The Detachment

in all events better than nothing.
    At just before sunup, as the first gray light crept into the sky, a dark Chevy Suburban pulled into the far end of the motel parking lot. I watched it from my perch and felt a warm surge of adrenaline spread through my torso. It was unusually early for anyone to be arriving at, or returning to, a motel. Nothing else at the motel, or in the surrounding neighborhood, had yet stirred.
    The doors opened, but no interior light came on. Two big, clean-cut Caucasian men got out, both dressed casually in what looked in the dim light like jeans and bulky fleece jackets. They paused and looked around, then moved out, letting the doors click quietly closed behind them.
    The earliness of the hour, the lack of an interior light, the quietly closed doors, the watchfulness…if these weren’t Horton’s men, they could only have been here to rob the motel. But thieves who moved as stealthily and professionally as these two typically have better uses for their talents than budget motels. They had to be here for us.
    They moved silently along the row of parked cars, their heads swiveling, shining penlights into the interiors of the vehicles they passed. They swept their lights along the balcony of the motel’s second floor, too, but I saw the light coming my way and simply flattened myself against the ground beyond the angle of their vision.
    They came to Treven’s position and checked the stairs, but I knew he would have melted away at their approach. I also knew he’d be back as soon as they had passed.
    When they came to the van, they stopped. I knew what they were thinking. A panel van. Perfect for a snatch. And parked exactly where we would have parked it ourselves .
    They shone their lights through the front windows and then tried the side doors, which we had locked.
    Try the back door, I thought. You never know.
    One of them stepped back, scanned, and took a notepad from one of the fleece pockets. He shone his light on the license plate and jotted down the number. Then he slipped the notepad back into his pocket and they circled to the rear of the van.
    I was hoping they would give the door their simultaneous attention, but they were too good for that. One tried the door while the other one scanned behind them. I couldn’t see him, but I knew Larison would have moved out from concealment, up to the edge of the apartment building wall directly across the street. Either he or Treven could have shot them left-handed from this close, but we didn’t have suppressors, and couldn’t risk waking up the neighborhood with the sound of gunshots. Because of that, and because we had to assume they were armed, too, we had to be practically on top of them before they knew we were there if we were going to pull this off quietly.
    One of them started to open the rear van door. The other was still watching behind them. Larison and Treven only needed a second, but they weren’t going to get it.
    So I improvised. In ersatz sexual ecstasy, I moaned, “Oh, God, yes, don’t stop, don’t stop, fuck, yes, that’s so good, don’t stop…”
    They both immediately oriented on the sudden disturbance. I knew the incongruity would cost them precious nanoseconds of processing time: they’d been attuned to a range of possible problems, including sounds of stealth and ambush. And now they were hearing sounds, but not ones they could quickly fit into the threat matrix through which they were approaching their current environment.
    “Oh my God, yes!” I said. “Yes!”
    For an instant, they were what-the-fuck paralyzed. Then they both reached inside their jackets.
    Too late. Larison and Treven had already rushed up behind them, grabbed their gun arms, and jammed the muzzles of their own guns against the backs of their heads. I heard Larison say, “Freeze, or I’ll blow your brains through your face.” His voice had the kind of command authority that could stand down an attack dog.
    I swung down off the balcony to the parking lot and circled around to the rear of the van. Before Horton’s men could overcome their surprise and make a tactical decision, I reached inside each of their jackets and extracted a suppressed Glock from a shoulder harness. Quiet enough, yes, but unfortunately for Horton’s men, a hell of a long draw.
    I shoved one of the guns into my waistband and checked the load on the other. A round in the chamber, as expected, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure.
    “Lean forward,” I told them.