Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller Read Online Free PDF

rounds through one just like it
while training and even though it had been a couple years since I’d
used one, it still felt perfectly natural in my hand, like an
extension of my arm.
    “So what are you planning on doing next?”
Willis said.
    “I figure I’ll take Russo at his house
sometime tonight, ask him a few questions, find out how much he
knows about the situation.”
    “You think he’ll talk?”
    “Oh, he’ll talk.” I looked down the barrel
at the wall beyond and slowly squeezed the trigger, testing the
pull weight. There was a loud click as the weapon dry-fired. It had
a hair-trigger. Half a pound at the most. Just like I liked it.
“They all talk eventually.”
    Willis chuckled under his breath and shook
his head. “Listen to you, going all Dirty Harry and shit.”
    Smiling, I unscrewed the silencer from the
barrel and set them both down on the bed. Looking into the duffel
bag, I saw eight boxes of .45 caliber hollow-point match-grade
ammo, 400 rounds in all. More than enough. There were also two
different styles of holsters and a fanny pack that could double as
an ammo dump and another place to store the pistol in a pinch.
    “So how much do I owe you for all this?” I
asked.
    “Save your money,” Willis said. “You never
know when you’re going to need it. We’ll settle up after this thing
is over.”
    “Assuming I make it through alive, of
course.”
    “That’s a good point,” Willis said. “You
know what? Maybe you should pay me now.”

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    David Russo lived in a single-story,
ranch-style home set amongst the rolling hills of East San Diego
County, within a gated golf course community called Southern Ranch.
His house was backed up to the fourteenth hole, which sat near the
outskirts of the community. It was serviced by only a single road
and the nearest neighbor was more than 300 yards away. The houses
were set up so that nobody had a clear view of their neighbor, a
fact which served me perfectly on this night.
    I had taken the long way in, bypassing the
ten-foot high wall that blocked off the community by following a
little-used hiking trail up into the brushy hills above the golf
course that snaked its way through the houses. I was wearing blue
jeans and a black sweatshirt and carrying a backpack, looking every
bit the part of a man just out for a hike in the late
afternoon.
    After twenty minutes of scoping out the
area, I found a spot above the fourteenth hole that had a perfect
view of Russo’s house. I sat down on the ground behind a scraggly
bush, pulled a set of mini-binoculars from the backpack and waited
out the afternoon.
    I watched his house until the sun had fallen
three-quarters of the way below the purple mountains to the west,
then pulled a tin of black grease paint from the backpack. With the
help of a small folding mirror, I carefully applied the grease
paint to my face, covering it completely. Then I slipped out of my
blue jeans—the full length wetsuit beneath my clothes showing
momentarily—and swapped them out with a pair of black cotton
sweatpants from the daypack, making me all but invisible to the
naked eye.
    Once it was completely dark, I pulled the
hood of my black sweatshirt over my head and started carefully
picking my way down the hill and across the fourteenth hole.
    A couple minutes later I eased into position
alongside Russo’s house, lying on my stomach in the sagebrush less
than fifteen feet from the front entrance of his garage.
    I had been in position for a little less
than two hours when I saw headlights appear at the far end of the
road. A few seconds later, a black Lincoln Navigator came into
view, heading towards me. It slowed down and turned into Russo’s
driveway, giving me an excellent sidelong view of the driver.
    It was Russo. He was alone.
    There were a couple of different things I
could do, depending on where he parked his car. But once I heard
the sound of the garage door opening, my course was set.
    I waited until