Target Omega

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Asign over the convenience store promised sixteen ounces of the best coffee in Broome County for only $1.19. Judging by the number of cars parked along the store’s front curb, the claim appeared highly exaggerated.

Garin had subsisted on protein bars and water for the last twenty-four hours. He would’ve preferred a breakfast of eggs, home fries, toast, and coffee while comfortably seated at a table in the roadside pancake house he had passed thirty minutes ago, but having spent the night sleeping in the woods, he thought he would spare the other patrons the dubious pleasure of his company.

Garin parked as far from the other vehicles as possible and reached under his seat for his pistol. He shoved it into the waistband holster at the small of his back and covered it with his shirt.

The gym bag in the passenger seat contained nearly fifty thousand dollars in cash. He unzipped it and pulled out two hundred dollars, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. He put on the cap and glasses and popped the trunk. No need to give a curious thief any ideas; before entering the store he put the bag in the trunk and locked the vehicle.

The interior of the store was a frigid contrast to the rising heat and humidity of the morning. Garin first searched for any security cameras inside. He spotted cameras on each end of the back wall, one near the entrance to the restroom and another over the cash register. The cashier, a plump woman in her early twenties, pointed helpfully to the back, where pots of coffee were lined up under several coffee machines.

Before heading for the coffee, Garin grabbed one of the small baskets near the door and proceeded down the first aisle, filling it with an assortment of powdered doughnuts, candy bars, and other junk food. He was usually scrupulous about his diet, but he believed that it was a good idea to defer on occasion to the body’s natural cravings for unaldulterated junk.

Garin faced the store’s floor-to-ceiling exterior window while shopping for chocolate bars, giving him a clear view of the parking lot, where a man with jug ears was getting out of the passenger side of a Ford Taurus. He appeared Middle Eastern, as did the driver.

As the man walked toward the entrance, Garin noticed the second Ford Taurus in the back of the store’s parking lot, about fifty feet directly behind the Crown Vic. Two men were seated in the car watching the storefront.

The sentinels.

They wouldn’t try to kill him here. They would wait until he drove to a more secluded area somewhere down the road. Right now, they were simply keeping tabs on him. Jughead would browse around the store until Garin left. Then one of the cars would leave ahead of Garin, in the direction that he had been driving before he’d stopped at the store. A second car would follow behind Garin. They would stay far enough from Garin’s car not to raise his suspicions, but close enough to strike at an opportune moment. Garin would not give them that opportunity.

Jughead moved casually about the store, feigning interest in an item and then moving on. He was weaving up and down the narrow aisles, gradually making his way toward the rear of the store, where Garin was pouring himself a large coffee.

As Garin busied himself with finding a lid and cup sleeve, he examined the periphery to locate the only other customer. He was looking at the newspapers at the front of the store, his back to Garin. The cashier’s attention seemed to be absorbed in some paperwork.

The sentinel strolled down the aisle next to where Garin was putting the finishing touches on his coffee. Garin placed both the coffee and his basket of junk food on the counter and, with a look that conveyed that he’d just remembered something else he needed, walked to the aisle where Jughead was inspecting packages of AAA batteries.

Garin made a show of searching the shelves as he approached the sentinel, who looked up and politely smiled as Garin drew near. Garin returned the smile with a nod and a violent thrust of the three middle fingers of his left hand into the sentinel’s throat, crushing his windpipe. In a smooth motion, Garin caught the sentinel around the waist before he collapsed, and lowered him gently to the floor. The man emitted strained wheezing sounds, choking futilely for air as Garin wrapped his right arm around the man’s head and his left around his neck. With a brutal twist he snapped the sentinel’s neck, killing him instantly.

Garin rose to check the premises. The other two occupants were oblivious to what had just occurred. There was no doubt, however, that a review of the security recording would reveal a muscular man in a cap and dark glasses assaulting a somewhat smaller Middle Eastern man.

He grabbed the sentinel by the back of his collar and dragged him silently across the floor, around the corner at the end of the aisle, and into the employees’ restroom, where he deposited him on the floor of the stall. Garin checked for a pulse in the sentinel’s neck and, satisfied that he was dead, rummaged through the dead man’s clothes for any identification. Finding a wallet in the sentinel’s right rear pocket, Garin stuffed it into his front pocket, though he would be surprised if it contained any useful information. He took his SIG from the small of his back and inserted it into his waistband in front, making sure it was covered with his shirt before emerging from the restroom.

