Free Resurrection Express by Stephen Romano Page B

you.
    “You could have filled me in on all this sooner,” I say to Jenison, still staring at the photo. “I could have been using the last few days to look in the right places.”
    “The fact that you didn’t know anything is probably what saved your life,” she tells me. “If Hartman had really suspected what you were on the street for . . . if you’d dropped any hints to your little hacker buddies online . . . our friend might have made a bigger move, sent more shooters. You’d be very dead right now.”
    I fold the photo in half, set it on the table in front of me. Tap the table with my fingers. My gears working now, all cycles engaged.
    “I still say he’s got something bigger to protect than human trafficking. Ten shooters or ten million shooters, Hartman has never been this broad-daylight about killing anyone. I’ve seen him go pretty crazy, but he’s mostly a dirty player who does things in a dark alley—or he just cuts your throat while you’re sleeping.”
    “You also said Hartman was a redneck, not a master scoundrel.”
    “Yeah.”
    “People do change, Mister Coffin.”
    “Not David. Not like this. He’s a sneaky bastard and he’s not complicated at all. What he just did stirred up a major public shitstorm.It’s all over the news right now. That’s bad business, like you said.”
    “I did say that. I’m impressed that you were listening. Most people like yourself simply wait for their turn to talk in situations like these.”
    “That’s why most people like myself die young.”
    When I say that, Alex Bennett finally shakes her head, giving me a look, like, Oh really?
    Jenison smiles thinly. “Regardless of what you may think or suspect about Hartman, our dilemma remains . . . and our objective is the vault. That is not open for discussion. That’s why you’re on this team.”
    “So let’s talk about the vault.”
    “We have specs, but we have no way in,” Jenison says. “It’s a very dangerous job. Physically dangerous, I mean. And for your participation . . . you will be paid two million dollars.”
    I almost don’t hear that last part.
    I’m not thinking about the money.
    I force myself to.
    “Two million is more than I’ve ever made before. You sure do like to throw your cash around, don’t you?”
    “I can think of a thousand other ways I’d rather be spending my fortune, Elroy.”
    “How much do we get up front?”
    “Nothing. I’m not a fool. You’ve already tried to cut and run once, I’ll not have it again. Under normal circumstances, I would have written you off. Sergeant Rainone would have enjoyed that, I’m sure.”
    The Sarge doesn’t say anything. Just simmers.
    “But you’re a unique breed,” Jenison says to me. “And this job is important. I’ll equip you and keep you alive long enough to do the job. Then my people will cut you loose in Mexico with your money. That is, of course, if you survive.”
    I look at my father. “It’s really that bad?”
    He looks at me. “Oh yeah, kiddo. It is.”
    “Then it’s just like old times.”
    Alex Bennett finally uncrosses her legs and leans forward, her searing amber eyes catching the dim light in the room, her voice tough and Southern, like some typical Texas caricature made really damn serious:
    “No, Mister Coffin. It ain’t.”

5
    00000-5
    COFFIN RUN
T here are three ways you approach a job like this—three plots of attack. The first is the simplest. You sneak in and steal everything over a wire. Hartman’s made that impossible. The second is the cowboy method. You run in making a lot of noise with ski masks on, waving guns and knives and sharp sticks—scare the hell out of them, make them give you everything, then run out. You still need at least one wirehead when you do that. And you have to be ready to kill a few people. That won’t work either in this case.
    So the third method is the one we’re using in three days.
    Guns and laptops.
    The best of both worlds.
    The Texas Data