My “hell of a plan” is so close to being pulled off—but the cops are closing in on us even faster than I thought!
We can’t get caught, I think. Not now. Not ever. We’ve come so far. We’ve risked so much. To lose it all now—no, no, no—
“…for as long as you both shall live?”
Those familiar words snap me out of my inner panic. I try to compose myself. Those few seconds, I can tell, feel to the congregation like an eternity. What’s she thinking? they must be wondering. Is she having second thoughts?
Far from it.
I want the next words I speak to be completely untarnished. All those years ago, I said them halfheartedly, with doubt and trepidation.
Not this time.
“I do,” I finally say in a sweet whisper, my eyes welling with joyful tears.
“I absolutely do.”
4 minutes, 30 seconds
“Consider each and every one of ’em heavily armed…and willing to die.”
In Mason’s almost twenty years with the FBI, he’s used that phrase to describe a group of suspects only a handful of times.
Once was a radical antigovernment militia group holed up in the punishing Belmont Mountains in western Arizona.
Another time was an Islamic terrorist cell suspected of plotting to blow up a skyscraper in downtown San Antonio.
A third was a band of ex–Mexican Special Forces operatives hired by a Sonora drug cartel to smuggle thirty-six million dollars’ worth of cocaine into Corpus Christi via a decommissioned Soviet submarine. Yes, a submarine.
Now Mason was in dusty little Hobart, Texas, population just over ten thousand, applying that label to a ragtag group of bank robbers and horse-auction plunderers—not to mention suspected gunrunners, drug dealers, and money launderers.
In the past few weeks, Mason explains to his audience, the case has progressed even more rapidly. The Shell station where the anonymous phone call was placed had plenty of security cameras…but they were pointed only at the pumps and inside the convenience store—not at the pay phone out back. (“What’s the damn point of even having them,” Mason grumbled at hearing the news, “if you can’t see everything?”)
Still, the cashier on duty that afternoon remembered the caller well, and was able to provide a vivid description. A sketch was quickly distributed to police stations, post offices, and local newspapers all around the region. Before long, sightings began pouring in.
Right now, Mason is standing at the front of a giant rectangular room, a VFW hall located on the edge of Hobart’s meager downtown. The heels of his cowboy boots click softly on the beige linoleum floor as he paces back and forth, making eye contact with each and every person seated in front of him.
The last time Mason held a multiagency briefing like this, it was in a cramped conference room in a rural police station near the Texas–Oklahoma border.
Today, four times that number of agents, sheriffs, rangers, and officers are gathered around and can still all barely fit.
But that’s not the only difference.
This briefing isn’t solely informational.
It’s also tactical.
“We believe,” Mason says, “the suspects are based on a farm just a few miles from here. Two or more may be blood relatives.”
On the white screen behind him is projected a giant and scarily high-resolution aerial photograph of the rolling land in question: multiple acres of dirt and grass, a few scattered structures (including a small woodshed), and a short driveway leading to a modest farmhouse.
“County records say they’ve owned the land for decades,” Mason continues. “Generations, even. And yet…”
Mason nods at Special Agent Emma Rosenberg, a nerdy, high-strung analyst on loan from the Bureau’s forensic accounting and financial crimes unit—basically a CPA with a badge and gun. She simply blinks at Mason, confused, a deer in the headlights…until she realizes he wants her to speak.
“Uh, yes, right, I apologize,” Rosenberg says nervously, adjusting her chunky plastic-framed glasses. “My investigation has concluded that in twelve of the past sixteen fiscal quarters, following inspection of each putative resident’s aggregate fiscal assets and gross incomes, having compared them against the estate’s total liability, taxable and otherwise—”
“Aw, just spit it out, Agent Poindexter!” says good old Ranger Kim with a smirk. He’s leaning against a side wall, packing a wad of chewing tobacco behind his leathery bottom lip.
Agent Rosenberg bristles. She’s a prim New Englander offended by this Texan’s attitude. “These people,” she replies curtly, a bit of a chill in her voice now, “pay far more in property taxes, upkeep, and bank fees than they earn in reported income.”
“In other words,” Mason says, stepping in to pick up