Trade-Off

by Trade-Off (retail) (epub)

  ‘I hadn’t planned to do exactly that,’ Hunter said, ‘but what do you suggest?’

  ‘If I was runnin’ this outfit, and I reckoned two dangerous dudes – that’s us, by the way – was comin’ into Vegas, at the very least I’d put a coupla watch teams on the Interstate. That way, I could maybe take ’em out before they got anywhere near the place.’

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘I think they’d have a job spotting us in this old heap, but it’s a good point.’

  ‘So,’ Reilly went on, jabbing a grubby finger at the road atlas open on Hunter’s lap, ‘why don’t you just take us on a little country drive, so we hit Vegas from the south or north or somewhere?’

  ‘Right,’ Hunter said, and looked down at the map. ‘OK, I don’t want to take too long getting to McCarran, but there is a detour we can take. Head for the I-15 Interchange, but go straight over it and head for Echo Bay and Lost City. When you get to the T-junction, take a right for Echo Bay. We’ll follow the west shore of Lake Mead and then come into Vegas through Henderson or Paradise.’

  ‘Oke,’ Reilly muttered, put the Ford into gear and moved off.

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  In fact, there wasn’t a watch on the Interstate, simply because Harris had realized the complete futility of it, and managed to persuade Roger Ketch of the same thing. It didn’t take a genius to realize that Reilly and Hunter could be travelling on or in anything from a motorcycle to a bus, singly or together. They could also be arriving in Vegas from a different direction, on a different road.

  What both Harris and Ketch were sure of was that the two men would have to end up at McCarran, because that was the only lead to Roland Oliver they were likely to have. So that was where Harris and the other three members of his group had positioned themselves.

  Harris was unhappy. He spent quite a lot of his time being unhappy, but he was especially unhappy with what Reilly had done to Rogers and Wilson, and Reilly, in particular, he wanted to see lying dead in a gutter somewhere. After he’d reconnoitred the area around the McCarran Air Base main gate, he called Ketch.

  ‘We can take them out right here,’ he said. ‘As soon as we get a recognition signal from the guards, we can hit them right at the gate using a sniper rifle. They’ll be stationary targets sitting in a parked car in a brightly-lit area. Two shots, that’s the end of the problem and we all get to go home.’

  Ketch didn’t reply for maybe thirty seconds.

  ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Something could go wrong – one of the guards could get in the way, or some other person arriving or leaving the base. It’s too risky. And even if everything went as planned, there’d be too much blood, and too many awkward questions.’

  ‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘What about using the guards? They’re armed. They could take out Hunter and Reilly as soon as they stopped their car.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Ketch snapped. ‘The guards are just a bunch of civilians who happen to carry weapons and sit in a booth looking at names on clipboards. From what we know of Reilly and Hunter, the first guard who grabbed at his pistol would find himself dead long before his fingers touched it. And then the two perps would know we’re right behind them and get the hell away from McCarran real quick. And that would put us right back to square one.’

  ‘Suppose we substituted a couple of our guys for the guards?’

  ‘That’s better,’ Ketch said, after a few moments, ‘but I still don’t think it would work, just from the logistics point of view.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Simple. If we knew exactly when the two of them were going to pitch up at the gate it wouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t. Suppose they arrive there in five minutes, or decide to lie low in Vegas for a couple of days before they make an approach? Or just bypass the main gate altogether and come over the wire?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Harris said, slowly. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

  ‘Just do what we agreed before,’ Ketch said. ‘Use your FBI identification and issue copies of their pictures to the gate guards. Supply the guards with two-way radios locked on a secure frequency, tell them to call you as soon as the perps are recognized, and to refuse them entry but delay them at the gate as long as possible. That way, you should be able to follow them when they leave and take them out somewhere nice and quiet.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘One last thing,’ Ketch added. ‘I don’t think it’ll be a problem, but it’s just possible that Hunter or Reilly have written down what they know somewhere with the usual instructions about what to do if they die suddenly. Before you finish them, make one of them talk and just check that out, will you?’

