“Well, poop,” Rae said.
Chase said, quickly, “As soon as the area is cleared, though, we want the three of you in there. You’ve been talking to these people and our SWAT guys haven’t been.”
Bob said to Rae, “The good-guy trophy.”
“All right with me,” Lucas said. “The last time I went on a SWAT raid, some asshole shot me.”
* * *
—
FIVE MINUTES LATER, the SWAT teams were in the parking lot, the agents getting their armor on, a few Frederick cops coming out to look as the news moved through the department. The team was hard to miss, manning three large gunmetal-gray vehicles that looked like products of a bad marriage between a tank and a rec-vee. A minute or so after the trucks arrived, a video came in from the street guy, shots of the two target buildings from all angles. As Rae had suggested, both had back doors not visible from the street.
The SWAT commander, an agent named Adam Carlucci, pointed out relevant considerations to the team members—location of the creek, the quality of the concealment and cover, distances from unloading points to entry points. Bob pointed out the newer metal doors and Carlucci took another look at the videos. “Gonna need the rams on the garage and the back doors,” he concluded.
The team members were all heavily experienced, had been pre-briefed on the way up from Washington; the on-site briefing took six or seven minutes, then the team was loading and moving out.
Lucas could feel the intensity building in his chest: going into combat.
“What do you think?” Lucas asked, as Bob and Rae pulled on their bulletproof vests.
“They know what they’re doing,” Bob said.
“I gotta say, Jane doesn’t skimp on the resources,” Rae said. “She could start a war with those boys. When me and Bob go out, it’s more like a poolroom fight . . . Hey, we got a vest for you. Put it on.”
Lucas put on the vest as the last of the trucks disappeared from the parking lot, and Rae got behind the wheel of the Tahoe. They had been asked to wait at the police headquarters until they got a call from Chase, who was riding in one of the trucks. Because the trucks had to come in on the target from different directions, one of them would be stalling while the other two were running fast on a more circular route, aiming for a simultaneous arrival; Lucas wanted to arrive as the doors were going down.
“Fuck waiting,” he said. “Get on that last truck’s ass.”
“Now you’re talking,” Rae said, and she cranked the Tahoe over.
* * *
—
“LOT OF CIVIL WAR SHIT AROUND HERE,” Bob said, making nervous conversation from the backseat, as they rolled out of the parking lot. “We’re closer to Gettysburg than we are to Washington. If we have time, I’d like to take the tour.” He had two M4-style rifles in the backseat and checked them out one last time as they drove across town, seating a thirty-shot magazine in each.
“Probably won’t have time,” Lucas said. They were gaining on the slow FBI vehicle until they were, as Lucas recommended, right on its ass. Hearing Bob working with the rifles, he took out his Walther PPQ just to be doing something, and Rae glanced at him and said, “Don’t go shooting your big toe.”
“I was winning pistol competitions when you were in diapers,” Lucas said.
Rae snorted. “Diapers? Didn’t have no diapers in the Givenses’ house. We used burlap bags.”
“In Oklahoma, we used dirt,” Bob said. “I’d poop, they’d take me outside and hose me down and throw a little dirt on me. Makes you a tough little baby, getting through winter. Icicles hanging off your little wiener.”
“I got nothin’,” Lucas said. “Though, I gotta say, it amazes me that the Givens family didn’t have diapers, when your father was a pharmacist. Couldn’t he steal some?”
“Fucker’s been reading our files,” Bob said to Rae.
“Shut up, everybody,” Rae said. “We’re coming up on it.”
* * *
—
THEY CAME AROUND A LONG CURVE and the big dark FBI truck swerved into the parking area outside Boone Precious Metals and the SWAT guys came out like peas being shucked out of a pod. Four of them hit the front door of the main building while two of them set up facing the front door of the garage. The agents in the other two trucks would hit the doors at the back of the buildings, and were covering the side doors, and were not immediately visible.
