Chapter 40
COBB WORE A convincing fake beard, dark this time, to hide his scars. With the hood of his green rain jacket up, he left a pizza joint a mile north of the Huntington Beach Pier. For a moment he was back in those desert mountains hearing the children and women cry, hearing their husbands begging for mercy when pity was long dead and gone. What had they wanted from him? What had they expected?
They expected us to die, Cobb thought coldly. They all expected us to die and crumble to dust.
That thought turned to blazing anger. They abandoned us. They tried to bury us. Well, guess what, we’re not dead, and we’re taking what we’re due.
In a blind rage now, he punched in a number on a throwaway cell phone, said, “You ready, Mr. Stern?”
“We’re going to rip this,” Stern promised.
“We’re counting on it,” Cobb said. “And tell Mr. Allen, go big or go home. We’ll find someone else.”
Stern’s voice cooled. “You just make sure you hit the record button.”
“Oh, we will,” Cobb assured him. “Twenty-five seconds.”
“Synced, ready to launch.”
Cobb hung up, checked the time. It was eight fifty-eight.
He punched in a second number, poised his thumb above SEND.
We go big here, he thought. Or we all go home the hardest way possible.