Diesel and I sat down at Cuddles’s table, and Cuddles didn’t look happy to see us.
“This table is for paying customers,” Cuddles said.
“We might be paying,” Diesel told him.
“Oh?”
“We need some X-12 King rockets.”
“You and everybody else. Those are very pop u lar rockets. Very versatile. How many?”
“Twenty-three,” Diesel said.
Cuddles worked his straw around, trying to get the last dregs of milk shake into his gut. “How soon?”
“Now.”
“Hah, that’s funny. It’ll take a week, minimum.”
“I haven’t got a week,” Diesel said. “Where do I go to get them now?”
“How about Canada?”
“Do you remember the conversation we had earlier today?”
“The one about breaking every bone in my body and then sucking my fat out with a Shop-Vac and shoving it up my ass?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Eeuw,” I said.
“Brytlin Technologies might have some Kings. They design some of the payload for the BlueBec sounding rocket, and the King is essentially a miniature BlueBec. It can be used to do more eco nom ical preliminary testing.”
Diesel stood. “You’re going to call me when you hear from Wulf.”
“Yes.”
I didn’t say anything until we got back to the Subaru. I buckled myself in and looked at Diesel.
“Suck his fat out with a Shop-Vac and shove it up his ass?”
“It was one of those inspired thoughts.”
“How are we going to get the rockets from Brytlin?” I asked Diesel. “It’s Monday morning. It’s not like we can waltz in and buy them.”
“We’re not going to buy them.”
I felt my eyebrows go up to my hairline. “Oh no. No, no, no. I’m not going to steal rockets. And the whole place is on camera. Remember when Munch left with the magnetometer, and they got him on tape?”
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”
“Oh boy. A plan.”
Diesel cruised the mall lot. “The first thing we have to do is steal a car.”
“What?”
“The Subaru can be traced to Flash, so we don’t want to park it in the Brytlin lot.” He pulled in next to an old Econoline van. “This’ll work. It’ll be easy to load the rockets into this.”
“We’re going to jail,” I said. “I’m going to have to use one of those steel toilets without a seat.”
Diesel was out of the Subaru. “I wouldn’t let that happen,” he said. “I’d make sure you got a good toilet.” He opened the driver’s side door, got behind the wheel, and turned the engine over.
“How did you do that?” I asked him.
“They left the key in the ignition. Get in.”
I moped around to the passenger seat. “I’m going to be really mad at you if I get arrested.”
“It could be worse,” Diesel said. “You could be Gail Scanlon.”
I looked at the ignition. No key.
“There’s no key in the ignition,” I said. “How did you start the van?”
Diesel held his finger up.
“You started the car with your finger?”
“Yep. And that’s nothing. You should see what this finger can do on a G-spot.”
“Good grief.”
Diesel backed out of the parking space and took the exit to Route 1. “Put the hood up on the sweatshirt and pull the drawstring tight so no one can see your face.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t photograph.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. It’s just one of those weird things.”
“Like your finger?”
“Sweetie, my finger isn’t weird. It’s magic.”
BRYTLIN OCCUPIES A seven-acre campus just off Route 1 and is centrally located in a sprawling corridor of technology companies. Diesel wound his way through the parking lots, looking at the redbrick buildings, scoping it all out.
“Ordnance wouldn’t be kept in the main office building,” he said. “They have two buildings on the perimeter of their campus that look to me like maintenance facilities. I’m guessing our rockets are kept in one of them.”
Both buildings had a regular door in the front and garage doors in the rear. Diesel backed the van up to one of the garage doors.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Are you insane? You can’t just walk in and steal rockets during business hours!”
“No one’s over here.”
“Yeah, but there could be someone inside.”
“Then I’ll deal with it.”
He opened a garage door, slipped into the building, and minutes later, he reappeared with an armful of rockets. I jumped out of the van and opened the back door for him. He slid the rockets into the van and ran back for more. He loaded a total of twelve rockets into the van and closed the garage door.
“That’s all they had,” he said. “Get in the van. I’m going to check out the other building.” Diesel drove to the other building, parked, ran inside, and instantly returned. “Just lawn mowers and snowblowers in there.”
We returned to Route 1, and Diesel called Flash.
“I’m looking for eleven X-12 King rockets. See if any of the research labs on the tech corridor bordering Princeton have anything. If you can’t find any there, try north Jersey.”
Diesel drove the van back to the mall, and immediately we saw the flashing lights. A single cop car was parked in the lane behind Diesel’s Subaru. We were two lanes over, and we could see a scruffy young guy talking to a cop, gesturing to the empty parking space where his van used to be parked.