Lucas, Bob, and Rae were twenty feet behind the SWAT agents, running up the steps and through the front door; as they did it, Lucas saw Chase clambering out of the lead vehicle.
Inside, three men, a woman, and a big gray dog were faced off against the SWAT team, the humans with their hands over their heads and the woman was chanting, “Don’t shoot my dog, don’t shoot my dog, I can lock him right there in the bathroom, right there,” and the dog’s teeth were bared and it rumbled a warning.
“Hold him, hold him tight,” one of the agents said, and he eased behind the counter as the women held the dog—Lucas found out later that it was a Belgian Malinois, the kind often used as war dogs—and went to the bathroom door, looked inside, opened a medicine cabinet, then came back out and said, “Lock him in there.”
The dog had to be half-dragged into the bathroom, but the woman got him inside and slammed the door and then locked it with a key: “She opens doors,” she explained.
One of the men, middle-sized, stocky with curly blond hair, demanded “What the hell is this?”
Chase came in the door with a roll of paper: “Which one of you is Toby Boone?”
The blond man said, “That’s me. I haven’t even been speeding. Is this about 1919? I got nothing to do with that shit.”
She handed him the paper: “Search warrant for the premises, including the garage.”
To the agent behind the counter, she said, “Cuff him.”
The agents moved the other two men and the woman to a corner of the counter, and the agent behind the counter cuffed Boone, who said, “I want an attorney.”
“You’ll get one, though I feel sorry for the guy,” Chase said, facing Boone across the counter. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.”
Boone gave himself away: he said nothing, didn’t seem surprised.
Chase said, “Put him away,” and the agent who’d cuffed him led him to the door. At the door, Boone turned and said to the other three prisoners, “Don’t let the cops get at those coins. They’ll steal them if they get half a chance.” And he was gone, out of sight.
Chase said to the other SWAT team members, “Okay. Let’s get the other three to where our people can talk to them, get your armor off, and let’s tear this place apart.”
* * *
—
LUCAS HAD NOTICED SEVERAL DARK sedans rolling into the parking lot, more agents climbing out. As Rae had said, Chase didn’t skimp on resources. The SWAT team was basically made up of thugs with law degrees; the sedans would be the interrogators, he thought.
* * *
—
THE INTERIOR OF THE BUILDING, as far as Lucas had seen it, consisted of hanging racks between the windows, filled with electric guitars; side cases filled with used tools, ’80s boom boxes, cheap amps, questionable-looking binoculars, and even a few non-precious film cameras and out-of-date digitals, all covered with dust; and a counter/case showing gold coins in narrow blue boxes.
Lucas stepped behind the counter, walked along it, saw the butt end of a pistol in a drawer and said to Chase, “Gun,” and pointed at it, then took a door through to the back, where he found an expansive room with more tools and guitars with tags hanging on them, plus a space with a table and three chairs and a couch facing a television.
A hardwired telephone hung on the wall next to the door; useful for calls that you didn’t want going through a cell tower or a Stingray, Luc
as thought. He walked on by, but then noticed a sheet of scratch paper thumbtacked to the wall beside the phone. He looked at it: a list of phone numbers. Carly’s, Ross, Shirley, Tom B., Tom N., Cop, Andy . . .
Cop.
He went back to the front, where one of the SWAT team members still in armor, still with gun in hand, was watching the three employees. Chase was there, across the counter, on the phone again. Lucas nodded at the three employees and said, “Miz Chase will talk to you as soon as she gets off her phone. We’ll try to get you out of here as quickly as we can. That list on the back wall, by the phone, can somebody tell me who Tom B. and Tom N. are?”
The three looked at one another, then one said, “I’m Tom Brenner. Tom N. is Tom Nader, he works evenings.”
“What’s Carly’s?”
“Pizza place,” the woman said. “We order in a lot.”
“You call the cops a lot? I see a Cop on the list.”
The talkative man shook his head and said, “That’s Rusty Wannamaker, he’s a part-timer, usually works evenings when Tom Nader can’t.”
