where we were now driving sixty miles per hour would be a parking lot by then. Now, though, at a little after six in the morning, it was pretty empty, and we made good time.

That is, until we got to Everett, twenty-five miles north. Then the traffic patterns took on a new agenda and became completely confused. We slowed to stop-and-go movement. It took twenty minutes to move four miles. By 6:45, though, we were through the worst of it, and we picked up speed again and headed north.

“You nervous?” I asked as I drove.

“A little,” he said. “I don’t carry a gun all that often—particularly in situations where there’s a reasonable chance that I might have to use it. My friends outside of work would never believe this shit.”

“Think of the stories you’ll have to tell your girlfriends,” I said.

“No doubt,” he said, nodding.

“Seriously,” I said, “remember what I told you. If you get into a fight, move your ass to cover. They can’t shoot you if you’re behind something solid. Don’t stand around watching. Move your ass to cover. Then shoot. Take little peeks. Got it?”

“Move; then shoot,” he repeated. “I got it.”

We’ve worked on our tactics at the paintball gun course, over and over. I want them to become second nature for all of us. After all, all of our lives might depend on each other one day. Maybe that day was today, who knew? Doc and I take turns running us all through our paces. If a bad guy produces a gun, first thing is move to cover. Then shoot back. Ninety percent of people can’t hit a moving target. So move! We’ve drilled and drilled at this. The first time, I probably shot Kenny in the face mask with a paintball gun twenty-five times before he learned to automatically move to cover. Eventually, he absorbed it. Today, he would be fine; otherwise, I’d have never brought him.

“You’ll do good,” I said. “Just keep your head, and do what you’ve been taught. And remember—”

“Remember what?”

“Remember,” I said solemnly, “remember that Toni and I are relying on you. Our lives will be totally in your hands. One hundred percent.”

He turned quickly and looked at me. I looked over and saw his expression—it was priceless. I laughed.

“Just messing with you, dude,” I said.

“Thanks a hell of a lot,” he said. “You’re one sick fucker, you know?”

* * * *

We rolled into the Starbucks parking lot at Mount Vernon at 7:40. Richard and Bobby were already there. They were both dressed the same as Kenny—black tactical clothing. The Starbucks lot was busy, so the guys had had the foresight to park in a quiet space near the back of the lot. We pulled in beside them.

“Greetings, Yankee 2,” Bobby said to me when I got out.

“Good morning,” I said. “I assume you guys had no tails?”

“None,” he said. “Richard practically had me puking, he was turning around and reversing course so much. I’m not even sure if we’re in Washington anymore. If there was anyone back there, he’d have confused ’em so bad that they would’ve had to drop off.”

“There was no one,” Richard said.

“Good. We didn’t see anyone either.”

“How you guys doing?” I asked, trying to be cheerful and upbeat. “You ready?”

“We’re definitely ready,” Richard said.

“Care to run through the plan?” I said. “I’ve got one minor modification I want to make.”

Richard looked at me. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’re going to have some company in the Bullpen. Let’s go through it.”

Our plan was pretty simple. I explained to the guys the new role that Jennifer had agreed to on behalf of the FBI. After Doc’s last check-in call at eight thirty, I was to head for the meeting. At the same time, half the FBI agents would go to the airport and stand by. Richard, Kenny, and Bobby, along with the remaining FBI agents, including Jennifer, were to move into a reserve position we labeled the “Bullpen.” The Bullpen was close enough to the house to be useful as a reserve staging position, yet far enough away to remain undetected. The Bullpen was to remain in reserve until they heard from Doc. Meanwhile, Doc was to remain hidden on-site unless needed. He’d have the best view—he was Richard’s on-site eyes and ears. As events unfolded, he was to call Richard with one of three directives:First—and by far the best scenario—was that, in the event that Marlowe honored his proposed agreement and the swap went off as planned, Doc would let Richard know, and the FBI would move in. They’d bust Marlowe as he was on his way to the airport, and at the same time, the airport crew would take control of the plane. We’d stay out of the way. I figured there was maybe a 10 percent chance things would actually play out this way.

