Inventory inside the building, in retail terms, amounted to several hundred thousand dollars, making the garage an incredibly tempting target for burglars, especially considering the area.
Two factors ensured that the materials stored here were kept safe, though: Someone was almost always inside the facility, and after Tony's bloody but effective response to a couple of breakins shortly after he had purchased the property, the local gang leaders determined it was safer and cheaper, both in terms of lives and money lost, to leave Tony's property alone, hence the resulting hard-won truce.
Following each of the first two burglaries, Tony hunted down the young men responsible and, along with a couple of his trusted soldiers, eviscerated the gang members and hung them outside their homes with their entrails hanging to the ground, but not before first recovering all of the merchandise that Tony had originally stolen and that was therefore rightfully his. Then for good measure and to make certain his point would not be misinterpreted, Tony and his men tracked down the gang's leader and performed the same impromptu surgery on him.
After the second episode, which occurred more than two years ago, the message had been taken to heart by the local gangs, and Tony's little fortress had since been left completely and utterly alone. No one familiar with the area would go near it, and no one from outside the neighborhood dared enter, which was exactly the way Tony wanted it.
Now Tony surveyed the room. Three of the five men who com-prised his organization were present.
Brian asked, "So, how did it go?"
"I haven't looked inside the briefcase yet," Tony answered with a smile, "but I'm certain it contains everything we specified during the negotiations. When I showed up, our Pentagon contact was so frightened that I was afraid he might actually have a stroke right there on the spot. Anyway, he probably thinks that if he stiffs me, he will get carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Now that I think about it, he seemed pretty perceptive, at least on that point."
The group shared a laugh, and the men went back to doing what they had been doing when Tony arrived: cleaning and organizing weapons or just lounging around on lawn chairs like it was some sort of lethal low-rent social club.
Tony stared at the case lying on his desk for a few minutes without making any move to open it. Despite his outward non-chalance, he felt a tug of tension in his gut. He was so close now to having finally compiled all the tools he needed to complete his mission that he felt like a child waking up on the morning of his birthday. The anticipation was so strong he could almost taste it, and he wanted to savor that feeling for just a little bit longer.
Finally, with a tiny impatient sigh, Tony grabbed the briefcase by the handle, sliding it toward him. He snapped the latches and lifted the top. He examined the contents, then looked up to see everyone in the garage staring at him expectantly.
Tony smiled. "We're in business, gentlemen."
Chapter 9
Nelson loved summer. When it was muggy and everyone else was driving around with their windows closed tightly and the artificial chill from their air-conditioning keeping them comfortable, Nelson would lower the top on his Chrysler Sebring convertible and enjoy the commute through the great outdoors to and from the office. He loved the way the hot breeze ruffled what was left of his rapidly thinning hair; he loved to feel the heat and humidity caress his body.
Today didn't quite feature the broiling heat he loved so much, but the temperature was about as warm as it ever got in the Mid-Atlantic region in May, and Nelson was taking full advantage of the unexpectedly balmy conditions on his drive home.
The adrenaline rush that had followed his noontime meeting gradually leached away over the course of the afternoon, but Nelson still was able to accomplish more work in the four-hour stretch before quitting time today than he had in any one-day period for as long as he could remember. Who would have guessed the way to increase organizational productivity would be to sell a briefcase full of classified material? He imagined himself developing a motivational speech based on that concept and smiled wryly.
The surge of energy he had experienced was not unlike what he used to feel in the early years of his marriage when he would get excited just thinking about Joy waiting for him at home. No matter how exhausted he had felt back in those days, Nelson had never failed to feel reenergized when he thought about his wife's smooth, sexy body.
Those days were long gone now of course, never to return, but all that cold, hard cash had done a pretty passable job of helping Nelson get through his jitters and beyond his exhaustion. Now, with the warm breeze ruffling his hair and Aerosmith playing much too loudly on his stereo, he felt damned near invincible. A briefcase full of untraceable cash lay safely on the front seat next to him, and he was unbelievably, against all odds, out of the financial hole he had dug for himself with his gambling jones.
While he drove, Nelson wondered if maybe it wouldn't be prudent to parlay his good fortune into an even bigger score with a quick detour to the track before going home. There was no question his luck had turned; that was indisputable at this point, and as the old saying went, "Strike while the iron's hot." Nelson had no idea what that expression meant if you examined it literally, but he figured it was damned good advice anyway. When you're on a roll, don't stop for anything. Keep right on going until your luck starts to change, then stop. Ya gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. And all the rest of that happy horseshit.
The breeze began to cool noticeably as the sun sank in the mostly cloudless western sky, and Nelson reluctantly concluded it would be best to continue straight home. He was excited about his newfound windfall and was looking forward to celebrating with Joy. Of course, she was blissfully ignorant of the financial gym-nastics he'd gone through to replace the retirement money he had blown at the track; thus she would have no idea what they were celebrating, but Nelson didn't care. He was certain that when he walked through the door, buoyant and cheerful for a change, she would join him in a little impromptu party anyway.
