“If we get down below that ridge and keep going right, you see that hump? We could low-crawl across there and get behind those bushes or trees, or whatever they are, and get back to the generator without being seen.”
“One of us could,” Lucas said. He looked at Rae. “You.”
“Why me?”
“Because if we drive somebody out of the trailer, we’ll need the sniper out front. I’ll call the shot, Sandro will talk to me about it. And if we get spotted, we’d want the machine gun up high and behind the trailer to pick off runners coming out the back.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
* * *
—
THEY BACKED OFF their vantage point, screwed the caps on their bottles of water, talked about the plan, and headed downhill and around behind the ridge that would block the view from the Airstream.
Five minutes later, they were walking back up the ridge, only four hundred yards to the right. Rae took Tremanty’s backpack with a handset and a bottle of water and slid even farther to the right, crouching as she approached the track to the Airstream, eventually going to her knees. She waved once and was out of sight, crossing the track, before heading up the hill to the generator.
Lucas, Tremanty, and Bob crept up the ridge and lay in the skimpy shade provided by a circle of shadscale bushes. They could no longer see Rae, and nothing was moving around the trailer.
Then Rae called: “You were right, Lucas. There’s a generator back here and it’s running. It’s got a lockdown cover on the switch, but I can get at it with a stick. Want me to throw it?”
Lucas looked at Tremanty and Bob. They both nodded. “Throw it,” Lucas said.
A moment later, the vibration stopped, and Rae said, “Done.”
* * *
—
NOTHING HAPPENED for a minute or two, then a door opened and a blond woman looked out and then stepped outside. She looked around for a moment, shaded her eyes, looked down the approach track, went back inside the trailer, came out a moment later and went to the Lexus, got inside and started it, got back out, leaving it running, went back to the trailer, came back a minute later with what looked like a six-pack of beer or soda, and got back in the car.
“I can take out the tires if we need to,” Bob said.
“She is not going anywhere,” Lucas said. “She’s waiting for Deese and the others. They’re all down in Vegas. She’s in the car for the air-conditioning.”
Tremanty: “What do you suggest?”
Lucas said, “I suggest we wait.”
“There’s probably nobody else inside—we could take the trailer,” Tremanty said.
“Too late,” Bob said. They turned toward him and he pointed. A cloud of dust was rising from the track far away, but not too far away, a few miles at most. “If she has a way to call them . . .”
“Okay,” Tremanty said. “We wait. Need to get tight under the bushes.”
Rae called: “You see them?”
“We do. Sit tight.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Deese didn’t feel even mildly bad about Cole, but he felt something. He couldn’t put his finger on it, exactly, but loneliness might have come closest. There was no longer a single person in the world he could talk to. His half brother was dead. He’d shot a man with whom he’d shared a kidnapping and a home invasion. His uncle was a crazy old coot who lived in a shithole shack in a shithole place to whom he could talk to for, like, maybe ten seconds before wanting to shoot his ass, which he planned to do just as soon as he got back. And, finally, his former boss wanted to shoot him.
Then there was Cox. Deese had plans for Cox when she got back to the shithole, plans she wouldn’t survive any more than Gloria Harrelson would. The Nevada desert was the final resting place for hundreds of murdered men, women, and children at least, the unmarked graves stretching out from Las Vegas in both directions along I-15, and they’d simply be filling two more. No problem.
He didn’t dwell on all this, being too busy driving and planning, and he didn’t have a soul for such concerns to cloud over, but the clouds were out there somewhere. Time and cocaine should clear things up.
* * *
—
AFTER KILLING COLE, he’d driven the pickup, following a zigzag route, out to Las Vegas Boulevard, then to the Wynn Las Vegas, where he’d stayed a couple of dozen times and where he was familiar