Persuader

"I know the difference between a Swatch and a Rolex."

"OK, what"s the difference?"

"There isn"t one," I said. "They both tell the time."

"That"s no answer."

"I know the difference between an Uzi and a Heckler and Koch."

He turned on his seat. "Good. Great. Explain it to me. Why would these guys junk their Heckler and Kochs in favor of Uzis?"

The Cadillac hummed onward. I shrugged at the wheel. Fought a yawn. It was a nonsense question, of course. The Hartford guys hadn"t junked their MP5Ks in favor of Uzis. Not in reality. Eliot and Duffy hadn"t been aware of Hartford"s weapon du jour and they hadn"t been aware that Beck knew anything about Hartford, that"s all, so they had given their guys Uzis, probably because they were lying around closest to hand.

But theoretically it was a very good question. An Uzi is a fine, fine weapon. A little heavy, maybe. Not the world"s fastest cyclic rate, which might matter to some people.

Not much rifling inside the barrel, which compromises accuracy a little bit. On the other hand, it"s very reliable, very simple, totally proven, and you can get a forty-round magazine for it. A fine weapon. But any Heckler & Koch MP5 derivative is a better weapon. They fire the same ammunition faster and harder. They"re very, very accurate.

As accurate as a good rifle, in some hands. Very reliable. Flat-out better. A great 1970s design up against a great 1950s design. Doesn"t hold true in all fields, but with military ordnance, modern is better, every time.

"There"s no reason," I said. "Makes no sense to me."

"Exactly," Beck said. "It"s about fashion. It"s an arbitrary whim. It"s a compulsion. Keeps everybody in business, but drives everybody nuts, too."

His cell phone rang. He juggled it up out of his pocket and answered it by saying his name, short and sharp. And a little nervously. Beck. It sounded like a cough. He listened for a long time. Made his caller repeat an address and directions and then clicked off and put the phone back in his pocket.

"That was Duke," he said. "He made some calls. Our boys aren"t anywhere in Hartford.

But they"re supposed to have some country place a little ways south and east. Duke figures that"s where they"re holed up. So that"s where we"re going."

"What are we going to do when we get there?"

"Nothing spectacular," Beck said. "We don"t need to make a big deal out of it. Nothing neat, nothing fancy. Situation like this, I favor just mowing them down. An impression of inevitability, you know? But casual. Like you mess with me, then punishment is definitely swift and certain, but not like I"m in a sweat about it."

"You lose customers that way."

"I can replace them. I"ve got people lining up around the block. That"s the truly great thing about this business. Supply and demand is tilted way in favor of demand."

"You going to do this yourself?"

He shook his head. "That"s what you and Duke are for."

"Me? I thought I was just driving."

"You already wasted two of them. Couple more shouldn"t bother you."

I turned the heater down a click and worked on keeping my eyes open. b.l.o.o.d.y wars, I said to myself.

We looped halfway around Boston and then he told me to strike out south and west on the Ma.s.s Pike and then I-84. We did sixty more miles, which took about an hour. He didn"t want me to drive too fast. He didn"t want to be conspicuous. Phony plates, a bag full of automatic weapons on the back seat, he didn"t want the Highway Patrol to get involved. I could see the sense in that. I drove like an automaton. I hadn"t slept in forty hours. But I wasn"t regretting pa.s.sing up the chance of a nap in Duffy"s motel. I was very happy with the way I had spent my time there, even if she wasn"t.

"Next exit," he said.

Right then I-84 was spearing straight through the city of Hartford. There was low cloud and the city lights made it orange. The exit led to a wide road that narrowed after a mile and headed south and east into open country. There was blackness ahead. There were a few closed country stores, bait and tackle, beer on ice, motorcycle parts, and then nothing at all except the dark shape of trees.

"Make the next right," he said, eight minutes later.

I turned onto a smaller road. The surface was bad and there were random curves.

Darkness everywhere. I had to concentrate. I wasn"t looking forward to driving back.

"Keep going," he said.

We did eight or nine more miles. I had no idea where we were.

"OK," he said. "Pretty soon we should see Duke waiting up ahead."

A mile and a half later my headlight beams picked out Duke"s rear plate. He was parked on the shoulder. His car was canted over where the grade fell away into a ditch.

"Stop behind him."

I pulled up nose-to-tail with the Lincoln and jammed the selector into Park. I wanted to go to sleep. Five minutes would have made a lot of difference to me. But Duke swung out of his seat as soon as he identified us and hurried around to Beck"s window. Beck buzzed the gla.s.s down and Duke squatted and leaned his face inside.

