The Box by Jeremy Brown (ebook reader play store txt) 📕

Razvan said, “So it’s up to you. If you have to shoot, leave at least one of them alive.”

“Yes, you told me.”

“And if you spot them, call and we’ll come in from behind. So don’t shoot us.”

“Yes, Raz. I got it.”

Razvan ended the call and dialed Claudiu’s phone.

Claudiu was searching the northwest quadrant, which had the fewest places to hide.

Ideally Claudiu should have another man with him and a second or third vehicle in the area, but Razvan couldn’t move anyone from what they were already doing.

He took solace in the fact that if the thieves were there, they were trapped.

All Claudiu had to do was spot them—or anything close to something looking like them—and call it in.

The man was excited by the idea of interrogating the thieves, and Razvan had made a promise: If he found them, Claudiu could do whatever he wanted to them as long as they didn’t die.

As long as he got his answers, the ones expected by the man in Chicago, Razvan didn’t care about anything else.

But one thing was starting to edge to the forefront of his concerns.

Claudiu’s phone was still ringing, and he wasn’t answering.

Razvan called Mihail back.

“Have you seen Claudiu?”

“No, not since this morning at the compound, before all of this happened. Why?”

“He’s somewhere out by you, north of the highway. He’s not answering his phone.”

Mihail said, “Is he pouting?”

“I don’t give a shit if he’s pouting, screaming, or being stabbed. When I call, he answers.”

Razvan took the phone away from his ear and fought the urge to hurl it at the side of the building.

Why would Mihail even ask that question?

What, now it was okay for Claudiu to do his job based on how he was feeling?

And everyone knew it?

“Fuck!”

The outburst startled a woman sitting in her car in the northbound lanes with her window cracked. She had two children in the back seat who gaped out at Razvan and glanced at their mother to see what she was going to do.

She looked away from him, this tower of a man with skin stretched taut across his face like rubber over a skull and put the window up.

Razvan told Mihail, “Just watch for him. If you see him, tell him to call me.”

“Sure, Raz. You got it.”

Razvan killed the call and stalked toward the car, alarming the woman and children inside, and turned left to walk toward the crossroads only when he felt satisfied by their level of terror.

Another twenty minutes, then thirty, then close to forty minutes.

Nearly two cycles of missed check-ins, with a dozen unanswered calls in the meantime.

Razvan’s anger grew.

His main concern was Claudiu had found the thieves and was already going to work on them, sneaking in some personal time with them before he reported back.

What Claudiu never seemed to understand was that people will tell you anything if you hurt them too much, too quickly.

Razvan needed truths, not just confessions.

If—when Claudiu finally called back—if he summoned Razvan to a slaughterhouse, with these men from the white truck spread out all over the walls and floor and begging for death, Razvan decided he might just add Claudiu to the pile.

It was clear his men needed a prompt, a reminder, about who Razvan from Lehliu Gară was.

He was thinking about this when Benj shouted something from up on the roof of the building on the northwest corner.

Razvan looked up at him, then shielded his eyes to look down the four lanes stretching to the west, where Benj was pointing.

And he saw it.

A flash of white, a large crew-cab truck with a cap over the bed, coming toward the crossroads and turning right down one of the side streets, the first one, Dolan.

“Shoot them!” Razvan screamed.

Benj fired his rifle once, being too careful about the other cars.

“Keep shooting, you idiot!”

But the truck was gone, around the corner and out of sight.

Razvan ran to his truck, an awkward lope as he tried to call Grigore at the same time.

“Yeah?”

“They’re coming your way, they just turned on Dolan from the highway.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes! We’ll block them from coming back this way. Where are you?”

Grigore said, “Out in the farms, I’m turning around now.”

Razvan heard the other truck’s engine open up.

“There aren’t many roads they can take, find an intersection and wait there. You’ll spot them. Hold them and call me back.”

“Okay, right.”

He called Mihail next, who said, “We heard a shot.”

“Come into town, I need you to block the neighborhood streets going south off the highway.”

“You found them?”

“Yes, move your ass!”

Razvan got into his truck and started it, then Luca was at the window.

“What about this?”

He swept a hand across the lanes of backed-up traffic.

“Let them all go through. We block just the southwest quadrant, nobody in or out. I don’t care about the highways anymore.”

“Thank Christ,” Luca said.

“Now move! I have to go!”

Luca jogged away, waving at Benj and Costel, yelling at them to come down from the rooftops.

Razvan pulled his truck through a tight U-turn and raced south on the highway, peering west down the side streets, waiting for another glimpse of the truck.

Praying to see it coming toward him, the thieves trying to slip out of town and get south.

He didn’t see them and knew they hadn’t turned around to go north again.

So they were in this corner, somewhere, heading toward Grigore, or Mihail, or himself.

Razvan could not wait.

Chapter Fourteen

When Bruder said, “Go,” Rison went, and the modifications to the truck worked.

The Vegas garage Rison had used was discreet, cash only, and kept no memory or records about the vehicles they worked on. Bruder, Rison and Kershaw had tested the mods out in the desert before driving to Iowa, and everyone agreed: They’d be able to outrun anything except a radio.

When Rison hit the gas the truck jumped forward, all four wheels digging into the asphalt, and fans and blowers and belts kicked in beneath the hood to make a spinning-up sound like they were about to take flight.

Rison took the first