The other patron had left while Garin was stashing the body. Garin casually collected his basket and coffee and went to the checkout register, where the cashier rang up the sale and placed everything but the coffee in a paper shopping bag.

Garin knew his next move would be more difficult. It had to be executed before the remaining sentinels began wondering about the whereabouts of their cohort. It also depended on the angle of the rear- and side-view mirrors of the jug-eared sentinel’s driver.

Garin exited the store, turned left, and walked unhurriedly to his car, pretending not to look at either of the two Tauruses. Cradling the shopping bag and coffee in his left arm, he dug into his pocket for the car keys and pressed the button to open the trunk. He put the coffee on the roof of the car, then placed the bag in the trunk, where he quickly unzipped his gym bag and removed a suppressor. With his back to the vehicle containing the two sentinels and angling slightly away from the vehicle to his left, he swiftly affixed the suppressor to the SIG. As usual, a round was already chambered.

Garin closed the trunk. Holding the weapon against his right leg, he turned and began walking briskly toward the sentinels in the vehicle directly behind him. Through the front windshield Garin could see a momentary look of puzzlement cross their faces, changing into wide-eyed expressions of terror as they spotted the SIG in Garin’s hand and realized what was about to happen.

Garin raised the SIG in one fluid motion and quickly fired three shots at each man. He immediately pivoted to his right and sprinted toward the other Taurus, his eyes fixed on its rear- and side-view mirrors for any indication that the remaining sentinel had seen what had happened. If he had, he reacted too slowly. Garin put three more shots through the rear window of the vehicle, striking the driver twice in the head and once at the base of the neck. Through the shattered window Garin saw the man pitch forward against the steering wheel, a curtain of blood and brain tissue splattered across the front windshield.

Garin returned the pistol to his side as he walked back to his car and scanned the area. There was no sign that anyone had witnessed the events of the last ten seconds. Although there were no security cameras on the exterior of the store, Garin was under no illusion that the police, and later the FBI, wouldn’t instantly conclude that the muscular man in a ball cap and sunglasses who had crushed the trachea of the jug-eared shopper was the same one who had assassinated the three men in the parking lot. Just like that. Four corpses in Broome County.

Garin retrieved his coffee from the roof of his car, got in, and placed the weapon under his seat. Looking in the rearview mirror, he could see the splintered windshield of the Taurus, the two dead men reclining against their respective headrests. They appeared strangely at peace.

He took a sip of impressively awful coffee before driving out of the parking lot, casting a quick glance through the store window, where the cashier remained engrossed in her paperwork. Garin would’ve preferred to have spared one of the sentinels for interrogation but couldn’t risk having another patron drive into the parking lot and report the gruesome sight of three dead men slumped in their cars. It would take only a few minutes for the local cops or sheriff to arrive and put out an alert for a man matching his description. He estimated that he had twenty minutes to get rid of the car, ball cap, and glasses, alter his appearance, and secure another means of transportation.

As he drove, Garin realized that he was becoming accustomed to being in a sustained state of bewilderment. It seemed no matter where he went, someone was able to track him and employ various hunters. The sentinels had already been in place outside of Katy’s house when he arrived, even though the FBI had no idea they were looking for a Michael Garin. The only person besides himself who had known about the bunker was dead, yet it seemed someone may have been snooping around the cabin shortly after he left. Then an elite assault team conveyed by military helicopters showed up at the Burns farm, defying odds that would dwarf winning a multistate lottery. And finally, the sentinels from Katy’s house had tracked him to a convenience store in central New York.

Garin could only assume the sentinels followed him to the store using some form of tracking device. But since there was nothing in his bags, the device would have to be inside or attached to the car. How someone had managed to place a device in or on a vehicle that had been locked in storage for more than a year was a puzzle he would have to ponder later. Right now, Garin needed to get rid of the vehicle so it wouldn’t be an easy target for either the authorities or the sentinels’ associates.

And he had to do it quickly. He had the uneasy sense that a clock was ticking, although toward what he had no idea.