the Second Horseman (2006)

by Kyle Mills

  The sound of rotors became audible, and Brandon ducked down, watching the helicopter pass overhead and then retreat to a more discreet distance.

  "Jesus," he said, flopping sideways in his seat.

  "You almost gave me a stroke when you jumped out of that truck!" Catherine said. "Are you okay?"

  "I'll live."

  She let out a long breath and looked over at him. "I can't believe it worked. It did work, didn't it? They aren't just playing with us."

  He shrugged painfully. "My instincts say we're okay. But I guess we'll know for sure soon enough."

  She downshifted as the hill steepened.

  "So, you were worried about me, huh?"

  "No," she said, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and holding it out to him. "You're bleeding."

  He took it and dabbed at his forehead. "You're sure you weren't just a little worried?"

  "Maybe a little."

  He smiled. "Anything on the police scanners?"

  "Dead quiet."

  "Nice. Look, when we get to a place you can pass, I want you to pull ahead of those guys."

  "Aren't we going to follow them?"

  He shook his head. "With the copter up there, we don't want to give the impression we're tailing. We know where we're going, so we'll stay just ahead. It'll make it seem like their fault that we're so close."

  She depressed the accelerator and they began closing the distance to the vehicles in front of them. He nudged her leg with his foot. "Pretty cool, huh?"

  Chapter TWENTY-NINE

  It was only a little after nine in the morning and Richard Scanlon's office had already turned claustrophobic. He strode out into the hallway and started down it, nodding silently to the people he passed and trying to find something to occupy his mind. He finally ended up in the empty break room pouring a cup of coffee that he didn't want.

  Scanlon wasn't accustomed to feeling helpless, but there was no other way to describe his present situation. Not only was he not in charge of the drama playing out in the desert a few hundred miles away, he wasn't even involved. There had been no practical way to monitor communications and, frankly, there had been no point. The sad truth was that he would only be in the way. This was Brandon's show.

  It was a critical lesson that was easy to learn, but almost impossible to adhere to:

  You pick good people and let them do their job.

  He tried to fill his mind with the image of driving those warheads to Langley and ramming them down the throat of that jackass Paul Lowe.

  Of course, that wasn't really the plan. They'd actually be left on an uninhabited island for retrieval by the navy. But the end result would be the same. They would be kept from the maniacs trying to get them and the American government would finally be forced to let go of their obsession with state sponsorship and concentrate on the much more immediate threat posed by the weapons that were already out there.

  "Richard?"

  He turned and saw his secretary peeking around the doorway.

  "There's a Steve Ahrens from the FBI here to see you. He doesn't have an appointment."

  Scanlon stopped stirring his coffee and stared blankly at her. He'd known that eventually the FBI would be showing up on his doorstep, but not this soon. There was no way they could have tracked him down this quickly. No, that wasn't true. If the hijacking had gone wrong and his people had been caught, Brandon would gleefully give him up before the police even got the cuffs on him.

  "Richard? Are you all right? Do you want me to tell him you're busy and have him come back?"

  Scanlon blinked a few times and then just shook his head. "No. Have him wait in my office."

  "Steve? I'm Richard Scanlon."

  The man standing in the middle of the office was too young for Scanlon to have known from his own days at the FBI, but he'd heard the name. By all reports, a top-notch agent.

  "Nice to meet you," Ahrens said, offering his hand. "I've heard a lot about you, sir."

  Scanlon looked around his otherwise empty office. It seemed that they were alone. A good sign?

  "Have I caught you at a bad time?" Ahrens said. "I know I should have called ahead."

  "There are no good times, these days," Scanlon said, concentrating on keeping his voice calm and his posture relaxed. He sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk and offered the other to Ahrens.

  "I take it you're aware that Brandon Vale broke out of prison recently," the young agent said.

  "Your office called me. Thanks for the heads-up."

  Ahrens nodded and held out a five-by-seven photograph. "We have an informant who thinks he's seen Vale in Las Vegas."

