The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [105]
“He buggin’ you, babe?” came a voice from outside, making them both shout in surprise. Mel’s grinning face was hanging in the open frame of her side window.
“Mel—Jesus,” she said.
Mel opened her door and stood back. “You people have got to chill. This is just another op.”
Ellis got out from the other side. He was smiling, putting on a good front. “This is the mother of ops.”
Mel laughed. “Okay, you got it.” He looked back down at his wife. “Come on, Nance, heave your butt outta the car. We need to make like ghosts.”
They both followed him across the lot to a rental van parked on the edge of the grass by the nearest taxiway. He patted its side. “My newest wheels—all nice and legal and anonymous.”
He opened its rear double doors, reached inside, and pulled out the two M–16s, handing one to Ellis. “There you go, bucko. A little old-fashioned firepower. Got something else, too.” He reached back a second time and pulled out two ballistic vests, again handing one to Ellis. “Just like the big boys.”
Ellis was impressed. Nancy watched his eyes grow as round as a kid’s. “Holy shit. You did good, Mel.”
Mel had propped his gun against the van’s side and was slipping the vest on over his head. “No point screwin’ around, right?”
Nancy looked from one to the other. Mel misinterpreted her gesture. “You don’t count,” he told her. “You’ll be behind the wheel, like always. By the time we get to you, the shooting’ll all be over.”
“There’s going to be shooting?” she asked, remembering his assurances that the Niemiecs wouldn’t be armed.
He laughed. “Not for sure. I don’t want to wake up the neighborhood, but if we gotta, we gotta. You know that.”
He brushed by her and slapped Ellis’s shoulder as the latter was attaching his Velcro straps. “Come on. Let’s get in place.”
He looked back at his wife as they started off into the darkness between two of the buildings. “Just wait in the van, in the back, until after they get here. Stay out of sight till the last second, but be ready, okay? Don’t fuck up.”
“What about the car?”
“What about it? It’s just a parked car, like all the others.”
She nodded without comment and then cast her eyes over the entire scene—the few cars he’d mentioned, the darkened buildings, the starry sky overhead.
Where were the cops?
“The Turkeys have settled in,” a quiet voice said over all their earphones. For no reason beyond playfulness, Mel and his duo had been code-named the Turkeys. The Niemiecs were, blandly, the Bad Guys. At the pre-op briefing, Willy had suggested calling the Secret Service for better labels. Nobody had gotten the joke.
Joe peered over Sam’s shoulder. The dot representing Nancy’s position had stopped moving at the edge of the parking lot. “Looks like we pinned the tail on the wrong turkey,” he murmured.
“Turkeys One and Two are in motion,” came the same voice. “Both armed with M–16s. Heading toward building B—previous location.”
Each structure had been given a letter. B was the one nearest the easternmost taxiway, and the one they’d watched Mel check out a half hour earlier, when he’d arrived alone in the rental van. At the time, they’d had their first fright—he’d almost stepped on the hand of one of the hidden SWAT members while passing by.
Joe risked a peek over the roof’s low wall to see the two shadowy figures of Mel and Ellis reach the corner of the hangar. Around him, half the cops had put on night vision goggles. The sniper, still alone in his far corner, was relying on his scope to give him the same advantage.
A new voice came over the radio. “This is Perimeter Four. Three cars just drove by, headed your way. Pretty sure they were the Bad Guys. Two black sedans—a Ford Fiesta and a Cutlass—and one Explorer SUV, color red.”
Although nobody moved, Joe felt a distinct shift in the air. The last of the three groups had finally arrived. Something was going to happen after all.
The latecomers were the most casual of all, despite what they had at stake. They parked