Page 131 of The Fourth Option
“Cops will be here in moments. You’re done, asshole.”
“All the more important for you to talk quickly, if you want to keep your stones that is. Now what are you importing and what is your arrangement with Bates?”
Babineaux spat again.
“Fentanyl? Snowball?”
At the mention of Snowball, Babineaux’s head jerked up.
“You are going to talk to me,” Walker said, kneeling down, blade in hand.
As Babineaux opened his mouth to speak, his body spasmed and his eyes rolled back in his head, foam mixing with the blood coming from his mouth.
Heart attack? Stroke? Did he choke on something or bleed out somewhere?
Walker checked for a nonexistent pulse.
“Fentanyl, Snowball. You got off easy, you son of a bitch.”
He stood and surveyed the scene.
Four dead bodies.
Bates was on his way. How long did that give him? Five minutes? Ten?Should he stay and ask Bates the questions he was about to ask Babineaux? No, Bates would have backup.
Time to move.
SSE.
He sprinted to the trailer with Paladin at his heels. He turned over the wastepaper basket and dumped the trash on the floor, whipping out the black liner. He filled it with clipboards, notebooks, Post-it notes, unopened mail. Remembering the cameras, he followed the HDMI cable from the TV to a low flat camera server box. Was it linked to the cloud? No way to tell. He yanked the electronic box loose and shoved the box into the bag.
What else?
There was a dock for a laptop, but no computer.
Get out of here, Chris.
The truck.
Keys.
They were on a magnetic hook on the filing cabinet, a big, fat, Ford-branded key fob.
“Let’s go, boy,” Walker said to his dog.
Exiting the trailer, Walker and Paladin ran to the truck. He opened the driver’s-side door and hurled the bag across into the passenger footwell. Paladin jumped in after it and took his position on the seat, his mouth and fur wet with blood. Walker pulled himself in and fired it up.
Walker was half a mile down Poland Avenue when he saw the Dodge Charger roaring down the road, speeding in the opposite direction, a blue light flashing on the dash.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THE TRUCK HADto be ditched. All these modern vehicles had some sort of trackers installed.
Walker parked on the west side of the Ninth Ward, near the tall levee wall, one of the few improvements since Katrina. He found the same overgrown backyard he had used on his first visit to the abandoned neighborhood. The willow tree concealed the truck from the street.
Paladin sat up front, gazing through the windshield. Walker had cleaned the blood from his snout with some towels he had picked up at 7-Eleven. Only an extremely close inspection of the dog would reveal that he had maimed two men less than an hour earlier. He had used the inside of his jacket to wipe his own face. Even though he paid in cash, the man behind the counter hardly glanced up from his doom scrolling.
He killed the engine and leaned over to scratch his dog’s ears. Paladin licked his chops as Walker surveyed the contents of the 7-Eleven bag.
