“Hit,” she said. “Center of the chest. Kill shot.”
My heart was pounding, and I began to sweat as I sighted the target once more. I could feel my hands trembling, and the crosshairs on the sight were dancing around the tree. I blinked and the sheriff was back.
Morris, I’ve been trying to get you on the horn for ten minutes. What’s with this call I got about gunfire . . .
Tommy was lying on the floor. The huge blast of buckshot that had come from Morris’s sawed-off shotgun had killed him immediately—no time to suffer, or move, or speak. I had been hit in the shoulder, and I could still feel the dribble of blood.
I fired the gun again.
“Whoa,” Mary said with a smile in her voice. “Way off to the left.”
I tried to hold my hands steady. I didn’t know how Bruce and Eugene were able to shrug it off. Bruce had killed Morris, and the guy who shot Tommy.
I fired again, and a chip of bark blew away two feet above the outline’s head.
“I can’t do it, Mary,” I said, dropping the gun onto the ground and standing up.
“Now you’ll have to resight the scope,” she said, picking up the rifle.
“Didn’t you hear me? I can’t do this!”
“Just practice,” she said. “You can do it. You’ve been beating everyone in camp for weeks. You’re beating me, and I grew up with guns. I had my first twenty-two when I was ten, and my dad had been teaching me to shoot his guns since I was seven. And as of our last competition, you came in third place out of twenty.”
“That was a fluke. So what if I shoot like this when we’re in Munich? What if I’m shaking so hard I can’t even look through the scope? I’m supposed to be a sniper. At this rate I’ll kill our own people who are down on the ground.”
“Two bad shots don’t make you a bad sniper. You probably just need water and something in your stomach.”
“I see him every time I shoot,” I said.
Mary was quiet. She was looking down at the rifle in her hands, checking the scope to see if it was damaged.
Without looking at me, she said, “I know you do.”
“How am I supposed to live with that? And don’t tell me that it’s better to kill one person than lose billions, because I’m so sick of John saying that. The Players are legitimate targets—we need to stop them. Even kill them if they don’t listen to us. That sheriff was one of the good guys. He didn’t need to die. He shouldn’t have even been there. Damn Eugene.”
“I agree,” she said simply. “It was Eugene’s fault. I worry every day about you and Kat. Kat’s smart, but Eugene is a screw-up. He’ll get you killed if something doesn’t change.”
“Well, we’re out of time for things to change. The meteor can’t be postponed, and that means that we have to send the invitations.”
“We have time. The Olympics don’t start for another two weeks.”
I took the rifle back from her and aimed at the closest target—a white fir with a big red dot spray-painted on the trunk. It was only 25 yards away. I fired.
“Wide right,” Mary said.
I fired again, aiming to the left of the tree trunk.
“Hit,” she said.
I fired again. And again. And again until the magazine was empty.
CHAPTER THREE
It didn’t take long to break camp and load our equipment. We left the tents and the rest of our camping gear—our Coleman stoves, sleeping bags, coolers—and just took what we thought we would need. One day Mary was going to come back and return to her old life, maybe. But for now the camp was secluded in a place where no one should stumble across it until hunting season. And if they did, they wouldn’t necessarily know it was us. The only thing she insisted we clean up was the thousands of brass shells at the gun range. She wasn’t worried about her family finding a shooting range—they were all shooters, and there was another range somewhere else on the ranch—but the sheer quantity of spent shells made it obvious that this range was not for casual use.
It was nearly three in the afternoon when we started driving to Reno. Mary and I rode in the Suburban, the second vehicle in our little convoy. We wanted to leave the van behind—it was what we used to rob the gun store, and it might have been seen by someone—but we just had too many people and too much gear. We planned to ditch it as soon as we found something else.