"Their place is about two miles ahead," he said. "Long curved driveway on the left. Not much more than a dirt path. We can make it about halfway up in the cars, if we do it quiet and slow, no lights. We"ll have to walk the rest of the way."

Beck said nothing. Just buzzed his window up again. Duke went back to his car. It bounced off the shoulder and straightened up. I followed him through the two miles. We killed our lights a hundred yards short of the driveway and made the turn. Took it slow.

There was some moonlight. The Lincoln ahead of me lurched and rolled as it crawled over ruts. The Cadillac did the same thing, out of phase, up where the Lincoln was down, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g right where the Lincoln was twisting left. We slowed to a crawl. Used idle speed to inch us closer. Then Duke"s brake lights flared bright and he stopped dead. I stopped behind him. Beck twisted around in his seat and hauled the sports bag through the gap between us and unzipped it on his knee. Handed me one of the MP5Ks from it, with two spare thirty-round magazines.

"Get the job done," he said.

"You waiting here?"

He nodded. I broke the gun down and checked it. Put it back together and jacked a round into the chamber and clicked the safety on. Then I put the spare mags in my pockets very carefully so they wouldn"t rattle against the Glock and the PSM. Eased myself out of the car. Stood and breathed the cold night air. It was a relief. It woke me up. I could smell a lake nearby, and trees, and leaf mold on the ground. I could hear a small waterfall in the distance, and the m.u.f.flers on the cars ticking gently as they cooled. There was a gentle breeze in the trees. Other than that there was nothing to hear. Just absolute silence.

Duke was waiting for me. I could see tension and impatience in the way he was holding himself. He had done this stuff before. That was clear. He looked exactly like a veteran cop before a major bust. Some degree of routine familiarity, mixed in with an acute awareness that no two situations are ever quite alike. He had his Steyr in his hand, with the long thirty-round magazine in it. It protruded way down out of the grip. Made the gun look bigger and uglier than ever.

"Let"s go, a.s.shole," he whispered.

I stayed five feet behind him and walked on the opposite side of the driveway, like an infantryman would. I had to be convincing, like I was worried about presenting a grouped target. I knew the place was going to be empty, but he didn"t.

We walked on around a bend and saw the house in front of us. There was a light burning in a window. On a security timer, probably. Duke slowed and stopped.

"See a door?" he whispered.

I peered into the gloom. Saw a small porch. Pointed at it.

"You wait at the entrance," I whispered back. "I"ll check the lighted window."

He was happy enough to agree to that. We made it to the porch. He stopped there and waited and I peeled off and looped around toward the window. Dropped to the ground and crawled the last ten feet in the dirt. Raised my head at the sill and peered inside.

There was a low-wattage bulb burning in a table lamp with a yellow plastic shade. There were battered sofas and armchairs. Cold ash from an old fire in the hearth. Pine paneling on the walls. No people.

I crawled backward until the light spill let Duke see me and held two forked fingers below my eyes. Standard sniper-spotter visual code for I see. Then I held my hand palm out, all my fingers extended. I see five people. Then I went into a complicated series of gestures that might have indicated their disposition and their weaponry. I knew Duke wouldn"t understand them. I didn"t understand them either. As far as I knew they were entirely meaningless. I had never been a sniper-spotter. But the whole thing looked real good. It looked professional and clandestine and urgent.

I crawled back ten more feet and then stood up and walked quietly back to join him at the door.

"They"re out of it," I whispered. "Drunk or stoned. We get a good jump, we"ll be home and dry."

"Weapons?"

"Plenty, but nothing within reach." I pointed at the porch. "Looks like there"s going to be a short hallway on the other side. Outer door, inner door, then the hallway. You take left, I"ll take right. We"ll wait there in the hallway. Take them down when they come out of the room to see what the noise is all about."

"You giving the orders now?"

"I did the recon."

"Just don"t screw up, a.s.shole."

"You either."

"I never do," he said.

"OK," I said.

"I mean it," he said. "You get in my way, I"ll be more than happy to put you down with the rest of them, no hesitation."

"We"re on the same side here."

"Are we?" he said. "I think we"re about to find out."

"Relax," I said.

He paused. Tensed. Nodded in the dark. "I"ll hit the outer door, you hit the inner. Like leapfrog."

"OK," I said again. I turned away and smiled. Just like a veteran cop. If I hit the inner door, he would leapfrog through it first and I would go second, and the second guy is the guy who usually gets shot, given normal reaction times from the enemy.

