CHAPTER 40

“This must be the place, ” Danny said. He folded the printout of directions and slipped them into a side pocket of the door.

According to the map and the van’s odometer, the rendezvous location for the final exchange was right here, somewhere off to the side of the faded gravel road. Out his passenger window there was nothing much to see but a flat expanse of desert and some faraway mountains at the horizon.

Kearns tapped him on the leg. “Over here. ”

The stark landscape had begun to take on warmer hues as the sun got low, but there was still enough daylight to see things clearly, provided you were shown where to look. Way off to the driver’s side, maybe three hundred yards distant, Danny saw what looked like the only man‑ made thing for miles around. Whatever it was, it wasn’t much.

No trail led out there and this vehicle wasn’t made to go off‑ road. Kearns seemed to know what he was doing, though. He made a careful turn toward their final destination, nursing the van over the lip of the road and out across the hard‑ packed ground.

As they got close the scene became clearer. Danny saw the rear ends of two vehicles, a car and a midsize, unmarked yellow cargo truck, both of which were parked behind a square, gray, one‑ story building.

“Building” was an overstatement, actually; the simple ten‑ foot‑ high enclosure appeared to be made of nothing but cinder blocks and dark mortar. There was an open arched doorway but no roof overhead. About a stone’s throw away from the main structure, in a perfectly spaced circle surrounding the building on all sides, were a number of bizarre, freestanding walls and angled edifices jutting up out of the sand. Some looked like backstops from a playground handball court, one like the black alien monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The layout reminded him a little of Stonehenge, but only if Stonehenge had been built over one hurried weekend by an amateur bricklayer on acid.

“What the hell is this place? ” Danny asked.

“Out here you never know. This part of Nevada’s full of surprises. ” Agent Kearns stopped the van well away from the other vehicles and put the shifter into park. “It could be something the military threw together for part of a nuclear test, could be a target for a bombing range that used to run through here. ” He clapped Danny lightly on the shoulder. “What do you think: Are you ready for this? ”

“I already told you what I think. ”

“Don’t worry so much, ” Kearns said, “or you’re going to look nervous. Listen, this is a milk run. We’ll be in and out of here in five minutes, and then we’ll go get us a hot dog and a cold beer before I drop you off at the airport‑ ”

He’d stopped talking because something had caught his attention out the front windshield. One of the men they were meeting had appeared by the corner of the main cinder‑ block building, and with a broad gesture he beckoned them to come on over. Another of the men was behind the first, standing there with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Okay, then, ” Danny sighed, “let’s rock. ” He opened the door, stepped out, and waved back to the guy who’d greeted them, then put on the light jacket Kearns had loaned him. It was a size too large, but that was fine for his purposes. He reached in and slipped Kearns’s satellite phone from its charger on the console and put it in the left‑ hand pocket, then flipped open the glove box and removed the pistol. “Do you have an extra clip for this? ”

“No, I don’t. What are you doing? ”

The pistol went snugly into Danny’s belt in back, not in the middle but closer to the right side; the long jacket hid it completely. “I’m getting ready for this whole thing to go to hell in a handbasket. If everything’s fine you can say I told you so. But in the meantime, if I can make a suggestion, why don’t you take that. 38 out of your ankle holster and put it where you can get it if you need it. ”

Thankfully, the older man was listening, and even if he wasn’t quite convinced that there was going to be trouble he was at least open‑ minded enough to move his small revolver to the right‑ hand pocket of his bomber jacket.

“I thought you said you didn’t know much about guns, ” Kearns said.

“That’s not what I said. I said I wasn’t an expert. ”

Expert wasn’t a term to be bandied about among Danny’s gun‑ savvy friends. An expert might be someone who could call their shot from ten yards and then, from a cold start, draw their pistol from concealment and put a bullet right where they said it would go, all in seven‑ tenths of a second or less. Molly Ross was one of those, and a few years back over one hot and memorable Tennessee summer, she’d taught him everything he knew. He’d been getting even more death threats than usual that year, and she’d wanted him to be safe. So, while he wasn’t an expert, his draw was pretty fast‑ it was the part about hitting what he shot at that still left a lot to be desired.

“Okay, ” Kearns said. His demeanor was a bit more grim than it had been a few minutes before. “Let’s do it. ”

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