“Got it,” Moose said.
“Sarah, you and I will be scouting. I want to get an eyeball on every target, and particularly on those two little kids. I've got to figure out a way to get them out of the line of fire and I'm not sure how to go about that just yet.”
“Okay,” Sarah said.
“Now, I don't want the van to be seen around the hotel, so we need to find someplace to use as a base of operations. Neil, see what you can come up with. If you can arrange for us to have a building somewhere by the time we get there, that would be great.”
“Shouldn't be a problem,” Neil said. He took out his phone and began poking at it. “Just scanning over Craigslist for that area, I can see quite a few possibilities. There's an old warehouse building in an industrial park. The rent isn't too bad, not that we really care about that. Privately owned—want me to call them now?”
Noah nodded. “Yes, go ahead. It would be good if we could have it ready to go into tomorrow night, when we get there.”
THREE
The team pulled out the following morning at six AM with Noah and Sarah in the sedan, while Moose drove the van with Neil as his passenger. Despite all of Moose's semi-serious complaints about Neil, it was obvious to everyone who knew them that he really had adopted the skinny kid as a surrogate brother. The two of them often hung out together when they were between missions, and had already taken their respective girlfriends on double dates.
The trip to Columbia was almost a straight shot across Interstate 70, after an hour's driving on Colorado Route 71. They stopped for lunch in a little Kansas town near Salina, grabbing cheeseburgers and getting back on the road almost immediately, and didn't stop again until they hit Kansas City. They were all ready for a break by that time, so they stopped for a decent dinner and finally made it to Columbia at just before seven PM.
Neil had made the deal to rent the warehouse building, paying the first month’s rent and deposit with a credit card over the phone the night before. The keys would be in a lock box that used a digital code, so they went straight to it when they arrived.
It wasn't a bad warehouse, but the little industrial park it sat in had seen better days. Most of the buildings were empty, so no one paid the four of them any attention as they collected the keys and parked the van inside. There were a number of workbenches scattered around there, and Neil commandeered one for the printer. Moose carried it over and set it up for him, and then they locked the building up again and went to find a hotel.
There was a decent one only a couple of miles away, and Noah decided it would work. Neil and Moose would share a room, as would Noah and Sarah, so he rented two for a week. They all gathered in his room and Sarah went to fetch soft drinks and snacks.
“We'll operate out of the warehouse,” Noah said. “The less we're actually seen around the hotel, here, the better off we'll be. Everybody get a good night’s sleep, I want to be up and out of here bright and early in the morning.”
“Hey,” Neil said, “I saw a Denny's down the road. Can we go there for breakfast?”
“That sounds okay. Let's just relax for the night and get some rest, because tomorrow the mission really begins.”
Moose and Neil said goodnight and headed for their room, and Sarah went to the bathroom to take a shower. Noah sat back on the bed and turned on the television in the room, flipping through channels to look for something worth watching. He found the channel guide and spotted a movie that looked interesting, one that would be starting in a short time, so he waited until Sarah came out of the shower and then went to get his own.
The movie was starting as he came back out of the bathroom, so he and Sarah bunched up their pillows and sat on the bed to watch. She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her to hold her close. As the movie was beginning, he noticed her looking up at his face.
“What's up?”
Sarah shrugged. “Just enjoying this,” she said. “You've been—I don't know, more cuddly lately? I like it, but I can't help wondering why.”
Noah sat for a moment and thought about how to answer, then leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “I could just tell you that holding you close to me gives me a pleasant sensation,” he said. “I can tell you that I do it because I think you need it. Both of those have some truth to them, so I wouldn’t be lying.” He paused and leaned his head back against the wall behind it. “The truth is, I'm not really sure why I'm doing it. I’ve come to realize that I like having you close to me, and that's something I'm not accustomed to.”