Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Twenty-Six

Durwood arrived in Pittsburgh on Monday. This allowed him three days to prep the mission site. He preferred a week. It took time to test sightlines on video surveillance and perfect microphone frequencies. To acquire and assess blueprints. He started a fresh scratchpad for each prep, carried it around tucked with pencil in a bluejean pocket, and generally filled it by job's end.

A week would've been better. But three days could be done.

Monday night, Durwood took the lay of the land. He mapped access and egress for the entire American Dynamics facility, 300 acres altogether encompassing nine buildings and twelve distinct factory lines.

He paid special attention to the old steel plant where Jim Steed kept his office. Likely, the Blind Mice would attempt abduction here. The plant admitted between fifty to eighty employees daily by simple badge-in, easily penetrated for those with a will.

Durwood had no doubt the Mice would take Molly's bait. Steed was CEO of one of their Despicable Dozen: a big hunk of cheese. They'd get in.

Durwood did not expect them to get out. Not without handcuffs.

He ate dinner at Hardee's and slept in the Vanagon.

Tuesday before dawn, he placed motion-activated micro cams throughout the facilities. He spent the morning hunched at the monitors in back of the van, adjusting thresholds and angles and shutter speeds to accommodate various conditions—particularly low light. Molly expected the attack to occur at night, how the Jackson girl was talking.

The cameras were excellent. Fine build quality, tiny but solid. He'd unwrapped them just this weekend, lifting the gizmos out of pink Styrofoam packing. For some reason, Yakov—the arms dealer Durwood favored—used pink packing peanuts.

Durwood enjoyed state-of-the-art equipment. He'd had access to advanced technology in his Ranger unit, and partnered now with Quaid Rafferty, had sufficient funds to purchase it himself. Some was necessary for the work. Some wasn't.

Durwood liked guns, could run his calloused hands over a handsome stock and barrel for hours, but he'd never in his life purchased one without need. These James Bond-type gadgets were different. He had a weakness for them, his sole indulgence.

Wednesday, Durwood narrowed his focus to Jim Steed's office. He installed a remote-triggered diffuser and loaded it with blinding powder from Yakov. The diffuser was bulky, 240-volt motor plus casing, but Steed had a fishing plaque on one wall that camouflaged it well. Durwood hollowed out the plastic channel-cat and wedged it inside.

"Won that baby with an eighty incher," boomed a voice as he was finishing installation.

Durwood turned.

Jim Steed was hanging his suitcoat, setting down a briefcase.

"Must've been a beaut."

With wide-slung steps, Steed came to stand beside Durwood. "Yes sir. Broke my line, but by then I had a gaff into her. Took three of us to drag her aboard."

Sue-Ann was laying at Durwood's feet. Steed juked at her—"Hey-a, girl!"—but the coonhound merely blinked.

"So," Steed went on, "how's it looking? We all safe and sound?"

Durwood snapped shut his toolbox. "Getting there."

Steed clapped the ex-soldier on the back. As far as he knew, the guys were simply adding extra security. Durwood did not like misleading the man. It was true, as Quaid insisted, the mission stood a better chance of success with Steed out of the loop. Still, it felt wrong looking him in the eye now, knowing a group of hooligans planned to ambush him.

"Where you staying?" Steed asked.

Durwood said, "The van."

"No joke? We can get you a room. Call the Marriot, ask for the AmDye rate—"

"Be fine. I like to stay mobile."

Steed raised a shoulder. "Suit yourself. I slept outside enough in Nam to last me three lifetimes."

That night, the eve of the mission, Durwood and Sue-Ann walked the streets of Pittsburgh rooting out trouble. Drug trade, theft, violence—you couldn't go two blocks without encountering something, way the world had turned. Durwood had taken up such nightly patrols as the unrest had worsened.

Quaid had pronounced, "They're therapeutic for you, Wood."

Durwood didn't know about therapeutic.

Toward the end of his circuit, he was walking a blighted area near the AmDye complex. His headache, which had waned and waxed, roared back now at the sight of a kid nosing around a rusty Dodge Dart, gesturing to some buddies in the shadows.

The pain staggered him. Sue-Ann looked over and snotted.

He called ahead, "Not tonight."

Kid was confused at first. He twitched at the voice, then drew up tall on sight of Durwood. Rangy kid in his twenties. Loose coat, loose eyes.

"What's your story, Tex?" Kid spread his coat, flashing a piece. "What's your story, huh? Huh?"

Durwood inclined his brow toward the coat. "What'd you pay for that twenty-two, ten bucks? Or did you steal it."

He approached the kid with unhurried strides. Already the headache was relenting.

Kid looked at his peashooter, then off to the shadows, then up at Durwood. "We can take you, old man."

"Do it." Durwood laid his forearm atop the Dodge. "Targets don't get much slower'n me and Sue."

Kid looked at the dog and squinted. Sue-Ann squinted back. He stood there mush-mouthed for a bit, peeking over at his buddies.

Durwood's hand shot forward. He caught the collars of the would-be criminal's shirt and coat in a single snatch.

"Listen well," he said, the words rippling at their edges. "This you live through. Next one, maybe not."

"I wasn't doing anything! You can't prove I did something."

"Proof doesn't interest me."

"But, but we—I wasn't doing anything!" kid repeated. "I'm just, like, on the street. Is it a crime to be—"

"Yes." Durwood raised his index finger, and they both watched its tip settle firmly on the side of the kid's shaved head. "Right inside here it is."

Kid muttered further excuses, words upon words. The hardness of his skull intoxicated Durwood. He found his fingertip beginning to press hard, very hard, into that shallow dent of bone.

Kid soon shut up. His eyes clenched with obvious dread.

Durwood's own head was bending. Pain changed into something bright and bad. Muscles coiled in his side. Such evil existed in the world today. To banish some, even what little resided in this grease-spot, would be a balm.

Then, by the moon's light, Durwood glimpsed a smokestack. It came from an American Dynamics factory operating third shift.

The sight lifted Durwood out of himself. He thought of the men working inside and remembered why he was in Pittsburgh—to restore order, to end this devilry once and for all—and got back control of his finger. He took it from the kid's head, then carefully removed the twenty-two from his coat.

"Next one," he said, pocketing the weapon. "Think about that next one, and where you oughta be."