Page 44 of Static

"Let him go."

We all walked away while Butcher was left alone in the barn with the sole remaining witness.

"Rip," Lock said as we walked outside. "Go back to the truck. Get your laptop. Make sure there's nothing to tie us to this shit. If there are any cameras, erase the footage. You know the drill."

"Sure thing, Lock," Rip said, peeling off and heading toward our rides.

"Smoke, Ricochet, you're with him," Lock added.

We caught up with Toxic and Hush, who were halfway across a field.

"What the fuck are we looking at?" I asked.

"Why's there a crane out here?" Idaho asked at the same time.

We stopped near a pond. Toxic put his hands on his hips and surveyed it. "Fucking strange to have a full ass pond out here."

"Isn't that normal for ranches?"

A scream echoed through the darkness and I glanced over my shoulder toward the barn. "Shouldn't someone have stayed with him?" I asked.

"He'll be fine," Priest answered.

"I know," I replied, "but maybe we should have made sure he didn't fuck that guy up too much."

Priest just shrugged. "He won't be alive much longer, so what does it matter?"

"True," I muttered. It wasn't like I was soft hearted or anything. Idaho and I had taken out our fair share of insurgents during our time with Special Forces. But I was more of a shoot them and move on to the next enemy kind of guy. Butcher was a carve them up with a knife like a Thanksgiving Turkey man. Whatever got him off.

"Ponds are normal for ranches in places that have a fuck ton of water," Toxic said. "Arizona has cattle tanks."

"What's the difference?" Idaho asked.

"Cattle tanks are smaller," Toxic said, sounding lost in thought. "They're usually shallower and hold maybe five hundred to a thousand gallons of water. The point is to allow cattle, or sheep, to walk into them and drink, without worrying about them drowning the way they could in a pond." My eyebrows shot up as Toxic continued explaining. "Ponds, like this one, can be up to twenty feet deep. Great for irrigation or fishing, but not ideal for watering animals. And are usually only full during monsoon season."

We all stared at the pond, which was full to the brim with water, in January.

"How the fuck does he know all that?" Idaho asked me.

I shrugged. I'd heard the term cattle tanks, but I always assumed they were metal containers, not some dug out circle in a field where the bottom filled with water. Toxic had enlightened me on that fact.

"We're good, Lock," Riptide said as he and the others jogged up. "What're we looking at?"

"Trying to figure out why there's a crane and a pond out here in the middle of this field," Butcher said as he walked up. There were dark spots flecking his face. Blood.

"Looks like the main load line disappears down into the water," Toxic pointed out.

"You think it's attached to something down there?" Lock asked.

"One way to find out," Rip said. He bent over and started untying his boots.

"Uh, I'd like to point out that there's probably more than one way," I said with a frown.

"This is faster. Priest, you have a flashlight?"

Priest pulled off the backpack he had on his back and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. "Should work up to fifty feet."

"You're not seriously diving down there?" Smoke asked.

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