Lockdown

Seventy-six

Twenty miles short of the naval yard, the empty tank light on the Hummer’s console pinged on. Ty groaned. The fuel consumption on a Hummer wasn’t great at the best of times, but throw on close to a ton of B-7 armour and it practically required its own oil field.

‘Problem?’ asked Stafford from the back seat.

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ Ty responded with a grimace.

Three miles down the road, he found a gas station. His plan was simple. Threaten the living shit out of his cargo. Get fifty bucks of gas. Throw a Lincoln through the slot and get back on the road.

Ty pulled in and swivelled round. ‘I’ll be gone less than two minutes. You’ll be in my sight the whole time. If I see you move in any way, shape or form that makes me uncomfortable, I’ll kill you faster than David Duke at a Nation of Islam cookout.’

He turned off the ignition, took the keys with him, got out and locked up. He then grabbed the nozzle and jammed it into the gas tank. His eyes flitted between the dollars and cents ticking over on the display and the doors of the Hummer. He stared at the point where Stafford and Van Straten would be. He couldn’t see a damn through the tint, but he didn’t want them to think that.

These days when he bought gas, the numbers flicked past like a slot machine, but this pump seemed near glacial. Fifty dollars up, he placed the nozzle back in the pump, closed the flap and went to pay, looking back at the Hummer every few yards.

He pushed the money through the tray in the bandit screen and jogged back.

As he went to open the driver’s door, he remembered. Damn. The Glock. He’d left it in the front compartment.

He glanced back. The gas attendant, a young Hispanic kid in his early twenties, was perched on a stool watching whatever crap they threw on TV at this hour.

Ty drew his own weapon, yanked open the door and stepped back behind it, bracing himself for the first flash of movement.

Nothing.

From the angle he was at he could see only Nicholas Van Straten’s shoulder. But Pops wasn’t the one he was worried about.

‘Step out of the car. One at a time. You first, Stafford.’

‘Stay in the car. Get out of the car. Which one is it?’

‘Be quiet, Stafford,’ Ty heard Van Straten mumble.

‘Could you at least open the door, then?’ Stafford asked, tetchily.

Ty slammed shut the driver’s door, moved up the side of the vehicle, reached over and opened the passenger door, making sure to keep the armoured plate between him and Stafford. Stafford stepped out, hands held high in the air.

Ty glanced over his shoulder to see the gas attendant staring at them, no doubt trying to work out what kind of special-needs criminal brings his victims to a gas station to rob them.

Nothing else for Ty to do now but get on with it. He patted Stafford down. Clean.

‘OK, now you.’

Nicholas Van Straten stepped out and Ty repeated the procedure. Nothing on him either.

‘Stay there,’ he told them.

Clambering into the front seat, he opened the compartment. The gun was gone. He stepped back to see Stafford waving frantically to the attendant, miming someone making a phone call.

‘OK, where is it?’ he asked Stafford.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Stafford was doing exactly what Ty would have done in this situation. Stall. The gas attendant was already on the phone, one eye on what was unfolding outside, spitting his words out as fast as he could into the handset.

Stafford must have known that Ty had some purpose for them. Otherwise he would have killed them both at the house. Or pulled off the road back in Shinnecock Bay and done it.

‘I don’t need both of you,’ Ty said. ‘So who’s it to be?’

‘I think if you took a vote, it would end in stalemate,’ Nicholas Van Straten said drily.

‘Hmm,’ Ty said, mulling it over. ‘Guess that leaves me the casting vote then.’

He levelled the gun at Nicholas Van Straten’s head.

‘Go ahead,’ said Stafford.

‘It’s tucked into the back seat,’ Nicholas said.

‘So much for family unity,’ Ty said, reaching back into the vehicle and securing the weapon.

He hustled them back inside the Hummer, just as the police cruiser pulled in.

A single-officer patrol. More units presumably on the way. Judging from the rapid gesticulations of the attendant, who’d been busy on the phone trying to explain a robbery when he wasn’t being robbed, Ty guessed that the call had been put down as a roll by and report. Still, if he let the situation develop it could go only one way.

He waited for the cop to step out of the cruiser, then he shifted the Hummer into reverse and hit the gas. The rear of the hulking SUV concertinaed the engine block of the Chrysler.

Smiling for the first time since he’d turned into the gas station, Ty took off, leaving behind a very pissed-off cop scrambling for his radio.