“They know what they’re doing,” Bob said.
“I gotta say, Jane doesn’t skimp on the resources,” Rae said. “She could start a war with those boys. When me and Bob go out, it’s more like a poolroom fight... Hey, we got a vest for you. Put it on.”
Lucas put on the vest as the last of the trucks disappeared from the parking lot, and Rae got behind the wheel of the Tahoe. They had been asked to wait at the police headquarters until they got a call from Chase, who was riding in one of the trucks.Because the trucks had to come in on the target from different directions, one of them would be stalling while the other two were running fast on a more circular route, aiming for a simultaneous arrival; Lucas wanted to arrive as the doors were going down.
“Fuck waiting,” he said. “Get on that last truck’s ass.”
“Now you’re talking,” Rae said, and she cranked the Tahoe over.
—
“LOT OF CIVIL WAR SHIT AROUND HERE,” Bob said, making nervous conversation from the backseat, as they rolled out of the parking lot. “We’re closer to Gettysburg than we are to Washington. If we have time, I’d like to take the tour.” He had two M4-style rifles in the backseat and checked them out one last time as they drove across town, seating a thirty-shot magazine in each.
“Probably won’t have time,” Lucas said. They were gaining on the slow FBI vehicle until they were, as Lucas recommended, right on its ass. Hearing Bob working with the rifles, he took out his Walther PPQ just to be doing something, and Rae glanced at him and said, “Don’t go shooting your big toe.”
“I was winning pistol competitions when you were in diapers,” Lucas said.
Rae snorted. “Diapers? Didn’t have no diapers in the Givenses’ house. We used burlap bags.”
“In Oklahoma, we used dirt,” Bob said. “I’d poop, they’d take me outside and hose me down and throw a little dirt on me.Makes you a tough little baby, getting through winter. Icicles hanging off your little wiener.”
“I got nothin’,” Lucas said. “Though, I gotta say, it amazes me that the Givens family didn’t have diapers, when your father was a pharmacist. Couldn’t he steal some?”
“Fucker’s been reading our files,” Bob said to Rae.
“Shut up, everybody,” Rae said. “We’re coming up on it.”
—
THEY CAME AROUND A LONG CURVEand the big dark FBI truck swerved into the parking area outside Boone Precious Metals and the SWAT guys came out like peas being shucked out of a pod. Four of them hit the front door of the main building while two of them set up facing the front door of the garage. The agents in the other two trucks would hit the doors at the back of the buildings, and were covering the side doors, and were not immediately visible.
Lucas, Bob, and Rae were twenty feet behind the SWAT agents, running up the steps and through the front door; as they did it, Lucas saw Chase clambering out of the lead vehicle.
Inside, three men, a woman, and a big gray dog were faced off against the SWAT team, the humans with their hands over their heads and the woman was chanting, “Don’t shoot my dog, don’t shoot my dog, I can lock him right there in the bathroom, right there,” and the dog’s teeth were bared and it rumbled a warning.
“Hold him, hold him tight,” one of the agents said, and he eased behind the counter as the women held the dog—Lucasfound out later that it was a Belgian Malinois, the kind often used as war dogs—and went to the bathroom door, looked inside, opened a medicine cabinet, then came back out and said, “Lock him in there.”
The dog had to be half-dragged into the bathroom, but the woman got him inside and slammed the door and then locked it with a key: “She opens doors,” she explained.
One of the men, middle-sized, stocky with curly blond hair, demanded “What the hell is this?”
Chase came in the door with a roll of paper: “Which one of you is Toby Boone?”
The blond man said, “That’s me. I haven’t even been speeding. Is this about 1919? I got nothing to do with that shit.”
She handed him the paper: “Search warrant for the premises, including the garage.”
To the agent behind the counter, she said, “Cuff him.”
The agents moved the other two men and the woman to a corner of the counter, and the agent behind the counter cuffed Boone, who said, “I want an attorney.”
“You’ll get one, though I feel sorry for the guy,” Chase said, facing Boone across the counter. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.”
Boone gave himself away: he said nothing, didn’t seem surprised.
Chase said, “Put him away,” and the agent who’d cuffed him led him to the door. At the door, Boone turned and said to the other three prisoners, “Don’t let the cops get at those coins. They’ll steal them if they get half a chance.” And he was gone, out of sight.
Chase said to the other SWAT team members, “Okay. Let’s get the other three to where our people can talk to them, get your armor off, and let’s tear this place apart.”
