“Oh God! What now?” startled, she almost falls on her butt, which wouldn’t be a good thing to do while holding a machine gun.
“I know how you are around dead stuff,” I explain, and she doesn’t need to experience the rotting headless python that’s at least as long as I’m tall. “I guess we know what happened to Birdman’s pet snake.”
“God no! Crap! What if there are more of them inside? Who the hell is Birdman?”
“Well if there are reptiles of any description inside, they’re not moving around much as cold as it’s going to be,” I reply. “Because no power, and the heat’s not on. Anything cold blooded would be pretty lethargic.”
“Gross! You’re not making me feel any better!”
“The man who used to live here, a.k.a. Birdman, had a python,” I explain, as Fran and I make our way to the front porch. “And let’s just say it appears to have been euthanized rather inhumanely possibly weeks or months ago. There’s nothing else in the garbage can, and that’s significant,” I add as we carefully climb up snowy steps to the front door.
“Meaning the guy in the Denali moved in last August, and since then has been disposing of his trash himself, hauling it somewhere,” Fran decides. “Which is what you do if you want to make sure nobody goes through it.”
I shine my light on the front door with its dead bolt lock, then up at the wireless white metal camera, probably the only thing on the property that’s powered and running. I’ve counted 6 so far, all of them tracking us, their LEDs lighting up when our motion is detected.
00:00:00:00:0
THE HITMAN isn’t monitoring what we’re doing but that doesn’t mean someone else isn’t.
“We’re being filmed for sure,” I tell Fran. “But the question is whether anybody’s watching,” and as I say it, I’m hoping ART has the information I want.
But nothing appears in my SPIES that tells me much. The trailer’s wireless network is locked as I’d expect. It’s called KMA, which could be the dead assassin’s initials. Or maybe it’s an acronym for Kiss My Ass, and that would fit with what I think of the man who tried to kill me.
He must have a mobile router somewhere that runs on batteries the same as the outdoor cameras, and at the moment the only devices connected to his network would appear to be those. That would suggest he doesn’t have additional cameras inside the house or I’d pick up the electronic signal, I explain as ART does what he’s so good at and hacks.
Suddenly I’m watching Fran and me in my SPIES, our faces looming large as we stare up at the camera over the front porch. He’s letting me see what someone else could. But if we’re being surveilled remotely, then he should be able to detect that another device is logged into the cameras.
If he does, then he’s not telling me, and I can’t outright ask without Fran wondering who the hell-o I’m talking to. Rapping the door with my gloved knuckles, I’m disappointed to discover that it’s solid wood, the brass lock shiny like new.
“Police!” I yell. “Anybody in there?” I bang harder.
Silence.
“It’s pretty obvious nobody’s here,” Fran says, and she’d prefer not to be either. “I think we should call Hampton PD . . .”
“Nope,” and I decide to go after the hinges first.
Working on them with the screwdriver, I remove them in short order. Taking the pry bar from Fran, I splinter the door out of its frame, hoping like crazy we don’t set off anything. Gas masks on, face shields down, helmet chin straps fastened, and it’s time to remount our flashlights on the rails of the submachine guns.
Covered from head to toe in black, only our eyes showing, we’re armed to the teeth, ready for a raid or a riot, and I go first. Stepping through the opening, the ruined door overboard in the snow, I point my lighted weapon wherever I turn, clearing the landfill of the trailer from one end to the other. Searching for anything living or dead, I make quick checks of every nook and cranny without stopping to examine and explore.
“All clear,” I shout, pointing the barrel down, returning to the living room where Fran is cussing up a storm.
“Dammit! Oh crap,” she complains through the voicemitter covering her foul mouth like a hockey puck. “It’s as dark as a freakin’ cave in here,” as we shine our lights around the den of a monster.
Folding tables are arranged with tools including the same macabre ones I discovered inside the Denali. Also, there are the makings for cement-boot anchors, and all the right stuff for reloading your own organ-shearing, armor-piercing ammo. The hitman’s assortment of pistols, carbines, machine guns and other deadly weapons brings to mind what he intended to shoot me with.
And I wonder what became of the full-auto assault rifle equipped with a grenade launcher. Who has it now? Carme or Dick? And has anything been learned from it? Why does nobody fill me in on anything I really need to know? I’d never heard of a Chinese QBZ-95 before Carme told me what I was holding, and it doesn’t make me happy that my DNA’s all over it.
How did something like that end up in the United States? It wouldn’t be simple to sneak it across the border. Probably the best way was the good old-fashioned postal service, I suppose. The hitman must have places he was using for his mail drops and packages. I doubt he frequents gun stores or shows, any place where he might become familiar.
As I’m thinking all this, Fran shines her light on something big and boxy covered by a braided rug. I make my way over to her in a hurry, shouting not to disturb anything because I don’t need her going into a full-blown panic attack.
“I have a feeling I know what this is,” I unpleasantly recall what was inside the supercan. “I doubt there’s anything in it to worry about but . . .”
“Oh crap!” as it dawns on her. “It’s not some kind of snake tank, is it?” she backs off as fast as she can while I remove the rug.
The python’s former home has been converted into storage space, and there’s no sign of the erstwhile exotic pet, not so much as a trace of mulch. The big glass aquarium is crowded with primers, bottles of smokeless gunpowder and metal cans of military-grade solvents, degreasers, lubricants, acetones.
Everything is tightly sealed, nothing off-gassing abnormally, and the air is safe enough to breathe, my sensors are telling me. We’re not about to be poisoned or blown up it seems, and boy howdy it would make me happy to take off some of this gear. I have a hotspot on the top of my head, and my face shield keeps fogging up. It takes way too much effort to talk, the sound of my own breathing distracting and loud.