Diesel slid from behind the wheel. “Drive the van to the other side of the mall by the food court. I’ll get the Subaru and meet you there.”
I climbed behind the wheel and drove to the food court entrance. I found a parking spot with an empty space next to it and parked the van but left it at idle. If I turned it off, I wouldn’t be able to get it back on without Diesel. I tied the hood tighter around my face and gripped the wheel. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that at any moment I might throw up. I was sitting in a hot van with twelve stolen rockets.
A few minutes later, Diesel eased the Subaru into the spot next to the van. We transferred the rockets from the van to the Subaru, cut the engine on the van, locked its doors, and drove away in the Subaru. The perfect crime.
“Are you okay?” Diesel asked me.
“Sure. I’m peachy. And you?”
“I’m good.”
He stopped the SUV at the edge of the lot, untied the hood, and pushed it back off my face.
“You look like you’re going to faint,” he said. “Your face is white and your eyes are glassy.”
“I’ve never stolen rockets before. I’m pretty sure it’s against the law. And what if they explode?”
“They aren’t going to explode. They’re just shells. No fuel. No payload. No explosive device.”
We sat for a few more minutes, waiting to hear back from Flash. When the call came in, it was negative. He hadn’t been able to locate any companies that might have X-12 Kings.
“Call Wulf back and tell him you have his rockets,” Diesel said.
I punched Wulf’s callback, and he answered on the first ring.
“I have your rockets,” I said. “Now what?”
“Do you have all twenty-three?”
“No. I could only find twelve.”
Silence.
“This is as good as it’s going to get,” I said. “There are no more in the area.”
“There’s an envelope in locker 2712 at the train station. Get the envelope and read the instructions.”
“Do I need a key?”
“No. You need Diesel to open the locker.”
THE TRENTON TRAIN station is to the south of center city. As with most of Trenton, it’s a
mixed neighborhood where busy commuters can mingle with hookers and muggers and various interesting bag people. It was just past noon, and traffic was slow around the station.
Rather than chance sitting in short-term parking with a car full of rockets, Diesel had me drive around the block while he ran into the station and retrieved the instructions. I picked him up after two laps, and I drove us to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. We got a bucket of extra-crispy, extra-spicy fried chicken and opened the envelope.
The first instruction was that Diesel was not allowed to participate, that I had to run through the directions without him. I would be directed to five different locations and closely watched. The fifth location would be the drop where I would exchange the rockets for Gail Scanlon.
“I know Wulf. He doesn’t care about the rockets,” Diesel said. “This is a way to get you. He’s going to lead you around, and in the end, you’re going to have to deliver the rockets to him. And when you deliver the rockets, he’s going to turn you over to Munch.”
“Do you think he’ll really kill Gail if I don’t cooperate?”
“Hard to say. Wulf doesn’t usually kill innocent people, but he’ll kill if it’s justified in his mind.”
“Is there a way you can watch me without Wulf detecting you?”
“No. I flunked invisibility.”
“I’ll be okay until I get to the fifth location. I’ll take Lula with me, since he didn’t say anything about Lula. And I’ll use the Buick, so Ranger can track me. I can keep in phone contact with you. And we can reevaluate after the fourth location.”
Diesel dumped his half-eaten chicken breast back into the bucket, wiped his hands on his jeans, and cranked the engine.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. “It’s ruining my appetite.”
Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky
TWENTY-ONE
I HAD THE twelve rockets rammed into the Buick’s trunk. Problem was, they didn’t entirely fit.
“Should I tie a red flag on one of them?” I asked Diesel. “I don’t want to get stopped by the police.”
“You need more than a red flag. You’ve got stolen rockets hanging out of the back of a Buick. We need to wrap them.”
Ten minutes later, I had the rockets wrapped in my only quilt.
“I’ve got an open line to Rangeman control room,” Diesel said. “And I’ve got another line open for you. I’ll be on the road, following you from a safe distance.”
Lula’s Firebird swung into my lot and parked next to the Buick.
“Is that the rockets all wrapped up in the quilt?” Lula asked. “That’s real pretty. No one would guess they’re rockets.”
That was true. Most people would guess dead body. Lula and I got into the Buick, and I drove out of my lot to Hamilton.
“I’m supposed to go to the corner of Broad and Third to get directions,” I told Lula.
“I know that block. The corner of Broad and Third is a 7-Eleven.”
