Mr. Dark 3 (Tamed #3)(12)

"So what you've got here is your standard US Marine Corps M-14 rifle that fires a seven point six two millimeter round," the man I was making the deal with said. While the meeting was taking place in the open, I was still wearing a hooded sweatshirt and glasses, and driving one of my backup vehicles I had when I was Mark Snow. It was another calculated risk, but I didn't have the vehicles for Marcus Smiley yet, and I couldn't risk putting it in a rented vehicle, since it was connected to a credit card. "Depending on the round you fire, you can get a minute of angle accuracy out to about eight hundred meters or more."

"And the ammunition?" I asked, looking at the deep brown wooden stock. It was a beautiful weapon, and deadly in its intent. "I'm expecting armor."

"You have armor problems, I have armor solutions," he said, opening a small bag in the truck beside the rifle. "M61 Armor Piercing Rounds. This will punch through up to a half inch of steel plating like it's nothing. It can defeat any ballistic vest material in use today. You wanna get more, you're going to have to upgrade to a fifty cal, or maybe a Winchester 300 Magnum."

I nodded and pulled out a thick envelope of cash, all twenties, and handed it over to the man. "You do good work."

"Pleasure doing business with you," the man replied. He took the bag of ammo and set it inside the case the rifle was in, which to the outside looked and was marked like one used for electric pianos. I pulled the case out and carried it over to my car and set it in the back seat. The dealer, an out-of-towner I'd only known through the Internet for a few months, got into his car and drove off. I waited two minutes before taking a circuitous route back to the warehouse. Once there, I dropped off the package before quickly driving my car to a paid parking lot on the other side of town, and hopped on a bus back to the warehouse area. It is one of the frustrating side effects of trying to be circumspect; you waste a lot of time.

Arriving at the warehouse, I took the elevator up to the third floor, where Sophie and Tabby were waiting. Sophie already had the rifle out, and had stripped it down to its parts. Considering I'd never covered the M-14 with her, I was impressed. "This is powerful enough?" she asked as she looked the receiver over with a careful eye. "I thought we were going for something higher caliber."

"It's more than powerful enough with the rounds he sold us," I said, indicating the black tipped armor piercing rounds. "It also has the advantage that I can put it on full auto if I need to. With two or more guys coming in, that could be useful."

"So what's the plan?" Tabby asked, carrying a briefcase with more business documents. It seemed out of place in the still barely cleaned room. We'd moved a table and some chairs from the second floor up to the third, and swept up, but the concrete was still raw, and the walls bare. "By the way, four more potential investments here."

"The plan is simple. They won't attack Mount Zion, the building is too identifiable, and they'll assume that if Marcus Smiley is Mark Snow, that I'd have already prepared. Also, it's in a rich area of town, which causes difficulties for Owen Lynch if there are suddenly a bunch of bodies found. So he'll want his men to hit us here. Besides, with Sophie's book delivery coming here, he won't want to pass up the opportunity to get two birds with one stone."

"I don't know, it sounds risky," Tabby said, flinching as Sophie slapped the bolt back into the upper receiver of the rifle with a loud metallic schnick.

"Tabby, both of you have had your homes invaded. I was lucky enough to be there for Sophie the last time. We basically have three choices. We can either let them come to our home, we can let them come to another place of our choosing, or we can take the fight to them and attack them where they live. There will come a time for us to attack. But for this time, we'll let them come to us."

* * *

Sophie

After Tabby left, I turned to Mark, letting my inner nerves out. "The delivery is scheduled for tomorrow," I said, "you think he'll use that as the opening?"

"He'd be foolish not to," Mark replied. "Owen Lynch controls the shipping company that we're using for this delivery. You put it on Sophie White's credit card, and we scheduled it for a mid-afternoon delivery. It's in Sophie White's name. He'll bite if its only for curiosity sake."

We spent the rest of the afternoon setting up and checking out our sight lines and planning out angles of our ambush. With the sun going down, we locked up the warehouse and headed back to Mount Zion. "So after this," I said as I drove, Mark relaxing in the passenger seat, "I was thinking we need to go car shopping. This rental is nice, but I want something different."

"I agree. Besides, we need to set up our other facilities. That won't be done through Tabby by the way."

I pulled off the intercity parkway and started to break off towards Mount Zion, glad to see the gated driveway. Workers had been busy, and most of the work was now complete, so we could at least use our living areas. A lot of the other parts of the building were taking more time however, but it added to our security in a way. With workers going late, and lights on all over the property, there was less chance of things going down.

Still, we sealed the living quarters area with a steel core door that was about as strong as your average bank vault, turning the two thousand square foot living space into a giant panic room. While technically the windows could be penetrated, the construction of the Mount Zion building itself added to the safety factor. With the Neo-Gothic impressions, the old living quarters had only narrow, tall windows that let in light, but were barely a foot wide. Perhaps a six year old kid could get through, or a really narrow-headed contortionist, but that's about it.