Page 63 of Splintered Security
Rosen: Yep. Life or death – get here.
Smith: What the fuck, man?
Rosen: I’ll send a pin.
Smith: This better be worth it or…
Rosen: …
Ten minutes later, I see Smith’s bike slide past me on the street.
Waiting sucks, but patience has its own rewards. Mine will come today.
The sun rises and the minions of the night scatter like cockroaches in the light. The pipes recede as I wait.
Giltenhouse isn’t one of them, though I didn’t expect him to be. Conyers is, and he wasn’t planned for. This is new. Andnewis not what I was looking for today.
He’s not an eight in the morning kind of guy. He leaves for church at nine fifty. The very idea makes me scoff, but at least it’s predictable.
I focus on his bike in the rearview until he turns a corner. My senses are on hyperalert. Smith to Denver was planned. Conyers to church was a variable I expected, and frankly, banked on. Giltenhouse is primary, but I need to isolate those three and two others, who aren’t major players. I need the organization to crumble and to spend enough time worried or inundated with problems that Anni isn’t a consideration. I need them incapacitated for the foreseeable future.
One third of my plan going rogue makes this all the harder. It also means I need to act. Conyers is gone. Giltenhouse is as vulnerable as he can be in this scenario.
I leave the truck, notch the gun into the holster at my waistband, and slide into what little shadow I can find at this time of year. I’m certainly not invisible. The cover of night offers that, but I want the element of surprise, and Sunday morning should provide that.
There’s very little movement as I approach the compound from the southwest. I clock the cameras I expected, yank down my mask, and do what I can to spend as little time recordable from all angles. I’m not invisible and I’m notMission Impossiblestunt caliber, so I stay smart, knowing I’m not bulletproof.
Giltenhouse’s room at the club has a large window and its own door. It’s ajar and not a sound comes from it. Fishy. Asstealthy as I can, I move to the parking lot to find his motorcycle missing. Fuck!
I jog back to the car, removing my mask as soon as I’m out of sight of the cameras, and quickly move the SUV to the other side of town. Thank fuck I know a shortcut or two from my high school days.
Time to pull out all the stops.
I grab Anni’s phone and toggle off airplane mode.
Anni: I’m sorry.
I gag a little as I write it. She wouldn’t say it.
But Giltenhouse is as dumb as he looks and as arrogant as a man who thinks he’s untouchable.
Heath: It’s too late.
Anni: What does that mean?
Heath: I told you you’d pay if you didn’t come home.
Anni: You’re scaring me. Never mind.
Heath: You should be and you won’t say never mind when you see your mom.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Dropping her phone to the passenger seat, I grab mine, dialing the first person I can think of.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“Can you go to my house? Stay with Anni. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t critical.”