We had pooled our money together as soon as we got to the ranch. We didn’t have enough, though; it had cost Lee and Lin quite a bit to secretly obtain enough C4 and thermite for our invitations. We’d have to find another business to rob to get the kind of cash we’d need for plane tickets: traveling to Munich was expensive in itself, but first we had to fly people to all kinds of unusual places. My squad was going to Istanbul for the Minoan Player and then Baghdad for the Sumerian. Lee and Lin had to get into China, which was almost impossible. We had to get to Syria and Ethiopia and India, and all those flights would be pricey, not to mention the hotels we’d need, and food, bribes, and tickets to Munich.
No one had made plans for anything after Munich. No one had even brought it up. I think we were all too nervous.
Our caravan of vehicles—the Jeep, the Suburban, the van, and the Skylark—stopped at a grocery store in Susanville. Douglas and Barbara, who had spent much more time out of camp than the rest of us, went inside to buy dinner.
“Everybody else stay in your vehicle,” Walter said over the walkie-talkie. “Molly, can you find a new license plate for the van?”
She was in the Jeep, ahead of us, and jumped out. She walked confidently into the back of the parking lot.
“How long is it to Reno?” Bruce asked from the driver’s seat.
“Ninety minutes,” Mary said. “And I don’t care what anyone else says: I’m taking the first shower.”
“Tired of washing in the stream?” Kat asked. “I may fight you for that shower.”
“How many rooms are we getting for the twenty of us?” Jim asked. “I vote we splurge. I want a bed.”
“A bed,” I said, relishing the thought. “I haven’t gotten a single good night’s sleep in forever.”
“I’m with you guys,” Bruce said. “But I’m not the one holding the money. I’m just driving the car.”
“I donated my life savings to this,” I said. “And I’m getting a bed.”
Mary squeezed my hand. We had shared a tent, along with Bruce and Larry. I had gotten used to nuzzling up next to her, wrapping my arms around her as we slept.
Mary had become a part of me, more than I had ever thought possible. We spent every waking minute together. We knew how to press each other’s buttons. When we ran the hills at camp, I could tell when she was just tired or when she needed real help—and she did the same for me. When she was fussing with the camping gear, making dinner or stoking the fire or sweeping dirt out of the floor of the tent, I knew what must be troubling her. I knew her thoughts, and she knew mine.
And she helped me as I struggled to get over killing the sheriff. When I woke in the middle of the night, screaming and fighting against the claustrophobic confines of my sleeping bag, she could whisper me back to sleep.
When this Calling was over, I would have nothing left—no home to go back to, no money to live on, no friends I could turn to. Except Mary.
But could I truly turn to Mary? Now that she was going off with Bruce, I . . . Well, I didn’t know. What if something happened to her?
I had to get that out of my head. I shouldn’t be paranoid. This had been the plan for two months, almost. I should have come to terms with it.
Ahead of us I saw Molly climb back into the Jeep, the old license plate in her hand. She worked fast.
It took 20 more minutes for Douglas and Barbara to return from the grocery store, and they had a full cart. I wished that it could be a hot meal, but at least it was food. They stopped at each vehicle and handed off bread, cold cuts, mayo and mustard, and far more snacks than we’d ever need: potato chips, Hydrox cookies, Hershey bars, caram
els, Ring Dings, Twinkies, and several six-packs of Fanta, 7Up, and TaB.
Mary took the bread and cold cuts and took sandwich orders from everyone in the car. It wasn’t fine dining, but it tasted fresh, and it was the first meat we’d eaten in months that hadn’t been cooked over a campfire.
We ate and ate. The sudden sugar rush of snack foods we hadn’t had since June made us all a little sick, but I stuffed myself nonetheless. I think I ate half the Ring Dings all by myself.
Kat held the newspaper on her lap while she ate. “They’re calling it the Great Daylight Fireball,” she said. “And dig this—it’ll fly over Nevada up to Canada.”
Mary finished chewing a bite of her salami sandwich and read over Kat’s shoulder. “It says it might not hit. It’s close enough to pass through the atmosphere and burn. We just need it to work as the trigger.”
John came up to the car and Bruce rolled down his window.
