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

Connelly scoffed.

“Bullshit, pal. But all that is ancient history.”

He glanced over his left shoulder.

The big one was at his eight o’clock, out of sight and out of the line of fire if the other one decided to shoot.

The one in front of him said, “Yes, history. Because now Grigore is dead—did you kill him?”

“Nope.”

He lifted the rifle, moving the barrel from Connelly’s chest to his face.

“I think you did.”

“Is this what Razvan told you to do? Threaten me and scare me into blowing the cash? Because it’s working.”

The man behind him said something in Romanian, making the one in front blink a few times.

Making a decision.

“Hold still,” he said.

Connelly heard adjustments and footsteps behind him, then large hands checked him for anything other than the remote.

They didn’t find anything because he didn’t have anything.

“Where is your phone? The one you used to call the girl?”

“In the car, the cup holder.”

The big one looked inside to confirm this, then stepped behind him again.

“We’re going to check the bags,” the man in front said.

“All of them?”

He stopped after one step toward the car and looked at Connelly.

“Do we need to?”

“No, it’s all there. It would just take a long time to check them all. And I don’t want you jostling the explosives.”

“Jostling?”

“Fucking with.”

The man glanced at the other one and said, “Where are the explosives?”

“Packed in the trunk, buried under a couple of the bags. You know, for maximum damage.”

“Just open the door. And the trunk.”

Connelly did.

The big one unzipped a few of the top bags in the back seat and stuck his hand in, pawing around to make sure the cash went all the way to the bottom of the duffels, then went to the trunk and looked in at the pile.

He told Connelly, “Pull them out.”

“Which ones?”

The man pointed.

“This one. That one. And that one.”

Connelly pulled them out one at a time with his left hand and set them in the road.

“Open.”

He unzipped the bags—slightly difficult with the remote clutched in his right hand—and made a show of the bundled money inside.

“See? No magazines, or newspapers, or whatever else we might have found to replace the cash. Soybeans? Who knows.”

The two men were only half-listening, both of them peering into the trunk at the sliver of explosives showing between two of the bags. It was just a black satchel, but Connelly had pulled the flap open a bit to show some wires, knowing those had a tendency to freak people out.

He waited while they silently freaked out.

If Connelly had a weapon stashed on him, it would have been the perfect opportunity to use it and get rid of both of these clowns.

But that wasn’t the plan.

If these two went radio silent and Connelly showed up at the compound alone, he probably wouldn’t get the warm welcome Razvan had promised.

So he waited for them to turn and acknowledge the money, then closed the bags and eased them back in the trunk one by one, playing up the possibility of the explosives accidentally going off, which was actually zero.

The two men stepped away while he worked.

He closed the trunk and back door.

The one in charge said, “I’m driving this car. You’re riding with me.”

“Okay.”

“I want to be sure, if you decide to blow me up, you die too.”

Connelly went around to the passenger side and got in. He looked over at the man, standing outside the open driver’s door, sweating.

“Seat belt,” the man said.

Connelly fumbled it into place with his left hand.

“Now put your left arm under the belt, like that. Yes, tuck it in so it’s strapped against you. Your right hand, keep it up where I can see it.”

Connelly said, “I’m not going to blow us both up just because we almost got into a bar fight. So come on. Hop in.”

The man handed his rifle to the big one and pulled a flat black pistol from his waistband.

He kept that in his left hand, away from but pointed at Connelly, as he got in and closed the door.

“If you blow us up, the woman dies. You know that, right?”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

They led the way out of the intersection with the truck following.

Connelly checked his mirror and saw the big guy was hanging back, just in case the Lexus exploded.

He looked over at the driver, who had a drop of sweat hanging off the end of his nose.

“You guys aren’t leaving anybody here?”

“Shut up.”

“It’s just, I was kinda hoping you’d find my friends. Well, my former friends. They left me hanging.”

“We’ll find them, don’t worry about it.”

He glanced over at Connelly and didn’t say anything, but his face told the story.

He was supposed to keep up the charade about Connelly and Nora being safe, reunited, allowed to go on their merry way once the cash was handed over.

But the look told Connelly the Romanians were going to do whatever they wanted and needed to in order to find everyone responsible.

“I hope so,” Connelly said.

Then, knowing Bruder and the others on the other end of the radio had the information they needed, he said, “So you’re a soccer fan, huh?”

Jim Thorensen watched the Lexus drive past his house, going north with its lights on, and frowned at it.

His house was close enough to the road to hear and sometimes feel every vehicle that went past, and it looked like the Albrecht girl’s car, but there was a man in the driver’s seat.

In addition to that oddity, nobody was supposed to be out driving around until this madness with the Romanian fellas and the sheriff and whoever the heck else was involved got settled.

Jim almost called Sheriff Wern to report it, but decided it was a better idea to mind his own business and go back to trying to fix his chainsaw while listening to the boys on AM radio and their commentary about how the Hawkeyes were getting screwed once again in the national rankings.

He wandered back into the dining room, a small space with