“Everybody get some grub here,” Weaver said. Ferguson and Chen grabbed the other two chairs at the small round table, Chen opening up the laptop that was practically part of her. Capelli and Richter took the two beds. Richter was wearing a black T-shirt with a smiling skull on the front. The caption under the skull read “You Can Run, but You’ll Just Die Tired.” A pile of Farm & Fleet bags were stacked between the beds.

“Chen’s got the uniform of the day for you. Commercial hunting cammies, standard woodland pattern. Not perfect, I know, but we can’t have anybody turning up in a ghillie if things go south.”

“Jesus, Colonel,” Richter said. “Gotta go out dressed like Jethro?”

Weaver just gave him a look. Chen’s laptop gave three quick beeps. She hit a few keys.

“Fisher has used the McBride ID again,” she said.

“Where?” asked Weaver.

“Comfort Inn, three blocks west of here. He used the automatic checkout at 6.17am, but the desk didn’t process it until seventeen minutes ago.”

“OK, good, so we know he’s on site. Anything, Fergie?”

“Just glad I didn’t know he was that close last night,” said Ferguson. “Don’t think I would’ve slept well. If he’s been outbound since 0617 hours, we should probably pack up and roll. Take a little more time on the set-up, give everybody a chance to recon the site. Get your cammies on. Check the batteries on your radios. We’ll do com checks en route.”

Weaver stood by the door, clapping everybody on the back as the team filed out, feeling old. He missed this shit. On the other hand, playing games in the woods with Ishmael Fisher was the type of thing that played hell with your life expectancy. Weaver even gave Chen a pat as she walked past. Closing the door, he felt as though he’d had an ice-water enema.

Chen dropped Ferguson and his team off one at a time at the trailheads along the road at the back of the ridge behind Holy Angels. By 11.30, Ferguson had scouted the funnel and placed his men. They did one more quick com check. Everybody’s radios were online. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

At 12.07, Ferguson heard Weaver through his ear piece.

“Yeah?” Ferguson answered.

“Change of plans, Fergie. Chen got another hit on the McBride ID. Fisher charged a couple energy bars and some water at Moriah Marathon just after 8am this morning. Chen’s scouted it out. Fisher’s car is still there. Guy says Fisher asked for a brake job, wanted the car ready by 3pm. Brakes are done, car’s still there. Get this. Fisher said he was going to go hiking until the car was done. I want you guys over at that station.”

“We’re set up here, boss. Sure we want to make the move? You know I don’t like the other team calling my plays.”

“It’s your op, Fergie, so it’s your call. Do me a favor, though, and check the site. Map handy?”

“Yeah.”

“OK. Look at the road Chen dropped you at. Now follow that about six clicks west. See the curve to the north?”

“Got it.”

“See that flat spot on the north side of the road just before the curve?”

“Sitting in the bottom of the bowl? Yeah.”

“That’s the spot. Tell me you don’t like that terrain better.”

Ferguson looked at the map. He remembered reading about the Union cavalry commander who’d been the first Union officer at Gettysburg. He’d taken one look at Cemetery Ridge, dismounted his troops, and dug in until Meade got there. Later, he’d said a cavalry commander’s job was to find some land worth dying for and that had been it. This gas station was perfect. Flanking overlooks on three sides. Let Fisher get into the bowl, they’d have him in a fucking Cuisinart. Get Lawrence up high on one side, get himself up on the other, take the Barretts, they’d have a clean shot down the road either way for at least a few hundred yards if Fisher somehow made it to the car. Nothing was perfect, but this was close.

“Time’s gonna be tight,” Ferguson said. “Get everybody back down to the road. Have Chen drop us at the trailhead three, four clicks north of that station, up around that curve. Get down to that bowl, scout out sites. Gotta switch weapons, too. Capelli and Richter are gonna have to trade the H&Ks in for the scoped 16s. Lawrence and I are gonna need the Barretts. Chen got them in the truck?”

“She’s got them,” Weaver answered. “You got to go or no-go this now, Fergie.”

Ferguson’d never really liked the idea of trying to take Fisher in open ground on the back of the ridge. It was the best option under the circumstances, but he felt it was about a sixty-forty play. This bowl, that was ninety-ten if they had time, probably still eighty-twenty rushing it.

“Let’s do it,” Ferguson said. “We don’t have time to disperse the pickup. Have Chen pull into the trailhead she dropped me at. We’ll all meet there. We’re out.”

By 2.40pm Ferguson had his team in place. Ferguson was at the top north end of the bowl where it jutted out into the road, just where the road curved around to the north. The station was a single cinderblock building set back from the road. There were two pump islands out front, four pumps. To the east of the station was a small paved lot. Fisher’s Tempo was parked at the east end of the lot, away from the building. Back of the bowl was the high ground, but it was no good. The station blocked too much of the view to the lot. Ferguson had Lawrence at the top of the east side of the bowl with the other Barrett. He had a clear shot at the car, at the lot, and down the road to the east. Capelli and Richter were spread out on a ledge on the east side of the bowl about one hundred and fifty yards up from the lot, maybe two hundred yards down from Lawrence.

The plan was simple. Let Fisher get in, pay, and head for the car. When he was in the open in the lot, Capelli and Richter would open up with the 16s. They should cut him down before he even heard a shot. Lawrence would start pumping .50s from the Barrett into the Tempo’s engine just to make sure that, if Fisher makes it to the car somehow, it ain’t going anywhere.

Ferguson had one hardball round and then five incendiary rounds on the top of his ten-round clip. Soon as he heard Capelli and Richter cut loose, he would put one round through the phone junction outside the shop, put the landline out. Guy inside could have a cell, but the reception was spotty in these ridges. Down in that bowl, a cell wasn’t calling anybody. Ferguson had even had trouble with the radio until he got on top of the bowl. Once the phone was down, Ferguson would put the incendiary rounds through the Tempo’s gas tank, set that off, and then take out Fisher if he wasn’t down yet. If Fisher made it back into the building somehow, Lawrence and Ferguson would slap in armor piercing clips and start pumping rounds through the building’s walls and roof while Capelli and Richter moved in. Ferguson knew better than to count his chickens, but this sure smelled like a bucket of extra crispy to him. Fisher was on a short clock.

Ferguson used a pile of dead brush facing the station as cover for him and the long barrel of the Barrett. There wasn’t much cover facing the road to his left or behind him, but if he had to take that shot, Fisher would already know it was coming. Ferguson pulled out his binoculars and surveyed the other side of the bowl. It took him a few minutes to find Lawrence. He could barely make out the end of the barrel poking out from behind a fallen tree. Ferguson keyed the throat mic on his tactical radio.

“Lawrence,” he said.

Ferguson heard a single click in response. Affirmative.

“Pull back about six inches. I can see your barrel.”

Another click.

“How am I looking?” Ferguson asked.

“Got your left foot,” Lawrence said. “Don’t think it’s visible from the ground.”

Ferguson gave the mic a click.

Ferguson scanned down to Capelli and Richter. They were on a larger, flatter ledge with heavy cover. It took a couple of minutes to pick them out.