“We’re going to hit the bank,” John said.
“Whoa,” Bruce said.
“Are you serious?” Kat asked.
“It’s almost closing time,” John said, looking at his watch. “We want to hit it before they lock up. Look, I know you’re not happy with him, but Eugene is taking the lead. He’s robbed three banks before.”
Bruce laughed. “And he spent five years in jail for it.”
“Because his getaway car chickened out.”
“And you’re asking me to go with him?” Bruce asked. “To make sure he doesn’t accidentally shoot someone?”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“This isn’t something easy to walk away from,” Bruce said. “Do we have a getaway car?”
“We’ll take the Skylark. Molly will switch the plates. In the meantime, I want you and the other two vehicles to go to Reno now. Find us rooms at Harrah’s. Use your fake IDs.”
John looked back at me. “You’re coming with us, Mikey. You too, Kat. This is your team’s operation.”
“What?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Why?”
“Partly because you saved everyone’s asses at the gun store, but also because you have grown a hell of a distinctive beard. It’s gonna be you, me, Kat, Eugene. Grab a pistol and make sure it’s loaded.”
As John left the window, Mary squeezed my hand. I kissed her and grabbed my M1911.
“Don’t say it,” I said as she stared at me. “I’ll be careful.”
But even as I took the pistol and tucked it in the back of my pants, hidden under my shirt, I could feel myself trembling. Still, I climbed out of the Suburban and walked back to the Skylark, where the six of us robbers gathered. Kat walked with me. She was in a T-shirt and jeans.
“I didn’t expect to be doing this today,” Kat said to me.
I put my hands in my pockets to hide their trembling. “You’ll do great,” I said. “We’ve practiced working as a team. And we have both Walter and John to help us, and they know what they’re doing. We just need to make sure we keep Eugene under control.”
“He’s done this kind of thing before,” she assured me.
“I know what he’s done.”
“Listen,” Kat said. “I know you hate him for what happened at the gun store. But we have to work together. This whole trip to Turkey and Iraq is going to be for nothing if we can’t work together.”
“I know it,” I said.
She touched my arm. “It’s going to be fine.”
“We’re robbing a bank.”
“We need to. We can’t buy plane tickets if we don’t. We have to live in Turkey and Baghdad for three weeks, remember.”
I stopped, and looked at her. “I trust you,” I said. “I just don’t know what to do about him.”
“I trust you, too,” she said. “It’ll work out. We’ll just rely on each other. Just you and me. We’ll let Eugene take care of his jobs, but think about this. It’s just you and me. We can do this, together.”
I looked into her green eyes. I didn’t know what it was. But I believed her. She hugged me and told me it was all going to be okay, and then we walked to the car.
Molly sat in the driver’s seat, her long red hair hidden under a very convincing Afro wig.
I climbed in beside John. Eugene was next to him. Kat took the front seat.
“This is going to be easy,” Eugene said as the other three vehicles pulled away on their way to Reno. “Walter, you stand outside and don’t let anyone in or out. We want customers in there. Anyone we can threaten with a gun is going to be important. John, you go in first and ask to open a checking account. Mike, take two hundreds with you and ask the teller to give you change. Kat, you go with him. Act like you’re filling out a form—a deposit slip or something. I’ll be the last in. You’re all there backing me up if something goes wrong. Make sure there are no heroes. This isn’t going to be a quiet robbery—I’m going to be loud, get in their faces. Don’t show your guns unless you have to. Kat and Mike, don’t even get into the action unless you have to. Just act normal. Molly, how long will it take for you to steal new wheels?”
“Faster than it will take you to rob the bank.”
“Okay, good.” He looked at his watch. It was 20 minutes from closing time. “Let’s go.”
Molly drove three blocks down and turned into a parking lot that was shared by the bank, an insurance company, and a Burger King.
