Weapons and explosives had fascinated Gunderson for as long as he could remember. When he was thirteen years old, a year or so following the incarceration of his beloved aunt, he had been taken by his latest foster father into a special room in the family basement.
Its walls were lined with military weaponry. Amidst the AK-47s, Lugers, and shiny samurai swords was a shelf dedicated to a variety of Russian, German, and American land mines.
His foster father, an old prune named Vince, had picked up one of the mines-a German anti-personnel device complete with swastika on the side-and handed it to Alex.
“Careful,” Vince said. “It’s active.”
Gunderson figured he should be scared, but he wasn’t. He held the device with great care, captivated by the simplicity of its design.
Vince pointed to the detonator on top. “Step on that,” he said, “and this sucker’ll shred you into a thousand different pieces. You’ve never seen agony until you’ve seen what’s left of your buddy after he’s popped the cherry on one of these babies. If he’s still got lungs, he’s screaming like a six-year-old girl.”
Two months later, while Gunderson was busy ditching school, old Vince accidentally blew himself, his wife, and half his basement to smithereens. Gunderson was forced to move on to a new foster home, but he’d never forgotten Vince’s words, and the sense of power he’d felt with that precious baby resting on the palm of his hand.
All these years later, land mines continued to hold a special place in Gunderson’s heart. He had long ago learned to rig his own and had recently turbocharged more than two dozen North Korean APDs, adding computerized detonator controls. With the aid of a remote, he could activate and deactivate them at will.
In anticipation of tonight’s events, he had buried twenty-seven of these honeys around the train yard. Now, as he worked his way past an old caboose, he took the remote from his coat pocket and punched a combination of numbers on the backlit keypad-a global activation code.
Buried beneath a pile of rubble just twenty feet behind him, Shredder #1 (as he liked to call it) came to life with a faint beep. All around the yard, its brothers and sisters followed suit.
Come and get us, they said.
The fun’s about to begin.
Crossing a set of rusted tracks half-buried in gravel, Donovan paused, trying to catch his breath. His leg throbbed, dredging up memories of his last encounter with Gunderson. The outcome was bound to be more positive this time.
He brought his flashlight up to check his progress.
A collection of train cars in varying states of decay surrounded him. Weeds and tall grass grew out from beneath the cars and shot up between the tracks, showing no sign of disturbance. There was no way to know what path Gunderson had taken.
Police radios squawked in the distance. Fogerty and his trigger-happy bunch were all over the yard by now. If it had been up to Donovan, he would have left them all back at the bus, but phone calls had been made, and word from on high had reminded him that this was a joint effort that required both federal and municipal cooperation. Like it or not, that included Fogerty.
Donovan could only hope he’d keep his dick in his pants and not do anything stupid.
The squeal of another cat spun him to the right. The sound could mean a million different things, but he followed it anyway, heading toward an old caboose.
A moment later, a CPD chopper roared overhead and swept its searchlight across the yard. About goddamned time. A swarm of rats reacted in panic, surging up from beneath a pile of termite-eaten lumber, hundreds of them scrabbling over each other to avoid the light.
The sight sent a shiver of revulsion through Donovan. He’d never seen so many rats in one place. Cutting a wide path around them, he continued toward the caboose.
As the chopper roared overhead, Gunderson darted for the shadows, narrowly avoiding its beam. He watched it sweep by at half speed, saw a pack of rats scurry away in slow motion, felt the blood pumping through his veins.
Pumping sweet life.
The place was crawling with cops now, but they were well behind him and would soon have other problems to keep them occupied.
The yard was surrounded by a seven-foot-high aluminum fence, topped with barbed wire. Just beyond these cars, across a rabble-strewn clearing, was Gunderson’s destination: a gap he’d made by prying back a section.
Even with the aid of the searchlight snaking across the yard, he could barely see in this darkness. But he’d have no trouble finding the gap. He knew this place like he knew the faint pattern of freckles across Sara’s upturned nose.
