Rex and I sandwiched ourselves behind the concrete support pillars of the Highway 29 underpass at Green Island Road and listened intently to the earbud connected to the walkie-talkies, which had set Bill Lewis's American Express card back more than $600 each.
We wore navy-blue Dickies coveralls, Red Wing boots, and khaki baseball caps with the Napa Valley Vintners Association on them. We had big cans of bear repellent, duct tape, cable ties, nylon cord, box cutters, and a handy piece of three-quarter-inch rebar about eighteen inches long. I had handcuffs; Rex had a funky red ball with holes in it and a strap Lewis had bought at a porno store.
The HK41 I had taken from the blond in Mississippi rested in a ballistic shoulder holster inside the coveralls. Rex wore his own 9mm the same way.
A constant vehicular surf rolled off the four-lane highway and washed around us, punctuated by the deep notes of tractor-trailers and pickups with glass packs. Every two or three minutes, a vehicle passed by our position, coming from or heading to the Green Island Road warehouse complex west of us. Kilgore preferred this spot, but had two other contingency locations.
"On his way." My radio earpiece filled with Kilgore's voice. I pressed the tiny button on the foblike microphone.
"Ready"
Rex looked at me. "This is freaking nuts."
"That's why you and I are here."
Rex smiled as we moved down the concrete slope. He squatted behind the steel guardrails; I sprinted to the other side of the road and took cover. Moments later, Kilgore's green minivan came around the sharp corner. Kilgore passed us, then hit the brakes and turned the minivan sideways, blocking the underpass road. Not two seconds later, a big delivery van came around the corner. The driver locked up the double rear tires when he saw the minivan.
Rex and I launched ourselves at the truck from both sides. The doors were unlocked so we discarded the rebar and jerked the doors open. I wrestled the startled driver to the middle of the cab as Rex slid behind the wheel. The driver's foot left the clutch, bringing the truck to a lurching halt. Rex had the truck restarted and moving in seconds.
The driver was a slight Hispanic man who kept shouting, "No hurt me! Por favor! No hurt! I have childrens!" He prayed in Spanish. Terrifying this innocent man made me more ashamed than I had ever been.
"I won't hurt you," I told him as we followed Kilgore north onto Highway 29 and back toward Napa. I believe he recognized truth in my eyes and calmed down. He let me put the handcuffs on him and place the gag in his mouth. He was momentarily frightened when I brought out the hypodermic Anita had prepared, but quickly settled down as the sedative took hold.
We followed Kilgore through Napa, across Big Ranch Road, and north on the Silverado Trail. We pulled off the road south of Rutherford and stopped alongside three cars with empty bike racks, their owners obviously some of the brilliantly colored riders packing this beautiful and popular wine-country route. The heat and lingering smoke from the distant brush fire had thinned the packs of Lance Armstrong wannabes, but had not chased them away all together.
"Any problems?" Kilgore asked when I opened my door. I shook my head. "How long's he out for?"
"Three, maybe four hours," I said.
"Good," Kilgore said. "By the time he wakes up, we'll be dead, in jail, or big heroes."
"Just so long as it's not all of the above, kemo sabe," Rex said.
Kilgore opened his mouth to say something, but Rex beat him to the punch. "Rex. That's Rex with an x."
"You're okay." Kilgore smiled and punched Rex on the shoulder. "So let's get moving. Mr. X."
With the truck as cover from passing motorists, we transferred our gear and the minivan's plywood to the back of the truck and gently laid the sedated driver in the back of the minivan. Kilgore parked the minivan at the far end of the parking area in a shaded, narrow area parallel to the road to keep people from parking alongside.
We laid the driver on his side so he wouldn't choke. Then, with a web of nylon rope and cable ties, we made sure that if he recovered prematurely, he couldn't move or hit the sides or roof of the van with his arms, legs, or head. We left the engine idling and the air-conditioning on low.
Finally, Kilgore attached a dark smoky-gray plastic pod smaller than a computer mouse to the back door of the van.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Auxiliary handset," Kilgore said. "Connects to my cell. This one has a motion sensor and camera built in. If the van or our man starts to move, it takes a picture like a camera phone, then e-mails it to me."
"Cool," I said.
"It's a cheap, stripped-down handset. No keypad or display. You program it with the main cell phone. They come with accessories to detect sound, moisture, heat… a bunch of other stuff."
I opened my mouth to ask him more.
"No time to jawbone about toys. We gotta show up on time for check-in."
We all climbed inside the truck and used the wine cases and the plywood to create hollowed-out hiding spaces in the back of the truck for Kilgore, me, and our gear. I hunched down and focused on remaining calm in the stifling, confined space as Rex stacked the boxes over me. Then the cargo door rattled down and the truck engine rumbled.
As the truck lurched its way back onto the road and Rex ran through the gears, I prayed: for the Hispanic man with children; for Jasmine and for myself; for Rex and Anita and Tyrone; for Kilgore; for Camilla, Vanessa, and my mother; and for the wisdom and protection to accomplish this mission.
Lying there in almost perfect darkness, I experienced the most perfect vision of Camilla, Nate, and Lindsey since the night they'd all died. The memory appeared in nearholographic faithfulness. The vision was important so I let it play.*****
At Jasmine's direction, Tyrone turned the blue pickup left off the Silverado Trail south of Rutherford.
"Big-shot General ain' gonna like this. No-suh!" Tyrone joked.
"Big-shot General can just stuff all those stars," Jasmine said. "I need a couple of minutes practice before the main event."
"You and me both." Tyrone nodded toward the brand-new laptop.
They drove past a flat, dirt-covered field, bare except for a gigantic pile of grapevines that had been cleared to make way for new ones.
"Turn here"-she pointed-"to the right."
Tyrone steered them along a hard-packed dirt lane like others crisscrossing the vineyards, providing access for trucks and other machinery involved primarily in the annual harvest.
"Okay, stop," Jasmine said.
She got out, opened the camper shell, and pulled out a radio-controlled airplane. The wings, nearly four feet from tip to tip, needed to be attached to the fuselage.
"Piece of mass-manufactured crap," she said. "Give me a couple of hours and I'd do something with this junk."
"Ain't got two hours," Tyrone said. "You or me."
Jasmine did not reply as she filled the small plane with fuel from one of the metal cans in the bag, then inserted batteries in the airplane and the control console.
"Can you get me the plastic bag from behind my seat, please?" she asked. When Tyrone returned, he handed her the Albertson's bag and watched as she took out a half stick of dynamite with an electric detonator inserted and taped into the end. She strapped this to the fuselage of the R/C aircraft but did not connect the detonator wires to the plane's remote accessory circuit.
Jasmine placed the airplane on the hard-packed road, ran up the engine, and guided it skyward.
"Awright," Tyrone said. "I got to get me to work on that crappy old Windows laptop."*****
Gabriel crouched on the top of the barrel racks farthest from the door. "Over by the door." Harper smiled as he followed the directions.
The barrel stack wobbled drunkenly as Gabriel pushed it away from the wall, rocking it back and forth, unbalancing it more with each shove until it tipped. Gabriel clambered to the next stack as the first barrels of extravagantly expensive cabernet sauvignon detonated like bombs against the floor. Wine and barrel staves flew like shrapnel.
The next layer of barrels burst too, but not as violently. A few, instead of breaking open, rolled against the far wall. Neither of the men thought it odd at the time that the barrels made distinctly different sounds when they struck the wall. The head of one of the barrels cracked when it hit the wall and sent more wine cascading over the floor.
"Okay, that's more like it," Gabriel said as he rocked the next stack of barrels.