  Harris’s chuckle echoed down the line. ‘It’ll be a real pleasure,’ he said.

  Caliente, Nevada

  The ambulance made what Douglas hoped would be its last stop before Las Vegas at Caliente, on the Meadow Valley Wash. He and Robbins took an early lunch at a roadside diner, filled the fuel tank, and then continued south.

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  The Ford pickup rattled down the road past the McCarran Air Base main gate without slackening speed. Reilly was driving, his features partially obscured by his blossoming beard – it had stopped being designer stubble a couple of days earlier – and by a large grey Stetson hat he’d purchased in a general store on the outskirts of Henderson.

  They’d also stopped at an office equipment company to make a purchase. In fact, they’d had to stop at two companies because the first one hadn’t got what Hunter wanted, and the second company only had one example in stock. That purchase, together with two other small cartons, was now sitting on the rear seat of the truck.

  Hunter was crouching on the cab floor, invisible except to somebody looking directly through the side window.

  ‘Anything?’ Hunter asked when they were about a quarter of a mile past the gates.

  ‘A coupla guys in a dark grey Lincoln parked across the street from McCarran. Seemed to be watchin’ the gate, but that ain’t conclusive.’

  ‘Right,’ Hunter said, easing himself up into the passenger seat. ‘That’s probably them. My guess is they’ll have one or two people watching the gate, plus two or four others as backup. They’ll just be waiting for us to do something real stupid, like drive up to the gate guards and ask the way to the Roland Oliver reception centre.’

  Reilly grunted.

  ‘Time for Plan B, I guess.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  ‘You wanna do it now?’ Reilly asked.

  ‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘Let’s go and grab a bite somewhere. Once we start this, I’ve no idea when we’ll get a chance to stop and eat again. And the longer a team’s on surveillance, the less alert they are. In a couple of hours there’ll be a lot less of a risk of our little operation being spotted. And we need to change cars,’ Hunter added. ‘I doubt if details of this one are out on the street yet, but we need something a bit more conventional for the next stage.’

  ‘OK with me,’ Reilly said. ‘And I sure could do with a change from beer ’n’ coke ’n’ chocolate.’

  Fifty-five minutes later the two men drove out of a diner parking lot, threaded through the light early afternoon traffic and headed northwest on US95. A few minutes out of Vegas, Hunter pulled off the highway into the North Las Vegas Air Terminal, and turned into the passenger parking area.

  They cruised slowly up and down the lanes, scanning the parked cars and looking for an anonymous, late model vehicle, preferably one that looked as if it had been parked for a while. They found the dark blue Ford compact in the far corner of the parking lot, and Reilly had the doors open and the engine started inside three minutes.

  Back in Vegas, they cruised past McCarran again, Hunter driving, Reilly crouched low on the back seat. The Lincoln was still there, two dark figures visible behind the tinted glass windows.

  ‘That confirms it, I guess,’ Reilly said.

  ‘Yes. They shouldn’t be a problem,
though.’

  Hunter pulled the Ford into a parking bay at the side of the road around a quarter of a mile from the main gates of McCarran. They were far enough away that the Roland Oliver surveillance team wouldn’t be likely to spot them, and would have a good, but distant, view of vehicles entering or leaving the base. They weren’t close enough to identify individuals, even with the compact binoculars Reilly had produced from his bag, but that didn’t matter. All Hunter was looking for was one, particularly distinctive, vehicle.

  * * *

  ‘Anything?’ Harris asked into the two-radio radio.

  ‘Nothing.’ Templeton’s voice was crackly and slightly distorted, but even that couldn’t hide his boredom.

  Hunter had been right. Of all the work undertaken by police and security forces, surveillance – and especially long-term surveillance – is probably the least liked and certainly the most tedious.

