But if things went to shit, Jonathan knew to expect an earful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They cruised in total blackness at 180 miles per hour, the chopper’s skids never more than ten feet above the leafless treetops. For a while, Jonathan watched through his NVGs, but ultimately switched them off and lifted them out of the way. He had no control over what kind of landing they were going to have, so what was the sense of stressing over it? Per Boxers’ insistence, Big Guy sat in the left seat, where he could keep an eye on the pilot.
“We’re one mile from the Canadian border,” Striker announced. He flew with night vision in place, and with the aircraft completely blacked out. Before flipping off his NVGs, Jonathan did take note of how interesting the pilot’s ponytail looked falling from the bottom of his flight helmet.
Jonathan pressed the transmit button in the center of his ballistic vest. “Mother Hen, Scorpion, how do you read?”
Venice replied without pause, “Loud and clear, and your GPS signal is strong. I’m monitoring emergency frequencies, and so far, you’re not upsetting anyone.”
“Roger,” he said. Give it a minute or two, he didn’t say.
Across from him, Yelena, David, and Becky sat on the floor. They said nothing. Instead, they stared into the darkness of the cabin, seemingly lost in whatever place their imaginations had taken them to. If they weren’t scared, they were out of their minds. Each of them wore the requisite vest and helmet with ten spare mags of ammunition. While they had comm gear, Jonathan made sure to set theirs at a different channel than his. Too many people liked to hear themselves speak on the radio, and he didn’t want to deal with any of that once this op went hot.
“We just crossed into hostile territory,” Striker announced. “Assuming, that is, that the Canucks are hostiles. Kind of an odd thought, actually.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jonathan felt the aircraft slow. He rose from his spot on the deck and duckwalked forward, where he could peer between shoulders to see out the front windscreen. With his NVGs back in place, the terrain looked identical to that which he had studied so intently in the satellite images.
“Here to check me out, too?” Striker asked.
“Just here to look,” Jonathan said.
Striker pointed to a spot on the ground about five hundred yards away. “Can we agree that that’s our LZ?”
“Looks good to me. I even see a boat and a truck,” Jonathan noted.
“I’d love to know how you got those planted here,” Striker said.
“Company secrets,” Jonathan replied with a smile. It wasn’t all that difficult, really. Venice had searched the Internet for listings of boats for sale in Ottawa. The requirement was that the boat be inconspicuous and that it have its own trailer. A similar search through the for-sale listings found a crew cab pickup for sale. She negotiated the prices for both on the condition that they be delivered to this address, which was chosen in part because it was an abandoned property. She paid in real cash through a wire transfer from one of Jonathan’s cutout companies. There was always a risk of getting ripped off, but when you pay twice the asking price, people generally respond. That was true in North America and Europe, anyway. On other continents, it paid to have face-to-face contact in any business deal.
Jonathan said, “Do a couple of passes before we touch down. I want to see if we have any lurkers.” The downside to doing business over the phone and through wire transfers is that they stunk of criminal activity. Jonathan wanted to make sure that no one had called in the Mounties to stake out the place.
“Looks clean to me, Boss,” Boxers said.
Jonathan agreed. The infrared showed only a lot of cold. “Set her down on the black side,” said. He knew that Striker would recognize the side farthest away from the road.
A single structure resided on the property they’d chosen as their landing zone. It measured one hundred fifty feet by forty-five feet, and had most recently been used as a commercial woodworking shop. The owner had died, leaving debts that required foreclosure on the property. Now, the bank was trying desperately to unload the land and the building, but no one was interested. There was no end to the information Venice could squeeze out of a computer.
They landed in a cloud of blowing snow. As Striker went about the business of shutting things down, Jonathan addressed the others. “Okay,” he said, “we are now officially in violation of about a million laws. From this moment on, our planning is just advanced dreaming. I hope everything goes the way we want, but if it does, this will be the first time.
“This is also your last chance to opt out before we break another two million laws. It’s all for a good cause, but if we get caught or arrested, the cause won’t matter to the prosecutor.”
“Having Mrs. Darmond with us might help a little,” David said.
“Or, it might make it worse,” Yelena said.
“That’s not going to happen if everyone does their jobs,” Jonathan insisted. “Big Guy and I are golden. We’ll get done what needs to be done. You just hold up your end and we’ll be fine. Now let’s load this gear into the truck and get started.”
It wasn’t until Becky stepped out of the helicopter and felt the assault of the frigid air that she realized she couldn’t go through with this. Early on, maybe it was a pride thing, or maybe it was an adventure thing, but now that she stood in the blowing snow on Canadian soil, in the company of men who made their living by killing other men, she realized that it was just wrong.
There had to be another way. There always was a nonviolent solution to every problem.
But that horse had fled the barn a long time ago. They were on a terminal course toward committing capital murder. This was just wrong, and she found herself frozen in place, unable to move or to speak. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t allow it. She was afraid that the tears would freeze to her face. That her eyes would freeze shut.
David had already carried two duffel bags over to the truck, and as he returned, he said, “No, that’s okay, Becky. We don’t need any help.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the open door of the chopper, into the darkness where they could speak in a place where the wind wouldn’t carry her words to the others.
“What are you doing?” David protested. He yanked his arm away.
“We can’t do this,” she said.
His eyes flashed in the darkness. “What?”
“I said we can’t do this. It’s wrong. It’s against the law. People are going to get killed.”
David threw a look over at the others, and grabbed her shoulders in both his hands. His voice was barely a whisper when he said, “Becky, you can’t back out now. People are counting on you.”
“No, they’re not. Scorpion doesn’t even want me here. He made that very clear.”
“So, what, this is like hurt feelings or something?” He looked back at the others and modulated his voice again. “People are counting on you. I’m counting on you.”
“I can’t start something when I know people will die because of what I’m doing. I don’t believe that you can just rationalize this away.”
“Where the hell was this discussion when we were still in Virginia? You didn’t have to come.”
“Neither did you.”
“Yes, I did. These assholes tried to kill me. If we can put a stop to all of this shit, they won’t want to do that anymore.”
“Yo!” Scorpion called. “Is there a problem over there?”
“No,” David said quickly.
“Yes,” Becky said. “I’m not going. I can’t. These things you’re planning to do are—”
“Fine,” Scorpion said. “Stay with Striker. Everybody else load up. We’ve got work to do.”