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Suddenly, Naomi jerked, so violently she wrenched herself out of his grip. She vomited, a projectile fountain that rose up into the air and spewed around in a nasty arc as she twisted, flailing her arms, her body jackknifing. The people nearby leaped back from the splatter with shouts of disgust. She thudded heavily to her knees, and fell, her body twitching.
And lay still. Eyes wide, mouth open. Blood oozed from her nose and mouth. Her neck was bent at a strange angle.
“Sweet holy Jesus.” A chubby, uniformed woman crossed herself, her eyes huge with alarm. “Get paramedics!” she howled.
Aaro knelt next to her, placed his finger to her carotid artery. He saw Petrie in his peripheral vision, crouched on the other side. He felt an irregular flutter…and then nothing. For many long seconds. Dead.
The convulsions had snapped her spine.
Someone elbowed him roughly aside as people gathered around around Naomi’s curled-up body. Someone was pumping on her chest. Others were shouting instructions, suggestions. One guy was calling for EMTs on his phone. A woman was crying, noisily. He stared at Naomi’s pale, bloodied face, her grimace.
Boom.The sound jolted him. From outside. Shouts, screams. Alarms began to squeal, at every pitch, a crazy, cacophonous chorus.
Aaro staggered to his feet with the others, and went to look out the door. He stared, barely surprised at what he saw, right outside, in the street. His Chevy. Windows blown out. Flames leaping. Blown up.
A hand touched his shoulder. He turned, looked into Petrie’s bloodshot eyes. “Is that your vehicle?” Petrie asked.
Aaro nodded. “Second time in six months,” he said, for no reason that he could fathom. Like it was any of their goddamn business.
A short, fat guy who’d come to the door to gawk whistled appreciatively. “Oh, man. That’s gotta hurt. You must have an exciting life.”
Aaro let out a long sigh. “You have no idea,” he muttered.
“They are going to fuck you up the ass on the insurance now, you know that?” the short guy informed him, with unseemly relish.
“Yeah,” murmured Aaro, bleakly. “I do know that.”
“Let’s go have a talk while the EMT people come for your friend,” Petrie suggested.
“She’s not my friend,” he said again. “She just tried to kill me.”
Petrie gazed at him. “OK,” he said. “Let’s go discuss how this relates to my case, then. You might as well take the coffee, and the doughnut.” He held out the grease-spotted bag and the paper cup. “I have a feeling you’re going to be here for a while.”
* * *
Bruno huddled in the brush,ears straining for the hum of the engine on the switchback. Sean McCloud hadn’t said much, once they’d established radio communication. The guy was in his hiding place up the hill, in the zone, peering through his scope. Soon they would turn the hairpin, and make the last pass to the bridge. And then, showtime.
Stay up there. Be good. Do as you’re told for once in your life.Bruno punched the telepathic message towards the place where he’d left Lily, swathed in the smallest armored vest that Sean had, which still swamped her, and a big camo poncho draped over it. He’d given Lily the Glock 19, with a full magazine and a chambered round, and strict instructions to hightail it up the mountain, put distance between herself and the stunt that he and Sean were about to pull.
She was supposed to wait on the bluff. If they didn’t come collect her, well, that was a real shame. In that sad case, she kept her head down and called Sean’s brothers on Bruno’s encrypted, dedicated cell.
It comforted him, that she had on some Dragon Skin body armor.
Lily didn’t like being stashed. Too bad. She was the one who’d nixed the flaming fougasse option. He’d liked that scenario, the finality of it. Watching the full vehicle rise up into the air, and gracefully explode, ah. Take that, you fuckers. But no. Couldn’t be that simple.
The motor rumbled. He heard tires crunch. He gathered himself, into a state of focused calm. He had a sense that Sean was in that state naturally. That part of his brain was permanently switched on, like Kev’s was. One of those weird McCloud things. Like being able to rig an ANFO bomb or a fougasse in fifteen minutes. Crazy shit.
The last quarter-hour had been a whirlwind tutorial in do-it-yourself explosives. Under Sean’s direction, he’d feverishly taped and wired a stack of nine-volt batteries together in sequence to multiply their voltage, rigged stun grenades with blasting caps, daisy chained them with telephone wire to the battery and the cell phone. They’d duct-taped the pack batteries and Sean’s doctored cell phone under the bridge, which spanned a dried up streambed that splashed down the hill in the springtime, two hundred meters from the cabin. The flashbangs were wedged into dirt on the chunk of road between the bridge and the chain. A drift of pine needles barely covered them, and the wire.
Wheels crunched on rock. An engine revved, lifting the loaded vehicle over bumps, wells and ruts. The vehicle appeared, a dark SUV, easing around the last narrow turn. It slowed, steering onto the narrow bridge, which consisted only of thick planks laid longwise, just wide enough to perch the wheels of a vehicle upon them. The wood groaned at the weight, bowing and creaking as if the four-by-sixes would snap.
It cleared the bridge and slowed to a stop, blocked by the heavy chain, thick as a man’s wrist, that Bruno had strung across the road.
The chain was attached to rings driven into two big posts made from creosote soaked railroad ties. They’d been sunk into wells of cement, and over the years the ground had eroded around the wells so that they stuck out like grubby, warty pedestals. A gate had once hung upon them, but the hinges had rusted off long ago. Tony hadn’t bothered with a gate. He’d just strung the chain when he left. It wasn’t like there was anything to defend. Just the humble cabin.
Bruno’s cell phone was in his hand, which was cold, shaking. Sean’s number glowed on the screen. They had used an old phone from Sean’s stash, cutting a hole right over the vibrating device to insert the wires. When he pushed “call”, the tumblers would turn, the wires would make contact…boom. And the dance began.
Even without a scope, he saw through the tinted windows that the SUV was full of people, heatedly conferring. The chain made them nervous. They didn’t like the road, either. The only spot on the road wide enough to turn around was beyond that chain. Behind was just a narrow, crumbling track barely as wide as the SUV’s axel, and sheer drop-offs all the way down to the switchback. They had to go forward, or else back all the way down in reverse. The back door popped open. A guy got out, wearing camo. Definitely not Great-aunt Betty, out for a picnic.
