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You love them all.

I came to groggily, wondering how it suddenly got so dark. Wondering if we’d somehow fucked up, or if ninjas had dropped from the desert trees and were right now climbing the walls to get us from all sides.

Headlights appeared, and we were back to back again. Austin’s grip on the rifle tightened… then relaxed in the span of a single heartbeat.

“C’mon,” he said, standing up. He offered his hand and I took it. “Maddox is home.”

Fifty-Nine

DALLAS

”So did you reach anyone on the list?” Austin was asking.

Maddox shook his head from his end of the table, where he was cleaning a variety of weapons. It wasn’t a good sign. Or a good start.

“What about Flynn?”

“Out of town.”

“Sully?”

“Nope.”

Dietz was in the fridge again, rummaging through our meager pickings. I figured he was looking for another beer, but he came out with a container of milk instead.

“We set up what you told us to, though,” he told Austin. “What did you call it again?”

“A dead man’s switch.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “That.”

I winced as Dietz drank our milk straight from the carton. It was almost as terrible as the idea of us getting wiped out, and having to rely on a computer to release the information my brother compiled.

“So how are we doing this?” he asked.

“By ambush preferably,” said Austin.

“Obviously.”

“We’re not going to sit around, waiting for them to come,” Maddox went on. “We strike first. We strike hard.”

Dietz wiped his mouth with the back of one arm and put the milk back. I winced again.

“Yes, but—”

“We lure them back out into the desert again,” said Austin. “The buyers, the sellers, the dealers… all of them.”

Dietz laughed. “With what? Cheese?”

“Better than cheese,” said Maddox. “You’ll get them out there.”

“Don’t think so,” said Dietz. “I don’t have nearly the pull you think I do. They won’t come.”

The door swung open, and Kane lumbered into the kitchen. He already wearing his desert camos. On top of that he was strapped with weapons and Kevlar, armed and armored to the teeth.

“They will if you tell them,” Kane said.

Dietz shook his head again, as if he were trying to explain something simple to a small child. A child that just wasn’t getting it.