Page 11 of Raider Unleashed

“Rick Sinclair. I need to be an explosives expert. Military trained. You can use my real background for the rest of it. You can look me up.”

“Okay. I’ll have something up shortly. Fair warning… It won’t hold up if they dig too much but if they give it a cursory glance then it should be fine.” Hawk paused then asked, “Is there any point in asking what’s going on?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure just yet. I… I just need to make sure my friend is okay.” He didn’t want to lie to Hawk but he wasn’t up to getting into the details. “Talk to Harlan if you need some more background. He can fill you in.”

“Okay. We’ll have you up and running in thirty.”

“Man, I can’t thank you enough for this.”

“No worries. You guys are helping us out. This is nothing. A few keystrokes. You let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Raider hung up. The knots in his stomach eased ever so slightly. Now he just had to hope that whoever was running the check was lazy or they were desperate. Either way worked for him.

Two hours later his phone rang again. “’Lo?”

“Raider,” Piper’s voice came through the phone. “Meet us back at the pharmacy parking lot.” She disconnected the call.

It was hard to tell with that short exchange, but he was pretty sure she was scared. Whatever was going on had her rattled. He glanced at the seat beside him. He’d bought a few burner cells and a few other things. Never hurts to be prepared. He tucked one cell in his boot and the other in the leg pocket of his black cargo pants. Chances were good, he’d lose the one in his pocket. The thug with Piper looked like the controlling type, but with any luck, he’d hopefully keep the one in the boot. He added ashort-bladed dagger to his other boot and then got out of the truck. He walked across the parking lot.

The same guy from earlier got out of the van but Piper stayed behind the wheel. She’d kept her sunglasses on but she was biting her lip. He’d always hated when she did that because it meant she had doubts. Or afraid. Neither was ever a good sign.

“Get in,” the man said.

“No.” Raider wasn’t stupid. Once he got in the van all negotiation was over and chances were good he’d be stuck in whatever mess Piper was involved in. He wanted to at least get a feel for it first.

“Get in the fucking van,” the man growled.

“Do I look like a fuckin’ idiot to you?” Raider countered. “You tell me what the job is and what you need me to do in detail. If my gut doesn’t tell me I’m fucked, then we’ll talk about transportation. And I need to know if you’ve got the right equipment. Also, I want to know what I’ll be paid.”

The man glared at him, his jaw working. He squinted around the parking lot but it was much emptier than it had been earlier. People were leaving. The air was thick with ash. Raider had taken his bandana off to eat and regretted not putting it back on. The volcano wasn’t letting up and it wasn’t looking good. Houses had already been lost to the lava flow.

“I need you to blow a hole in a floor. We’re coming up from underneath. You need to do it as quietly as possible, not too much noise or vibration in the floor. There’s something that could…break if it rattles. You’ve got about fifty feet between the hole and the target that needs to stay solid. Think you can do it?”

Raider ran quickly through his options as he stared at the thug. They were for sure robbing the bank. If the vault door felt too much vibration it would automatically go into lockdown mode and they’d need something special to unlock it.

Raider cocked his head. “Depends. What’s the floor made of?”

The guy looked at him and shrugged. “Fuck if I know. What are floors usually made of? I got a guy who can answer those questions. So you in?”

He still hesitated. His gut was telling him this was bad news. The whole thing was screaming at him to run in the opposite direction but then he glanced at Piper, still sitting stone-faced behind the wheel.Shit. “How much?”

The man looked at him. “Fifty K.”

Raider shook his head. “Nope. You’re doing something big and this is last minute which means you lost your original guy. A hundred K.”

The guy grunted. “Double? No fucking way.”

“No deal then. See ya.” Raider turned to go.

“Fine, fucking one hundred thousand but you better be fucking amazing at this or I’ll kill you myself.”

Raider turned back, his stomach doing a flip-flop. The speed this guy agreed to doubling the amount was bad news. “Fine.”

“Get in the fucking van.”

Raider shrugged. “I need to grab some clothes. I’ll meet you?—”

“Get in the fucking van. We’re doing this tonight. You don’t need clothes.”

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