The Box, Jeremy Brown [big ebook reader TXT] 📗

hauled the duffel bags to the truck and shoved them into the back with the others. He put his rifle into one of the open hard cases next to Kershaw’s, then closed the case.

He turned to the crew.

“We got everything?”

Kershaw and Rison both nodded, and Connelly said, “All packed.”

Bruder shut the tailgate and cap and got into the front passenger seat.

Kershaw drove, and Connelly and Rison got into the crew cab seats.

They drove southeast along Pine, six miles of straight road until it ended in an angled T intersection with a four-lane road—technically a highway—going east-west. This was where the vast majority of the area’s traffic was, and most of it only slowed down for the one traffic light in the middle of town.

The end of Pine was a quarter mile ahead when they watched a pickup truck pull off the shoulder of the eastbound highway lanes and curl into a tight U-turn so it could take a quick right and come straight at them.

“Who’s this?” Kershaw said.

Bruder said, “Doesn’t matter.”

The pickup came on fast, then seemed to slow when it got close to the DOT truck. The male driver frowned at them through the windshield, then through the driver’s window as they passed each other.

Kershaw brought a hand up to his face to stifle a fake cough while covering his nose and mouth, as effective as the balaclava without causing suspicion.

The pickup drifted into their wake, then its engine climbed as it picked up speed toward the tunnel.

Bruder checked the passenger mirror.

“He’s moving. He’s looking for the armored car.”

“I thought they didn’t have lookouts,” Rison said.

Bruder ignored that.

He told Kershaw, “Get us out of town.”

When they got to the intersection with the highway Kershaw turned left and headed due east toward the town.

No other vehicles took the turn to head toward the tunnel.

Connelly said, “We got time. We got time.”

Which was either true or not, but they wouldn’t know until they got out of town.

The town was mostly a collection of old brick and wooden slat buildings around a traffic light and post-war middle-class housing spreading out into the countryside, where some newer, richer estates had been built among the ancient farmhouses.

During their scouting runs Bruder noticed the farmhouses all had barns and machines and equipment worth exponentially more than the actual house on the property, and he respected it. The right tools were important.

Kershaw drove two miles above the speed limit as they came to the first houses on the western edge of town. The land in and around the town—pretty much everywhere they’d gone in Iowa—was just as flat as around the tunnel, and Bruder could see all the way through the intersection to the other side.

They were coming up on the turn that would take them north to the tertiary hideout, a hunting camp trailer no one had used in years, tucked in the woods off a two-track.

Kershaw glanced at Bruder, who shook his head. There was no reason to hole up this close to the job—better to keep moving and put as many miles behind them as possible while they still could.

Then, in the middle of the town, right under the traffic light, a dark red van skidded to a stop and the front doors opened.

Two men got out and looked around.

“What have we here?” Kershaw said.

A blue pickup truck coming from the south slowed and stopped in the intersection, even though he had the green light.

One of the men approached the driver’s side and looked in, then waved the truck through.

Kershaw said, “Turn it around?”

Bruder shook his head again.

If they pulled a U-turn and went west, it was forty miles of highway with no turnoffs. If someone came after them or called ahead, it would be like trying to escape an alley.

Going east, they had major north and south options within five miles, and motel rooms waiting in Minnesota.

Rison had parked clean vehicles at the motel and stocked the rooms with provisions, empty luggage, and cash counting machines to make splitting the cash four ways easier.

But they had to get through town first, and that wasn’t going to happen.

“Make the turn,” Bruder said.

Kershaw worked the brakes and turned north and kept to the posted speed.

Bruder took his pistol out and heard the two men in the back do the same.

Kershaw glanced at him again.

“You think we’re burned?”

Bruder shook his head again.

He didn’t know.

But whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.

Chapter Two

Three miles along the northbound road they turned left, sped through another two miles with fields on both sides, then cut north again.

They didn’t see any other people—bearded or not—stopping traffic to see who was inside the passing vehicles.

The two-track was on the left, a mile or so along the second northbound road. It didn’t have a mailbox or a gate, just two bent metal stakes with a rusty chain stretched between them a few yards off the road. Three warped No Trespassing signs were nailed to trees near the track, barely legible from the rust and pocks from .22 bullets.

The nearest house was a half mile further down on the other side of the road, and its driveway was long enough for them to need Google Map’s satellite view to look at the house. From space, it was rustic with some overgrown junk in the yard and an above-ground pool full of leaves and sticks.

So possibly abandoned, and even if there was someone in residence, the road was straight and flat enough for the crew to see them coming with plenty of warning—if anyone saw them using the two-track, they were burned for sure.

The two wheel ruts went into thick woods full of tall gray trees, their trunks angling for an advantage while the branches tussled with each other. Here and there an oak still had thin, stubborn brown leaves clinging to the twigs. Thirty yards in the two-track made a hard right to avoid a mucky patch, and after that it was hidden from the road.

The chain had been attached