The team leader emerged on the front porch, his shotgun pointed at the floor, and pulled off his black mask before he waved the others in. His hands moved back and forth across his chest in the universal wave-off signal. The Lieutenant and the senior FBI agent ran across the street as he wiped the sweat away from his eyes.
“Well?”
“You’re gonna love it,” the team leader said. “Come on.”
The living room had a small-screen color TV on, sitting on a table. The floor was covered with wrappers from McDonald’s, and the kitchen sink held what looked like fifty neatly stacked paper cups. The master bedroom — it was a few square feet larger than the other two — was the armory. Sure enough, there was an American M-60 machine gun, with two 250-round ammo boxes, along with a dozen AK-47 assault rifles, three of them stripped down for cleaning, and a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight. On the oaken dresser, however, was a scanner radio. Its indicator lights skipped on and off. One of them was on the frequency of the Howard County Police. Unlike the FBI, the local police did not use secure — that is, scrambled — radio circuits. The FBI agent walked out to his vehicle and got Bill Shaw on the radio.
“So they monitored the police call and split,” Shaw said after a couple of minutes.
“Looks like it. The locals have a description of the van out. At least they bugged out so fast that they had to leave a bunch of weapons behind. Maybe they’re spooked. Anything new coming in at your end?”
“Negative.” Shaw was in the FBI’s emergency command center, Room 5005 of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He knew of the French attempt to hit their training camp. Twice now they’ve escaped by sheer luck. “Okay, I’ll get talking to the State Police forces. The forensic people are on the way. Stay put and coordinate with the locals.”
“Right. Out.”
The security people were already setting up. Discreetly, he saw, their cars were by the pool, which had been filled up only a couple of days before, and there was a van which evidently contained special communications gear. Jack counted eight people in the open, two of them with Uzis. Avery was waiting for him when he pulled into the carport.
“Good news for a change — well, good and bad.”
“How so?” Ryan asked.
“Somebody phoned the cops and said he saw some people with guns. They rolled on it real quick. The suspects split — they were monitoring the police radio — but we captured a bunch of guns. Looks like our friends had a safehouse set up. Unfortunately for them it didn’t quite work out. We may have ’em on the run. We know what kind of car they’re using, and the local cops have this area completely sealed off, and we’re sweeping the whole state. The Governor has even authorized the use of helicopters from the National Guard to help with the search.”
“Where were they?”
“Howard County, a little community south of Columbia. We missed them by a whole five minutes, but we have them moving and out in the open. Just a matter of time.”
“I hope the cops are careful,” Ryan said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Any problems here?”
“No, everything’s going just fine. Your guests should be here about quarter to eight. What’s for dinner?” Avery asked.
“Well, I picked up some fresh white corn on the way home — you passed the place coming in. Steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, and Cathy’s spinach salad. We’ll give ’em some good, basic American food.” Jack opened the hatch on the Rabbit and pulled out a bag of freshly picked corn.
Avery grinned. “You’re making me hungry.”
“I got a caterer coming in at six-thirty. Cold cuts and rolls. I’m not going to let you guys work all that time without food, okay?” Ryan insisted. “You can’t stay alert if you’re hungry.”
“We’ll see. Thanks.”
“My dad was a cop.” “By the way, I tried the lights around the pool, but they don’t work.”
“I know, the electricity’s been acting up the last couple of days. The power company says they have a new transformer up, and it needs work — something like that.” Ryan shrugged. “Evidently it damaged the breaker on the pool line, but so far nothing’s gone bad in the house. You weren’t planning to go swimming, were you?”
“No. We wanted to use one of the plugs here, but it’s out too.”
“Sorry. Well, I have some stuff to do.”
Avery watched him leave, and went over his own deployment plans one last time. A pair of State Police cars would be a few hundred yards down the road to stop and check anyone coming back here. The bulk of his men would be covering the road. Two would watch each side of the clearing — the woods looked too inhospitable to penetrate, but they’d watch them anyway. This was called Team One. The second team would consist of six men. There would be three people in the house. Three more, one of them a communicator in the radio van, in the trees by the pool.
The speed trap was well known to the locals. Every weekend a car or two was set up on this stretch of Interstate 70. There had even been something about it in the local paper. But people from out of state didn’t read that, of course. The trooper had his car just behind a small crest, which allowed cars heading up to Pennsylvania to fly by, right past his radar gun before they knew it. The pickings were so good that he never bothered chasing after anyone who did under sixty-five, and at least twice a night he nailed people for doing over eighty.
Be on the lockout for a black van, make and year unknown, the all-points call had said a few minutes before. The trooper estimated that there were at least five thousand such vans in the state of Maryland, and they’d all be on the road on a Friday night. Somebody else would have to worry about that. Approach with extreme caution.
His patrol car rocked like a boat crossing a wake as a vehicle zoomed past. The radar gun readout said 83. Business. The trooper dropped his car into gear and started moving after it before he saw that it was a black van. Approach with extreme caution . . . They didn’t give a tag number . . .
“Hagerstown, this is Eleven. I am following a van, black in color, that I clocked at eighty-three. I am westbound on I-70, about three miles east of exit thirty-five.”
“Eleven, get the tag number but do not — repeat do not — attempt to apprehend. Get the number, back off, and stay in visual contact. We’ll get some backup for you.”
“Roger. Moving in now.” Damn.
He floored his accelerator and watched his speedometer go to ninety. The van had slowed a little, it seemed. He was now two hundred yards back. His eyes squinted. He could see the plate but not the number. He closed the distance more slowly now. At fifty yards he could make out the plate — it was a handicap one. The trooper lifted his radio microphone to call in the tag numbers when the rear doors flew open.
It all hit him in a moment: This was how Larry Fontana got it! He slammed on his brakes and tried to turn the wheel, but the microphone cable got caught on his arm. The police officer cringed and slid down behind the dashboard as the car slowed, and then he saw the flash, a sun-white tongue of flame that reached directly at him. As soon as he understood what that was, he heard the impacting rounds. One of his tires blew, and his radiator exploded, sending a shower of steam and water into the air. More rounds walked up the hood into the right side of the car, and the trooper dived under the steering wheel while the car bounced up and down on the flattened tire. Then the noise stopped. The State Police officer stuck his head up and saw the van was a hundred yards away, accelerating up the hill. He tried to make a call on the radio, but it didn’t work. He discovered soon after that two bullets had blasted through the car’s battery, now leaking acid on the pavement. He stood there for several minutes, wondering why he was alive, before another police car arrived.
The trooper was shaking badly enough that he had to hold the microphone in both hands. “Hagerstown, the bastard machine-gunned my car! It’s a Ford van, looks like an eighty-four, handicap tag Nancy two-two-nine-one, last seen westbound on I-70 east of exit thirty-fi-five.” ”
Were you hit?”
“Negative, but the car’s b-beat to shit. They used a goddamned machine gun on me!”