Will held his breath, waiting for Beau to rat him out.
Beau took his time offering an answer, but in the end, he shook his head. Once. Not emphatic. The equivalent of a shoulder shrug.
Will thought about the Sig Sauer at his back. He was sweating so hard the leather holster was glued to the tail of his shirt.
“Come on, Ragnersen.” Gerald clearly wasn’t satisfied. “You think he’s got what it takes or not?”
Will looked down at the ground. He gauged the distance between him and Gerald, thought about One through Four sleeping in the van, the old folks in the nursing home, the cars that might drive by on the road.
“Fuck yes.” Beau let his face split open with a grin. “Wolfe had my back over in the sandpit more times than you’ve scratched your balls.”
Will worked on keeping the anger and relief off his face. He grabbed Beau by the shoulder the way a buddy would, but his fingers dug in hard enough to let him know he was going to pay for this bullshit later.
Gerald crossed his arms. He asked Will, “How bad is your life?”
Will shrugged.
Gerald asked, “Are you willing to give everything up? Leave town? Don’t look back?”
Will’s heart started thumping so hard that he could feel his pulse in his fingers. This was it. His last chance to find Dash. His only chance to save Sara.
He asked Gerald, “What does it pay?”
“$250,000.”
“Shit,” Beau hissed.
Will asked, “What do I have to do?”
“You’ll know when it’s time to know,” Gerald said. “You show up, be ready to leave your old life behind. Don’t pack any bags. Don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. The payday is crazy for a reason. You do this job with us, you’ve got to disappear when it’s over. You can’t return to your old life. And if you try to, then we’ll have to deal with you, your family, your woman—anybody who might say the wrong word. You understand?”
Will pretended to think about it. The money wasn’t just crazy, it was stupid crazy. There were hundreds of bad guys who would strangle their own mothers for a quarter of that. It was the kind of money you offered when you knew you weren’t going to have to pay it.
Will asked, “When?”
Beau kicked the ground.
“Tomorrow,” Gerald said. “Fifteen hundred hours, sharp. Exit 129 off of I-85. There’s a Citgo. I’ll give you a little ride to meet the boss. He’ll test you out, make sure you’re a good fit.”
Dash.
Gerald said, “If he gives the thumbs up, you’re in.”
Beau asked, “And if he doesn’t?”
Gerald shrugged. He told Will, “Some wars are worth the sacrifice. The boss will fill you in. Believe me, you won’t take much convincing. Maybe you’ll want to go with us when we bug out. The mission you’ll be a part of, the war we’re fighting, it means something.”
Will clenched his jaw. He had a siren going off in his head, not a warning, but—
Sara-Sara-Sara-Sara.
Beau stepped into it. “What’s this mission?”
Gerald looked surprised. “You want a piece?”
“Fuck no, man. Not for twice that.”
Gerald told Will, “Think about it, soldier. No pressure. If you want in, you’ve got to be all in. Show up tomorrow, exit 129, fifteen hundred. You’ll find out what you’re doing when it’s time to find out what you’re doing. That work for you?”
Will counted silently in his head. To five, to ten. He nodded once.
Gerald nodded back.
That was it.
Will started walking down the driveway to the nursing home. He heard the van door slam shut behind him. He skirted the building, looking up in the camera so his face was completely visible. His head was filled with numbers:
4935876; 129 off I-85 at 15:00.
Beau’s footsteps were behind him doing the Charlie Brown shuffle.
Will said, “You’re a motherfucker.”
“Hell yeah I am.” Beau didn’t seem worried about how angry Will was or where they were going.
“You should run,” Will said. “You know they’ll be waiting for you at your truck.”
“You should run, too, Robocop.” Beau jogged to catch up. “Don’t be stupid. You know they dangled that money because they’re gonna end up paying you with a bullet to the back of your brain. Don’t risk your life to bring down these weasels.”
“What are they planning?”
“You think they run that shit past me?”
Will kept walking. Beau thought that Will was dedicated to his job. He had no idea that this was about Sara.
“Bro, hey, hold up.” He trailed Will through the woods. “Listen to me, okay? Dash is a fucking stone-cold killer. No joke. I’ve fought with dudes like that. You don’t mean shit to him. You’re collateral damage. The bullets start raining down, he’ll turn you into his umbrella.”
Will felt a sting on his forehead. He slapped away a mosquito.
Beau said, “That shit you were talking about in the van? I get it, bro. I’m spinning the same damn wheel every morning I get out of bed. You’re either homicidal or you’re suicidal.”
“I’m not the one shooting black tar heroin.” Will trudged across the football field. The grass was wet. The sprinklers had soaked the ground. He didn’t need a lecture from a junkie looking at twenty years. He told Beau, “You want to help somebody? Help yourself, bro.”
“I’m only trying—” Beau didn’t get a chance to explain what he was trying.
Flashlights bounced around them like fireflies. Agents swarmed in. Guns drawn. Kevlar vests wrapped tight. Will didn’t recognize them from work because they weren’t GBI. They were all yelling the words they had been trained to yell at Quantico.
“FBI! FBI! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!”
Will had his hands in the air, but they pushed him out of the way.
Beau was slammed to the grass. He barely had time to oof out a breath. His hands were wrenched behind him. The Glock 19 was unloaded. His phone and wallet were tossed onto the ground.
An agent wearing glasses knelt down beside Beau. “Captain Ragnersen, I’m arresting you for possession of an illegal firearm inside a nature area.”
“Fuck,” Beau spat out the word. He looked for Will. “We had a deal.”
Will walked away. His tennis shoes filled with water from the wet grass. He kept up his mantra—
4935876, 29 off of I-85 at 15:00.
The moon shifted behind a cloud. Will concentrated on picking his way through the dark woods. Exhaustion pressed on every joint in his body. He let himself consider what he’d just signed up for. These men were terrorists. It was not news that Dash was a psychopath. He had bombed a hospital. He had orchestrated the abduction of a scientist from the CDC. His men had taken Sara right in front of Will’s eyes. Dash had shot a man with Will’s Glock. He’d had his right-hand man switch cardboard boxes out of a warehouse that was packed with—what?
Explosives made the most sense. Those boxes could be going anywhere. Schools. Office buildings. Hotels. Will hadn’t managed to steal a packing slip. He hadn’t been able to cut the ID card off the guard’s lanyard. The warehouse could be anywhere. If Will didn’t infiltrate this group, there was no other way to stop whatever horrible thing they were planning.
But stopping them was not what he really cared about most.
How bad is your life?
Will didn’t have a life without Sara.
His hand brushed the chain-link fence as he walked along the baseball diamond. He passed the tennis courts. He saw Beau’s truck still parked in the lot. A silver Acura idled beside it. The headlights were on low beam. Exhaust curled from the back. The engine was pushing heat out through the wheel wells.
4935876, 129 off of I-85 at 15:00.
Will opened the door. He angled his body into the seat, wincing from the pain. He closed his eyes. The air conditioning was on high. The sweat on his face started to chill.
Amanda asked, “Well?”
He nodded. “I’m in.”
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
14
Tuesday, August 6, 7:00 a.m.
Faith sat at the kitchen table, yelling, “Oh my goodness gracious, I can’t believe how delicious these blueberries are!”
She was not rewarded by the pounding of Emma’s footsteps across the upstairs hall.
Ten minutes had passed since her daughter had broken into a crying jag about the injustice of string cheese. Before Faith could talk her down, Emma had flung herself up the stairs and locked her bedroom door. There was a paperclip on the ledge to unlock the door for this very reason, but then Faith had heard Emma singing to her stuffed animals and thought—win/win.