Guilty Minds

76

The UPS truck pulled into the private road and came to a stop at the gate.

It was a tall black wrought-iron gate, simple and spare, devoid of any scrollwork or curlicues. All along its top were sharp spear points.

The driver noticed the stone pillar on the left side of the gate, on which were mounted a camera and an intercom. He advanced his truck a few feet more, leaned out his window, and pressed a button.

After fifteen seconds or so, a voice came over the intercom: “Yes?”

“UPS. Package for Thomas, uh, Vogel. I need a signature.”

Another pause. Less than ten seconds this time. “All right.”

Slowly the gate slid to the right, and when it was fully open, the brown truck proceeded down the unpaved tree-lined road, which wound through the woods for quite a while. Finally the road opened up into a clearing, and there was a house, large and rambling, handsome, but not at all imposing.

It had a low-pitched roof, with generously overhanging eaves. Exposed, scalloped rafter tails. Dormers both gabled and hipped. The windows had single-paned bottom sashes with multi-paned top sashes.

The casing around the front door was wide, as was the casing around the windows, with their detailed mullion work. The house was built in the Craftsman style, and it was clearly done with great pride and attention to detail.

I was impressed. If Vogel had really built this house with his own hands, he did excellent work.

Merlin, who was driving, shut off the engine and handed me the electronic clipboard. While he went to the back of the truck to retrieve one of the duffel bags, I came around the hood to the front door. I rang the doorbell.

If Vogel came to the door, I was ready. But I didn’t expect him to, and he didn’t. Someone else opened the front door, a bulky guy with short black hair and a steroid-poisoned look. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and had overdeveloped pecs.

“Thomas Vogel?” I said through the screen door.

“I can sign,” the guy said. “Where’s the package?”

“It’s a big piece of exercise equipment. Before I take it down from the truck, can you eyeball it, make sure it looks right?”

The guy shrugged, looking a little uncertain, pushed open the screen door, and came out. I took a quick look at the small foyer inside, the living room next to it, and I froze the image in my mind.

I led the way to the back of the truck. There, I pulled open the roll-up door, and he saw the nearly empty cargo bay. All we had back there were the stingray and a pile of zip ties and one of the two duffel bags. Merlin had already placed the other duffel at the back of the house.

I saw Merlin approach but hang back, watching me.

The guy said, “What the hell—”

But my right arm was already swooping around his right shoulder and hooking his thick neck in the crook of my elbow. He flung his fists out and back at me, but it was useless. Grabbing my bicep with my left hand, I drew my shoulders back, and it tightened up like a scissor. I squeezed, compressing the carotid arteries on either side of his neck.

Within ten seconds, he slumped. He’d be unconscious for only a few seconds, really, but when he came to he’d be swimming out of a daze and sluggish. It took Merlin and me about a minute and a half to zip-tie his hands and legs, hog-tying him. I ripped off a length of duct tape and taped his mouth closed.

I left him on the ground. With the truck in the way he couldn’t be seen from inside the house.

I picked up the electronic clipboard from the ground where I’d dropped it.

One down. The problem was that we didn’t know how many guys lived or worked in the compound, how much protection Vogel maintained. But I was sure this guy wasn’t the only one.

“Ready?” Merlin said.

“Just a second.” I jumped into the cargo bay and found the Ruger 22. “Okay,” I said.

Merlin punched a number into one of the cheap mobile phones.

He waited, looked at me. I could hear the distant ringing through his phone’s earpiece.

Then came the explosion.

It was louder than I anticipated, an immense cracking, echoing boom that rumbled and roared and shook the ground. From where we were standing, we couldn’t see it, but I knew the dynamite in the duffel bag had ignited the gasoline and created a vast fireball. The early-afternoon sky, already bright, blazed even brighter, tinged with red, and black smoke smudged the sky.

Whoever was inside the house would now turn their attention to the back of the house to see what the hell was going on. Probably most of the guards would race around to that side of the compound. It was a diversion bomb, which usually worked when I was in the country. A classic and effective technique. It would buy us a few crucial seconds.

I looked at Merlin and nodded. “I’m going in,” I said. “If you don’t hear from me in fifteen minutes, call the police.”

While he stayed back and made sure that the guard remained bound, I hoisted the second cheap duffel bag and started toward the house.