“Well, well. Let’s go see if these fit the armory. I hope not. I would hate to think you’d lied to me.” Jackson twisted Hillman’s arm behind his back and marched him to the armory. After fumbling through half the keys, Thornburg found one that fit. The door swung open. They were confronted by a steel cage secured with another lock. Thornburg tried all the keys, then shrugged. Hillman had been partially accurate, anyway. “Only the gunner’s mates have that one” Hillman said, his voice a little stronger. Sure, he was still scared, real scared, but he was pissed, too.
“I have a key,” Mertz announced. He pulled out his.45 and shot the lock. The bullet destroyed the lock, ricocheted once, then buried itself in the cement wall.
“Go get the truck,” Jackson ordered. “I’ll keep our new friend company.” He shoved Hillman down the floor and stood over him, a faint smile on his face as he aimed his own.45 at the petty officer’s face.
Greenfield appeared to be completely fascinated by the condition of his fingernails as he listened to Tombstone speak. Finally, when the former admiral was finished, he looked up. “Why me?”
“Why not?” Tombstone asked. “The FBI is more familiar with this sort of operation than anyone else.”
“I sure am.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in Greenfield’s voice.
“Would you like some more time to feel sorry for yourself?”
Greenfield finally looked up. “Try again, mister. The only people I feel sorry for are those three who died in the fire. I see those kids every time I turn around. Or I see an adult that looks like they will ten years from now. I’ve seen their pictures in the paper. I know what they looked like. That wasn’t how they looked the last time I saw them.”
“Then keep it from happening again. Take on the XO billet.”
“That an order?”
Tombstone shrugged. “If you want it to be. Call it a request for now.”
“Try Bratton. That’s more his style.”
“He suggested you.”
Greenfield nodded. “That makes sense. It’s to the CIA’s advantage if this goes wrong.”
“Maybe I made a mistake,” Tombstone said in an entirely different tone of voice.
“That would make two of us. Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. But I couldn’t keep things from going wrong when I was in charge of the operation. You’re asking me to step into the number-two position and take responsibility for your decisions.”
“No.” Tombstone’s voice was firm. “That’s what happened to you before. I’m asking you to make sure that my decisions and orders are carried out. That’s all. Any shit rolls uphill in my organization, buddy. That’s evidently not the case in the FBI.”
Tombstone turned and stalked away. He hadn’t gone more than ten steps when Greenfield said, “OK. I’ll do it.”
Tombstone stopped. “Good. The first thing you do, set up communications with whatever state and local agencies there are around here. Something is going to go down — it’s just a matter of when.”
Seaman Greg Vincent Hedges completed his security round and was heading back toward the building when he saw a shadow move. He froze where he was, his eyes focused on the spot, and then saw a man moving between the shadows. His right hand went to his belt where he normally carried a.45. In civilian life, Seaman Hedges was with the Butte Police Department. But security patrols at the reserve center were armed with nothing more than a walkie-talkie. He had it riding on his left hip, and he reached out and turned it off, hoping the click the switch made wouldn’t be audible. He slid to his right, finding a shadow of his own to provide cover, and watched.
There were three of them, all in camouflage and armed. He saw them make their way to the reserve center, unlock the back door, and disappear from sight. Hedges made a slow, careful circuit of the area himself, more skillfully than the three men had done. When he was certain there were no others waiting, he put a truck between himself and the reserve center and pulled out a cell phone. He dialed 911.
“So which one of those cars out front is yours?” Jackson asked heartily, as though making conversation.
“The white Toyota.”
“And the other car?”
They don’t know Hedges is here. A surge of hope ran through him. “I don’t know. Somebody left it here last weekend.” But he was a little too slow in answering to be believable.
“Just left it here, huh? You’re not standing a very tight watch if you don’t know who it belongs to.”
“I haven’t read the pass-down log yet. Maybe there’s something about it in there.” As soon as the words left his lips, Hillman regretted it. Because the pass-down log was sitting right next to his duty log, and the duty log would show that there were two people, not one, in the building. Fortunately, the intruder didn’t appear inclined to want to examine it.
Just then, Mertz and Thornburg returned. “Ready to go. They leave the keys in the trucks.”
Jackson nodded. “Good. Let’s get a move on. You, too,” he added, motioning at Hillman. “Load up the weapons and ammo into the deuce-and-a-halves. It won’t take long — half an hour and we’re out of here.”
Hillman tried to believe that they were going to leave him alive.
Hedges filled in the dispatcher in clipped phrases, adding, “Tell them I’m in the heavy equipment compound. I don’t want to get shot. Once I see them approach, I will step out in the open with my hands up. I have my ID on me.”
“Roger, copy all. Units will be responding — what?” The dispatcher broke off as she listened to someone off-line. “There’ll be a slight delay in the assistance, Greg. We have to call in another agency.”
“Look, I know this is on federal lands, but we’ve got a situation going down,” Hedges snapped. “We don’t have time to wait for the feds to roll out of bed.”
“From what I can tell, they’ve been waiting for your call.”
Fear pulled Hillman in different directions. Every time he looked into the intruders’ faces, a shiver ran through him, terminating somewhere about six inches below his belly button. Their faces were not that easy to make out, not with all that camouflage paint. Surely they didn’t think that he would be able to recognize them. Disobeying any order was unthinkable, yet at the same time, he was desperately certain he knew what would happen when they were done. The only reason he was alive right now was to serve as slave labor loading the trucks. When that was done, he could only be a liability to them.
Finally, the last two shotguns were loaded in the back of the truck. The ammunition had been loaded first to keep it near the center of gravity. At the intruder’s command, Hillman climbed into the back of the truck and helped pull a tarp over the load. It wouldn’t offer much concealment if they were stopped, but it would keep rain off it if a storm came up. Given the moldy, rotten condition of the tarp enclosing the back of the truck, that might be all the protection it had.
Ammunition. Weapons. Ammunition. Weapons. The thought kept running through his head that there had to be some way to capitalize on the proximity of the two. Grab a shotgun, jam a cartridge in it. No, damn it, he should’ve thought of that when he was loading the ammo and somehow slipped a couple of rounds into his pocket.
He bent down and tugged on the tarp as though making sure it covered part of the load, his fingers scrambling underneath it and closing on a box of shotgun shells. Two of them watched him, their faces impassive. He tried to pretend he was fumbling with the rope, but couldn’t manage to do it.