Force Lines

Mark Drobbler kept him waiting, staring out the windshield at the eye of the camera that was hidden behind some ferns. Had the spooks not done their job, he knew he would have been swarmed by men in black fatigues already. Or…

Either way, it was zero hour.

Which was why he found his hands shaking uncontrollably.

He took a deep swig of whiskey from the silver flask, for all the good he reckoned it would do to calm the firestorm of raw nerves and churning stomach. The grim chuckle he sounded against his will seemed to ring back, loud and insidious, in his ears, like a death knell. He was minutes away from venturing into what he suspected was no less than a dark world of hurt he couldn’t begin to imagine.

There were a few simple facts to consider along that line of pessimistic thought. First, he knew how spooks operated, despite all of Grant’s promises and reassurances they were aboveboard, and that coming from a man who had been little more than some backwater dirty badge with both hand and extra-marital tool out. Right. Mr. Fire and Brimstone, always preaching about the end of the world, how the elect needed to get busy scrambling to fight the good fight, and before the barbarians at the gate devoured the few standing God-fearing Christians. All this from a man who had his own agenda here on Earth, and that involved nothing other than big, quick and easy money, so he could coast through the rest of his golden years.

As for the spooks, they came to them, smiling sheep, pretending to be nothing other than simple government officials, but in this case, they came bearing gifts and promising Paradise on Earth—a cash ticket for Easy Street—for the Sons of Revelation. Drobbler knew their ilk. They were nothing less than snarling wolves behind the lamb’s mask. The clincher, in his experienced mind, though, was the fact the spooks had actually told them who and what they represented.

Homeland Security.

Considering what was before them, that revelation was unheard of, tantamount, in fact, to professional suicide.

Or capture.

Assuming they were to be believed, there was the dilemma all of them were being marched into an elaborate Federal trap, hammered and cut to ribbons, and whatever rabble left to be scooped up would be branded as treasonous cutthroats in front of God, man and country. All this before they were even out of the gate. To compound what he couldn’t deny was mounting horror and doubt, there was the attack at the lodge, right before daybreak. Car bombs, of all the maddening mystery—and planted under the very noses of watching sentries—though he thought of those guards in the loosest sense of anything close to resembling vigilant—had reduced to smoking rubbish what was a fleet of top-of-the-line vehicles, vintage classics a few of the less devout were still whining over, demanding immediate compensation, retribution, but, for God’s sake, were up in arms and angrier than ever to follow through with the mission. To throw fuel on the fire of the mystery, there was no sighting, no sign whatsoever upon subsequent combing of the woods and general perimeter of some adversarial force that had up and vanished like a ghost.

To make matters worse still, one of the High Sons was missing, a former L.A. cop, gone to take a leak, ostensibly, but vanishing into thin air.

Hence—the missing cop—was another godforsaken riddle, and this, after they’d been infiltrated by the Feds there was no telling…

“Hammer Wheel! Respond!”

He felt his hand reaching out for the gearshift, but realized he needed to turn on the ignition first.

Stay or go?

How far to 83? Missoula? How close was the nearest town…?

“Hammer Wheel! Why are you just sitting there?”

Drobbler flinched. They were watching. That sealed him in.

He picked up the radio. “Yeah?”

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking.”

“The thinking part’s already done. Move out and assume your position.”

Too late, but Drobbler had known as much, hours earlier. Whatever hope he’d clung to evaporated as he felt watching eyes somewhere in the forest. He grabbed up the Colt Commando assault rifle, the small nylon satchel with spare clips, shouldered out the door.

The trail was narrow, but he knew it by heart from prior walk-through. Originally, his role had been that of advanced scout only, which he was abandoning to now…

It was a short walk, and he saw it looming before his eyes, too soon, too sudden.

A beast of burden.

A monstrous thing of death and destruction.

The door was open and waiting. Drobbler climbed the few steps and dropped behind the wheel of Attila.

IT WAS T-Minus 21:48:47 and counting when Donald Lawhorn spotted them, and fought back the scowl before the look betrayed the murderous rage thundering in his heart. They were in the deep back corner, that section reserved for those fools under the delusion a few games of pool would stand them out as something more than the usual hyenas. The doors were barely open for business, and there they were, playing grab-ass with two strippers.

Cheap thrills he could understand, but this little floor show was beyond stupid.