A thick air of silence lingered for a moment.
“I love you, too, Amber.”
Nineteen
Colt
The dark veil of the Merced night sky hung above our heads. Hector and I were on a hill, looking down on the Las Balas crew. My mental focus was sharp and my breathing even. When I was in the heat of the fire, I could stand like the courageous cowboy I was. We were early. Both of us were lying low on our bellies above the grassy knoll.
“Here, take a look. Do you know any of those Las Balas guys?”
I handed Hector the binoculars. I’d spotted three men in leather jackets, and all of them were smoking and shuffling around outside the abandoned warehouse on East Mission Road. The streetlight was the only illumination in the otherwise empty parking lot.
Hector was breathing heavily. “That’s the prick that set me up in the deal in the first place. Rodrigo. That guy is a fucking worm. The other guys with him I don’t know.”
My long-range Twilight sniper rifle was set up on a mini tripod, and that thing could reach a target over ten thousand feet away. The Las Balas crew had no idea that we were within shooting range of them.
“Sounds about right,” I said with a lowered voice. I peered through the lens. At this point, I had a clear shooting range of all three of the crew. Parked on the left-hand side was one lone SUV. All of them must have arrived together.
I had two walkie talkies sitting in between us in case Mikakov instructed that we needed to move. I’d managed to convince him that Hector needed to be present. They were on low volume. The men were standing outside an old abandoned, tin shed warehouse that used to be a gas plant. The main parking lot was out front with no other businesses surrounding it, just the wheat-colored fields of Merced. I scanned the perimeter with binoculars. Not a man or Las Balas crew member in sight.
I smirked in the darkness. “This is going to be good. They think you’re showing up. Let’s see what they do.”
With my high-profile binoculars, I saw a crew member winding a silencer on the end of a gun. I handed the binoculars back to Hector.
“See, what did I tell you?”
He looked through the lens and saw what I saw.
“Shit. They were going to fucking kill me. I mean, what if I had the money? Would they still have killed me?” He handed the binoculars back.
“I guarantee you wouldn’t have come out of this alive. They would have shot you dead. The Las Balas crew are a bunch of low-down, dirty rats.”
The second guy also pulled his gun out, ready for action. They were cajoling and laughing with one another. All of these bitches were about to be rocked.
My walkie flashed angrily at me, and I picked it up, pressing the intercom button on the side.
“Go ahead,” I whispered.
“You in position?” A thickly textured Russian accent came through.
“Roger that.”
“Prepare. Watch the fields behind the warehouse.”
“Done. Over and out.”
We heard the blood-curdling sound before we saw it. A large black van swung around the parking lot corner, screeching to a halt. The Las Balas crew lifted their guns, primed for rapid-fire. The black van door ripped open, and the Russian boys leaped out. My mouth turned up into a huge smile. They jumped out like the ninjas they were. They were all dressed in black leathers, fully armed. I heard the raised voices of the Las Balas crew talking and swearing in Spanish.
“Mierda!” They shouted out, Tweedledee and Tweedledum waving their arms around and grabbing their guns.
I watched Mikakov raise his arms out wide. The Las Balas crew stopped moving and stopped talking. Both Hector and I were mesmerized by the showdown.
There was a heated exchange between the two. I know because I saw the veins lifted on Mikakov’s neck. His team flanked him and raised their guns at one point. The icy night wind cut through the grass and across our faces, causing me to shiver involuntarily. The Las Balas crew members’ faces looked shocked, and Mikakov beckoned one of his men, who reached in the van and brought out a suitcase.
The suitcase was opened, and I zoomed the binoculars in. It was the almighty greenbacks and lots of them. He closed the case and slid it over to them. One of the main henchmen pointed their gun to one of the others, gesturing for him to count it. Through the lens, I could see him rifling through the notes, counting. It took about ten minutes. Once satisfied, my man Mikakov gestured with a cut-your-throat motion and a gun-to-the-head motion. I knew what that meant.
I tapped Hector, encouraging him to see for himself. “Look. There it is. All clear.”