  Scanlon examined the photo and then handed it back, making sure he didn't reveal the relief he felt. The Bureau wasn't on to him. Not yet.

  "That could be my aunt, Steve."

  "Yeah, it's not a great shot. Apparently it's from one of those camera phones, taken at the Rio. The informant knew him, though. Not well, but he'd met him before. Insists it's Vale. I figure the chance at about fifty-fifty."

  Scanlon nodded slowly. "So what's your thinking?"

  "Well, he had outside help on the jail break. There's no question of that. Honestly, though, the escape itself was a little strange."

  "How so?"

  "It wasn't a carefully planned, elaborate scheme like the other things we suspect him of. Left a lot to chance. Haven't figured that out yet."

  Ahrens fell silent and Scanlon knew he had no choice but to throw in his two cents.

  It would seem odd if he didn't.

  "I agree. He's a planner. There's more there."

  "Yeah. I'll get it. I just need some time. Anyway, back when he was working for you, it seems pretty obvious that he was casing the place. But he never talked. Did you ever figure out what he was after?"

  "Not for certain. It's Vegas -- there's a lot of money around. Casinos, transfers, wires. He was like a kid in a candy store, I would imagine."

  Vague, but essentially true. He'd planned carefully for a conversation with the FBI, though not this one precisely.

  "Could he still be after one of those things? Maybe there were other people working with him? Maybe they finished the groundwork and now that they're ready to pull the job, they need Vale back?"

  Scanlon shrugged. "Or maybe he just wanted out of prison and paid someone."

  "Yeah, that's the obvious answer, but honestly he didn't have that much time left. And why come back here? That suggests something to me."

  "It's interesting conspiracy theory. And possible, I suppose. Though I have to tell you that we went back and changed every security procedure I'd been involved with.

  Cost millions."

  Ahrens leaned back in his chair, a pained expression spreading slowly across his face. "Then maybe he's after you for helping to put him away."

  "After me? You mean out to do me physical harm? Oh, I doubt it."

  "So you're not worried he might just walk up and shoot you?"

  "Nah. Not his style. I like your first theory better. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was for me when we discovered who he was? If he wanted to get me, he'd come here and pull whatever job he'd been planning -- make me look like even more of an asshole than he already has."

  Ahrens nodded thoughtfully. "I wonder. Prison can change a man, you know?"

  Scanlon tried to keep his expression passive. Just what he needed -- the goddamn FBI crawling all over him in the interest of protecting him from Brandon Vale.

  "Trust me, Steve. I know this guy. He'd figure you're watching and stay as far away from me as he can."

  "Yeah," Ahrens said, standing and extending his hand. "You're probably right. Thanks for your time. And if you wake up at night with any brilliant ideas, give me a call. I could use a few."

  Chapter THIRTY

  "Where are they?" Catherine said for what must have been the fiftieth time.

  It was ten thirty in the morning and the unforecasted fog Brandon had been hoping for was nowher
e to be found.

  He squinted through the windshield glare at the stop-and-go traffic, spotting one of the chase cars about fifty yards ahead. A quick check of his side mirror revealed neither the decoy truck nor the other chase car.

  "Relax, Cath. We're in San Francisco traffic. The people monitoring the GPSes are going to give us a boatload of slack. There's no way to stay together in this crap and they sure as hell don't expect anyone to steal their money now. Even if you figured out a way to offload the truck under the noses of a thousand commuters, the cops would be able to catch you on a skateboard."

  "Maybe we should slow down," she said, staring into her mirror and coasting up too fast on the Porsche in front of them. "Cath!"

  She slammed on the brakes and he lurched forward, grabbing the dash.

  "I'm sorry. I --"

  "Jesus Christ!" he said, cutting her off. "What's your job? To get us to the Fed without crashing, right? Let me worry about where everyone is."

  She tried to look away, but he could still see her distraught expression.

