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felt threatened by what they knew.
    But over the years he had come to appreciate the security their ignorance about their employer gave them. If they couldn’t identify the man surely there was little reason to worry. If they screwed up, however, and El Conde found out they had disregarded his orders, well then Keogh was pretty sure that each of them would quickly come to wish they had never been born.
    But a million dollars was a million dollars, and so he had gone along with Arturo’s idea. Besides, the two of them could handle Gant. The syringe in his pocket was filled with methohexital, a fast acting barbiturate, enough to put their man out for at least ten minutes, more than enough time to secure him in the back of the van and sedate him properly for the drive to the facility. Then they’d pick up Flood, deliver their cargo and get paid. Another team would dispose of the bike. The helmet, dog tags and scraps of his clothing would be found in the desert several weeks later. It would look like he’d had an accident, his remains eaten by coyotes.
    Vincent Keogh lifted the binoculars again. A motorbike had just appeared from around Grimes Point, the rider leaning hard into the corner. A second later the wind carried the faint sound of the engine screaming as the revs increased, a short blip as he shifted gear, quickly building again to a crescendo, louder now as the distance to them closed. The bike was really moving. Good. He wouldn’t be suspicious when they pulled him over. He turned around, indicating to Arturo to get ready. He waited a few seconds longer then stepped out into the road.
     

 
    5
     
     
     
     
    LARSHENRIKSSENHAD been heading back to town on US-95 when the call had come in. He swung his cruiser around and five minutes later was rolling into the parking lot of Mount Grant General Hospital, just in time to find a couple of orderlies removing a body from the back of an unmarked black van. He pulled up behind them, hauling himself out of the driver’s seat, trying not to wince as he stretched out his leg. He had his mouth open to remonstrate with the nearest one but a single glance into the back of the van was all it took to tell him he was already too late. No hope of preserving the scene; the damage was already done. And the last thing he needed now was them manhandling the body back into the van in front of a crowd of rubbernecking onlookers. He took their names, telling them to come back and find him as soon as they had taken the corpse to the mortuary.
    When he returned to the cruiser Jed and Larry were already pulling up behind. He set his deputies to work cordoning off the area, making sure that the growing crowd was kept at a distance while he went in search of someone who had seen what had happened. A few minutes later he was back at the old black and white sedan, reaching in to unhook the mike from the car’s two-way.
    ‘Connie, it’s Lars. You there?’
    A second’s pause and then a burst of static followed by the familiar voice of the woman who ran Hawthorne’s tiny police department.
    ‘Sure Sheriff. What’s up?’
    ‘Well, Connie, we got one hell of a mess up here at Mount Grant. There’s a black Dodge RAM crashed into the main entrance. Two men in the back, shot, one of ’em dead already. The other’s taken a bullet in the gut. He’s in surgery right now. Driver’s away on foot, looks like he’s headed west towards the reservoir. There’s fresh blood on the driver’s seat and door, so most likely he’s also wounded. And I’d guess carrying, which is not a good combination. I doubt he’ll get far but you’d best put an APB out on him. Hispanic male, well-built, forty to forty-five years old, five-eight, five-nine, dark hair, wearing a Nevada highway patrol uniform.’ He paused for a moment, thinking. ‘And get Duke up here with those dogs of his. There’ll be a trail but the light’ll be gone in an hour or so, so best tell him to haul ass. I suspect our guy’ll