I turned onto Broad, and two blocks later, I was at the 7-Eleven on Third. A man in a khaki uniform was waiting in the lot. I pulled up to him and identified myself. He looked in the Buick, then he gave me another envelope.
“I need one of them big pretzels and a drink,” Lula said. “You want anything?”
“No.”
“Just park over there by the post,” Lula said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“I don’t think I fit in that spot.”
“Sure you do. Back up real slow.”
A ’53 Buick is a whale. There’s no real beginning and no end. It’s like parking a giant sub sandwich. I inched back and crunch.
“Uh-oh,” Lula said, turning in her seat, looking out the rear window. “I think you dented one of Mr. Wulf’s rockets. Maybe you need to pull forward a little. Do you want me to go around and take a look?”
“No! I want you to get your pretzel so we can get on with it.”
I called Diesel and told him the next address. It was a motel on the outskirts of Bordentown.
“He’s taking you south,” Diesel said. “He’s going to bring you to the Barrens.”
“Okay” Lula said, back in the Buick with her drink and her pretzel. “I’m ready to go. You always need food like this on a road trip.”
“This isn’t a road trip,” I told her. “We’re ransoming Gail Scanlon from a scary maniac.”
“Yeah, but I need to keep my strength up in case we need to kick ass.”
Another uniformed man was waiting for me at the motel. He got into the back of the Buick and directed me to a light industrial park just off Interstate 295. I couldn’t call Diesel, but I knew I was a blip on Ranger’s screen, and I suspected Diesel was close. I wound through the industrial park to a ware house. A bay door rolled up, and I was told to drive in.
“I don’t think so,” Lula said to the guy in the backseat. “We don’t do none of this drive into a ware house shit. Someone wants to see us, they gonna have to come out.”
The uniform got on his phone and relayed the message. There was an entire conversation in Spanish. A man peeked out from the ware house, looked us over, and retreated. More Spanish. Finally, a shiny black van pulled out of the ware house and drove up next to us.
Four men got out of the black van, removed the rockets from the Buick, and loaded them into the van.
“This was easy,” Lula said to me. “We didn’t have to worry after all. We didn’t even have to go to all five locations. I might need to get another pretzel on the way home.”
I wasn’t that optimistic. I saw five uniformed guys with guns strapped to their sides. Two of them had assault rifles hanging on their shoulders.
“Now you will get out,” the one uniform said to me.
“No way” Lula said. “You got your rockets. We’re gonna go get more pretzels now.”
Everyone aimed a sidearm at me.
“Okay” Lula said. “We don’t need more pretzels, anyway.”
“You can stay with this car,” the uniform said to Lula. “This other one will go with us.”
Okay, I said to myself, so I go with these guys, they take me to the Pine Barrens, and Wulf gives me over to Martin Munch. How bad could it be? He probably isn’t operating at peak efficiency after that shot I gave him in the nuts. Maybe he’d be happy watching Star Trek reruns. Maybe he’s just lonely.
“It’s okay” I said to Lula. “I’ll be fine. Take the Buick back to my apartment.”
I was guided into the back of the van and sat between two of the armed men. No one spoke for the duration of the ride. There were no side windows. No windows in the rear doors. It was difficult to see the route through the windshield from where I sat. Once we were in the Barrens, it was all trees.
The ugly truth is that I’ve had my share of terrible moments since I’ve become a bounty hunter. I’ve managed to survive them, and while I wish none of them had ever happened, I have to admit there are things I’ve learned. I’ve learned that one of my best traits is that I’m resilient. And I’ve learned that fear is a normal reaction to danger. And I know for certain that panic is the enemy. So I sat in the truck and I tried to keep it together.
I felt the road change from smooth pavement to rutted dirt. Occasionally, I would hear the scrape of brush on the side of the van. I checked my watch. We’d been on the dirt road for ten minutes. The van took a right turn, and after a couple minutes, we entered a cleared area and stopped.
We all got out of the van, and I looked around. The clearing was small. Nothing that would attract attention from aerial surveillance. A crude, one-story, cinder-block building had been erected at the edge of the clearing. Maybe 1,500 square feet. The size of my apartment. It looked like new construction. Nothing fancy. Utilitarian windows and doors. Tin roof. Single metal pipe chimney sticking up out of the roof. The land around the building was raw. No grass, no flowers, no shrubs to soften the landscape. Gravel had been dumped and graded to make a drive court and walkway to the building.
“What is this?” I asked one of the uniforms.
“House,” he said.
Kind of grim for a house, I thought. The Easter Bunny’s trailer was more appealing than this.