Connolly checked the bandage on his hand. It was starting to bleed through again.
“Towel,” he said, snapping his fingers at the men crowded around him.
A fresh towel was promptly placed in his hand. He unwrapped the towel around his other hand—the wounded hand, his gun hand, for Christ’s sake—and let it fall to the ground. He was going to need stitches, no doubt about it. It was going to leave a scar, too. He didn’t much care about an extra scar—he had more than his fair share—but what worried him most was that he might not be able to shoot as well with the hand as he had previously.
Wrapping the fresh towel around the wound, he turned to the men spread out around him. Only a half dozen at the moment, but more would be coming soon. A few had already started off into the desert in the pickup trucks. Samuel had tried calling those men, but none had answered yet. Connolly knew that might mean they were in heavy pursuit, but a nagging feeling told him otherwise.
“How much longer would you like to wait?” Samuel asked.
Connolly watched the other men, already decked out in gear. They were loading weapons, extra magazines, even sheathing knives.
“A few more minutes at the most,” Connolly said. “How long before the rest get here?”
“Should be soon.”
Connolly cleared his throat. The men quieted and turned to him.
“I need two volunteers to continue with the delivery. In fact, all the product that we have needs to be loaded up and taken to the drop-off site ASAP.”
None of the men said anything. Connolly couldn’t blame them. Their existences had become routine, and something like this—a hunt—was too much to pass up.
He waited another moment, then pointed at two men and said, “Sorry, fellas, you just pulled the short straws.”
The men didn’t look happy about it, but they didn’t complain. Their complaints would come later, in the SUVs, and as far as Connolly was concerned, that was fine by him. He had been a soldier, once upon a time. He knew what kind of things soldiers said about their commanding officers. Even though this wasn’t the military, it followed the same basic principles, and even though Connolly was no general, he was still the top dog.
As he went to say something else to the men, the phone in Samuel’s hand chirped.
Samuel placed the phone to his ear, spoke briefly, listened for several long seconds, then disconnected the call. When he turned toward Connolly, the news was apparent on his face.
“How many?” Connolly asked.
“Three dead. Rick is still alive.”
“Wounded?”
A slight nod. “Shot a few times.”
“Did he say anything?”
Samuel’s eyes shifted away.
“Well?”
Samuel cleared his throat. “He said the guy who blew up your helicopter says he hopes you have good insurance.”
The helicopter was still on fire, billowing smoke. It would die down eventually. It wasn’t like there were any fire trucks nearby. And if there were, it wasn’t like many could make it up the dirt road to the mine. Even if they could, where were they going to get water? Besides, Connolly rather liked the fact the helicopter was still on fire. Every time the wind shifted and the smoke drifted this way, he thought more and more how he was going to love killing this asshole.
“They have any idea where he and the girl are headed now?”
“Rick said they were headed north, toward the canyons.”
“Well,” Connolly said, both to himself and to the men around him, “lucky for us that’s the middle of nowhere. They’ll be headed either for Townsend or Kadrey. My money’s on Kadrey, because it’s closer, but even then there isn’t much in town that will help them. Our local law enforcement friends have already been alerted and are keeping an ear to the ground. Trust me, fellas, these two aren’t going to get far. As of right now, they’ve been lucky. But their luck is soon going to run out.”
Nods of agreement all around, but the men were silent. Waiting like good soldiers.
“It’s going to get dark within the next three hours. We have equipment that will help us in the dark. These two don’t. Fact is, they don’t have jack shit. We’re going to find them, but we’re not going to kill them. Not yet. Got it?”
Another round of nods.
The phone in Samuel’s hand chirped again.
Samuel placed the phone to his ear, listened for a moment, then disconnected the call. He turned toward Connolly, opened his mouth, but hesitated. That was the one thing Connolly couldn’t stand about the man, the constant hesitation. This wasn’t his world. Samuel had never been in the Army. He had gone to an Ivy League school, had been working on Wall Street when Connolly came across him and offered him a job. The man was good at what he did, knowing how to launder money, but besides that, he was expendable.
“Who was that?” Connolly asked.
“Pete.”
They had sent Pete out earlier to check on Joe, who had been out in the desert already for some reason. The way it was explained to Connolly, Joe had a dirt bike and sniper rifle, both of which the asshole had shown up with, so it was assumed something had happened to the man. Only it still hadn’t been explained to Connolly what Joe was doing with the dirt bike and sniper rifle, or why he was out in the desert in the first place.
“And?”
Samuel shook his head.
This time the men offered up angry murmurs.
One of the men asked, “Did they find his phone?”
Samuel shook his head again.
Connolly thought about that for a moment. He still wasn’t sure what it was Joe had been up to—and once this mess was taken care of, that was the first thing he was going to demand answers for—but if the asshole had shown up with Joe’s dirt bike and sniper rifle, then it was a safe bet the asshole had Joe’s phone now, too.
“Call it,” Connolly said.