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

moment of shocked silence, the old man gave him the number. He sounded disgusted about having to do so, but that was for another time.

Razvan called the number and told the man who answered what to do.

Then he ended the call and told Benj and Costel, “We hold out for ten minutes. Maybe less.”

They nodded.

Nora hadn’t moved since Benj pressed the gun to her temple, and now the only thing moving were her eyes, wide and searching for help.

Razvan grinned at her, piling the flesh around his sunken eyes, and yelled to the men outside, “Fuck you. You open that door, she dies.”

Donaldson stood in the open door of his cruiser, gaping down the dirt road at the fireworks show coming from the Romanian property.

The sounds were a bit behind the flashes of gunfire, all of it unmistakable and taking him straight back to his time in combat, surreal and not anything he wanted to experience again.

Then a big flash and a second later the crack and boom of a large explosion, and Donaldson ducked back into the cruiser and got on the radio, fighting the urge to call for air support.

“Sheriff, it’s insane out here. I’ve got shots fired and bombs going off.”

Sheriff Wern said, “Bombs?”

“Affirmative.”

“Well, who’s out there? Just the Romanians?”

“I have no idea. I assume it’s them and the guys who went after the armored car this morning.”

Wern was silent for what seemed an hour, then said, “Any sign of Nora Albrecht or her vehicle? A Lexus?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Well, she’s not exactly missing, but Hennig didn’t find her out at her place. And Jim saw a man driving her car…”

Donaldson shook his head, marveling at the sheriff locking up the radio while he thought out loud.

When the line was open again he said, “I don’t know about any of that. But we got big problems out here, and I mean big. We—”

Then he stopped and listened.

“Hold on sheriff, it all went quiet just now.”

“Can you see anything?”

“Just the silos poking up over the street, and the lights, and what looks to be smoke. I can’t see anything on the ground.”

“No vehicles moving around?”

“Negative. I’m gonna drive closer for a look.”

“You damn well will not, Donaldson. You stay put.”

“Sheriff, they—”

“Whatever is going on out there is between them. None of my people are getting hurt over some dirty money getting tugged on by two gangs of scumbags.”

Donaldson was a little ashamed of the relief he felt at being ordered to stand down, but he couldn’t give up that easily.

“You said the Albrecht girl might be out here.”

“No, I said she’s not at home. You get confirmation she’s out there with the Romanians, that’s another story.”

“So, I ought to take a look.”

“You ought not! Stay put or I’ll call your butt back to the station.”

“Fine, copy that. But—hold on, I got headlights approaching from the southeast. Any units coming my way?”

“No,” Wern said, “is it the Lexus?”

Donaldson waited until the vehicle got closer. It had those bright LED headlights with the blue tint, painful to look straight into, but he could tell it was too big to be the missing Lexus.

“Some kind of SUV or larger,” he said. “Standby.”

He put the radio down and walked around the hood of the cruiser, where he was illuminated by his own lights and felt safe with the buffer of the car between him and the approaching vehicle.

He put his left hand up, telling the driver to stop.

His right hand was on his service pistol.

The vehicle came on, slowing as it got closer, and when it stopped Donaldson was going to tell them to keep going straight toward home or turn around, depending on who it was.

But it didn’t stop.

It rolled right past the cruiser and Donaldson, who glared at the heavily tinted passenger window and couldn’t see a damn thing inside.

It was a Suburban, long as a ship as it rolled by, and he thumped on the back door.

“I said stop!”

The Suburban ignored him.

It got to the intersection with the Cherokee parked across the western stretch of 64th Street and bumped into the ditch, the engine clearing its throat when the big tank climbed out the other side and kept rolling down 64th toward the compound.

Donaldson was angry enough to send a few warning shots over the roof, but instead made note of the Illinois plates and shared the situation with Sheriff Wern, who went quiet again for a few moments, then said, “Okay, get out of there.”

“Say again?”

“Pull back. I don’t want you sitting between whatever comes out of that place and the way out of town. Go north, far enough they won’t see you, and make sure this thing doesn’t spill out.”

Donaldson didn’t know what to think of this plan, if you could call it that.

“Well, what the hell should I do if it does spill out?”

“I’ll probably call the National Guard, but I’d rather not. Now get moving.”

Bruder listened to the channel with the open microphone, inside the counting room with the Romanians, but they were speaking in Romanian and offering zero insight for what they were planning.

Connelly paced the width of the pickup truck, back and forth along the front bumper.

“They can’t kill her,” Rison said, to calm him down. “If they do, they’re dead.”

“Yeah, but are they too stupid to know that? I mean, they won’t even say what they want. Like, a truck and half the money. They won’t say anything.”

Kershaw said, “They’re just killing time. Stalling until backup arrives.”

“Which we can’t allow to happen,” Bruder said.

Connelly shook his head.

“Well, we can’t just bust in there. Razvan has that gun on her, and those other two are armed. We kick that door once, she’s dead.”

“Tell them you’re gonna blow the charge,” Rison said.

“They won’t buy it. Not for a second. Not with her in there holding it.”

Rison shrugged.

“Worth a shot.”

“No, I’ll go talk to them,” Connelly said. “I’ll get them to come out.”

“Don’t bother,” Bruder told him.

They all looked at Bruder, then