  Templeton and Grant had been sitting in the Lincoln since eight that morning. It was a hot day, and every twenty minutes or so Templeton had to start the engine and give the interior a blast from the air conditioning, just to keep the temperature inside the car bearable. There were cans of soda and packets of sandwiches in a cardboard box on the back seat: both had eaten, but neither man had drunk much. Quite apart from anything else, there was nowhere nearby where they could conveniently take a leak.

  Pictures of Reilly and Hunter were taped to the dashboard, and every time a vehicle approached the main gate the two men peered through binoculars at the driver and any other occupants, seeking a match with their quarry.

  Harris and Morgan were sitting in a motel bedroom about a block away. In fact, Morgan was asleep, stretched out on one of the twin beds, while Harris sat at the table by the window, which offered a reasonable view of the road outside. As well as the two-way radio and his Smith and Wesson automatic pistol, he had a street map of Las Vegas in front of him, plus pictures and biographies of Reilly and Hunter, which he had been studying for the last hour. The team’s other car, a maroon Chevrolet, was parked directly outside the door of the room, fully fuelled and ready to roll.

  ‘OK. Stay alert,’ Harris warned. ‘Morgan and I will relieve you at about three.’

  ‘Heads up,’ Hunter said. ‘That could be it.’

  He peered intently through the binoculars at the McCarran main gate, then handed them to Reilly.

  ‘Yup,’ Reilly muttered. ‘Looks like our boy. Now we just wait.’

  McCarran Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada

  The barrier opened in front of him, and Randy Douglas accelerated steadily down the access road. At the first junction he turned towards the main runway, then turned again to parallel it. Close beside an aircraft parking area, he braked the ambulance to a stop and backed it up to the double entrance doors of an unmarked building.

  Bill Robbins climbed out of the passenger side of the ambulance, opened the vehicle’s rear doors and then pressed the buzzer on the wall of the building. After a few moments the door was unlocked from the inside, and a man in a white coat appeared.

  Eight minutes later, Douglas swung the vehicle out through the main gate at McCarran while Robbins checked the schedule sheet for details of the next pickup – their last that day.

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  ‘That’s it,’ Reilly said, lowering the binoculars. ‘The show’s about to start. They’ve turned away from us, so you’d best get moving.’

  ‘Right,’ Hunter said, putting the Ford into drive and easing it away from the curb. ‘At least we don’t have to make a U-turn to follow them.’

  As they passed the Lincoln, Reilly ducked down below the level of the passenger window, and Hunter pulled the Stetson a little lower over his face, but they needn’t have bothered. Templeton was looking straight at the McCarran gate, and stifling a yawn, while Grant rummaged around in the box on the back seat, looking for a beef sandwich. Neither of them even noticed the dark blue Ford.

  * * *

  Douglas and Robbins hadn’t noticed it either, until Hunter pulled alongside the ambulance and sounded the horn. Douglas looked to his right and saw Reilly staring straight at him, holding up Wilson’s FBI identification.

  ‘Shit,’ Douglas muttered. ‘What’s the fucking FBI want with us?’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Robbins replied. ‘Best you pull over and we’ll ask them.’

  Douglas pulled the ambulance smoothly in to the side of the road, and Hunter stopped the Ford ten feet behind it. Reilly and Hunter climbed out at the same time as Douglas and Robbins. Hunter glanced at the rear doors of the ambulance, at the small black-painted logo ‘RMS,’ the letters intertwined, and at the legend ‘Rolver Medical Services’ directly below it.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Douglas said. ‘And how can we help the FBI?’

  ‘We’re not FBI,’ Hunter said. ‘That’s just a cover.’

  The puzzled look on Douglas’s face was turning slowly to alarm. He and Robbins were unarmed and he had already seen the butt of the Glock at Hunter’s belt.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Reilly added. ‘We work for the same people you do.’

  He and Hunter displayed the ‘Ω’ cards Reilly had liberated from the bodies of Rogers and Wilson. Hunter didn’t look unlike Rogers, but Reilly bore no resemblance at all to Wilson, so he carefully kept his forefinger partially obscuring the photograph on the card.