Sneaky fucker that I knew he was, I didn’t believe Marlowe had it in him to simply do the deal he’d agreed to. I was near certain he was going to try to screw us some way. It was, to my way of thinking, consistent with his nature. He’s a bad guy, and bad guys don’t usually start doing honorable things—doesn’t matter if they’re Arab insurgents, Mexican drug cartel lords, or—in this case—black-market tech dealers. A nasty fucker is a nasty fucker: they don’t change.

That being the case, things were likely to turn ugly. If this happened, it was okay because I can play nasty, too. And Doc—well, Doc can get downright scary. In fact, it would be up to Doc to make a judgment call. He could either make an immediate Bullpen call, in which case Richard and Kenny and Bobby and the FBI agents that were standing by were to drop everything and come running with guns blazing. If they had time to call the sheriff’s office on the way, that’d be okay, too—the more, the merrier. Alternatively, Doc could use a “stealth” solution. He could step in himself and try to solve the problem.

Like I said, knowing Marlowe like I did, and knowing his kind in general, I thought I had a pretty good idea what he was going to do. I thought we were ready.

Promptly at eight, Richard’s phone rang. He answered and said hello.

“Go,” he said, opening his notebook. He started writing.

“Got it,” he said, continuing to write without saying anything else for a minute.

“Yep. We’re ready,” he said. “The plan is to move out after your next call.”

“Okay, roger that. Talk to you in half an hour.”

He hung up and turned to us.

“She’s there,” he said.

* * * *

My heartbeat picked up. I looked at him intently. All eyes were on Richard as he reported on the conversation.

“Toni’s at the house. Doc says that Marlowe drove up ten minutes ago.” He looked at his notes. “He came in a black SUV followed by another black SUV. Doc counted seven men plus Toni. And he said something about another girl—a redhead.”

“Holly Kenworth,” Kenny said.

“He said the women appear to have been drugged. They had to support Toni between two guys on the way in, and they had to completely carry the redhead.”

I listened to this and, surprisingly, the news didn’t faze me much. Not because it didn’t piss me off. It did. But, truth was, my pissed-off cup was already full. So full that this latest little bit of news didn’t matter much. As far as I was concerned, Marlowe was already pretty much a walking dead man. Maybe I’d shoot him twice.

Richard continued reading. “All the men except Marlowe and one other guy appeared to be armed with long guns. He says that with the seven guys who just arrived, now there's a total of eleven men, counting Marlowe and the other guy.” He looked at me. “Who would that be, Patel?”

I nodded. “That’d be my guess.”

He nodded and returned to his notes. “He said the sentries stepped up their patrols starting at daylight and that now there’s a sentry parked at Point India here at the south point of the triangle, another one at Point Lima up here in the northwest, and another one at Point November over here on the northeast.” He indicated the spots on a map. “Damn good thing you guys inserted Doc in the middle of the night. He’d have had a tough time trying to make it in the daylight.”

I nodded. “True enough. Think of this, though. If Marlowe has eleven guys, he’s split his force in half. He has three on sentry duty; that leaves eight inside. Two of those—he and Patel—are most likely noncombatants. That brings it down to five of them against two of us.”

“Still more—five to two,” Kenny said.

“Better than eleven to two,” I said. “Besides, one of our two people is Doc. He probably counts for six or eight just by himself.”

“True.”

“Speaking of Doc,” I said, “Is he okay? Is he in a good secure position?”

“Yes. He says he’s in a great position.” He looked at his notes. “‘All tucked in,’ is the way he put it. He says they put the women in Bravo Five—that’s the barn right here just a little toward the east side of the property. He says it looks to him like that’s where the meeting will be held.” We studied the map and located Bravo Five. It was located behind the main house. He looked at his notes again. “Oh, and he said that Marlowe has a duffle bag with him.”