The other man said, “I’m Ross Parker.”
Chase had gotten off her phone and had heard the last part of the conversation, and asked, “Lucas, could you step outside a moment?” To the three captives, she smiled and said, “I’ll be back in a minute. If you cooperate with our agents, no reason you can’t be home in an hour. We were basically here for Toby Boone.”
On the porch, she said to Lucas, “I heard that. Rusty Wannamaker. Can’t be too many people with that name.”
“Why don’t you go ask what Tom Nader does as a day job and what Cop does. You’re less threatening than I am.”
She nodded and went back inside, while Lucas hung on the porch. Bob and Rae were having a gun fest with the SWAT team and Lucas let them talk. Chase came out a minute later and said, “Wannamaker is a UPS driver during the day.”
“I’ll get my guys and we’ll take him,” Lucas said.
“Careful. He’s an assassin.”
“Yeah, well, so are we,” Lucas said.
“We would like him without bullet holes.”
“We’ll do what we can.” Lucas turned and called, “Bob. Rae. Let’s go make a movie.”
* * *
—
WHEN LUCAS EXPLAINED THE SITUATION, Bob said, “UPS. Damn. I worked for them when I was in college, three a.m. to six. Then in the summer, they had me working the pre-load, too, three a.m. to nine. Wanna talk about a shit job?”
“He doesn’t load, he’s a driver,” Lucas said.
“This time of day, he’s out on delivery,” Bob said. He was messing with his phone and said, “Okay, I’ve got a location. English Muffin Way.”
“English what?”
“Hey, I didn’t name the place,” Bob said. “I’ve got it on my phone app. We go talk to his boss, figure out where Cop should be right now.”
* * *
—
THE UPS DISTRIBUTION CENTER was in a warehouse district south of town, a beige structure built with nothing in mind other than function: a box that a decent-looking building should have come in. The delivery supervisor, whose name was Rick, was unhappy to see them, and even more unhappy when Lucas wouldn’t tell them what Cop had done.
“We do need to see him right away,” Lucas told him.
“I could call him . . .”
“No, no. He’s not to know we’re coming,” Lucas said. “If word should get to him . . . and you’re the only person we’re talking to . . . then you could be looking at a very tough future. Very tough.”
“You know, like federal prison,” Rae said.
“Tell us about where he’s at, and we’ll find him,” Lucas added.
“Well . . .” Rick looked at them nervously. “I can tell you exactly where he’s at. Like, to the foot. All the trucks are monitored.”
“Then when we get up in the right area, we could call you and you could give us an exact location?”
“To the foot.”
Cop’s car, Rick said, was in the parking lot, an older, dark gray Mustang, and locked.
* * *
—
COP WAS DRIVING AROUND a suburban development on the north side of town called Clover Hill, twenty minutes from the distribution center. They drove over, and when they were in the neighborhood, checked back with Rick, gave him their location, and he directed them to Claiborne Drive, where they spotted the brown UPS truck parked in front of a house.
Cop was either in the truck or in the house, because he wasn’t outside, and then the truck pulled away, went around a corner. They hovered, watching, until he stopped again and then Lucas, who was driving, eased up behind the truck as Cop hopped out and started up the front walk to a house.
He was a tall, thin man, balding, appeared to be in shape. Bob and Rae hopped out of the Tahoe, ran around opposite ends of the UPS vehicle so they’d have Cop between them. Lucas ran around behind Bob and when Cop saw them coming, he simply stood and stared at the guns pointed at him.
“What?”
“You’re under arrest,” Rae said. “Get down on the ground, put your hands behind your back.”
Cop dumped the box he was holding—something broke inside with a china-like crack—and dropped into a crouch and then suddenly bolted. He got about eight feet before Bob, who, despite his size, was quick, got him by the collar, threw him on the ground, and knelt on his back.
“Don’t do that,” Bob said.
“Motherfucker.”
