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

another tree line waited.

Maybe they could swing back north through the fields and slide around the neighborhoods and hit the highway.

Maybe there wouldn’t be any checkpoints still up.

And maybe no one would call Razvan and tell him about the white truck bouncing around in the fields behind their house.

He looked north and saw a dark line right below the horizon.

“Another ditch?”

Nora nodded.

“’With a fence. They keep horses.”

He looked at the barns.

“I know these are full. If we pull something out, is there anywhere inside we can hide the truck?”

She chewed her lip.

“They’re just big open spaces, like hangars. So…no?”

“Show me.”

She made a face but pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the sliding door.

Bruder pushed it—much easier than he’d expected—just far enough to look inside.

It was a hangar full of huge machinery, like a tomb for alien crafts.

Rison looked past Bruder’s arm.

“We can hide the money in there. If the Romanians don’t have any reason to go digging, they’ll stick their heads in, look for a white truck, and call it good.”

“Find a good spot,” Bruder said.

And to Connelly, “Keep the charges with the bags.”

Connelly nodded.

They started pulling the surveying equipment and camping gear and food and water out and tossing it on the ground to get to the duffel bags.

Nora helped, and when she saw the wall of bags said, “How much did you take?”

Connelly grinned.

“All of it.”

“Yeah, but…”

“We don’t know yet,” Bruder said, killing the conversation.

They got the bags out and Connelly and Rison followed Nora into the nearest shed to find a good spot.

Bruder stayed outside, looking around, and it crossed his mind that Connelly and Rison might decide, in there in the shed, they’d rather split the money two ways instead of four.

It sometimes happened when part of a crew got alone with the money and started thinking too much.

It also sometimes happened when a woman was involved.

He didn’t find it likely from those two, or Nora, but he’d thought of it now and wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.

He’d be ready.

And though he didn’t appreciate irony, it was ironic how the Romanians might be the main factor in stopping any sort of double-cross—everyone was too preoccupied with not getting stabbed in the front by Razvan and his crew to come up with a backstab plan.

The three of them came back out empty-handed.

“Where?” Bruder said.

He followed Rison inside, where they had to squeeze between the door and the front of something huge and green with a cab floating above Bruder’s head.

“Combine,” Rison said, like he was proud of the wisdom.

They got around the front and Rison led them down a narrow alley between the combine and a tractor with dual back wheels and a hopper wagon behind it.

“Up there,” Rison said.

Bruder stepped up onto the wagon and found a ladder built into the side.

He climbed up two steps and looked over the top.

The bags were there, in the bottom, among some loose corn kernels.

Rison said, “We toss some more bags, then the charges, then the rest of the bags. Then cover all of it with a tarp, from over there past the back of the hopper. But me and Connelly thought of something.”

Bruder turned and looked down, ready if Rison went for his gun.

“What if we have one or two of us in here, hidden away, and we lure Razvan and whoever he has with him inside? We take them out, then the guy out by the road, if they run the same setup the lady on the phone talked about. That’s three more down. Which leaves two, if my math is right.”

Bruder nodded.

Rison said, “Then we just get in the truck and head for the highway. If we come across the other two, we put them down. Then we can go get a burger at Len’s. I’m kidding about that part, but you know what I mean.”

Bruder climbed down.

“Let’s talk outside. So everybody can hear it.”

“Ambush,” Bruder said.

Rison and Connelly and Nora stood by the tailgate of the truck, listening.

“I’ve been thinking about it too, looking at the angles. I didn’t think about inside the shed. It’s a good idea. It might work. I don’t like bringing them to the one with the money in it, but maybe the other one.”

“It would be harder to hide in there,” Nora said. “It’s mostly attachments, like discs and plows and sprayers. They take up a lot of room, but they aren’t very tall.”

Bruder headed for the other shed and they followed.

Nora unlocked the door and sure enough, the floor was packed but Bruder could see all the way across to the far walls. The tallest thing was an orange Kubota tractor that rose just past Bruder’s chest.

No good.

Bruder nodded.

“The other one, then. We plan for it, but not on it. Understand?”

Connelly and Rison nodded and started toward the truck to move more bags.

“Hold on,” Nora said. “You guys are going to leave a bunch of dead bodies around my house?”

Connelly said, “Whatever we do, it won’t come back on you. We won’t leave a mess.”

She didn’t seem convinced but didn’t say anything else about it.

Connelly and Rison got back to work, leaving Nora and Bruder standing in the doorway.

“Don’t get him killed,” she said.

Bruder shrugged.

“That’s up to him.”

“But you’re in charge. You’re management.”

Bruder dismissed that and said, “When Razvan gets here, what will you do?”

“Talk to him, I guess. Shouldn’t I?”

“Yes. Will you be able to? By yourself?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, and her tone told him she probably would be. “What are you going to do about the truck?”

Bruder asked her, “How deep is your pond?”

They got what they needed out of the truck and left everything else inside with the side cap windows and tailgate open.

Rison put all the cab windows down and drove it to the edge of the pond, then put it in neutral and hopped out, closing the door as the truck rolled forward.

The pond was about fifty yards across, mostly round, and Nora had said it