The Chase (30 page)

Randisi drove up the gravel driveway to the main house, which was patrolled by armed BlackRhino operatives dressed in jeans and scuffed boots so they’d look more like ranch hands and less like mercenaries, though nobody in Hancock County was fooled.

Carter got out of the car, bounded up the porch steps, and dashed into the house, heading straight for the great room and its massive stone fireplace. He pressed a particular stone, and a nearby built-in bookcase opened like an enormous door, revealing a staircase that led down to a storm cellar that had been converted into an art gallery.

The gallery was originally intended to showcase only a few select items, but now the whole collection was stuffed in there, including the three new Rembrandts, which were temporarily on easels in the center of the room. Even now, badly lit and haphazardly displayed amid what appeared to be the clutter of a billionaire hoarder, they were magnificent to behold. The sight actually brought tears to Carter’s eyes.

He respectfully sat down on a step and admired the paintings. It was moments like this that made all the wheeling and dealing, bribery, kidnapping, and killing in his business worthwhile.

Willie buzzed Carter Grove’s ranch before landing in Owensboro. Kate had satellite photos of the property, but she wanted to see it in real time. And Nick wanted to try out the taggant gun. Willie
made a pass near the main house, and the gun picked up the taggant.

“Jackpot,” Nick said. “We’re in business.”

“Now comes the fun part,” Willie said. “As soon as I can find the airport, I get to land this thing. Everybody hang on.”

Kate tightened her shoulder harness and bit into her lower lip. The plane swayed side to side on thermals at the low altitude for what seemed like forever to Kate. She squeezed her eyes closed and vowed to learn how to fly so she wouldn’t have to rely on Willie ever again. The wheels touched down, the plane gave a bone-jarring bounce and smacked back down onto the runway, and Kate felt Willie put the brakes on.

“Next time I’m parachuting in,” Kate said.

They rented a Ford Explorer, and Kate had Willie drop her and Nick at the side of the road near Carter Grove’s estate, in a wooded area. Kate had seen an elevated hunting blind from the air and thought it would be a good place to get the lay of the land. It was a half-hour trek to the blind, following a fire road. They reached the blind, climbed the rickety stairs, and looked out at the countryside.

“Carter picked a good spot for his hunting lodge and outbuildings,” Kate said. “He’s put a hundred yards of open field and a lake around them. You can’t get near that house from the woods or the road without being out in the open.”

“True,” Nick said, “but I have a plan.”

“You
always
have a plan. Where do all these plans come from?”

“This one came from you. When we were in Camarillo you wanted to toss a grenade into Carter’s house and rush in disguised as firemen.”

It had been more of an offhand remark than a plan, but now that she heard it again, she saw the potential, as well as the considerable risk.

“Do you think it could work?” Kate asked.

“I think it’s brilliant. Let’s run with it. You’re in charge now.”

“I’ve always been in charge.”

“Right,” he said. “What I meant was that now you’ll do the planning and organization, and I’ll do the criticizing, worrying, and doomsaying.”

Kate surveyed the property again, as if something might have changed significantly about the topography and security measures in the two minutes since she’d last looked. No such luck.

“If the three of us try this alone, we’ll be killed.”

“Whoa,” Nick said, holding his hand up. “That’s my line now.”

“We’re going to need backup.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any mercenaries on my speed dial.”

“I do,” she said.

They left the blind and retraced their route to the road. Kate called Willie to pick them up, and minutes later they were in the Explorer. Their hotel was twenty miles away, conveniently located off the highway between a military surplus store and a strip club. As soon as Kate got into her room, she gave her father a call and briefed him on her plan.

“We can be boots-on-the-ground in Hawesville, fully equipped, in about twelve hours,” Jake said.

“We?” she said. “Who is we?”

“There’s me, of course, and Walter ‘Eagle Eye’ Wurzel, the best sniper I’ve ever worked with. You remember him. He gave you some shooting lessons while we were stationed in Guam. You must have been eight or nine.”

