Page 63 of No Safe Place

“Water. I need water.”

He sat up as Travers handed him a bottle.

“Could you take off the cap?” Shaw said, holding it out, his hands still shaking.

He drained half of it and took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“What happened?” Garner said again.

Shaw took another long sip and poured the rest over his head and shook it off with a shudder.

What an overconfident ass he had been.

Playing Van Halen, he thought. He should have tried AC/DC instead. Because his ass just got shook all night long.

“It was the breach,” Shaw said. “They were about to... I’m not sure. A faulty wire maybe.”

He thought of the roof debris that had smashed into the hood like Dorothy’s house from The Wizard of Oz.

“They must have hit the gas line or something,” Garner said. “Because it sounded like a nuke! The side of the damn restaurant collapsed.”

Thank goodness for the armored truck, Shaw thought.

“So, we’re talking men down here?” Travers said.

“Men down?” Shaw said, gazing at him. “Men gone is more like it. My guys are all gone.”

“And the target?” Garner said.

“I have no clue.”

“Maybe if you brought me in on what it is you’re actually doing, we’d be done by now,” Garner said. “This is turning into a freaking disaster! I’ve got the head of the town council demanding answers and a state senator on her way. So, what do we do now?”

Shaw stared at him, still trying to get his bearings.

“I need to regroup here, Chief. I need more time. Make something up. Tell them the wind is shifting with the tanker spill or something. I can’t think right now.”

“What if they call the real FBI?”

“We’ve got people there,” Shaw said.

Which was completely true. That was why Vance Holdings was so expensive. They had the juice in the Bureau and the Department of Justice to make the feds look the other way. The juice to get away with just about anything.

Like Shaw wouldn’t be up here running amok without a Never Go to Jail card in his back pocket? What did he look like, a schmuck?

“This is over. We’re running out of time,” Garner said.

“It’s over when my boss says it’s over,” Shaw said. “Let me give him a call. In the meantime, do we have eyes on the restaurant still?”

“Of course.”

“Monitor what they do,” Shaw said, taking out his SAT phone. “We’re going to need more SWAT officers. Can you put that together?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Garner said as he left.

Shaw told Control to put him through to the big enchilada, Vance.

Vance was the guy who ran the outfit, some rich little shit. Very smart but a shit nonetheless.

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