Dean Koontz - Blood risk

"I'm not wanted yet," Harris said. "I was wanted twice before, but I served less than two years both times. I'm a clean citizen now. I feel it's my duty to vote in every election." He looked at them, at what he could see of them in the dark. "Don't you two vote?"

"No," Shirillo said. "I've only been eligible a few years, and I just never got around to it. I don't see what good it does."

"You?" Harris asked Tucker.

Tucker said, "Politics never interested me. I know people who spend half their lives worrying about how everything's going to hell in a basket-and it all goes to hell in a basket anyway. I figure I'll survive no matter what nincompoop the public puts in office next."

"That's just terrible," Harris said, clearly taken aback at their unpatriotic sloth. "It's a good thing neither one of you has any kids. You'd be the kind of parents who'd set rotten examples."

Tucker and Shirillo laughed again.

"Come on," Tucker said, prying the lid off a small can of greasepaint, "Let me blacken your face."

"What for?" Harris asked.

"For one thing," Tucker said, "it'll make it harder for anyone to see you in the dark. More important, with a hood over your hair and black paint covering your face, it's going to be difficult for Baglio or any of them to make a positive identification of you later. Change a man's facial color, and you alter him almost as thoroughly as if he'd donned a mask. And in the close work we'll be doing tonight, a mask wouldn't be good; it would just get in the way. The greasepaint will conceal you and give you the optimum in mobility, the use of your eyes."

Grunting unhappily, Harris submitted to this indignity, all the while fingering the outline of the raised green alligator on his breast.

Ten minutes later they had all been black-faced, the paint put aside with the clothes they had taken off.

"Now?" Harris asked, plainly expecting yet another indignity.

"I'll show you the guns," Tucker said.

"I always use the Thompson," Harris said, lifting it away from the car where he had leaned it.

"You'll take it along," Tucker agreed. "But you'll use it only if you have to. If at all possible, you'll keep it shoulder-slung and you'll use this." He got out the three Lügers and three silencers, fitted the parts and distributed the weapons. He divided up the clips of ammunition, four each, and supervised the loading.

"Very nice," Harris said.

Tucker relaxed as the big man strapped the submachine gun over his shoulder and tested the pistol in his hand. "Keep the ammunition zipped into the right-hand pocket of your windbreaker."

Harris said, "Holsters?"

"None," Tucker said.

"Gun goes in left-hand pocket?"

"No. Keep the pistol out at all times."

"Sometimes you need both hands for other things," Harris said.

"Not tonight, I think. We've got to keep a gun ready. For one thing, getting that damn long silenced barrel out of a holster could be tricky in a pinch. For another, once we're in the house, we could be come upon and shot before we had time to draw. Remember, Baglio keeps at least four armed men in that place, four professionals. And it's their home ground, not ours."

Shirillo had been unable to learn exactly how many people lived in the Baglio mansion.

Tucker took out a special belt from which hung a number of tools in thin plastic pouches. He pulled up his windbreaker, buckled the belt around his waist, drew the jacket down again.

"Shirillo get you that?" Harris asked.

"Yes."

"Looks like a nice set."

"It is," Shirillo said. "I picked each piece myself, spent a couple of weeks honing them where that was necessary, made up the belt and the pouches in my brother's shoe-repair shop."

Harris scratched his blackened chin, looked at the tips of his fingers, said, "You think we'll have to break in, then?"

"If all the main doors and unlocked windows look too damn inviting," Tucker said, "we'll make our own entrance."

Harris nodded.

"One more thing," Tucker said. He got the khaki tote bag that Paul Norton had given him that afternoon, opened it and took out two compact walkie-talkies. He gave one to Shirillo and took one himself, strapped it to his shoulder and let it hang down against his right biceps. He explained the operation of the radios to Shirillo, insisted that they test them, was finally satisfied that the boy knew what he was doing.

"I don't get one?" Harris asked.

"You're already carrying the machine gun," Tucker pointed out. "It may be necessary to split up and be out of each other's sight. I won't, however, have us cut into three separate units. You'll always be with either Jimmy or me, and when we've gone two different ways, we can keep in contact with these. Later on, of course, we'll need them to get in touch with Paul."

"The copter jockey?" Harris asked.

"Yes."

"I'm anxious to meet him."

"You will before long."

They gathered up everything that had not been in the Buick when they stole the car-the clothes they had taken off, the attaché case in which the three pistols had lain, the bags the clothes they were now wearing had come in, the black greasepaint, all the sales slips-stuffed everything into the tote bag that the walkie-talkies had been in. The bag was filled to bulging.

"Back in a jiffy," Tucker said.

He took a five-minute walk into the woods, much deeper than the car had gone, and, when he felt he was far enough away from the Buick, he heaved the tote bag away into the dark trees. It glanced off a pine trunk, struck something else, landed with a crash in deep greenery and was still. Good enough, then. He went back to the others.

They took ten minutes to wipe down the Buick, inside and out, until they were sure no one would pick up any prints from it. They had not worried about prints on the stolen Chevy and Dodge that had been wracked up in Baglio's estate the day before, because they knew that Baglio would have those wrecks tucked away and that the police would never have a chance to go over them. This was different, for the Buick would be abandoned here and would eventually be returned to its proper owner. Though Harris's fingerprints were on file, neither Shirillo nor Tucker had been inked into public records yet. Shirillo was too young to have been caught yet; Tucker was simply too careful. Also, Tucker had never been printed in his real identity as the man with the penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, and he most likely never would be; the rich are seldom subjected to that kind of humiliation unless the case against them is as tight as an angry fist, and Tucker intended to be perfectly law-abiding in his real identity. Printed as Tucker, then, his true name and background could be kept a secret, even if he was arrested and had to serve time-although, once out on bail, he could ditch the Tucker name forever and slip back into the Park Avenue world without much worry about being traced and apprehended. As Tucker, however, having his prints on file would severely limit his mobility.

Tucker shut the last open door of the Buick, using his handkerchief to keep it clean. He put the handkerchief in his pocket and turned to Shirillo. "Time?"

Shirillo looked at his watch in the pale yellow glow of the flashlight, and he said, "A quarter to three."

"Plenty of time," Tucker said.

Around them, the darkness was complete when Shirillo flicked off the light. The thickly criss-crossed boughs of the pines even held back the dim brightness of the stars.

Tucker said, "Have we forgotten anything?" He knew that they had not, but he wanted to give Pete Harris the feeling that he was helping to guide the operation.

No one responded.

Checking the flimsy rubber surgical gloves which they'd all put on when they'd changed clothes, Tucker said, "Let's go, then. We've got a good piece of walking to do, and we can use the flashlight for only about half of it."