Everyone checked their guns. John and Kat had pistols, like me, but Eugene carried the Beretta Model 12 submachine gun that he’d been practicing with all summer. All the guys had beards, and we all smelled of wood smoke. I doubted we’d really blend into the crowd very well.
Eugene put a backpack on.
John hopped out of the car and sauntered to the door. He looked so relaxed. I didn’t know how he did it. Especially with Eugene calling the shots.
I got out of the car and walked into the bank. There was a line of just two people. Three tellers were at their stations, helping customers. I made a show of pulling money out of my pocket.
The pistol seemed so heavy and so bulky against my back, only hidden by my Los Angeles Rams T-shirt. I felt very exposed, like this was the dumbest thing I could be doing. I started breathing too fast, and I tried to use the meditation techniques John had taught us all at camp, forcing myself to breathe five times per minute.
The door squeaked as Kat came in behind me. She went to the table in the middle of the bank and started filling out a deposit slip.
I watched her. Her fingers were shaking as she tried to separate one slip from the others behind it.
Eugene kicked in the door; its glass cracked with a loud pop. “If anyone touches the silent alarm I’ll kill every single person in this bank,” he shouted, waving his gun back and forth. “If I hear a siren, you’re all dead. And don’t test me—I’ve already got two murder charges in Sacramento. I’m getting the chair whether I kill all of you or not, so don’t test me.”
The bank guard, an older man with a beer belly, backed away from Eugene. His voice shook as he spoke. “Don’t do it, son.”
“I’m only going to do it if I hear a siren, or if some idiot tries to be a hero. Now give me your gun.”
The two customers in front of me had fallen to the floor and were hiding behind a narrow counter. I dropped down next to them.
The guard unholstered his revolver and very slowly laid the gun on the floor. Eugene picked it up and shoved it in the back of his pants.
Eugene pointed his gun at the first teller, a young man in a suit and tie. “Did you touch the alarm?”
“No sir.”
“How about you?” He pointed to the woman at the next stall. She shook her head. The man on the end raised his hands and said, “I didn’t either.”
“Was I talking to you?” Eugene shouted. “Now find a bag and put all the money you have in it. Empty all the drawers. Where’s the bank manager?”
The man sitting at a desk with John stood. John very calmly pulled his gun from his belt and pointed it at the manager.
&nb
sp; “Hi,” John said, smiling casually and cocking his gun.
Eugene walked to the counter and held his submachine gun up to the customer—an overweight woman with an enormous purse. “She’s dead if I don’t see more money coming, Mr. Manager.”
“We put the money in a time-lock safe,” the manager said.
“She’s dead if I don’t see more money coming,” Eugene repeated. “Did I mention this gun fires five hundred fifty rounds per minute? But don’t worry, because it only has forty in the magazine.”
“We don’t have any more,” the manager pleaded.
John spoke. “Well, I reckon you’d better find some more. How about everybody in here empties their wallets?”
Eugene shouted again. “That’s right. Everything out of your pockets. Jewelry, too.”
The woman next to me on the floor touched a gold chain with a heart pendant on her neck, trying to hide it behind her hand, but I stood up and pulled my gun. “Hand it over.”
I took the necklace and pocketed it. Then I reached in her purse and found sixty dollars. Eugene had the bag of money and was walking back and forth with it.
“Is everybody drained dry?” he asked, and John and I said yes. Kat was still acting like a customer. She’d given her handbag to Eugene.
Eugene tossed the bag of money over to John, who proceeded to empty it on the bank manager’s desk. The manager looked stunned.
“Mr. Manager,” John said, “help me search through this mess and find the dye packs.” The manager slumped back into his chair. There was a lot of loose money, and John scooped all of that up to put it away in the bag. He took the wallets, emptied them, and dropped them on the floor. Meanwhile the manager dejectedly flipped through the bundles of new bills. He put one aside, and John looked at it. “Come on. I know there’s more.”
The manager eventually pulled five stacks of bills from the stash, and John double-checked every one.
He turned to Eugene and said, “I think we’re done here.”