  Douglas peered at the cards and relaxed visibly. ‘So what do you want with us?’

  ‘With you, almost nothing,’ Hunter said, ‘and you’ll be on your way in less than ten minutes. We’re running a security check on the Roland Oliver system here at McCarran, and we need to speak to the medical officer on duty. Who is it today?’

  Neither Douglas nor Robbins reacted to the name ‘Roland Oliver.’

  ‘It’s Dr. Evans,’ Douglas said. ‘Why don’t you just go inside and talk to him?’

  ‘No can do,’ Hunter said. ‘Our instructions are to remain outside McCarran. There’s another team inside handling matters there. Didn’t you notice the increased security around the building?’

  Douglas paused for a second, then nodded his head. Hunter would have been amazed if he’d done anything else.

  ‘OK. Can we just see your pickup schedule for this week?’

  ‘Sure.’ Robbins walked back to the ambulance and returned with a clipboard on which half a dozen or so sheets of paper were clipped. Hunter took the clipboard, barely glanced at the forms, and handed it to Reilly, who walked back to the Ford compact.

  On the back seat was the portable photocopier they’d had some difficulty buying earlier that morning, powered from the car’s cigar lighter. Reilly unclipped the sheets and ran them, one at a time, through the copier. The whole process took less than three minutes. When he returned the clipboard to Robbins, Hunter was still talking to Douglas.

  ‘How many do you collect each day?’ he asked.

  ‘Depends,’ Douglas said. ‘We mainly cover Nevada, but sometimes we have to go out of state. If they’re all local – all from the Vegas area, say – we might collect five or six. If they’re out of state, we might only manage one or two. Sometimes we do real long trips, like this week. We’ve only collected two since Wednesday, and we’ve only got one more this afternoon, then we’re off-duty for five days.’

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’

  ‘Me – a bit over three years. Bill here has only been working with us for about six months.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘You ever see any of the patients again? I mean – do you ever get to transport them from McCarran back to their homes?’

  ‘Nope,’ Douglas said. ‘I guess there’s a different crew that handles the return transport. We just ship ’em out. They’re all out of it, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean – ‘out of it’?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘In comas. Deep unconscious. I guess this program’s the last hope any of them have.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s all we need from you. Now we hav
e to get Doctor Evans to come out here and meet with us. You have a radio to contact him, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Douglas said. ‘We have to call the duty doctor when we’re about ten minutes away from McCarran to let him know we’re about to arrive, and to give him the case number.’

  ‘Right. Get on the radio, call Evans and tell him two Roland Oliver senior security staff need to talk to him immediately, outside the base.’

  Douglas walked over to the cab of the ambulance, picked up the radio, contacted Evans and relayed Hunter’s instructions.

  There was a pause before Evans replied. ‘I can’t,’ he said, at last, his voice tinny and distant through the tiny speaker. ‘I’m not permitted to leave the base. Can’t they wait until tomorrow when I’m off-duty?’

  Douglas looked over at Hunter and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Tell him,’ Hunter said, ‘that this is a Priority One instruction, which overrides all Roland Oliver Standing Orders. Compliance is mandatory. We need to see him immediately.’

  ‘OK,’ Evans said, his voice crackling and fading. ‘I’ll have to check over everything in here first. Where and when?’

  Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

  Roger Ketch was getting nervous. He’d berated the Cobra pilot for abandoning the search for the two men when the police car and fire truck had appeared, which had served to relieve his irritation, but hadn’t achieved anything else. At least the crop-duster had been destroyed, which meant that Hunter and Reilly couldn’t fly it anywhere else, and also confirmed that they were definitely in the Las Vegas area.

  And that was what worried Ketch. The two men had obviously been somewhere nearby for almost six hours. So why hadn’t they tried to get into McCarran?

  He’d called Harris three times, but nobody on the clean-up team had seen the two men. Harris was adamant that if they tried to effect an entry through the main gate, his people would see them. Therefore, they hadn’t tried – yet.