Behind him on the lonely, winding country road that led to Nelson's estate in rural Virginia, a vehicle rapidly closed the distance between itself and Nelson. He watched it growing quickly in size in the rearview mirror and swore under his breath. Christ, that idiot must be going ninety! On this two-lane road that twisted and turned like a drunken serpent, driving at that breakneck speed was practically suicidal.
Nelson leaned forward in the driver's seat and peered into the mirror, his attention so taken with the lunatic approaching that he almost drove off the road. The damned fool was going to kill some-body, and Nelson didn't want it to be him. He eased off the gas and flicked on his right turn signal, letting the nitwit behind him know that he was getting as far out of the way as he could without actually leaving the road.
He could see quite clearly now that it was a Ford F-150 that was endangering his life. The pickup was maybe twelve or fifteen years old, with dents and dings all over the front bumper and grille and a left quarter panel that was a markedly different color than the rest of the truck. It was one ugly piece of shit.
Nelson gaped as the rattletrap truck picked up speed, its body shaking and shimmying, barely under control. A cloud of oily blue smoke belched out of the rusty tailpipe, trailing the truck like a skywriting airplane.
The vehicle veered sharply to the left, almost as if the driver had just now seen Nelson, which of course was impossible. The truck was right behind Nelson's car, and Stevie Wonder would have to be driving to not see the Chrysler convertible dead ahead. Nelson breathed a shaky sigh of relief as the truck swerved into the thankfully empty oncoming traffic lane to pass him. He began increasing his own speed from thirty-five back up to forty in anticipation of the truck roaring by.
As the truck blew noisily past, Nelson risked a glance into the cab and was surprised to see a blond-haired, surfer-looking dude of maybe twenty-five years old looking intently at him from the passenger's seat. The kid had no reason to be angry with Nelson, but he seemed to
be glaring at him.
Nelson caught a glimpse of the driver and felt a strange, disorienting stab of recognition. Who the hell is that guy and how do I know him? he thought.
And then all at once it hit him, like a piano being dropped on a cartoon character from a skyscraper. The maniac driving the truck on this secluded road in the middle of nowhere was the same man he had met in the park today on his lunch hour.
Confused, Nelson turned his attention back to the winding road, and as he did, the truck suddenly whipped back to the right, slamming into the left front of the Chrysler and sending it careening directly toward a stand of trees just off the shoulder. Nelson registered a loud bang as his left front tire blew out and the steering wheel began shimmying violently. The car lifted on its right two wheels, and the panicked Nelson jerked the wheel left, overcorrecting and nearly sending the vehicle tumbling end over end into the woods.
For one crazy second Nelson thought he might get the badly damaged Chrysler under control and coast to a stop along the side of the road. Then the pickup nudged his left front quarter panel again, touching it so lightly it seemed the vehicles might not even swap paint. But the contact was enough to totally eliminate any illusion of control Nelson may have felt he retained over the car. It started a long, slow slide to the right and into the thick forest, dark and beckoning off the edge of the road.
He had just enough time to think, They did that on purpose before the car rocketed into a tree, the sound of the crash much shorter and more abrupt than Nelson had expected it to be after a lifetime of watching action movies with the long-drawn-out car crash scenes Hollywood was so fond of. A quick explosion of grinding metal and shattering safety glass, a painfully bone-jarring deceleration inside the vehicle, the rag-doll-like feeling of his body being held in place by the safety belt--thank God for the safety belt--and darkness descending over everything.
Nelson felt the coppery taste of blood burst into his mouth with frightening force, and then everything faded to black, just like at the end of a movie scene.
Chapter 10
One hundred yards away from the crash scene, just shy of another of the hairpin curves that seemed to make up the entire stretch of two-lane road, the F-150 idled loudly on the thin sandy shoulder that separated pavement from forest. Time was critical; there was no telling how long it would take before someone encountered the wreckage. If that happened, Tony and Brian would be forced to eliminate more people, something they wanted to avoid if at all possible. It wasn't that they cared about wasting another worthless civilian or two, but they didn't want or need the added attention that killing more people would inevitably bring.
Still, they sat for a little longer, biding their time, carefully watching where Nelson W. Michaels's car had entered the woods and smashed through a small line of scrub brush and into a stand of trees roughly thirty feet deep into the forest. Tony wanted to see if the guy would be able to escape his damaged car. If so, he would come stumbling out onto the road any minute now, and they could simply drive back and pick him up. It didn't seem to be a very likely scenario given how fast the guy had been going when he impacted the trees, but you never could tell.
Another minute went by, and still no sign of Michaels. Tony shifted the creaky automatic transmission into reverse, and the truck chugged slowly back along the side of the road to the spot where the victim's car had slid into the woods. A thick black slash on the road from the screeching tires made the location hard to miss. It had been close to three minutes since the collision, and still no other vehicles had passed by. Michaels really did live in the middle of nowhere; the feeling of isolation was completely at odds with the knowledge of how close they were to Washington, D.C.