“I remember Walter. I thought you told me he had cataracts.”

“That was ages ago. I’m sure he’s had them removed by now. But even with them, he could still shoot the whiskers off a kitten from two hundred yards away.”

“He shoots kittens?”

“It’s an old expression. Very popular in Korea. Maybe it hasn’t worked its way over here yet. The other guy is Clay Mandell.”

“You’ve never mentioned him before.”

“Because officially he doesn’t exist and we never worked together. We did some black ops work in the Balkans in the nineties. He’s become a survivalist out in Tennessee, preparing to survive the nuclear winter, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever else comes along. He’s got all the weapons and tactical equipment we’ll need.”

“Is he sane?”

“Reasonably,” Jake said.

“That’s comforting. How much is all of this going to cost?”

“Nothing. They’ll do it as a favor for me.”

“Are you sure? Assuming we get out of this, I don’t want one of these guys calling in his marker and getting you to do something stupid and dangerous because of me.”

“Stupid and dangerous are my specialties.”

“I’m serious, Dad.”

“I’ve trusted these guys with my life many times. All they’d ever ask of me is the same thing I’m asking of them. To help me protect my family from harm. And that’s something I’d gladly do in a heartbeat for any man I’ve ever served with, no questions asked.”

“They may have some, though. What are you going to tell them we’re doing?”

“Nailing the bastard who threatened to kill me, my children, and my grandchildren. That will be all they need or care to know.”

• • •

Kate met Nick and Willie at the lobby bar, which didn’t cater to hotel guests so much as to weary beaten-down locals. Nick and Willie were having hamburgers and beers.

“How’d it go?” Nick asked.

“He’s in,” Kate said, helping herself to a bite of Nick’s burger. “And he’s bringing a couple friends.”

Kate took a list of necessities out of her pocket and put it onto the table in front of Nick and Willie.

“This all looks reasonable to me,” Nick said.

Willie tapped an item on the list. “How are we going to get two sets of official county firefighter’s gear?”

“Arson,” Nick said. “We’ll set fire to a dumpster.”

Willie checked her watch: 9:30
P.M.
Nick and Kate had been gone for thirty minutes. Enough time for them to get into place. So she emptied a canister of gasoline into the dumpster behind the hotel, lit a newspaper on fire, and tossed it inside.

Then she went back to the bar and had another beer.

Nick and Kate were parked on Cedar Street, behind the fire station, when the trucks rolled out, sirens wailing, responding to the dumpster fire. Kate drove the Explorer into the parking lot and up to the back door, positioning the SUV at an angle so it blocked the security cameras’ view.

Nick picked the lock on the door and they slipped inside, made their way to the equipment lockers, and helped themselves to a driptorch and two sets of firefighter gear, including masks, helmets, axes, and regulators. They were in and out of the fire station in less than five minutes.

“Stealing equipment from a small-town fire station is such an easy, petty crime,” Nick said. “It feels anticlimactic after starting the day in New York selling three stolen Rembrandts and outwitting the FBI.”

“We could break into the International Bluegrass Music Museum,” she said. “I hear that it’s the Louvre of northwest Kentucky.”

That got Nick’s attention. “What have they got to see?”

“I was kidding! I was being sarcastic.”

“Sarcasm isn’t one of your strengths,” he said.

Kate woke up at 7
A.M.
, showered, dressed, and made her way to the atrium, where free biscuits and gravy were being served poolside. Willie and Kate’s father were already seated at a table. Jake was casually dressed in a bowling shirt, jeans, and Top-Siders and didn’t look like a man who’d just traveled halfway across the country in twelve hours.

“You got here fast,” Kate said to her dad.

“I got a friend to fly Walter and me to Nashville last night. It’s only about a four-hour flight. We met up with Clay and drove straight here. But if you’d told me that Willie Owens and a plate of hot buttermilk biscuits would be waiting for me, I’d have got here even faster.”

