Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

If they get the call, the plan is in place.

If they don’t, they’re going to have to improvise, and no one wants that. So it’s a tense six minutes. Especially for O-Bop. He’s the one doing the work right now, the one who can fuck it all up if he gets himself spotted, who has to stay where he can see them but they don’t see him. He lays off at varying distances. A block, two blocks. He gives a left-turn signal and flips his headlights off for a second so he looks like a different car when he turns them back on.

O-Bop works it.

While Little Peaches sits, sweating, an hour and a half south on the 5.

For three minutes.

Four.

Big Peaches is in a booth at Denny’s off the highway, just a little north of Little Peaches. He’s scarfing down a cheese omelet, home fries, toast and coffee. Mickey don’t like them eating before a job-a full stomach complicates things if you get shot-but Peaches is like, Fuck that. He don’t want to jinx himself by taking precautions about what if he gets shot. He polishes off the greasy potatoes, takes two Rolaids out of his pocket and chews on them while he looks at the sports section.

Five minutes.

Callan tries not to look at his watch.

He’s lying on the bed in a motel room at the Ortega Highway exit, off the 5. Got HBO on and he’s watching some movie he don’t even know what it is. No point in him sitting out there on a bike in the cold. If the couriers get on the 5 there’ll be plenty of time. Looking at his watch ain’t gonna change anything, it’s just gonna make him nervous. But after what seems to be about ten minutes he gives in and looks.

Five and a half minutes.

Mickey don’t look at his watch. The call will come when it comes. He’s sitting in a car parked at the Oceanside Transportation Center. He smokes a cigarette and goes through in his head what happens if the couriers don’t take the 5. Then what they should do is call it off, wait for the next time. But Peaches ain’t gonna let them do that, so they’ll have to scramble. Try to guess the route from the info that O-Bop’s giving them and find a way to get ahead of the courier car and then figure out a place to take them down.

Cowboy-and-Indian stuff. He don’t like it.

But he won’t look at his watch.

Six minutes.

Little Peaches is about to yank.

A million in cash on the line and The phone rings.

“We’re good,” he hears O-Bop say.

He presses the restart button on his watch. One hour and twenty-eight minutes is the average drive time from the on-ramp to this exit. Then he calls Peaches, who picks the phone up without taking his eyes off the paper.

“We’re good.”

Peaches checks his watch, calls Callan and orders a piece of cherry pie.

Callan gets the call, coordinates his watch, phones Mickey, then gets up and takes a long, hot shower. There’s no hurry and he wants to be loose and relaxed, so he stands in there awhile and lets the steaming water pound his shoulders and the back of his neck. He can feel the adrenaline start to build, but he don’t want it to get too high too soon. So he makes himself take the time to shave slowly and carefully, and he feels good when he notices that his hand isn’t shaking.

He also takes his time dressing. Slowly puts on black jeans, a black T-shirt and a black sweatshirt. Black socks, black biker boots, a Kevlar vest. Then the black leather jacket, tight black gloves. He heads out. He paid in cash the night before and signed in with a fake name, so he just leaves the key in the room and locks the door behind him.

O-Bop’s job is easier now. Not easy, but easier, as he can lay back a good distance from the courier car and get closer only as they get near off-ramps. He has to make sure that they don’t throw a curve and exit onto the 57 or the 22, or Laguna Beach Road or the Ortega Highway. But it seems like Peaches’ hunch was right, these guys are headed straight up the gut-they’re staying on the main road all the way down to Mexico. So O-Bop eases back, and now he can talk on the phone without fear of getting spotted, so he fills Little Peaches in on the details: “Blue BMW, UZ 1 832. Three guys. Briefcases in the trunk.” This last bit ain’t great news, as it causes an extra step once they’ve taken the car down, but of course Mickey made them practice this option so O-Bop ain’t too worried about it.

Mickey worries.

That’s what Mickey does. He worries and waits until the Amtrak window opens, then he goes in and pays cash for a one-way fare to San Diego. Then he walks over to the Greyhound station and buys a ticket to Chula Vista. Then he goes back to his car and waits. And worries. They’ve practiced this dozens of times, but he still worries. Too many variables, too many what if's. What if there’s a traffic jam, what if there’s a state trooper parked nearby, what if there’s a backup car and we don’t see it? What if someone gets shot? What if, what if, what if…

“If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle,” is what Peaches had said to all these worries. Now he finishes his pie, has another cup of coffee, leaves cash for the bill and tip (the tip just the right amount-not too small, not too large; he don’t want to be remembered for any reason), and goes out to his car. Takes the gun out of the glove compartment, holds it low in his lap and checks the load. All the bullets are still there, like he thought they’d be, but it’s a habit, a reflex. Peaches has this horror of going to pull the trigger someday and hearing the dry click of an empty chamber. He straps the gun into his ankle holster and likes its comfortable weight as he starts the car and steps on the gas pedal.

Now they’re all in place: Little Peaches off Calafia Road; Peaches on the Ortega Highway exit; Callan on his bike, waiting at the Beach Cities exit in Dana Point; Mickey at the Oceanside Transportation Center; O-Bop on the 5, following the courier car.

All in place.

Waiting for the stagecoach.

Which rolls right into the ambush.

O-Bop gets on the phone. “One half-mile out.”

Little Peaches sees the car come past. Lowers his binoculars, hits the cell phone. “Now.”

Callan pulls out onto the highway. “I’m on.”

Peaches: “Got it.”

Mickey starts a new chrono.

Callan sees the car in his rearview mirror and slows down a little and lets it pass him. No one in the car gives him so much as a glance. A lone biker headed south in the predawn darkness. It’s twenty minutes to the empty stretch at Pendleton, where he wants to do it, so he drops back a little but keeps the car’s taillights in sight. The commuter traffic is headed mostly north, not south, and the few cars that are headed their way will thin out even more as they leave the southernmost Orange County town of San Clemente.

They pass Basilone Road, then the famous surfing beaches called Trestles, then the two domes of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, then the Border Patrol checkpoint that blocks off the northbound lanes of the 5 and then it gets empty and quiet. Nothing on their right except sand dunes and ocean, which are now beginning to emerge in the faint light as the rays of the sun start to appear on the left over Black Mountain, which dominates the Camp Pendleton landscape.

Callan has a mike and a headset inside his motorcycle helmet.

He utters a single word: “Go?”

Mickey answers, “Go.”

Callan twists the accelerator, leans forward to cut down the wind resistance and speeds toward the courier car. Pulls beside almost exactly where he’d planned-on the long straightaway just short of the long right curve that sweeps toward the ocean.

The driver sees him at the last possible second. Callan sees his eyes widen in surprise, and then the car lurches forward as the driver steps on the gas. He’s not worried about getting stopped by a cop now, he’s worried about getting killed, and the Beamer surges ahead.