The two men looked at each other inside the cab of the F-150, and Tony nodded. Without a word, they pulled on identical pairs of latex gloves, then stepped down to the ground and picked their way into the woods, heading toward the wrecked Chrysler, walking slowly and carefully but at the same time confident they had nothing to fear. Each man drew his weapon, identical Glock semiautomatic pistols--undoubtedly overkill, so to speak, against an injured and disoriented middle-aged overweight lifelong government bureaucrat--but the two men were not taking any chances, especially since they were now so close to achieving their goal.
Chapter 11
Everything felt hazy and a little unreal. Nelson was angry with Joy for waking him up when he was so goddamned tired, especially considering how she did it: by lying across the foot of the bed, the full weight of her body covering his legs. He struggled to kick them free, to pull them out from under her, but he hadn't realized how much weight she must have gained recently because he couldn't move his lower body at all. He kicked again hard and was rewarded for his efforts with lightning bolts firing up each shin all the way to the knee.
The bright, throbbing pain in his legs dragged Nelson fully back to reality from his haze of semiconsciousness. He wasn't at home sleeping in his comfortable bed at all; he remembered now that he had just been involved in a very bad automobile accident after being forced off the road by his contact from earlier in the day, the man whose name he didn't even know and furthermore didn't want to know. His legs were pinned in the wreckage between the car's dashboard and fire wall, which had slammed together like pincers from the force of the impact and trapped his shins in their viselike grip.
Nelson knew immediately he was in big trouble. His legs were undoubtedly shattered, and blood was flowing freely down the side of his face. Maybe he had been cut by flying glass. Who knew? His head pounded with what felt like the world's worst migraine--
concussion, anyone?--and he was having considerable difficulty breathing. He wondered about internal injuries and felt the first stab of real panic.
How far into the woods had the car gone before smashing into the trees? Was the wreckage visible to anyone who might be passing by on the road? If not, Nelson knew there was a good chance he could die right here before ever being discovered. This road was pretty remote, but it wasn't so far out in the sticks that no one would come by for hours on end. Nelson felt confident that if his car were visible from the road, help would come along relatively quickly. And if it wasn't, well, he didn't want to consider that possibility.
The sounds of cracking branches, of people working their way steadily through the heavy underbrush penetrated Nelson's consciousness, and even in his state of panicked confusion and pain, he knew the best-case scenario had already occurred. Someone had seen the wreck and called for help or perhaps stopped on the side of the road to investigate before calling the authorities.
Nelson wondered how long he had been trapped in his car and realized he had no way of knowing. But it didn't matter. The main thing--the only important thing really--was that help had arrived and he was going to survive.
"Help me!" he tried to scream, succeeding only in issuing a soft breathless croak. This frightened Nelson more than everything else combined--more than seeing the guy from the park driving the truck that had forced him off the road, more than crashing into the trees in the forest, more than the utter certainty that both his legs were broken and he was quite possibly suffering from life-threatening injuries.
And the pain was worsening. Rapidly. Nelson tried to take a full breath and could only manage to force a short little bubbling gasp through his windpipe. Where the hell were the people he had heard approaching through the woods? Didn't they realize they had to hurry? He peered out what was left of the smashed driver's side window, and his heart leapt as he saw what looked like two fuzzy shadows.
The rescuers seemed to be taking forever to reach the Chrysler.
The forest couldn't possibly be that dense out there, could it? If it was, how had his car managed to travel so far from the road before hitting something?
Finally the shadowy people made it to the door and wrenched it open. A loud screeching noise told Nelson that there had been significant damage to that side of the vehicle--he was lucky they were able to get the door o
pen at all. A large chunk of shattered safety glass fell to the ground. He tried once again to tell his rescuers to hurry but succeeded only in rasping out something unintelligible, even to him.
"You okay, buddy?" one of the men asked.
It seemed like a stupid question to Nelson, who shook his head.
"Need help," he croaked out. The sharp coppery taste of blood in his mouth was getting stronger, and he could still feel the torrent of blood running down the side of his face like a small stream. He was freezing.
"No problem. That's why we're here," the guy answered.
Nelson smiled in gratitude and forced himself to focus on the faces of the Good Samaritans, and when he did, he felt his bowels clench in fear. It was the men from the truck, who had intentionally forced him off the road in the first place!
The man from Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Park grinned when he saw the recognition dawning in Nelson's eyes. He pulled the door open a little wider and reached into the car with both hands.
Chapter 12
As they cautiously approached the Chrysler, canted at an angle and wedged up against a tree, Tony and Brian could see that Michaels was alive but clearly trapped and in bad shape. He was dazed, moving slowly and clumsily, and sliding into shock.
Michaels smiled out the window in misplaced gratitude; his eyes were glazed over from pain, and it was obvious he did not yet recognize them.
Tony managed to pull open the damaged door. Broken glass littered the car's interior, and a steady pulse of blood washed down the side of the man's face. It wasn't exactly streaming, but it was flowing steadily, and in addition, both his legs seemed to have been swallowed up by the car. He looked exactly like a helpless bug being devoured by a Venus flytrap.
The injured man mumbled something Tony couldn't make out. His breathing was labored, and he seemed to be fading fast.
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