Everything was working perfectly. If Donovan managed to avoid getting himself blown to bits by an APD, Gunderson would have the pleasure of destroying him emotionally. He’d enjoy playing Donovan. Seeing him scramble fruitlessly for clues to Jessie’s location. And when the time was right, he’d reel ol’ Barney in and gut him like a two-hundred-pound tuna.
But best of all, when everything was said and done, he’d have his Sara back.
Since the day he’d first knelt over her comatose body, searching for a pulse, he’d been dead inside. But now, for the first time in weeks, he felt alive again. Vibrant.
He hoped and prayed Donovan made it through the yard in one piece.
This feeling was just too good to let go.
When Donovan reached the caboose, he heard another sound. Not a cat this time, but the faint creak of footsteps on wood, followed by the trampling of weeds.
Gunderson?
Flicking off his flashlight, he backed against the side of the caboose and listened. Whoever it was, was trying like hell to be as quiet as possible. Definitely moving in this direction.
Donovan eased his way toward the back end of the caboose, Glock ready. The footsteps slowed, close now, no more than ten feet away.
Donovan waited, feeling his adrenaline rise.
The footsteps came closer. Slowly. Just around the corner, on the other side of the caboose.
Resting his finger against the trigger of his Glock, he raised his flashlight to shoulder level and waited until the footsteps were nearly on top of him.
Then, in one fluid motion, he pushed away from the caboose, turned, leveled the Glock, and flicked the light on, a startled face caught in the beam. “Hold it!”
The face didn’t move. Nor did the body beneath it.
“Hey, boss.”
It was A.J.
“Jesus Christ,” Donovan said.
When the light came alive in his eyes, A.J. was sure he was a goner, cursing himself for holstering his weapon. Then he heard Jack’s voice, and sweet relief washed over him. Thank God the boss wasn’t quick to pull the trigger.
Jack lowered his flashlight. After they both got their stomachs out of their throats, A.J. said, “This place is a labyrinth. Gunderson could be anywhere.”
“Maybe,” Jack said, keeping his voice low. “But I think he’s close.”
“Yeah? What makes you think so?”
Donovan tapped a temple with the tip of his finger, a gesture A.J. had seen a hundred times before. It was true that Jack had always had pretty good instincts, a kind of sixth sense when it came to bad guys, but with this particular bad guy it hadn’t exactly paid off yet.
A.J. loved Jack, loved working with him, but the guy wasn’t functioning on all cylinders right now. When he’d insisted on taking Gunderson alone in that train car, A.J. had known it was a mistake. Gunderson was not somebody you took alone.
As soon as word got out that Jessie had been snatched, somebody upstairs should’ve pulled the plug on Jack. Let the FBI take over. They were arrogant assholes, yeah, but they specialized in this kind of shit.
Of course, you’d never hear A.J. say a word of this out loud. Especially not to Jack.
He didn’t even like thinking it, but there it was.
Donovan said, “We’d better split up. If Gunderson’s around here, I don’t want Fogerty’s bozos getting to him before we do.”
A.J. nodded, understanding the concern. “Watch your back.”
“You, too.”
As Donovan headed away, A.J. cut a diagonal path across the narrow strip of land that separated the caboose and another train car. Trampling over the weeds and piles of trash that had collected over the years, he realized how sluggish he felt. A taste of the bean would do him wonders right now. The smooth ecstasy of, say, a little Cafe Atarazu.
Moments like these made A.J. realize just how bad his addiction was. Considering the circumstances, coffee should’ve been the last thing on his mind. But he just couldn’t help himself. No doubt about it, he was a bona fide caffeine junkie.
Oh, well. At least it wasn’t booze.
Halfway to the adjacent train car, a faint beep brought A.J. to an abrupt stop. What would only be a nanosecond for anyone else stretched to several times that for A.J. as he analyzed the situation:
That beep-it wasn’t good.
He was pretty sure it had come from beneath the flattened old hubcap he’d just stepped on, and it wasn’t the kind of sound you expected to hear in the middle of a dump like this.
No, something was seriously amiss. And it didn’t bode well for Arthur James Mosley.
In the latter half of that nanosecond, A.J. sensed what that something was, giving him just enough time to close his eyes.
The prayer, unfortunately, would have to wait.