Page 151 of One Minute Out

“Oppo?”

“The opposition is unknown. Substantial, I’d be willing to bet.”

Duvall rubs his face hard. I see frustration in his movements. “You’ve got this operation of yours locked down, don’t you, Violator?” He mocks my voice now. “‘I need you to hook me up with some of your friends to help me go up against I don’t know exactly how many of I don’t know exactly who in a sixty-acre property where friend and foe are positioned I don’t know exactly where.’ That it?”

“That’s about the size of it, yeah,” I say. “I’ve got a clock ticking on my ass, too. I do this now, or it doesn’t happen.”

“What kind of clock?”

“You pick. There’s the woman being held there I’m trying to save before anything even worse happens to her, there are the women and girls sold off in Venice that I’d like to recover before it’s too late, and then there’s Matt Hanley.”

“What does the DDO want?”

“He wants me, Shep.”

“He made a deal with you in exchange for me and a chance to go after the Consortium?”

“You got it.”

Duvall finishes his beer and stands up quickly.

I reach for the pistol on my hip but don’t draw it. “Shep!”

He just chuckles, completely unafraid. “You ain’t gonna shoot,” he says. “Who’d shoot a man who’s about to bring him another cerveza?”

I relax, take my hand away from my waistband. “Not me.”

As the big man walks to the little open kitchen, just steps away, he says, “So you need men like me and my associates from Manila. Men you know who will lay down their lives for something like this if it comes to that.”

“That’s it. As causes go, you have to admit this is a good one.”

Duvall passes me another Pacifico and takes a swig from his own new bottle. “Okay, Violator. I like it. I don’t really like you, I don’t like the weak intel, and I don’t like the fact that we’ll be acting on U.S. soil. But I like it, just the same. I’ve spent the last year thinking about Manila. Not sobbin’ for the motherfuckers we slayed, but pissed off I couldn’t go out and slay some other motherfuckers.”

“You’re in?” I ask.

“You knew I was in before you got here.”

I smile a little. “I was cautiously optimistic. What about your mates? You have a six-man team, I’m told.”

Shep shakes his head. “Did have a six-man team. Scott Camp shot himself in the mouth with a twelve-gauge up in Utah a few months ago. His demons got the best of him.”

I close my eyes and think of my own demons. I say, “The others?”

“You can pitch it to them like you pitched it to me. Let them decide.”

“How far away are they?”

“For an asshole as unlucky as you, you got pretty lucky. We were primarily West Coast based when we worked in hostage rescue in Asia, and the boys grew roots in that area. One of my guys is in LA, one’s in Bakersfield. Another in Lodi, another here in Vegas. I can get them together quickly.”

I look at a map of Southern California on my phone. “Bakersfield is closest to the target. We’ll meet there.”

He nods and I tip my drink towards him. Then I say, “I do need one other thing.”

“Shit, Violator, what else?”

“That ranch. I’ve looked at the sat map. It’s a big property, flat, arid, and open.”

Shep gets it. “They’ll see us coming.”

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