End Game (Will Robie #5)(51)

The men climbed out of the truck beds. They had an assortment of shotguns, rifles, MP5s, pistols, and UMPs.

With all Robie had done over the years, all the dangerous countries where he could have died so many times, he had never imagined taking his last breath in rural Colorado.

But so be it, he thought.

At least Reel wouldn’t see it coming. She would die peacefully.

He expected them to simply start shooting, engulfing the Yukon in fields of fire until a round found its mark or the gas tank exploded.

Instead, two men climbed out of the second truck.

And they were pulling someone along with them.

Holly Malloy’s face was bruised and bloody. Her clothes were torn. She looked half dead on her feet.

One of the skins put a muzzle against her temple. “You put your fucking gun down and come out here or the bitch gets it right now. You got two seconds. One . . .”





CHAPTER





31


Robie was shackled and sitting next to Reel, who still had not regained consciousness, but sat slumped to the side.

On the other side of her was Holly, similarly shackled and also gagged.

They hadn’t been able to talk at all after Robie had put down his weapon and the skins had hustled him out of the Yukon and carried the unconscious Reel behind him. They were now in a panel van that had driven up a few minutes after the battle had ended.

They were seated on the floor in the back with three skins across from them, pointing weapons at their heads.

Reel’s head lolled around and came to rest against Robie’s.

One of the skins grinned at him. “We’re gonna so mess you up, asshole.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

The man sneered. “You and the bitch got lucky before. Now your luck’s run out.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that either. You know we’re federal agents. You want to bring that kind of attention down on you?”

“I see it as a bonus. Government’s the enemy. And you’re the fucking government in spades.”

It seemed that they had been driving a long time before the van slowed, then stopped and then started up again, but only for a short distance. Robie thought he could hear some sort of machinery running.

The back doors of the van opened and more men appeared there. They were all skinheads, tatted with swastikas and other symbols of hate. They looked more like rabid animals than human beings, what with their malevolent eyes and bared teeth.

Reel moaned, twitched, and then opened her eyes.

She looked around, and as her thoughts passed from fuzzy to firm, she snapped back to her old self and her expression grew grim but focused.

She looked at Robie and whispered, “Sorry.”

“No need,” he whispered back. “Look to your left.”

Reel turned and saw the bound and gagged Holly. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath.

They were pulled up and hauled outside, their shoes hitting dirt a moment later. They were prodded and pushed toward a plywood-and-shingle building that was set inside a tall wire fence. The machinery sound that Robie had heard was the motorized gate, which had opened to allow them entry to the compound of twenty-first-century Hitler lovers.

“Déjà vu all over again,” Reel hissed behind him.

He simply nodded at this and kept walking. Gun muzzles periodically poked him in the back, just because the armed men could do so without fear of attack.

Robie looked right and left and took in the entire compound, which looked like an Army outpost. Men in mismatched uniforms jeered at them. They carried rifles over their shoulders, and some had World War II–era Nazi caps and tunics with German medals on them. Some wore the black uniforms of the Gestapo. There were also 1940s-era military jeeps, half-tracks, and what looked like a small tank. For a moment Robie thought he had stepped back in time. But then he decided they had probably just bought the shit from some military surplus goods store.

Or maybe they got it online. You could buy anything on the web if you knew where to look.

One line of men stood by silently. They were all on aluminum crutches with their lower legs bandaged and their feet booted. These were the men that Reel had shot in downtown Grand when they had attacked Luke at the B&B.

The one man who had promised to watch Robie die grinned maliciously as they passed by, and then he flipped them off.

They reached a solid wood door, which was opened by a guard standing at attention there.

Robie, Reel, and Holly were pushed through this opening, and the door was closed behind them. The interior was dark, but only for a moment. Then they were hit with streams of lights from all corners of the room. They all blinked and averted their gazes from the harsh illumination.

“Welcome,” said the voice.

Robie and Reel glanced in the direction of the words. Appearing from out of the darkness was a tall, overweight man with black hair and an unlined face.

Robie gauged his age at midthirties.

He was dressed in a loose-fitting green tunic and black slacks. On his head was a German officer’s cap. He had a holstered sidearm, what looked to be a vintage Walther-designed P38.

“Christ,” muttered Reel as she took in this spectacle.

The man took off his cap and set it down on a table. “My name is Dolph. Now to business.”