High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

“How is he?”

“He’s fine. Pissed that you shot him.”

“He’ll get over it. We needed to protect his cover at all costs.”

He stood and walked to the bag, unzipped it and pulled out the socks. He hefted them in his big hands and shook his head.

“So do you have Plan C?”

I said, “Only the hope that I was followed by the bad guys.”

He nodded and pulled an M-4 carbine with an optic sight and laser from the bag. I had already put a magazine in. He locked and loaded a round into the chamber and handed the rifle to me. Next he passed over two extra magazines. I put them in my pockets.

“If you’re right, it won’t be long,” he said.

I was about to say something when a high-pitched tone sounded.

“Motion detector,” he said. “I set up a couple outside. Get over there on the stairs. Take the duffle. Move.”

I scrambled four steps up to a landing, turned, and took another four. It put me in total darkness with an unobstructed view of the living room. By the time I had taken up the position, Peralta was sitting back in the armchair with a blanket over his lap.

Four raps came on the door.

Once again, Peralta said two words. “It’s open!”

I thought about the flash bang grenade in Cartwright’s RV. If that was about to be thrown into the room, we were screwed. If an FBI tactical team followed with orders to shoot on sight, we were double screwed.

Instead, a large silhouette stepped inside.

He said, “Don’t move an eyelash.”

It was Horace Mann. He stepped in three paces and stopped, a semiautomatic pistol trained on Peralta. I silently switched the safety off the M-4 and took dead aim at Mann’s head. Nobody was going to use body armor against me again.

Peralta said, “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

This would be the time for Horace Mann as good guy to produce his credentials and identify himself.

Instead, he said, “Where’s Mapstone?”

“I had to kill him,” Peralta said.

“You’re one cold-blooded dude, Peralta.” Mann used his left hand to swing the door closed. The latch snapped shut.

“Body’s in the kitchen if you want to see.”

“I’ll stay right here,” he said. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

The athletic socks were two feet to his left.

Peralta said, “That something belongs to the FBI.”

“Nobody knows who those stones belong to,” Mann said. “That’s the beauty of it. The rough was shipped FedEx from Vancouver to Seattle, concealed with some student rock collections. It was an accident they were ever discovered. The package came apart and Customs got curious. The diamonds were turned over to the Seattle field office, their investigation went nowhere, and they ended up in evidence.”

“Where you took them.”

Mann hesitated.

“That’s how it went down,” Peralta said. “Otherwise, you’d be here with a SWAT team and a dozen agents.”