In Sheep's Clothing (6 page)

“You okay?” Noah asked, and she shrugged her shoulders, but with a grin on her face.

“I guess so,” she said. “You know, all those years when I was growing up, I didn't ever really think about the fact I was helping my dad steal cars. I always thought of myself as a pretty good kid, you know what I mean? If someone had told me even three years ago that I would one day be helping to make bombs to kill a bunch of drug dealers, I would've said they were crazy.” She rolled her eyes. “Now look at me. I'm so deeply entrenched into this, now, I'm not only part of an assassination team, I'm in love with a man who kills people for a living. It's not exactly the Cinderella, happily-ever-after kind of thing that most girls dream about, you know?”

“I can imagine,” Noah said. “Let's face it, I'm not any kind of Prince Charming, anyway.” He looked at Moose. “How's it coming?”

“Better, now that Sarah is helping me out. I can stuff potting soil in a pot, stick flowers in there all day long, but I just don't have the eye to make it look like something pretty. She does. With her helping, people might actually believe these came from a real flower shop.”

“Good, we need this to look as realistic as possible.” Noah glanced at his phone to check the time. “It's almost five thirty,” he said. “Anybody hungry?”

They all admitted that they could eat, so Noah sent Sarah out to pick up sandwiches, fries and drinks. She was back within half an hour, and they took a break to have dinner. By the time they were finished, the last flowerpot had been taken out of the printer. All four of them worked together to finish the last four floral arrangements, with Sarah advising them all.

“Okay, let's make us a skeleton,” Neil said.

The skeleton would have to be assembled, with each section printed out separately. The feet, shins, thighs, pelvis, spine, rib cage, shoulder blades, upper arms, forearms, hands, neck bones, skull and lower jaw were each individual designs. He called up the feet on the monitor, and set it to printing the right one first.

Each section would require a separate detonator, so there were a total of twenty of them involved. As fast as the printer was, it still took over four hours to make all of the parts, including a rod to help it stand up, and then they had to be snapped together. Luckily, they had been designed for easy assembly, but it was still almost 11 o'clock before the entire four-foot skeleton was laid out on the table.

They were as prepared as they could be up to that point. All that remained was to wait for the dress to arrive the next day and gather up a supply of jewelry with which to decorate the shrine.

“All right, let's go get some rest,” Noah said. “Tomorrow morning, Sarah, you can run out and see what kind of jewelry you can find.”

“From what I see online,” Neil said, “it doesn't have to be expensive stuff. Old costume jewelry would work just fine—the shinier and flashier, the better.”

“That ought to be easy. I can hit some of the thrift stores, they usually have lots of that kind of stuff. Salvation Army, here I come!”

When they got to the hotel, they said goodnight and went to their rooms. Sarah waited until they had gotten inside before she turned and put her arms around Noah's neck, pulling him down for a kiss.

“Well,” Noah said, “what did I do to deserve that?”

“Nothing yet,” Sarah said with a mischievous grin. “It's what you're about to do.” She peeled his shirt off over his head and reached for the buckle of his belt. “I'll explain the rest when we get in the shower.”

* * * * *

N
oah had told them they could all sleep in a bit the next morning, but old habits are hard to break. By seven thirty, they were all awake and ready for breakfast. The hotel had a waffle maker and other items for a free breakfast, so they decided to simply eat there.

“Waffles,” Neil said, “are one of God's great gifts to mankind.”

“You say that about every kind of food,” Sarah said, poking him in the ribs. “As much as you eat, I cannot understand how on earth you can stay so skinny.”

“Hey! Stop that!” Neil said, slapping at her hand. “I can't help it I'm still growing.”

“If you're still growing, kid,” Moose said, “then you're going to have a big problem. You can barely get through a doorway now.”

Neil sneered at him. “Yeah? How's the weather down there, Shorty?”

The easy banter continued while they ate, but then it was time to get to work, so they cleaned up after themselves and went out to the car. Sarah dropped the three men off at the warehouse, then went in search of jewelry and baby needs.

