Denniston was already out of the van and had taken the tire iron and busted the lock on the Lombard gate. He got back in the van, and they drove up into the Presidio… Following the GPS, they turned south, heading up into the hills that overlooked the old military base and San Francisco Harbor beyond.
The sharpshooter parked in a wooded area and set the hand break on the white van. An unusual gale wind several months before had blown trees down in this area of the Presidio. It was dense with fallen trees and thick underbrush.
They got Tommy out of the car, still handcuffed. His legs were weak, and he stumbled in front of his little brother. He didn't look like he would last much longer or make it much farther. Blood was running down the front of his shirt and also out a large exit wound in his back.
When Beano saw him, he knew they were in trouble. The entire con depended on keeping Tommy alive to testify. He hadn't thought Joe would shoot him in the van. With Tommy dead, they didn't have a witness. Joe Dancer would get away clean.
They moved through the underbrush, and Reo found a foot trail that led into a clearing. This was the place where Reo's weapons team had done Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol training. Reo and his crew knew every inch of this terrain, especially the underground network of caverns that had been built to prepare them for tunnel fighting. Reo's S.I.O.P. called for them to kill Tommy, Victoria, and Beano, then drag their bodies down into one of the abandoned tunnels and, using a physics package made up of C-4 and a radio detonator, collapse the tunnel, burying the three bodies fifty feet down under tons of soft earth. They would never be found.
The group of nine moved along the footpath, and finally out into the clearing. Reo kicked back a big piece of wood that had been covering a man-sized "spider-hole" trap door just like the ones Charley had used in Vietnam.
"On your knees," Joe said to the three of them.
Tommy was coughing blood now. He half dropped to his knees, and the loss of blood was making him dizzy. It was all he could do to stay upright.
Beano knew they were all just seconds from oblivion.
Doughboy had set up down the road to guard their backs. He heard cars coming, so he edged up on the ridge and looked down at the road below through a Starscope. He could see a blue van with a satellite dish, being followed by several cars full of men. He made them instantly as Feds, and grabbed his mike.
"I got a number ten situation here," he said.
Reo had his Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun out. He slowly lowered it and triggered the walkie-talkie instead. "Whatta you need to fix it?" he said.
"Send Reefer with a Zippo unit. I've got less than a minute."
"Wilco," Reo said. Then he turned to Reefer. "Get the flame thrower out of the back of the van and set up down the road with Doughboy. Unfriendlies coming."
"Shit," Reefer said, and he took off running toward the van. He opened the back, grabbed a small flamethrower unit, and started running down the road, shouldering the two tanks as he went.
Grady didn't know what hit him. They were driving up toward the woods at the top of the hill when, all of sudden, the entire satellite van was awash in fire. Then almost immediately, and without warning, the gas tank exploded, and he was shot through the roof of the van and was dead before he hit the underside of the metal satellite dish.
"Holy shit!" the FBI Agents said in the sedans behind, as the van, billowing smoke and fire, rolled out of control toward a sheer drop and tumbled off, taking all three men with as it fell.
The FBI Agents in the follow cars hit reverse and squealed backwards as Reefer, carrying the flame thrower, ran across the top of the hill and down the opposite bank, then took up a fire position on the road below. The cars full of FBI Agents roared past him, still in reverse. He pulled the trigger and let them have a stream of liquid death. The cars both caught fire. The Agents all dove out while the cars were still moving. Some men were burning and rolled in the dirt to extinguish themselves; the others came up pulling their weapons. They laid down a cover fire and chopped Reefer down with a hailstorm of hollow-point Devastators. One of the rounds hit the Zippo tank and Reefer exploded in a rolling orange cloud that singed everybody and lit the sky above them in a ball of raging rocket fuel.
In the clearing, they all heard the thundering explosion as Reefer was blown to cinders. Joe pointed his gun at Tommy.
"Joe, don't do this," Beano said. "He's been telling you the truth. It's all been a scam." Beano was on his knees, his hands cuffed behind him.
Victoria was on her knees beside him. "It's true," she said, also trying to save Tommy's life. "The whole thing was a con."
But Joe aimed his gun right in his brother's face. "Hey, go fuck yourself, Joe," Tommy coughed at his little brother.
Victoria wasn't prepared to die, but it seemed like there was nothing she could do to save herself or any of them. She was strangely calm, almost as if this were not reality. Then a remarkable thing happened. She looked over and saw that Beano was looking at her. In that moment, through his startling blue eyes, she could see right into his soul. Despite the situation, it was a beautiful sight.
"Light 'em up," Joe said.
Beano heard the two sharpshooters pull the slides on their assault weapons. Tommy looked up into the deadly bore of Joe's revolver. It was, for a moment, as if time had slowed and was almost standing still. They heard the click of Joe's gun as he pulled the hammer back and aimed at Tommy; this was followed by a distant rumble.
"The fuck?" Reo said, as the ground started to shake. It got louder and stronger, followed by some kind of ungodly screaming…
A shiny, red, three-quarter-ton Chevy Silverado four-by-four exploded over the rim of the hill from below. It flew into the clearing, all four tires spinning loose dirt in the air. It landed hard and the whip antenna, with a red feather taped to the top, swayed back violently, almost touching the back fender. And then three more shiny lacquer-and-chrome trucks, with red feathers and Arkansan license plates, came right behind: two Dodge Rams and a Dodge Dakota Club Cab. There were albino Bateses tied with rope to the roll bars in the backs of the trucks. All of them were holding pump shotguns. Simultaneously, four Ithaca over-and-under shotguns with hand-carved stocks fired in the darkness. Red feathers whipped and swayed in the night as more trucks raced around the clearing.
Reo's two sharpshooters started firing at the trucks. Then three more crew cabs came from the other side, roaring into the clearing. The sound of hillbilly music and Confederate war cries filled the night, along with the reports of shotguns and automatic weapons fire.
During all of this, Joe turned to finish off his brother… Beano lunged at him just before he pulled the trigger. Beano's hands were pinned behind him by the plastic cuffs, but he hit Joe in the stomach with his shoulder, driving him back. They both fell in the soft dirt, but Joe scrambled up and aimed his pistol at Beano. Then, as he was seconds from death, Victoria lunged at Joe, hitting him mid-shin. He went down again, firing the gun in the air. The gun flew from his hand and skidded near the spider hole that was to have been their grave. Beano jumped up and kicked the gun down the hole. He heard it land in the darkness fifteen feet below.
Beano lost track of the commotion behind him as he lunged again at Joe, hitting him with a head-butt, letting all of his adrenaline complete the follow-through.
Joe was finally on his back, dazed. When he tried to lift himself up, he didn't seem to know where he was. There was still gunfire going on in the clearing, but it was mostly mop-up.
Doughboy had taken up a position on the high ground, but didn't count on the Hog Creek Bateses, who drove their shiny trucks right up the hill after him. He was badly outnumbered and finally threw his weapon down and surrendered, lying down on his stomach, looking up at three plastic bug shields on the trucks' shiny grilles. Bronco and Echo Bates pounded on him gleefully.