The Detachment

turboprop with a set of stubby wings under its nose and the main wings set way back. A Piaggio P180 Avanti. It came in from the northwest, taxied, turned, and stopped. The door opened and Kanezaki walked out onto the tarmac. He saw us and waved.
    We all climbed on. I paused to shake Kanezaki’s hand; Dox, naturally, suffocated him with a hug. Kanezaki closed the door behind us, and five minutes later, we were airborne, the pilot on course for Lincoln.
    “Damn,” Dox said, reclining in one of the plush, leather-clad seats. “I might have to get me one of these.”
    The strange thing was, he could. But I didn’t think he really meant it. The money still didn’t feel real. We had too much heat on us, for one thing. And we were too focused on stopping this horror we’d inadvertently helped start, for another.
    “I was right about Gillmor,” Kanezaki said. “He’s in Lincoln now.”
    “Your friend is tracking his cell phone?” I asked.
    He nodded. “Which means we need to divide the labor. We’re expecting four shooters on-site, and a ground team—presumably one man—operating the drone from somewhere else. You guys need to decide how to take it all down.”
    “Depends partly on what toys you brought us,” Dox said.
    Kanezaki got up and went to the back of the plane, then came back with a couple of long canvas bags. He set one on the floor and handed the other to Dox.
    Dox unzipped the bag and grinned like it was Christmas morning. “Well, goddamn,” he said, extracting and hefting a long black carbine. “Knight’s Armament SR-25, integral suppressor, twenty-round magazine, and oooh, the Leupold Mark 4 HAMR. Haven’t played with one of these before. Gonna be somewhere I can zero it?”
    “We’ll find a place,” Kanezaki said. “Lots of open fields where we’re going.”
    He knelt and unzipped the other bag. “Here’s your commo,” he said. “INVISIO Digital Ears X5 Headset and X50 Multi-Comm. Hands-free, in the ear, boom mic. All encrypted and we’ll all be able to talk to each other.”
    “Other weapons?” Larison asked.
    Kanezaki reached into the bag and took out a pistol I was quite familiar with. “HK MK23 SOCOM, Knights Armament suppressor. One each.”
    He handed it to Larison, who reflexively checked the load. Treven said, “Great gun, but with the suppressor it’s the size of a rifle. What do we carry it in?”
    Kanezaki went to the back again and came back with a large black attaché case. He opened it. An HK with attached suppressor was held in place with foam inside. “I know there’s no good way to conceal one of these on your body in an urban environment,” he said. “But you can access it inside the bag in less than a second. By the time it’s out, it won’t matter who sees it. And if the attachés aren’t the right cover, I have gym bags, too.”
    Treven nodded, satisfied.
    I said, “Body armor, I hope? You know, just in case.”
    “Dragon Skin vests,” Kanezaki said. “Capable of stopping multiple 7.62 rounds.”
    He pulled out a folder and opened it. “This is a satellite and street view of the school and environs,” he said. “Some of it is Google; some is military. It should at least give you some ideas. I have a van waiting on the other end. After we land, we’ll do a drive-by.”
    We looked at the maps. The school was a square brick building outside the downtown, two stories, surrounded mostly by dirt and grass fields. It had one main entrance, but secondary points of ingress and egress on the other three sides.
    “If all four shooters plan on using the front entrance,” I said, “then we’re good to go. But if they split up, we’ll need a man on each side of the building. Which leaves us one short to engage the drone operator.”
    Kanezaki looked up. “You’re not counting me.”
    “That’s right,” I said, “I’m not. Tom, we’ve been through this before. You’re a great intel guy but you’re not a door-kicker. Pick the wrong entrance to cover, and you might wind up in a one-on-four. It doesn’t make sense.”
    Dox said, “I think there’s a better way.”
    We all looked at him. He said, “Look at these buildings around the school. What do we have here…a church, a video store, car dealer, and a Holiday Inn, it looks like. Nothing but flat fields in between, and from any one of those vantage points, I have full coverage of two sides of the school. With a spotter on the ground for target confirmation, and my new friend the