“Oh, man,” Tibbs said. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”
“You bet we are,” Kirkbride said.
CHAPTER
FOUR
“SO WHERE IN THE HELL is he?” Tibbs asked impatiently from the backseat of Sheriff Kirkbride’s unmarked Yukon. “He’s a fucking hour late.”
“I know,” Cassie said, checking her watch.
They were parked tightly alongside an abandoned pipeline distributor building a hundred yards from Dakota Remanufacturing. The location gave them a good view through the windshield of the loading dock but they’d be out of sight to an approaching semi. Kirkbride had checked out two other locations before deciding this one was the best. The sheriff was behind the wheel, Cassie next to him in the passenger seat.
“Maybe he stopped for lunch or fuel,” Kirkbride offered.
“Or maybe he got wise to us,” Tibbs said. “Maybe he got scared off? Or maybe he was never even coming in the first place?”
“Please,” Cassie said. She glanced at her second cell phone—the one she thought of as her “trucker phone”—to see if the Lizard King had called or sent a text about being late. Nothing.
“Maybe I should text him and ask him for his ETA?” she said. “I mean, it would be normal to do that, right?”
Kirkbride shrugged. He didn’t know. He said, “Give him another ten minutes. We don’t want him to think we’re too anxious.”
She agreed with that and raised binoculars to her eyes. She wished she could also raise something to her ears to block out the running commentary from the county attorney in the backseat.
*
CASSIE WAS FEELING the heat.
Because all communication was off-channel to avoid the risk of the Lizard King picking them up over the radio, the last hour and a half had been a blizzard of cell-phone calls between all the principals involved in the sting. At one point she was receiving three calls at once.
The editor of the Grimstad Tribune had left two messages saying he’d heard rumors of a major bust about to occur. Cassie ignored him.
The FBI’s 727 was due to land in fifteen minutes. Special Agent Rhodine wanted to know who would meet him at the airport and how many vehicles would be available after landing to ferry men and equipment to the industrial park. The answer to that was: None. He’d just have to wait.
Ian Davis had called to ask how many times he was supposed to pretend he was delivering the tenth pallet to the loading dock after he’d done it twelve times. The idea was to have what looked like normal industrial activity going on when the Lizard King arrived. Cassie had hidden her distress when she learned Ian was posing as the forklift operator since he’d be exposed, but she held her tongue. Pulling him off the detail and replacing him with another officer would result in a hellstorm of controversy and second-guessing about preferential treatment of her fiancé.
The answer to Ian’s question was: Just keep taking that pallet out over and over like you’re doing it for the first time.
The remaining six deputies on-site needed to know who was playing the dock foreman, clipboard in hand, who would actually approach the Lizard King in his cab. The other five would disperse with two men hiding within the warehouse on the left side of the loading dock door and three men on the right. All would be armed with shotguns or AR-15s. No one was to fire unless someone saw a threatening move by the driver.
Answer: Fred Walker was to play the foreman, J. T. Eastwood and Tigg Erger would be on the left, and deputies Jim Klug, Tom Melvin, and Shaun McKnight would be on the right.
Cassie had briefed all the deputies before leaving with Kirkbride and Tibbs, reiterating that the Lizard King was armed and dangerous. He was known to pack a Taurus .380 ACP semi-automatic pistol as well as tools that included a Taser, hypodermic syringes filled with Rohypnol, an array of knives and bone saws. And who knew what other weapons he may have added recently, she said.
She’d gone over their roles and asked them all to repeat back to her what she’d said. Walker would ask the driver to climb out of his cab under the pretext there were bills of lading and other paperwork to sign. That act alone might trigger a suspicion in the Lizard King, she explained, because often drivers never even left their vehicle as they were loaded.
If the driver did get out, the deputies were to rush him from two sides with weapons drawn. Cassie said she wanted their target facedown on the asphalt, searched, and cuffed. No one was to play cowboy. No one was to play hero.
If for some reason the Lizard King caught on to what was happening and decided to drive away, Kirkbride was to roar out from the side of the abandoned building and block the exit out of the yard. Four deputies in SUVs and two state troopers were on call, ready to flood the yard with vehicles and weapons as needed. Spike strips were unpacked and ready to deploy on the roads leading out of town if it came to that.
While they waited and minutes passed, she asked her team to repeat the plan back to her one more time.
*
“AN HOUR AND A HALF,” Tibbs fumed. “Call the guy or we’ll abort this whole charade.”
Cassie’s chest hurt and there was a slow rolling boil in her stomach. Her cell phone vibrated across the dashboard of the Yukon—another call from Rhodine, who was incensed that no one had been at the airport to meet him.
As she reached for the phone Kirkbride quietly said, “Ignore it. Here he comes.”
She looked up to catch a one-second snapshot of the yellow Peterbilt 389 as it sliced between the space of two buildings a block away. The truck was driving from right to left and was now blocked by the structure they were hiding next to.
“That looks like him,” she whispered.
She wanted to grab the radio mike and alert everyone, but she couldn’t risk it. Instead, she hoped her team hadn’t lost focus because of the delay and would get ready the second they saw the big rig.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” Kirkbride said to her while they waited.
For once, Tibbs was quiet in the backseat.
*
CASSIE REFUSED THE CALL from Rhodine so she could clear her line and speed-dialed Walker who was inside the warehouse. She activated the speaker on her phone so Kirkbride could hear the entire conversation. She appreciated how much the sheriff trusted her to lead the operation without stepping in.
“Do you see him?” Cassie asked Walker.
“I’ve got eyes on him,” Walker said. “He’s coming down Maple right in front of us on the other side of the fence. He’s about a hundred feet from the gate.”
“Can you see the driver?”
“No. The windows are dark.”
“Do the guys know it’s on?” she asked.
“Affirmative. They’re locked, loaded, and ready to rumble.”
On cue, she saw Ian wheel out of the darkness of the warehouse with the tenth pallet on the forks of his machine. He didn’t look tense or jumpy, and she wondered how he was capable of that. He hadn’t even glanced toward the yellow Peterbilt.
“He’s slowing down in the yard,” Walker said.