Chapter 3
THE WHITE CARGO VAN HEADED NORTH, sticking to major roads, Storrow Drive to 93 to 95 and beyond. It was nearly 1:00 A.M. and the highways offered the best bet for making time.
Nothing to worry about. Just a plain white van driving approximately eight miles above the speed limit through Massachusetts. The driver spotted two state police cruisers, lightly tapping the brakes the way any self-conscious motorist would, before resuming normal cruising speed. Nothing to look at here.
At 3:00 A.M., the van made its first stop, at an old roadside diner, shuttered up years ago. Located in a middle stretch of nowhere, the diner had a sprawling dirt parking lot and looked like the kind of place a trucker might pull over to catch a few z’s, or water the bushes. Most importantly, it was the kind of place that no one really noticed, because nothing that interesting ever happened this far out here.
The youngest member of the crew, a kid they called Radar, was sent around back to do his thing. He flung open the rear doors and inspected their packages. The girl and woman remained unmoving. The man, on the other hand, was starting to stir. He opened one glassy eye, peered at Radar groggily, then pitched forward, as if to attack this smaller, younger target. Obviously still under the effects of the sedative, the man fell forward about six inches, face-planted on the rubber mat, and went limp again. Radar shrugged, checked the man’s pulse, then casually opened his kit, withdrew an already prepared syringe and plunged it into the man’s upper arm. That would hold him for a bit.
Radar checked wrist and ankle restraints on all three, as well as the duct tape over their mouths.
So far, so good. He gathered up his kit, went to close the double doors, then paused. He wasn’t sure what made him do it. Maybe because he really was good at his job, possessing an unerring sixth sense that had earned him his nickname during the first field deployment, so many countries, years, units ago. But for whatever reason, he set down his kit and though Z barked from the driver’s seat for him to hurry it along, he reinspected each of their charges.
Cell phones, car keys, wallets, pocketknives, iPods, iPads, anything and everything that a person might consider useful had been left behind, neatly stacked in a pile on the center kitchen island of the Boston brownstone. Radar had thought that was a lot of precaution given their civilian targets, but Z had been explicit in his instructions. The man, they were told, had some skills. Nothing like their skills, of course, but he could “handle himself.” Underestimating was for idiots, so they didn’t underestimate.
And yet… Radar started with the girl. She moaned lightly as he patted down her torso, and he flushed, feeling like a pervert for running his hands up and down a kid, especially a young, pretty girl. Package, package, package, he reminded himself, compartmentalization being everything in his line of work. Next, the woman. Still made him feel self-conscious, dirty on the inside, but he comforted himself with the notion that it was better for him to be handling the women than Mick. As if reading his thoughts, Mick twisted around in the backseat, until he could stare at Radar with his unsettling bright blue gaze. Mick’s eyes were still swollen and bloodshot, and he was definitely still pissed off about it.
“What the fuck?” Mick barked now. “Are you securing them, or feeling ’em up?”
“Something’s wrong,” Radar muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Z, the big man, instantly alert from the driver’s seat. He was already opening his door, climbing out.
“Don’t know,” Radar muttered again, hands moving, poking, prodding. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Mick shut his trap. Radar knew the blond didn’t always like him, but they’d been together long enough for Mick to know better than to argue with one of Radar’s hunches. If Radar knew something, he knew something. The question was what.
Z was already around the back. He moved fast for a big guy, and given that he was still dressed entirely in black, he made for an unsettling presence in the moonless night.
“What?” he demanded.
And just like that, reinspecting the husband, Radar figured it out. Roughly six hours into their mission, they had made their first mistake, and it was a costly one. He stood there, still debating options when, suddenly, Z was on the move.
Before Radar could blink, a knife appeared in the big guy’s hands. He stepped forward, and Radar leapt out of the way, instinctively averting his gaze.
One stab, three cuts. No more, no less and Z was done. He inspected his work, grunted in satisfaction and walked away, leaving Radar, as the lowest man on the totem pole, to handle disposal.
Alone now, breathing unsteadily, Radar got to it. Happy he’d had the foresight to pick an abandoned diner. Happier still for the cover of night, which allowed even him to not really see what he had to do.
Then, disposal completed, he picked up his kit from the cargo van floor. Compartmentalization, he reminded himself. Key trick of the trade. He closed the rear doors, refusing to take a second glance.
Thirty seconds later, he was back in the van, settled uneasily next to Mick.
They resumed their way in the pitch-black night. White cargo van, headed due north.