Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [83]
So here they were.
Securing the perimeter in the lovely San Fernando Valley in a brand-new white van, new communications gear. And boy, it must have galled Mann to break the new gear out of storage.
Awaiting the arrival of a new A.D.—henceforth to be known as A.D.2. (Underlings never received cool code names, just job descriptions.)
Trying to stay awake.
Waiting for eight p.m.
Which apparently… was when everything was going to happen.
Mann was keeping the details of this mission extremely close to her chest. All O’Neal knew was that there were two other teams out there; one offensive, one defensive, and O’Neal’s job was to observe and block communications as needed. Police squawks, cell-phone calls, people with digital cameras, whatever. Complete blackout, on demand. Now he was in the van, awaiting her command.
Hardie needed to get out of this police car immediately.
But he had nothing.
No shirt, no shoelaces, no socks, no underwear, no weapons of any kind. Nothing on his body but a pair of bloody, ripped, dirty jeans on his legs, and a pair of his own shoes—minus the laces—on his feet.
He was handcuffed and sitting inside a suspect-transport enclosure, which was locked and moving through the streets of L.A. on the way to the North Hollywood station.
Let’s face it: there was nothing he could do.
He eased back into the seat and closed his eyes when he felt it dig into his ass cheek. Took him a minute, but he remembered.
The tiny spring-loaded plastic vial.
The one he’d plucked from the white death van. Hardie had figured if they were forced into a corner again, he’d spray that shit all around and play the game of See Who Wakes Up First. Use their own poison against them. He’d forgotten about it, though—not that it would have done any good back in the hotel room, as they pretty much pounced the moment he stepped out of the bathroom.
Now, though. In an enclosed space…
The barrier between the backseat and the front was a hard layer of bulletproof plastic, with a group of air holes the size of quarters in the middle.
Hardie remembered what Topless had said about the stuff in the vial. The dose was designed to kill a man in two stages—first knock him out, then convince his heart to stop beating for a short while. If he sprayed this stuff in the car, all three of them would die. Hardie first. That wouldn’t do any good.
And if he waited until he was in an interrogation room, same deal. And even if he lived, there was no way he could fight his way out of a station house. Nor would he want to, because then he’d be hurting cops.
So it was now or never. While they were still on the street, where he maybe had a chance at controlling things.
Otherwise, it was like letting the Hunters just die.
God knows if he thought there was even a chance they’d believe him, Hardie’d tell them everything. Much better to have a SWAT team descend on the house and deal with the situation. But Hardie knew he was in the worst position possible—the guy absolutely nobody would believe.
He used his fingers to slide the vial out of his back pocket.
The way it worked seemed clear enough. A simple pump on one end would send the poison mist shooting out on the opposite end. But how was he supposed to lift it to the holes in the plastic barrier?
Ungracefully, he supposed.
Hardie started turning around in the back and the cop in the passenger seat immediately noticed and warned him to sit the fuck down now. Hardie ignored him and focused on the strange task of kneeling on the seat, then raising his cuffed hands—along with his ass—to the barrier. Again the passenger cop screamed, asking what the fuck he thought he was doing, and the driver joined in and began braking the vehicle—which was good news, all things considered. Hardie felt the edges of one of the air holes with the tips of his fingers and quickly put the vial through,