One of the things she had been told over and over during her training for E & E was to avoid drawing attention to herself during a mission. Regardless of what kind of vehicle she was driving, she was always supposed to keep it under the speed limit, signal every turn, do everything by the book so that no one would take any notice of her or the car.

Normally, that wasn't a problem, but when she came to the first stoplight, she found herself right beside two young men in a brand-new Corvette, and the driver kept looking over at her with a grin while revving his engine. She smiled at him, but that only encouraged him. He rolled down his window and began calling for her to race him to the next light.

Sarah shook her head, still smiling, but the boy didn't give up easily. His friend was making faces at her, and clucking noises, and she suddenly found it annoying. She glanced at the rearview mirror, then looked all around to see if there were likely to be any police in the area.

She saw nothing, so she turned and glanced at the Corvette's driver again, then winked. He broke out into a huge smile, and revved the engine a couple more times as they waited for the light to turn green.

Green appeared, and the rear tires of the Corvette suddenly began spinning and screaming, as the driver gave it all he had. Sarah shook her head at his foolishness and pushed her own foot to the floor. The Chrysler's all-wheel drive grabbed the road and threw her forward like a rocket, leaving the Corvette sitting in a cloud of its own black smoke.

It was almost a quarter of a mile to the next light, and Sarah had been sitting stopped at it for more than five seconds before the Corvette pulled up beside her. The driver was staring at her in awe, but his comments and taunts had come to an end. The passenger was looking straight ahead, unwilling to even turn his eyes in her direction.

When the light changed again, Sarah drove away sedately. The young driver of the Corvette gave his car more accelerator and pulled quickly away, but Sarah knew that he would never forget the day a big four-door sedan had left him sitting still at the light.

Three hours later, with three big bags of costume jewelry, Sarah returned to the warehouse. She dumped it all out on the table, and she and Neil began choosing the items they would use to decorate the shrine. She had bought necklaces, bracelets, brooches and more, all kinds of sparkly, shiny things to represent the offerings believers would present to Santa Muerte.

She sent Moose out to the car to get her other purchases. Two folding cribs, a playpen and a folding cot for an adult were carried in, followed by a TV, a mini fridge and plenty of snacks and soft drinks to stock it with. There were also three big bags of diapers, baby food and other necessities. Moose set them all in the room they had set aside as a holding area for the nanny and babies, and then he and Neil began setting them up.

And then they waited. According to the tracking number Neil had gotten via email, the dress was scheduled to arrive sometime in the afternoon. There wasn't a lot they could do until then, so Noah went over the plan with them one more time.

“Once the skeleton is dressed and ready, Moose will load it into the van and take it to the Gomez house. We’ll put a card with it that indicates it was a gift from a friend of Duane Harris, asking them to pray for his release. Once they have accepted it and taken it inside, that's when we'll start watching for the nanny to take the children out. Immediately after that, Moose, you're going to go and steal us a car, something big but not too noticeable. Sarah and I will use that car to go and find the nanny and children, forcing them into the car and bringing them back here. Hopefully, we can do that without drawing any attention, but we'll stay away from the warehouse until we're sure we're not being followed. At that point, we'll need you to bring the Chrysler and pick us up somewhere, Moose. We don't want the stolen car connected to this location.”

“Right,” Moose said, “I'll be ready.”

“Noah,” Sarah said, “why don’t we just use the Chrysler? I can flip the plates and change the color, so no one would know it was the same car we’re driving now.”

Noah shook his head. “No, we don’t want to overuse what that car can do unless we absolutely have to. That’s a pretty powerful feature, and I can see how it could save our asses if we need it, but the last thing we need is someone saying they saw a car like that changing color as it went down the road. For this purpose, it’s better to use a completely different car.”

“Okay, I can see your point. I’m just dying to use it.”

“Hang on, and I’m sure you’ll get the chance sooner or later. Neil, when Moose leaves to come pick us up, I want you to call the Gomez house and use one of your computerized voices to deliver the message in Spanish that the kids have been kidnapped, and that we want ten million dollars in ransom. Tell them that we’ll be back in touch with instructions, then cut the call off. That should start the ball rolling.”

