Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [118]
Geronimo looked up at Pins and nodded. “Thought I’d throw him a break,” he said. “Just this once.”
“Kindness is weakness,” Pins said, resting the front of the rifle between branches of a tree, an open box of .375 H&H Magnum shells by his feet, headphones resting low on his neck.
“So’s missing your target,” Geronimo said, lifting the rifle and taking aim from behind the large shadow of a boulder.
• • •
“I STILL DON’T like our end of the plan,” Dead-Eye said, sitting on the edge of a rock, four locked and loaded semiautomatic handguns spread out around him.
“If we go down to shoot it out, one of us is sure to buy it,” Boomer said, pacing around the dirt, rocks, and twigs. “Pins and Geronimo can clip only so many off the back ridge. Rev. Jim’s gotta get to the car and Mrs. Columbo’s got enough to worry about with a fuckin’ bomb in her arms.”
“I don’t think Pins has ever pulled the trigger on a rifle,” Dead-Eye said. “Which makes the odds very good that if he clips anybody, it’s gonna be me.”
Boomer leaned against the rock and stared at Dead-Eye. They were a thirty-second run from the black van. They could see Mrs. Columbo and the heavy guns surrounding her, and they could feel the others hiding, their guns prepped, ready to take aim and clean out the Apache team.
“How many more than we can see do you think are out there?” Boomer asked, chewing on a thin twig.
“Hard to tell,” Dead-Eye said. “But if they came looking for a total wipeout, I’d say about six more guns. Six more very good guns.”
“They’re gonna expect us to shoot,” Boomer said. “They’re gonna be lookin’ for us to come down with full loads.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Dead-Eye said.
Boomer nodded and then smiled over at Dead-Eye. “We got a minute thirty, then,” Boomer said, “to go down and do what they would never expect.”
“Which is what?” Dead-Eye asked, sliding off the rock and reaching for his guns.
“Ask them to surrender,” Boomer said.
• • •
THE MAN IN the sunglasses walked slowly toward Mrs. Columbo, carving knife in his right hand. She had both hands wrapped around the prop baby, one of them hidden beneath the sheets of a thin cover blanket, fingers holding a .38 Special.
“I need the kid,” the man said in a slow-motion delivery. “I’ll cut him in the backseat and make the transfer. Then we can all get the hell out of here.”
When Mrs. Columbo didn’t move, he walked closer and held out his left hand. “I need the baby now,” he said.
Angela and the man in the tan leather jacket both turned and looked at Mrs. Columbo, their eyes filled with a mixture of anger and suspicion.
“What’s your problem?” Angela asked. “Get on with it. Give the baby over to Carl.”
“I was expecting to get paid before making the handoff.” Mrs. Columbo was surprised at how calm she was able to sound.
“And you can expect to be killed if you don’t make it now,” the man in the tan leather said.
Mrs. Columbo looked down at the prop baby in her arms. “Good-bye, sweet thing,” she said in soothing tones, a warm smile stretched across her face. She looked up at the man in the shades and then over at Angela and her husband. “You get attached,” she said to them. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a mom thing.”
Mrs. Columbo kept her smile as she twirled around Angela and tossed the prop baby under the center of the black van, turned, and pointed her gun right in the woman’s face. “All of you,” Mrs. Columbo yelled without moving her head, her eyes focused on Angela’s stunned gaze, “listen to me! You got about a minute before that van blows and kills us all. We can shoot it out or we can get out. I’m gonna let the lady here make the call.”
Angela moved her eyes away from Mrs. Columbo and the muzzle of her gun long enough to see Boomer and Dead-Eye coming down the side of a sloping hill, guns at their sides. Rev. Jim had slipped out from behind a bush and was already near the Cadillac, a .38 Special cocked and pointed her way.
“You were ready to kill a few seconds ago,” Mrs. Columbo said