“This” was high-tenacity Kevlar XP bullet-resistant body armor that I strapped around my torso and camouflaged with an angora sweater. When I finished, I took the Beretta from my junk drawer, checked the load, and slipped it under my belt behind my right hip.
“Are you supposed to be wearing a bulletproof vest, are you supposed to be carrying a gun?” a guard asked. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
“What rules?” I said.
He didn’t have an answer for that.
I put on my leather coat. The money was still packed in the gym bags, the gym bags strapped to the dolly in the center of my living room. I grabbed the handle and started wheeling it to the back door of my house. I had a remote control hanging from the lock on the window overlooking my unattached garage. I used it to open the garage door.
“There’s no reason for you guys to hang around anymore,” I said.
The guards followed me out of my back door, across the driveway, and into the garage just the same. They stood by and watched while I loaded the dolly and the gym bags into the trunk of the Audi.
“Nice car,” one of them said.
If he had offered me ten bucks, I would have sold the Audi and all of its contents to him right then and there. Because he didn’t, I unlocked the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel.
“Good luck,” the guard said and closed the door for me. He smiled like I was a patient about to be wheeled into surgery; smiled like he felt sorry for me.
I put the key in the ignition, started up the car, depressed the clutch, put the transmission in reverse, and—sat there for five seconds, ten, fifteen …
Why are you doing this? my inner voice asked. Are you crazy?
The guard watched me through the window, an expression of concern mixed with puzzlement on his face.
“McKenzie, are you okay?” he asked.
“Never better,” I said.
I slowly released the clutch and backed the Audi out of my driveway.
*
The artnappers had chosen the location wisely—a motel overlooking Interstate 694 within minutes of three freeways and three major highways. Make the exchange and boom, the thieves would have quick access to the 2,950 miles of U.S., state, and county thoroughfares that crisscrossed the Twin Cities in a pattern as complicated as a cobweb. If things didn’t work out, they’d also have half a dozen shopping malls to hide in as well.
There were two levels to the motel. The doors to the rooms on the bottom level opened onto the asphalt lot—you could park directly in front of them. The doors to the rooms on top opened onto a metal and concrete landing that ran the length of the motel. There was a square window next to each door. Two staircases led to the upper level, one to each side of the motel. A second, smaller structure was separated from the actual motel and contained the office, a bar, a restaurant and several banquet rooms. There was a small swimming pool between the two structures that was surrounded by a tall iron fence. The pool was filled with snow—it was January, after all. The sight of it made me feel a bit sad.
I parked between a pair of white lines painted on the asphalt directly in front of the office and turned off the engine as I had been instructed.
The artnappers could be working it in a number of different ways, I decided. They could have followed me from my house, although that wasn’t likely. Since my conversation with Heavenly Petryk, I had become ultra careful about that. Or they could have already checked into the motel and were watching me now. Hell, they could have been sitting on the motel for days watching the traffic, getting a sense when it was normal and when it wasn’t. Or they could be somewhere else, across the freeway perhaps, sitting in a car with a pair of binoculars. What else could they do?
I sat in the Audi, my cell phone in my hand, my coat open so I could reach the Beretta in a hurry. I had powered down the driver’s window to keep the interior glass from fogging over. It was cold, but not too cold—about twenty-eight degrees. Granted, it was a temperature that would freak out most people. On the other hand, I went to San Antonio in February a couple of years ago to play golf. It was seventy degrees down there, and most of the natives were dressed in coats and sweaters and wore hats and gloves. My buddies and I were dressed in shorts and polo shirts. This old guy looked at us and said, “You boys aren’t from around here, are ya?” It’s all about what you’re used to. Twenty-eight in the middle of January—we’ll take that in Minnesota every time.
A good half hour passed, and I was beginning to think that it was another dry run when the cell phone sang to me.