"Safeties off," I whispered.

I clicked the H&K to single-round fire and he clicked the catch on his Steyr to the right. I nodded and he nodded and kicked in the outer door. I was right there on his shoulder and slid past him and kicked in the inner door without breaking stride. He slid past me and jumped left and I followed him and went right. He was good enough. We made a pretty good team. We were crouched in perfect position even before the shattered doors had stopped swinging on their hinges. He was staring ahead at the entry to the room in front of us. He had the Steyr in a fixed two-handed grip, arms straight out, eyes wide open. He was breathing hard. Almost panting. Getting himself through a long moment of danger, the best way he could. I pulled Angel Doll"s PSM out of my pocket. Held it left-handed and snicked the safety off and scrambled across the floor and jammed it in his ear.

"Keep very quiet," I said to him. "And make a choice. I"m going to ask you one question.

Just one. If you lie, or if you refuse to answer, I"m going to shoot you in the head. You understand?"

He held perfectly still, five seconds, six, eight, ten. Stared desperately at the door in front of him.

"Don"t worry, a.s.shole, " I said. "There"s n.o.body here. They were all arrested last week.

By the government."

He was motionless.

"You understand what I said before? About the question?"

He nodded, hesitantly, awkwardly, with the gun still jammed hard in his ear.

"You answer it, or I shoot you in the head. Got it?"

He nodded again.

"OK, here it comes," I said. "You ready?"

He nodded, just once.

"Where is Teresa Daniel?" I asked.

There was a long pause. He turned half toward me. I tracked my hand around to keep the PSM"s muzzle in place. Realization dawned slowly in his eyes.

"In your dreams," he said.

I shot him in the head. Just jerked the muzzle out of his ear and fired once left-handed into his right temple. The sound was shattering in the dark. Blood and brain and bone chips. .h.i.t the far wall. The muzzle flash burned his hair. Then I fired a double-tap from the H&K right-handed into the ceiling and fired another from the PSM left-handed into the floor. Switched the H&K to automatic fire and stood up and emptied it point-blank into his body. Picked up his Steyr from where it had fallen and blasted the ceiling with it, again and again, fifteen fast shots, bam bam bam bam, half the magazine. The hallway was instantly full of bitter smoke and chips of wood and plaster were flying everywhere. I switched magazines on the H&K and sprayed the walls, all around. The noise was deafening. Spent sh.e.l.l cases were spitting out and bouncing around and raining down everywhere. The H&K clicked empty and I fired the rest of the PSM"s ammo into the hallway wall and kicked open the door to the lighted room and blew up the table lamp with the Steyr. I found a side table and tossed it through the window and used up the second spare magazine for the H&K by spraying the trees in the distance while I fired the Steyr left-handed into the floor until it clicked empty. Then I piled the Steyr and the H&K and the PSM together in my arms and ran for it with my head ringing like a bell. I had fired a hundred and twenty-eight rounds in about fifteen seconds. They had deafened me. They must have sounded like World War Three to Beck.

I ran straight down the driveway. I was coughing and trailing gunsmoke like a cloud. I headed for the cars. Beck had already scrambled across into the Cadillac"s driver"s seat.

He saw me coming and opened his door an inch. Faster than using the window.

"Ambush," I said. I was out of breath and I could hear my own voice loud inside my head. "There were at least eight of them."

"Where"s Duke?"

"Dead. We got to go. Right now, Beck."

He froze for a second. Then he moved.

"Take his car," he said.

He already had the Cadillac rolling. He jammed his foot down and slammed his door and reversed down the driveway and out of sight. I jumped into the Lincoln. Fired it up. Stuck the selector in Reverse and got one elbow up on the back of the seat and stared through the rear window and hit the gas. We shot out backward onto the road one after the other and slewed around and took off again north, side by side like a stoplight drag race. We howled around the curves and fought the camber and stayed up around seventy miles an hour. Didn"t slow until we reached the turn that would take us back toward Hartford.

Beck edged ahead of me and I fell in behind him and followed. He drove five fast miles and turned in at a closed package store and parked at the back of the lot. I parked ten feet from him and just lay back in the seat and let him come to me. I was too tired to get out.

He ran around the Cadillac"s hood and pulled my door open.

"It was an ambush?" he said.

I nodded. "They were waiting for us. Eight of them. Maybe more. It was a ma.s.sacre."

He said nothing. There was nothing for him to say. I picked up Duke"s Steyr from the seat beside me and handed it over.

"I recovered it," I said.