They were on the same wavelength. A single exit point for them both, but his idea was better. Smarter. She cracked a grin.
He was the best partner. The best outside-the-box thinker. The best friend.
The best everything.
“Stay put,” Charlie said to the Potters, following Aiden into the rear of the vehicle.
“No!” Edgar grabbed hold of her leg as she maneuvered over the seat, and she had to knock his hands off.
The timer hit thirty seconds when the ballistic smoke grenade went off.
She held her breath, pressed up against Aiden in the sixteen cubic feet of space.
Red smoke suffused the tight quarters.
“Don’t leave us!” Edgar coughed out the words.
Aiden hit the emergency latch, opening the trunk door. They rolled out, landing low on their feet. Smoke billowed around them, providing perfect camouflage to conceal their movements. Staying crouched low, Aiden broke to the left and Charlie went right.
As expected, each of the four gunmen was trained on one of the four doors, anticipating someone to leave from there. Not the trunk.
Charlie and Aiden had to press hard and fast to get the Potters safely out of the car and clear from the explosion within the next fifteen seconds.
Then the driver’s-side rear door burst open.
Edgar jumped out and it all went to hell in a handbasket.
Chapter Five
Frank Devlin’s plan was working without a hitch. Better than expected.
Eugene Potter, formerly known as Edgar Plinski, or The Package—as Devlin’s team simply referred to him, removing the element of humanity—jumped out of the car, choking and gasping, right within arm’s reach.
Thick red smoke blew from the trunk and rear door. No one had a clear, clean line of sight—most important, not the marshals.
Devlin didn’t need one. He had The Package by the back of his shirt collar, holding him in front of himself like a shield with his Beretta 92FS against the base of the captive’s skull.
But just because you didn’t need something, it didn’t mean you wouldn’t be better off with it. Devlin and his team seized every advantage available, flipping down the thermal monocular strapped to their helmets, which allowed them to see through the smoke.
The wife stumbled out of the vehicle next, falling to the ground on her hands and knees. Tate, his buddy behind him, grabbed her and hauled her up onto her feet.
Devlin considered putting a bullet in The Package now and collecting two million dollars, split four ways, but why settle for two when you could have eleven? And at such a close range, it would make one hell of a mess all over him.
“We’ve got to move!” Edgar said, his arms flailing. “The bomb. Five seconds.”
Devlin smiled behind his mask, so pleased with himself. “Three. Two. One.”
Edgar covered his head with his hands, cowering, but there was no explosion.
Instead of using an expensive, volatile brick of C-4—that quite frankly wasn’t so easy to come by—Devlin had covered basic silicone putty in colored plastic wrap. The timer sold the gambit. Made it imperative for the marshals to leave the vehicle. The smoke dialed up the pressure, fueled the chaos, stoked the panic.
“Package secure,” Devlin said over the wireless communications devices his guys wore, keeping his gun pressed to The Package’s head and his full attention on the blonde female marshal.
She was holding her position, using the rear of the vehicle as cover, gun raised. There was little else she could do, given the situation.
Layers of smoke rolling through the air obscured essential details, offering only glimpses. The Package was in his grasp. The wife was frosting on the cake.
Neither marshal would risk the shot.
The two others on his team came around the front of the SUV, their weapons aimed in the direction of the male marshal.
A silent, single tap on his shoulder told him his team had formed up and they were ready to move.
They backed away from the SUV toward the vans, quickly but steadily, sure-footedly, out of the protection of the smoke.
A random passing police cruiser switched on flashing red and blue lights. Whipped around and stopped.
Without a word, Devlin’s team changed their formation. They went from a horizontal line, trained only on the marshals, and shifted back-to-back, moving in a circle as one efficient unit. All the threats were covered before the patrol officer even left the car. It was second nature to them.
One of his guys popped more smoke toward the police car to cover their retreat.
“Freeze!” the cop said, crouched behind the door, his sidearm drawn.
The marshals hung back, using the cover of the SUV, but the smoke still put them at a huge disadvantage, clouding their field of view.
“Stop! Release the hostages,” the officer said. “Lower your weapons and put your hands in the air!”
Devlin saw where this was going. Instinctively, he knew his guys did, as well. This wasn’t their first rodeo.
“Stop!” the cop yelled again. “Or I’ll shoot.”
Unlike the marshals—highly trained, tactically skilled and wise enough to use a bulletproof vehicle for cover—the patrol officer was going to make a bad judgment call and would indeed shoot.
So one of his guys fired first.
A single bullet blew out the cruiser window and took the cop out of the game.
They reached the vans that they’d left running and peeled off into two groups. Devlin opened the sliding door and backed into the bed of the lead van with The Package while Tate did the same at the other van with the wife.
Nothing like a solid day’s work to energize Devlin. A mission like this always got the blood flowing.
The vans sped off, heading to the theme park. It was a twenty-minute drive or less from most parts of the city, making it a good spot to pinpoint in advance. From this part of town, it was less than fifteen minutes. They’d dump the vans and have their pick of vehicles to choose from, and it wouldn’t be reported stolen for hours.
Devlin lowered to a knee beside Edgar. “You’re going to die. Slowly. Painfully. There’s nothing you can do about that.”
“Please, no, no. Please.”
He hated it when they begged. It never changed anything. Why not die with a little dignity?
“What you do have control over,” Devlin said, “is whether or not you have to watch your wife get tortured first.”
“Oh, God! She didn’t do anything. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Like I said. Her fate is in your hands.”