“Potty mouth.” Bob bent Cop’s arms behind his back, cuffed him, and then lifted him off the ground by his belt. Rae gave him the Miranda speech and they put him in the back of the Tahoe. Bob got Cop’s work keys and they locked the UPS truck and called Rick and told him that Cop would no longer be working that day, and that the truck was locked.
* * *
—
LUCAS GOT ON THE PHONE TO CHASE, who asked, “You get him?”
“Yeah, got him.”
“Bring him down, we’ll transfer him,” Chase said.
“What’s happening there?”
“The garage looks like a National Guard armory. Toby Boone had a pistol in his car, so we got him on that, regardless of whether or not we can make a murder charge stick. Ton of literature here. Crazy stuff, a mix of white supremacist and prison reform. Where are you? You should see this.”
“Be there in ten minutes,” Lucas said.
In the backseat, next to Bob, Cop said, “You didn’t tell me why I was arrested.”
“Murder,” Rae said. “You can get the details from the FBI supervisor.”
Cop looked away, his face turned to stone. He knew what they were talking about.
* * *
—
BACK AT THE TOBY BOONE PAWNSHOP, they turned Cop over to an FBI agent, who read him his rights again, and took him away.
Chase came over and said, “Good day, good day.”
The garage she’d called an armory wasn’t actually an armory, but to somebody unfamiliar with the gun world, as Chase admitted she was, it might have looked that way. More than two dozen long guns were locked against a wall with steel rods and heavy padlocks, some of everything: six AR-style black rifles were side-by-side with four AKs and scoped bolt-action rifles in a variety of calibers from .223 to .300 Winchester Magnum; four tactical shotguns and two high-end over-and-under shotguns were lined up next to the rifles, and no fewer than six Ruger 10/22 autoloading .22 caliber rifles.
Lucas had a 10/22 himself, at his cabin, for dispatching porcupines, because, as everybody knows, porcupines will eat the rubber on your boat’s gas lines and anything with sweat salt on it, like canoe paddles. And if a SWAT team ever raided his house and cabin, they’d come up with . . . Lucas had to think about it . . . maybe ten guns, including rifles, pistols, and shotguns. He al
so had a couple of street guns hidden away, with a few other items he preferred that no one see—an electronic lock rake—but a SWAT team wouldn’t find those.
* * *
—
BOB, RAE, AND LUCAS toured the garage, which was actually a gunsmith’s workshop, including a sophisticated reloading bench in addition to all the weaponry. Chase was on the phone talking to somebody in Washington about what to do about the guns—Toby Boone’s brother claimed that they all belonged to him, but it turned out the buildings belonged to Toby Boone, and not the brother, so . . .
“It’s gonna take a platoon of lawyers to figure out what to do,” one of the SWAT guys told Lucas. “Hate to see it, but they might get to keep the guns.”
“You ask anybody about all those Ruger 10/22s?”
“Yeah, they said they have a shooting club, go out to a range for training. Nothing illegal about that. Same with the ARs, AKs, and shotguns.”
Chase was still going full speed on the radio and the phone. Bob and Rae went to talk guns’n stuff with the SWAT team, but Chase finally got off both the radio and the phone and drifted over and asked Lucas, “What do you think?”
He shrugged: “What did Toby Boone tell you?”
“He asked for an attorney, but I hit him with the 1919 thing and he said he’d heard of it, but it didn’t have anything to do with them. He said it looked like something run by crazies. He said the Senate was run by people on their side, why would they want to shoot anybody? He said he didn’t know anybody named Linc.”
“If Cop was telling the truth in that recording, both he and Boone know a Linc who might be shooting a kid.”
“And we’ll be talking to them about that, as soon as we get back to Arlington and get them lawyers,” Chase said. “That recording is almost enough to hang them—Cop for sure, we not only have Gibson calling him that, we have his voice, and we can match it. We’ll be talking to Boone about the needle, if Linc winds up shooting somebody. That could catch his attention.”
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