“Not a problem,” Neil said. “My Spanish is pretty good, and the computer can make me sound like somebody from their neck of the woods.”

“Good. As soon as we get the nanny and kids locked away here, I'll notify Queen Allison that they're ready for pickup. We'll wait about three hours after the abduction, give it time to let the news spread about it, and if nothing is happening, then the first load of flowers can be delivered. Neil, you be sure to use a similar voice to order flowers from two or three other flower shops around town, get them delivered as quickly as possible to the Gomez house. An hour or so later, Moose, you can take the last batch of flowers to them.”

“Got it, Boss.”

“Sarah, once we drop the nanny and kids off here, we get into the car and just start circling around that area of the city. The idea is to be as close as possible when the gathering begins. Neil, you'll be keeping tabs on who's going in and out of that house, I want to get as many of them as possible inside. If we miss any, Moose and I will have to track them down and take them out one by one.”

“They all got together when that one guy was killed,” Neil said, “so I figure they'll do it again over Mrs. Gomez losing her kids. They're all supposed to be pretty close, so it would make sense.”

Noah nodded in agreement. “I think you're right, but we have to prepare for contingencies. Keep your eye on as many of those cameras as you can, I need to know about any of the targets who manage not to get caught in the trap.”

“Will do.”

T
he day dragged on, but finally a big brown delivery truck appeared. Noah had put Sarah at the reception desk in the front office of the warehouse, and she smiled at the driver as he carried a box inside.

“Is this Avalon Floral?”

“It sure is,” Sarah said cheerfully. “Got something for me?”

The driver smiled and set the box on the counter in front of her, then held out a device and asked her to use a stylus to sign for the package. She quickly scribbled “Rosemary Wingo” and handed it back. The driver smiled once more, winked at her and then headed back to his truck and drove away.

Sarah grabbed the box and headed out into the warehouse, where Moose took it from her and began to open it up. The wedding dress he lifted out of it was small, but very pretty.

“Wow,” Sarah said, “that's pretty nice. If it was a little bigger, I could wear it.”

Neil spun in his chair to look at her, his eyes wide. “You guys getting married?”

Sarah's eyes were suddenly even wider than his. “What? No! No, I just meant—I mean, I was just saying—oh, shut up, Neil!”

Moose started laughing. “I wish you could see your face, Sarah,” he said. “I don't think I've ever seen you turn quite so red before.”

“You shut up, too!”

“Okay, okay,” Moose said. “You want to come help dress up Bony Girl? Even if you're not getting married, you probably know more about how to put on a wedding dress than we do.”

Sarah stared at him blankly for a moment, then grinned. “Yeah, probably,” she said. “I doubt any of you have ever been near one before now.” She walked over to the table and began looking it over. “Remember, this is just a costume, it doesn't even fasten like a real wedding gown. It's got these three little hooks in the back instead of a zipper or buttons. Set the skeleton down on the floor, please?”

Moose did as she asked, and Sarah slid the dress down over its head, fumbling to get the bony arms into the sleeves without ripping the lace. It took her only a couple of minutes, and then she stood back and looked at it.

“Okay, let's get the jewelry on her.” She began picking through the pile they had made the day before, adding different ornaments to the figure as she went along.

“We missed something,” Neil said, “actually a couple of things. Santa Muerte is supposed to be holding a couple of objects, mainly a scythe—she's Death, right?—and a globe, like of the world. I guess that's supposed to mean she has the power of life and death over everything.” He looked at Noah. “I can make them, with the printer. They should look okay that way.”

Noah nodded. “Yes, go ahead. We need this to look as real as possible.”

Neil nodded once and went to the printer. He couldn’t find a scythe in the image database, but it took him only a few minutes to create one with the CAD software that was built into it, and the printer began working at its normal rapid pace.

Sarah was actually enjoying herself, and Noah cocked his head to one side as he watched her work. It took a moment, but she saw him.

“What?” Sarah asked.