I digested all this for a minute, and then I nodded my head. I looked at the group. “Good news, boys. We’re full speed ahead,” I said. “We got ’em right where we want ’em. We’re right on track.”

Nobody said anything.

“You sure?” Kenny asked. “There’s no assurance he won’t pull those sentries in once you arrive. Then, instead of five to two, which isn’t all that red-hot in the first place, you could be back to eleven to two pretty quick. And those are pretty long odds. You sure this will work, boss?” Kenny asked.

“Am I sure?” I repeated. “Well,” I said slowly as I thought about the scenarios, “yeah, I am. Pretty much, anyway. I feel pretty good that we’ve got this bastard figured out. He can't pull his sentries in for extra firepower. Almost certainly, he's expecting a big rush by the FBI. He needs his sentries for warning." I thought for a second, then said, "We're good. I think I know his next moves.”

I looked at each of my guys. Even though they were not the ones going into the lion’s den—at least not initially—they were scared. They were probably scared for Doc and Toni and me. I suppose the concept of two guys taking on eleven may have had something to do with it.

“You know if Toni were here, she’d have already figured this guy out.”

“Goes without saying,” Kenny said. “But she’s not. She’s inside, probably drugged up. She won’t be any help.”

I remember once on a bright, sunny September afternoon in Iraq, we were going out on patrol to arrest an insurgent who had been positively ID’d as a bomb-maker. This was a dangerous mission. We had to travel in an unfriendly part of Tikrit (as if there were any friendly parts of Tikrit in 2003) and arrest a bad man who, no doubt, had bad friends. We were all nervous. Being a little scared is okay, but being overly nervous or jumpy can get someone killed. I’ve always had something in me, though, that says that when the chips are down, you may as well do something outrageous. But back then, I was a corporal and the younger guys looked up to me. I didn’t want to show I was afraid.I figured that if I could somehow calm the guys down, it might go better for all of us. So I came up with an idea.

“Hey, Sarge,” I said just before time to load up and move out. “I forgot something. Do you mind if I run over to the mess hall and grab me a jelly donut? I’ve been jonesing for a jelly donut all day, and it’s really hittin’ me hard now.”

Sergeant Harry Wendell looked at me for a minute like I’d lost my mind, as did everyone else in the patrol. Harry was a little slow on the uptake sometimes, so I had to wink at him to get him to understand that I was kidding.

“Shut the fuck up, D-Lo, you idiot,” he said, playing along. “Jesus Christ.”

This had two effects on the guys. First, it cracked them up and took off the edge, which was my intent. I didn’t want to get killed because someone on my own side was so keyed up they couldn’t see straight. Or shoot straight. Second, it made me near famous in Bravo Company—in a funny kind of way. Fortunately, by then, I’d already been recommended for a Silver Star, so everyone knew I wasn’t a total fuckup.

Today, I decided to try the same thing on these guys. “Guys, I know we’ve got to go in a few minutes, but I’m really hungry,” I said. “I didn’t get anything to eat on the way out this morning. I’m going inside to get a cinnamon roll or something. Anybody want anything?”

They all looked at me the same way the guys had looked at me in Iraq—like I’d lost my mind completely.

“You could go in yourselves, but you’d better not,” I said. “Being all tac’d out like you are. You’d probably get busted.”

I looked at them. “Nothing?Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.” I turned and started whistling as I walked into Starbucks. If choking down a greasy cinnamon roll would help loosen these guys up, then I was all over it.

* * * *

I was back in ten minutes.

“Getting close,” I said.

Richard nodded.

“We almost got busted,” Kenny said.

“Really? What happened?”

“A Skagit County sheriff drove through a few minutes ago,” Richard said. “When he saw the three of us milling around in our tactical clothing, he slowed way down and gave us a serious looking over.”