“It’s for security purposes, sir,” answered Lisa curtly. “Perhaps you should leave. I hear the local authorities take trespassing charges very seriously.”
The tired man in the khakis ignored their bickering, reached into his pocket, and took out his plump calfskin wallet, which was old and bent out of shape.
“How much do you think I should give?” he asked. “What’s the right amount? A hundred dollars?”
He slipped a well-seasoned hundred-dollar bill out of his creaky wallet—and it fell almost immediately out of his hands to the grassy earth by Lisa’s feet.
“Nice coordination, buddy,” quipped the asshole behind him.
Lisa knelt down to pick up the hundred-dollar bill for him, and the man in the khakis brought his wallet down on top of her scalp with the full force of his weight. The wallet was thick and bent out of shape because it was stuffed with coins, and when it struck her scalp some of the coins spilled out and to the ground. Her blood soon joined them.
Still crouched, she gazed up at him, confused, even a little sad, and he brought the wallet down again against her face. It took two more blows before she was unconscious, and three more blows before he’d cracked her skull.
Then Galileo glanced over at the other guy, the guy in the hat, the guy who’d given Lisa such a hard time.
Finishing him off was a lot easier.
Galileo wasn’t especially fond of such guerilla tactics. They were messy, and bordered on barbaric, but he naturally hadn’t been allowed to bring a gun on the plane, so this method had to suffice for now. Also, this way created little noise, and didn’t alert the guards inside the store, not just yet. He also wasn’t concerned about the Lincolns’ chauffeurs because they had gone down the road to get a bite to eat. In fact, he had waited for them to walk off before he’d parked his rental.
He removed Lisa Penny’s sidearm from her shoulder holster. It was a Heckler & Koch USP. This was a good weapon, well-balanced, large trigger, rubber grip, short recoil. He would have preferred to have his M107 instead, but he would have preferred a lot of things to be different.
In no time at all, he had the two bodies in the trunk of his car. Their eyes stared up at him, but not accusingly. In fact, there was no emotion in them at all. These were pieces of meat.
He tugged on Lisa Penny’s white earpiece and followed its cord to its power pack, tucked in a back pocket, and then followed a second cord to the small communication mic attached to her left wrist. With the apparatus in hand, Galileo slid the receiver into his own ear and listened for a few minutes, hoping the guards had left the frequency open and were idly chatting. From this he would have been able to estimate how many guards there were—but all he heard was silence.
No matter. He’d get them talking. He activated the mic and rubbed it against his pant leg. The swishing sound echoed through his earpiece, magnified, almost resembling the crash of an ocean wave, and then came a voice:
“Lisa? Is that you? Over.”
Galileo answered the request with another wipe of the mic along his khakis.
“What the hell is that?” asked a second guard. His question wasn’t directed into the mic but was instead picked up as ambient noise. He must have been standing near the first guard. Galileo made a mental note: at least two guards inside the gun shop.
“Lisa?” This, again, from the first guard. Probably the leader. “Answer me. Over.”
Fifteen seconds passed.
Finally: “I’m going to check it out,” decided the leader.
Galileo cocked the H&K, left the trunk open, and waited for his quarry to emerge.
The final tally was this: Bob, 502 and Tom, 453.
Ever the sportsman, Bob offered his hand, which Tom gladly shook.
“Looks like your FBI is going to be getting a make-over,” Bob said.
Tom shrugged. “I’m not sure if that’s something I’ll regret.”
Bob smiled, then guffawed.
“I had a feeling,” he said.
They both stared down that hundred-yard alley of their large soundproofed room. Just two men and their guns.
“One more?” offered Tom.
“You didn’t even have to ask.”
They mounted the paper men onto their clips and sent them to their places. They each only had five bullets left, so this round would be abbreviated, but some fun was better than no fun.
Bob glanced at Tom. “Ready?”
Tom donned his earmuffs. Bob donned his, and they took aim at their