Patriot games - Tom Clancy [208]
"Okay!"
"We can't talk about this, right?" Mr. Newton asked after his son had left.
"That's correct, sir." Shaw paused. "That's important for two reasons. First, we don't want the perpetrators to know that we've had a break in the case-and this could be a major break, Mr. Newton; you've done something very important. The other reason is to protect you and your family. The people involved in this are very dangerous. Put it this way: you know that they tried to kill a pregnant woman and a four-year-old girl."
That got the man's attention. Robert Newton, who had five children, three of them girls, didn't like hearing that.
"Now, have you ever seen people around the quarry?" Shaw asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Anybody."
"There's maybe two or three other folks who cut wood back there. I know the names-I mean their first names, y'know? And like I said, kids like to go parking back there." He laughed. "Once I had to help one out. I mean, the road's not all that great, and this one kid was stuck in the mud, and " Newton 's voice trailed off. His face changed. "Once, it was a Tuesday I couldn't work that day 'cause the crane was broke, and I didn't much feel like sitting around the house, y'know? So I went out to chop some wood. There was this van coming outa the road. He was having real trouble in the mud. I had to wait like ten minutes 'cause he blocked the whole road, slippin' and slidin', like."
"What kind of van?"
"Dark, mostly. The kind with the sliding door-musta been customized some, it had that dark stuff on the windows, y'know?"
Bingo! Shaw told himself. "Did you see the driver or anybody inside?"
Newton thought for a moment. "Yeah it was a black dude. He was-yeah, I remember, he was yellin', like. I guess he was pissed at getting stuck like that. I mean, I couldn't hear him, but you could tell he was yelling, y'know? He had a beard, and a leather jacket like the one I wear to work."
"Anything else about the van?"
"I think it made noise, like it had a big V-8. Yeah, it must have been a custom van to have that."
Shaw looked at his men; too excited to smile as they scribbled their notes.
"The papers said all the crooks were white," Newton said.
"The papers don't always get things right," Shaw noted.
"You mean the bastard who killed that cop was black?" Newton didn't like that. So was he. "And he tried to do that family, too Shit!"
"Mr. Newton, that is secret. Do you understand me? You can't tell anybody about that, not even your son-was he there then?"
"Nah, he was in school."
"Okay, you can't tell anyone. That is to protect you and your family. We're talking about some very dangerous people here."
"Okay, man." Newton looked at the table for a moment. "You mean we got people running around with machine guns, killing people-here? Not in Lebanon and like that, but here?"
"That's about the size of it."
"Hey, man, I didn't spend a year in the Nam so we could have that shit where I live."
Several floors downstairs, two weapons experts had already detail-stripped the Uzi. A small vacuum cleaner was applied to every part in the hope there might be cloth fibers that matched those taken from the van. A final careful look was taken at the parts. The damage from water immersion had done no good to the stampings, made mostly of mild steel. The stronger, corrosion- resistant ballistic steel of the barrel and bolt were in somewhat better shape. The lab chief reassembled the gun himself, just to show his technicians that he still knew how. He took his time, oiling the pieces with care, finally working the action to make sure it functioned properly.
"Okay," he said to himself. He left the weapon on the table, its bolt closed on an empty chamber. Next he pulled an Uzi magazine from a cabinet and loaded twenty 9-millimeter rounds. This he stuck in his pocket.
It always struck