  "Hey, I'm sorry, Cath. But all it takes is one little fender bender and everything goes up in smoke."

  "I know," she said finally. "You're right. I shouldn't be thinking. I should just drive."

  "Come on. Don't be that way. You should always be thinking. I'm just asking you to focus on what you're doing right now. You've driven this route, what, five times before? And all in worse traffic than this. Everything's gonna be fine."

  "There's so much . . . It's hard."

  "I know."

  He watched her carefully, making sure she was paying attention to the road. "What are you thinking about?"

  "Everything. Terrorists. Nuclear bombs. You. Me. Us. The guy driving the other truck. World War III . .

  He smiled and shook his head. "Is that all?"

  "The police. I've been thinking about them, too. Oh, and that helicopter . . ."

  "Look, I know exactly what you're going through. I have the same problem. But how many of those things can you do anything about from behind the wheel of this truck?"

  "None, I guess."

  "You guess?"

  "Okay. None."

  He glanced in the side mirror again and saw the decoy truck appear around the corner. "There it is. Don't look! Watch where you're going. But trust me it's there."

  She seemed to relax a little, but her knuckles were still white around the wheel.

  Brandon rolled down the window and hung partway out of it. The helicopter wasn't visible, but he knew it wasn't far. With the buildings rising all around them, it would have to be virtually overhead to be visible. At this point, though, air cover was more a formality than anything else. When Scanlon had created the transfer protocols, he'd assumed that delivery was a foregone conclusion by this point. Shame, shame.

  Brandon heard the crackle of static in his earpiece and pressed a finger against it to hear more clearly.

  "This is car one. We've reached the Federal Reserve Bank and are beginning to circle the block per procedure."

  Brandon rolled his eyes and imitated the deep, businesslike voice on the radio. "We're beginning to circle the block per procedure."

  "Now who's not focusing?" Catherine said, clearly nearing the end of her rope on this thing. Any further attempts to lighten her mood might prove dangerous, so he just moved a hand to his throat mike. "Copy that."

  She downshifted and checked her mirrors, easing the truck right around a sharp corner. "Here we go."

  The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco was a predictably imposing building that looked like it could survive a direct hit by one of the nuclear bombs Richard Scanlon was so anxious to get his hands on. Across the back of the building, though, was a surprisingly run-of-the-mill delivery area -- simple bays where various types of vehicles dropped off cash, checks to be cleared, and all the other things that made America great. Security wasn't as impressive as most people would have imagined -- just an easily climbable chain-link fence and a couple of guards.

  Brandon slid the walkie-talkie from his pocket and pressed the button on its side while Catherine continued to creep forward through the traffic.

  "Rob, can you hear me?"

  He'd been checking in every hour with the truck driver, trying to make sure he was as calm as a man who thought he had an explosive locked to him could be.

  "I can hear you."

  "Hey, it's almost over. Before you know it you'll be sitting around with Oprah telling her your story. Okay. Here's the deal. You're going to do everything exactly like you normally do. We couldn't get the combination for the lock on the back of the real truck, though, so we jammed the one we put on your truck. If they ask you about it, just say you don't know what's wrong with it. No explanation -- you just want to get out of there and go home, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Okay, then. I'll be listening in through the phone on your belt. I've also got people inside the Fed, so any hand signals or written notes are going to be a really bad idea for you."

  All lies, of course. He had no one inside, and hadn't been able to figure out if the Fed monitored radio and cell signals in the dock. Most likely, they didn't, but he couldn't take that chance.

  "I understand."

  "Rob. Is this your money?"

  "No."

  "Is anyone going to be hurt by me stealing it?"

  "No."

  "Okay, then. When you come back out, you're going to follow the chase cars. They're going to take you somewhere to get that plastique off you and they're going to get you some pizza and hold on to you until we can offload the real truck and get out of town. Probably twenty-four hours or so. I don't want you to worry about it. We haven't hurt anyone in this thing and there's a reason for that. If I get caught, I don't want to get nailed for murder and spend the rest of my life inside, right?"

