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The town of Beckford where all the action was going down was a quick fifteen-minute drive from the rural airport.

Riding on the outside running board in the armored BearCat that picked them up at the tarmac, Shaw grinned in the breeze as they came around the bend and he saw the carnival of police lights.

In the flutter of the blue and red were about a dozen cops and another dozen or so lookie-loos obviously jazzed at all the sudden action.

They weren’t the only ones who were amped up, Shaw thought.

All this was at his beck and call?

He’d almost do this for free.

They went around a couple of parked fire trucks, and out in the street a fireman on foot with those glowing signal sticks guided them into the parking lot of a post office.

The lot was filled with about thirty people running around and as Shaw and the others disembarked off the tactical vehicle wearing their FBI HRT crap, all the law enforcement standing there looked at them with an almost religious awe.

The sainted FBI Hostage Rescue Team act was one of his all-time favorites, Shaw thought, stifling a smile.

Gape on, dupes , he thought as he strode past them with the swagger of Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

Little do you know that you, too, can become a member of the FBI HRT. You’re just one cheap Walmart navy windbreaker and a yellow iron-on away.

His company SAT tablet inside his plate vest vibrated as he heard a beep in his earpiece. He lifted the tablet out.

“Hey,” Control said. “Check out the targets.”

“Roger,” Shaw said as a picture of a blonde woman filled the tablet screen.

“That’s Jodi Cushing target one,” Control said, “and here’s two.”

A pretty, dark-haired younger woman replaced the blonde.

“That’s Colleen Doherty,” Control said.

“Both ice cream flavors, huh?” Shaw said. “Not a bad body on the dark one. Now send a brunette and we can have all three of Charlie’s Angels.”

“Who’s Charlie?” said Control.

How could you not know what Charlie’s Angels was? Shaw thought. Then he remembered how young some of the new Control people were.

But just being green wasn’t a sufficient excuse though, was it? he thought. Growing up, he and his peers had easily understood the cultural references that the previous older generations used. They had instinctually wanted to know them in order to figure out what was cool and what was going on, so they could grow up and be adults themselves. It was how culture worked, the older and experienced passing down things to the new and inexperienced.

But this wasn’t the case now? Shaw thought. How? Was it the phones? The schools? Or 5G? Was the new generation grown in a lab?

“Skip it,” Shaw said.

“Also, the blonde is to be delivered intact,” Control said.

“Intact?” Shaw said. “Intact is a pain in my ass. Why?”

“The note says, ‘Extract her in one piece. Not a hair on her downy head. Vance.’ Got it?”

“Got it. Over and out,” Shaw said with disappointment.

Extractions , Shaw thought. He hated extractions. They always turned out to be a real pain in the ass. Even if you brought the target back without a scratch, there was always bitching, always complaints.

Especially extractions of females. They would claim you raped them. They also usually tried to scratch your eyes out. When they weren’t trying to kick you in the balls.

“Why couldn’t it just be a simple hit?” Shaw mumbled as he slipped the tablet back into his chest rig.

He looked around. Control had already told him the town police chief was wise to everything. Shaw was to deal only with the chief whose name was Garner and some other local, a college campus security guy named Travers.

What Shaw hadn’t bothered to explain to Control was that he already knew both the stout small-town chief and the college security guard. Quite well.