Midnight then. China Basin. They came together out of the dark.
A film of mist from the water hid them first. It turned and drifted silently in the glow from the city and the light of the crescent moon.
Then there they were, Cobra and the others. Striding out of that mist from every direction. Each wore a leather jacket, a T-shirt, jeans. Each carried a gun held down by his side. Steve had a ball-peen hammer clipped to his belt. The hammer slapped against his thigh with every step. It kept time as the five swaggered toward each other.
Bishop came across the construction site—the same one Weiss and Ketchum had crossed. His boots crunched on the broken stone as he passed under the silhouetted framework of steel and concrete with its weirdly twisted offshoots of rebar. He saw the other oudaws converge at the street corner. He stepped off the sidewalk and crossed the broad avenue to join them.
They stood all together, a loose circle of them. Cobra had his .45 in his hand, and Steve and Charlie had their Glock semis. Shorty had a shotgun propped up on his hipbone. Bishop went for his belt, drew out his .38. Cobra smirked at the measly snubnose.
“Don’t hurt anybody with that,” he said.
He gave a wink to the others and strode to the warehouse.
There were two doors in the hulking gray box of a building, plus the wide bay entrance blocked by a security screen. Cobra took the near door. Bishop and Shorty pressed to the wall on either side, ready to go in. They waited while Charlie and Steve marched on across the bay entrance to station themselves outside the far door. Charlie nodded when they were set, a gesture just visible in the mist and city glow and moonlight.
Then Cobra moved. There was a small number pad to the right of his door. There was a small red light on the pad. Cobra pressed the buttons on the pad. Each button made a small beep as his finger stabbed at it. When he pressed the fifth button there was a longer beep. The red light turned green.
That was it. Cobra stood back, lifted his weapon, took aim at the lock, and fired. Charlie did the same at his door and the two shots went off at once, made one muffled blast in the night.
Cobra lifted his leg and Charlie lifted his and they kicked out, their heavy boots striking the doors just beneath the knobs. The doors flew open. Cobra charged in. Bishop and Shorty peeled off the wall and went after him. Across the bay entrance, Charlie rushed in with Steve right behind.
Bishop looked around, looked everywhere, his head moving in quick, staccato jerks, his heart pounding. It was shadowy in here, but there was just light enough for him to see by.
They were in an office. He could make out the shapes of the desks and filing cabinets. He could make out the open doorway into the main bay. There were bulbs burning dimly above the bay door; that’s where the light was coming from. But there was no sign of the police ambush in there. Just the shadows and the quiet.
Cobra led the way through the open door. The tall, broad figure of Shorty followed. Bishop went in last.
The warehouse bay was wide and high. Rows of towering lockers and towering shelves, one towering row after the next, rising into rafters and scaffolding and darkness. Forklifts and stepladders stood against the wall or by the security curtain. Between the curtain and the edges of the lockers, there was a broad corridor of open space.
Moving fast, breathing fast in their excitement, Cobra and Bishop and Shorty met up with Charlie and Steve in the center of that corridor.
They were in a pool of light from the bulbs over the door. Bishop kept his expression wry and cool as always, but he was wound tight; tight. His pulse was hammering even quicker. The suspense was like a metallic glow in his head, almost too bright to bear. He expected the police to jump them—now, right now. He expected to hear their shouts and see their guns and their tense faces. But still it was quiet. There was nothing.
“Where the fuck’s the guards?” Charlie grunted.
Cobra shook his head. “Off, maybe. Who the fuck knows? Let’s just do it”
He gestured to Bishop and Steve to follow him. They started up an aisle between two walls of lockers. Shorty with his shotgun and Charlie with his Glock stood guard in the corridor, watching the doors.
In the aisle, the shadows were deeper. At first Bishop had to strain to see. Then Cobra dug a miniature Maglite from his jacket pocket. The three men followed its powerful beam deeper into the bay.
The locker they wanted was midway down. It had a man-sized gunmetal door on it, and there was another keypad beside the door. Cobra had the code to this one, too.
While the outlaw punched the buttons, Bishop scanned the aisle, back and forth. He lifted his gaze to the locker tops, and higher to where the rafters faded into blackness. Where the hell were the cops? Where was Ketchum? If there’d been some mistake, if Cobra walked out of this, if he went looking for Honey—Bishop began a rushed, rough, fragmented estimation of the disaster.
But there was no time for it. The keypad gave its long beep, breaking in on him. The light on the pad went red to green. Cobra yanked the locker door open. His face was arching and eager, his gaze a bright emerald in the Maglite’s glow.
Three large duffel bags lay piled together on the locker floor. The Maglite’s beam played over them.
“Check ’em,” Cobra said.
Steve knelt down quickly. Bishop looked away, peering into the surrounding darkness. No, there was nothing moving, there were no cops, there was no one. He heard the rip of a zipper.
He looked down. Steve had one of the duffels open. The Maglite beam was dancing over the contents. Steve looked up at Cobra with a grim smile on his pitted face. He gave a dull grunt of approval. “Huh.”
There were heart-stopping millions in there, stack upon stack of pale green cash.
Cobra nodded. “Zip it up. Let’s go.”
The three tromped back up the aisle, Cobra in the lead. Each had a duffel over his left shoulder, a gun in his right hand. They stepped out into the corridor.
Shorty and Charlie wheeled from either door, met the others on either side. Cobra grinned at them.
“Yeah,” he said.
“All right!” said Shorty, clenching his fist.
The others laughed in triumph.
Then all hell broke loose.