Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

“You have many talents,” Evan said. “Singing is not one of them.”

“In my haste to show up Sloane , I might have forgotten that. And she was all like, ‘What?’—acting like she didn’t know what she was doing, which she totally did. And her friends all rallied around her, playing the victim. And then she got all in my face and I told her to back off and she didn’t so I moved her away. And I barely even used an elbow lock—”

“You used an elbow lock on a girl named Sloane?”

“Not really. More like a gesture. Certainly not enough to ‘trigger’ her or whatever she said. So then it was the crybully Olympics all over again with rich white-girl snowflakery on full display.”

Wind buffeted the truck, the steering wheel insistent against his palms. “So,” Evan said. “An eventful night.”

“I can only hope that Bicks will find my lack of talent and rough edges charming in a hapless rom-com-heroine kind of way.”

“Was that your read on him after?”

She considered. “He seemed simultaneously attracted to and terrified of me.”

“That’s a good description of how most guys feel around an impressive young woman.”

“‘Impressive young woman.’ Gawd. You’re so geriatric.”

But he could read her face, the way her eyes pinched up by the temples—she was taken with the compliment.

They reached the truck stop, and he exited the freeway and drifted to the parking lot. In the middle of a lineup of eighteen-wheelers, a semi-trailer waited with its rear roll-up door hoisted. Tommy Stojack sat in the back with his jungle boots dangling, Camel Wide screwed into his mouth beneath that biker’s mustache.

As they coasted up to him, he flicked the butt away and rose creakingly. Aggrieved knees and ankles from too many rough parachute landings, bad hearing from too many demolition charges, a half finger missing on his left hand from some undisclosed mishap—Tommy had made it through his service reduced but undaunted. Evan and Tommy had never shared particulars about their respective pasts, but since their first meeting they’d understood that they were birds of a feather. Tommy provided weapon prototyping, fabrication, proof of concept, and R&D to a number of government-sanctioned spec-ops groups and did the same for Evan despite his highly unsanctioned status.

Before getting out of his truck, Evan leaned into the backseat and grabbed a red medical sharps-waste-disposal container, which gave off a weighty clunk. As he and Joey approached, Tommy stood on the high tailgate, another cigarette already plugged into his face. His bottom lip bulged out with chewing tobacco, and a cup of coffee rested on the metal at his feet; he was never one to skimp on stimulants.

Backlit, Tommy crossed his arms and gazed down at them, his stare lighting on Evan’s swollen eye. “You look like a bag of smashed asshole.”

At Evan’s back Joey giggled.

Evan said, wearily, “Language.”

39Hold This

Tommy hoisted Evan and Joey up into the back of the semi-trailer. Four feet inside, a steel partition rose like a vault door. As with everything else in Tommy’s orbit, the trailer was customized.

“You’re lucky to catch me on my way to Santa Maria.” Tommy winked. “Seeing a man about a horse.”

Evan knew the costs of allowing Tommy to get off topic, but Joey, relatively new to him, said, “What’s that mean?”

“Got a crusty old designated marksman buddy, been around since Jesus was a corporal.” Tommy waved an arm, giving off a waft of tobacco, heavily leaded coffee, and Ivory soap. “Got his early training with MAC/SOG in Vietnam. He engineered the new polymer-cased ammo that DoD is all hot and bothered about and invited me to test-fire it.”

Joey’s eyes widened with delight. Evan just shook his head.

“So that’s, like, your life?” she said. “You get to just cruise around and test cool new stuff for the government?”

“Hell, D.C. needs all the help they can get,” Tommy said. “Half of those oxygen thieves are peacenik bliss-ninnies, and the other half’s busy moonlighting as Putin’s cockholster.”

Evan was going to protest, but he’d run out of energy, and besides, Joey was rapt. Her excited eyes flashed over to him. “This guy’s a total upgrade from you, X.”

Tommy gave her an approving tap on the shoulder. “Yeah, well, unless you’re the lead sled dog, the view never changes.”

He shot Evan a smirk, then fussed with a huge ring of keys, found one to his liking, and unlocked the metal door. Before opening it he sucked his Camel Wide down a good half inch, the cherry crackling, then dropped it out onto the pile of butts below the tailgate. “Can’t be doing respiratory therapy in the boom room.” His grin showed off the gap between his two front teeth. “Step into my office.”

The walls inside the trailer were lined with weaponry and ammo crates, plastic explosives and rocket launchers, everything strapped down.

As Tommy closed the door behind them, Joey looked around with wonder. “Is that detasheet? You can’t have that much explosive just, like, out on the road.”

“Whoa, girlie.” Again with that gap-toothed grin, a gleam coming up beneath his watery blue eyes. “Better pack a lunch, I want to keep up with this one, huh, Evan?”

Evan held out the red sharps waste bucket, the used ARES frames rattling inside. “Tommy, we’re on a clock. I need you to slag these and get me new—”

But Tommy’s attention had fastened onto Joey, his worn-leather face softening. “An old Zen master once told me that high explosives are sorta like relationships. You either get too much too soon or not enough when you really need it. Either way you’re screwed—and not how you want to be.”

Evan said, “Old Zen masters are into explosives, are they?”

“Hey, you don’t gotta wear saffron robes to practice the Lotus Blossom.”

“I think that’s a Kama Sutra position.”

Tommy waved him off. “Same difference.”

Joey had moved deeper into the trailer, running her fingers across a wooden box of Chinese antitank blast mines. “How do you get all this?”

Tommy turned his focus to a set of built-in metal drawers on the starboard side. “I been pressing trigger since Lyndon Johnson was showing off his donkey cock in the Oval—”

“Uh, gross .”

“—which means I’ve earned the trust of a lotta the secret-handshake folks. I got more BATFE permits than I can shake a middle finger at. And the land-mine trade”—Tommy nodded at the Chinese crates—“has been pickin’ up lately. U.S. installations have been peppering the surrounding land with those puppies to dissuade curious lefty protestor types.” He leaned over with a groan, slid open the bottom drawer, pried a matte black ARES 1911 from a foam bed, and held it out to Evan. “I was up at stupid o’clock, so I only had time to machine you up one. I’ll get you more later.”

Evan weighed the pistol’s heft. Fierce eighteen-lines-per-inch front-frame checkering, specialized Simonich gunner grips, high-ride beavertail grip safety. Designed to Evan’s specs, it fit in his palm like an extension of his hand.

“I need new ammo, too,” Evan said. “Something soft-armor defeating.”

“Soft-armor defeating? You got some serious mugwumps after you, huh? I thought you retired.”

“So did we all,” Joey said.

“I am retired,” Evan said.

“Well, as a retirement gift, how ’bout some barrier-blind Black Hills HoneyBadgers.” Tommy toed open another drawer and produced several cartons of ammo. “Picked these puppies up at SHOT Show last year. Designed to penetrate intermediate light barriers and not break up. We’re talking windshields, doors, Sheetrock, body armor—they fly true straight through to point of aim. A hotter load’ll get you through both sides of a IIA vest. But when they hit anything gelatinous?” A whistle escaped that front-tooth gap. “They go hollow-point.” He slammed the cartons down into Evan’s arms. “You’ll be stacking bodies like they’re cordwood.”