“I like that kind of talk,” Willie said.

Kate wanted to throw biscuits at both of them. She’d woken up feeling grumpy, and they were way too cheerful.

“Where are the guys?” Kate asked.

“Clay is in the pool,” Jake said.

Kate turned and saw a bearded old man who looked like Santa Claus six months into a liquid diet. He was rail thin and swimming laps in his tighty-whities.

“He’s swimming in his underwear,” Kate said.

“You’re lucky I was able to talk him into swimming in anything at all,” Jake said. “Walter is over at the buffet.”

Walter was in his late sixties and wore a pair of large-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses and a white patch over his left eye. He was dressed in cargo shorts, white tube socks, and leather sandals with Velcro straps. An untucked short-sleeve shirt did nothing to hide his big belly. He was busy collecting biscuits, stacking them onto his plate like poker chips.

“That’s Eagle Eye the master sniper?” Kate asked. “The guy with the thick glasses and an eyepatch?”

“He’s having some thyroid problems that give him double vision, so he’s got to wear the patch,” Jake said. “But his good eye is fine.”

“How do you know which eye is his good one?”

“It’s whichever one isn’t patched,” Jake said.

“I can’t believe this,” Kate said. “Do you really think he’s going to be able to watch our backs?”

“He wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Jake said. “And he wouldn’t have come if he didn’t think he could do the job. He knows what’s at stake.”

Walter came over to the table and sat down. He’d slathered his biscuits with gravy. “This is my kind of grub. Just don’t tell my cardiologist. He’d have a fit.”

“Do you remember Kate?” Jake said, tipping his head toward her.

“Of course I do.” Walter reached across the table to shake her hand. “You grew up to be a knockout.”

“Thanks,” Kate said.

“You obviously got your looks from your mother,” Walter said, winking, though with one of his eyes patched, it was hard for Kate to tell for sure. It might just have been a twitch. “You were the only kid I ever met who carried a Glock around like a teddy bear. I bet you’re still a better shot than your father.”

“I’m a decent shot,” she said. “How’s your shooting these days, Walter?”

“I could shoot a grape off the head of a one-legged hooker from twice that distance.”

She didn’t think that was an expression and was afraid to ask for more details, so she let it ride. “Good to know. I appreciate you coming here and on such short notice.”

“Always glad to serve God and country.”

“This isn’t for God and country,” Kate said.

“It is as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Clay got out of the pool, wrapped a towel around his waist, and came over to the table, dripping water and leaving a trail of wet footprints in his wake.

“Does anyone remember if I locked the Humvee?” he asked.

Walter narrowed his good eye at him. “You think you might have left a vehicle unlocked that’s loaded with assault weapons, explosives, hand grenades, and rocket launchers?”

“Actually, I was thinking about the iPhone I left on the seat,” Clay said. “I’d hate to lose it.”

“I’ll go check in a minute,” Jake said. “This is my daughter Kate, by the way.”

Clay looked her over from head to toe. “You’re fit, fertile, and have fine birthing hips.”

“Birthing hips?” Kate asked.

“He’s inviting you to ride out the apocalypse with him at his place,” Jake said. “And then help repopulate the human race.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Jake shrugged. “It’s meant as a compliment.”

“Think on it,” Clay said. “But don’t take too long. The end of days could come at any time.”

Nick sauntered over with a rolled-up newspaper under his arm. “I see the A-Team has arrived.”

“Good to see you, Nick.” Jake got up and shook his hand. “This is a slick operation you’ve cooked up.”

“It wasn’t me,” Nick said. “This is all Kate.”

“Well done,” Jake said to his daughter. “I could have used you in Costa Rica in ’88.”

“What were you doing in Costa Rica?” Kate asked.

Clay wagged a finger at Jake. “That’s still classified.”

“Oops,” Jake said. “Forget I mentioned it.”

Nick held out his hand to Walter. “You must be Eagle Eye.”