  "Right." Even over the marginal connection, he sounded skeptical.

  "Good luck, Rob." One last look at the walkie-talkie and he switched it off. It was out of his hands now.

  Catherine stepped on the clutch and began revving the engine in a way that made it sound like the truck was about to stall. They were about a hundred yards from the gate leading to the Fed docks -- close enough for him to make out two uniformed guards standing on the other side of the fence.

  "Okay, slow it down," he said.

  Catherine rode the clutch to a full stop and then used it to jerk the truck briefly forward a few times. It didn't take long for the horns to start and then for the traffic behind them to begin death-defying maneuvers to get around.

  "I see it!" Catherine said. "Coming up behind us."

  Brandon adjusted his side mirror slightly and watched the decoy truck slowly close on them. Catherine shut off the ignition for a moment, turned on the flashers, then started it up again, revving the engine wildly and lurching toward an empty bus stop a few feet from the dock gate.

  "Watch your timing," Brandon cautioned.

  "What do you think I'm doing?"

  "Sorry. Keep your eyes on the road and I'll watch the decoy. It's thirty yards back."

  She continued jerking forward as the traffic flowed around them, grinding gears and feathering the accelerator artistically.

  "Twenty yards."

  When they got to the bus stop, she pulled into it and stalled the motor. After a few futile-sounding attempts to get it started again, Brandon jumped out and crawled beneath the cab, pretending to search for the cause of their engine problems.

  He wiggled along the asphalt, watching the wheels of the decoy truck as it rolled by and stopped in front of the Fed entrance. A moment later, the gate began to open and the truck pulled through.

  "Car two passing by the Fed," he heard in his earpiece. "The truck has entered and we're starting around the block."

  Brandon's heart was pounding a mile a minute -- just like it always did. Not at the possibility of being caught, which had never scared him for some reason, but at the thought that this thing might actually wor
k.

  "The truck's backed into the bay and stopped," Catherine said over his earpiece.

  "This is car one. We've called in and confirmed delivery."

  "Car two. We've called in delivery."

  "Jesus," Brandon whispered to himself, scooting into a position where he could see through the bottom of the Fed's fence. The decoy truck was just visible sticking out of the center bay. He assumed that the driver was out of the cab unhooking the trailer but without an open line to him, that was only an educated guess. Just as likely, he was telling his story to Fed security and calling the cops. No sense in worrying about that now.

  While this plan left more things to providence than he normally would have tolerated, it wasn't the worst thing he'd ever come up with. The idea was simple: If it was impossible to steal the money on the open road, you had no choice but to steal it at the Fed.

  The GPS system used by the security company for monitoring the convoy wasn't sensitive enough to know the difference between sitting in the Fed's delivery dock and sitting twenty yards away in the bus stop, so their slightly outdated technology was telling them -- and the chase cars were confirming -- that the money had been delivered. The only thing going on that was even slightly out of the ordinary was the Budweiser truck broken down just outside the gate.

  "This is car one. The helicopter has confirmed delivery."

  "Yes!" Brandon said, a little too loudly. Only one more hurdle. Assuming the driver hadn't ratted them out, the Fed guys would be noticing that the lock on the trailer was jammed. When they got it off and found the truck full of the expected bags, they'd call in the final delivery confirmation.

  He was surprised when he saw the trailerless decoy truck begin to roll out of the bay after only another minute. He'd figured on it taking a while to cut the lock off, but they must have had problems with it before and been prepared.

  He dragged himself from beneath the truck, wincing at the excruciating ache coming from his injured shoulder. Catherine fired up the motor -- stalling it a few times before bringing it to a sickly purr.

  He jumped in, keeping his eyes on the cab of the decoy truck as it disappeared around a corner.

  "Oh, my God . . ." Catherine said in a low voice that was hard to hear over the engine.