Blindside - By Gj Moffat Page 0,94

on to the sidewalk. His legs looked steady enough for a man reeking of booze.

Webb looked at Grange.

Grange turned to the two agents behind him.

‘Let’s go,’ he told them, moving towards the door of the room.

‘Get them out of that truck,’ Webb told him. ‘Ruiz and Martinez can cover the sedan.’

Grange nodded.

The three men left Webb alone in the room. He turned and saw the homeless man standing outside the diner. The man was looking at something in his hand, appeared to be prodding a finger at it. Webb leaned in to have a closer look, but the definition on the picture was too grainy close up to make much of it.

The driver of the pick-up looked at his vibrating phone. Saw that it was Raines calling. He didn’t answer the phone, turned to the two men in the rear of the cab and nodded. The two men opened their doors and got out, walking round to the bed of the truck. One of them pulled at the canvas cover, exposing the weapons underneath.

The other man reached under the cover and grabbed two of the handguns, slipping them into the rear waistband of his jeans. After that, he picked up the rifles and moved to get back in the truck. The man holding the canvas cover reached in and took the other two handguns.

Back in the truck, each of the four men took a handgun, checked that the magazine was full and that the slide mechanisms were working. The two men in the rear of the cab sat with the rifles across their laps.

Grange came out of the building on to the street and saw the homeless man open the door of the diner across the road. He stopped briefly, watching the man. The two agents came out behind him and Grange forgot about the homeless man.

They walked briskly to the corner of the building at the end of the street and stopped. Grange took his gun from its holster and gripped it with both hands, bringing the gun up until it was just under his chin. The two men copied him. Grange turned to them.

‘We go out together,’ he said. ‘You guys move to cover the sides of the truck and I’ll cover the front. Any movement you don’t like, anything you see you don’t like, you shoot.’

The men nodded.

‘On three.’

Grange held a hand up with three fingers extended. He started to count down silently from three.

Webb’s voice sounded in Ruiz’s car. They were stationary at the intersection, watching the men in the sedan.

‘Get the men in that sedan out and secured. Grange is covering the truck.’

‘Copy,’ Ruiz said, opening his door and stepping out on to the street.

Martinez got out after him on the other side of the car. They drew their weapons and started towards the sedan.

The driver of the sedan was looking at his phone as it glowed in the car. The driver of the pick-up truck was calling. That meant it was time.

‘Get the guns out of the trunk,’ he told his passenger.

The passenger nodded and opened his door. The driver reached around to the floor behind his seat and picked up a handgun.

He looked in his rearview mirror and saw the two FBI agents approaching at a fast walk, their guns raised. He reached over to grab his passenger, but the man had stepped out of the car.

He heard them shouting.

‘Freeze. FBI.’

22

Grange moved quickly to stand directly in front of the truck, maybe eight feet from the front grille. He raised his weapon and pointed at the driver’s head through the windscreen.

The two agents with him ran to their positions on either side of the truck, level with the front doors. They trained their guns on the men in the rear seats.

No one in the truck moved.

‘FBI,’ Grange shouted. ‘All of you in the truck slowly put your hands out of the windows where I can see them.’

Still no one moved.

‘Do it now.’

Ruiz stopped after shouting his warning and aimed his gun at the back of the headrest of the driver’s seat of the sedan. Martinez was focused on the passenger who had stepped away from the car by about three feet. The man stood still with his hands by his side. He held a gun in one hand.

‘Driver,’ Ruiz shouted. ‘Hands out of the window slowly. Do it now.’

The passenger looked from Martinez to Ruiz and into the car.

The driver made no move to put his hands out of the window.

Ruiz felt like