The Nightmare Thief. Meg Gardiner
nodded. “Weather’s coming.”
She felt a cold thread skim past her, like a hundred pinhead snakes. Bad vibe about covered it. “Let’s move.”
Haugen eased off the throttle. As the speedboat settled lower in the water he counted the people on the shore ahead, running toward the beach.
Three women, four men. What was an extra man doing there?
“Maybe it’s a random picnicker,” Von said.
Haugen’s jaw tightened. “Who runs toward a boat driven by men in ski masks?”
Von didn’t reply.
The boat crept forward. The wind raised spray on the water. Haugen tented a hand over his forehead to cut the glare, then adjusted his sunglasses to get a clearer view of the extra man on the beach. With a start, he was reminded that these weren’t his prescription pair. He had purchased these sunglasses this morning with cash, just as he had purchased his black work boots and gloves and pants with cash, all at separate stores, and had bought his black tactical gear online through a corporate account that couldn’t be linked to him. Should anybody report his description to the police, nothing he wore could tie Viking, the kidnapper, to Dane Haugen.
But as a consequence, he couldn’t get a crisp view of the people on the sand. He grimaced and covered. “We’ll find out who it is in sixty seconds. We play it by the book, until we have to play it by ear. Follow my lead.”
“No shooting,” Von said. The black mask, stretched across his basketball of a head, rendered his expression unreadable. But complaint was in his voice.
Haugen turned his head toward the man. Haugen’s dead-eyed glare was hidden, but Von still cringed, intimidated. Good.
Haugen got the walkie-talkie. “Ran, come in.”
Sabine came back, staticky. “We’re on site. Ready to egress. But our numbers are—”
“Extra man in the picture. Repeat, extra man in the picture. Possibly a bystander.”
She paused. “Possibly not?”
“Don’t know,” Haugen said.
Another pause. “Understood.”
He shoved the throttles to full power. The engine snarled. The stern of the boat dug into the bay, the bow rose, and they bounded across the whitecaps toward the beach. Haugen put the walkie-talkie to his lips again.
“Going in. Follow my lead.”
Autumn ran behind Dustin toward the beach. The speedboat, white and sleek, knifed through the glinting water straight at them. Ahead, Lark and Noah jogged to a stop at the water’s edge. Peyton was walking behind Grier, raspberry velour hips swaying, champagne bottle swinging in her hand. Up the sand in the distance, the tai chi practitioner stopped to watch.
Autumn caught up with her friends. The limo driver, Kyle, ran up behind her.
“All right, you all. Time to separate.” He pointed at the boat. “They’re coming to pick up Ms. Reiniger and her muscle.” He nudged Lark, Dustin, and Grier toward her. Then he pointed at Peyton and Noah. “You two federal agents—you best get lost, if you don’t want to get taken down in a firefight.”
The boat drew nearer.
“Or captured and interrogated,” Kyle said.
Grier adjusted his straw hat. “Listen to the man—he knows the score. If you can’t deny the charges or buy ’em off, you’d better split.”
Peyton worried the charm bracelet on her wrist. Grier took off his smiling skull ring and handed it to her. “My marker, Marshal. You want to change teams, you call me.”
Autumn rubbed her palms against her jeans. “The boat—they’re picking me up after my prison break?”
“That’s right. We are now on the clock.”
Kyle reached beneath his Edge Adventures windbreaker and pulled out a handgun that looked like something Colonel Quaritch would fire at aliens in Avatar. Matte silver, with a huge telescopic sight atop the barrel.
He smiled, a cool leer. “And I, Ms. Reiniger, am your nemesis. U.S. Marshal Kyle Ritter, tasked with apprehending you and preventing your crime spree. If I was you, I’d run before I got brought down like a deer.”
Autumn blinked. Then she turned and sprinted toward the water.
Twenty meters from shore Haugen slewed the boat sideways and brought it to a halt. Von leapt over the side, gun out, and splashed through the shallow water toward the beach.
The Reiniger girl was running toward him. Excellent. Her friends seemed confused. In the distance, sprinting over the park’s low hills, came the first members of Sabine’s team.
Up the beach, a man in drawstring pants was doing tai chi. Haugen catalogued him. Bystander. Along the path, toward the fishing pier, an elderly couple ambled out from behind the trees. The woman was rotund. She was pushing a baby stroller that held a white poodle. Every few seconds she leaned over to pet and coo at it.
Bystanders. Their presence was not a problem. Haugen had planned on having to take Autumn Reiniger’s group with people watching. That was the whole point of the way he had designed the operation.
They had waited to ambush the Edge Adventures crew until after the boss, Coates, had phoned the SFPD. So the cops now knew a scenario was running at Candlestick Point. They didn’t have to like it. They just had to believe that, whatever happened from this point on, it was all a game.
Sabine sprinted into sight. A ski mask covered her face. A very real SIG Sauer was gripped in her right hand. She pulled herself to a stop. Walkie-talkie to her mouth.
“Seventh person in Autumn’s group has a gun. Do we back off?”
Haugen raised his walkie-talkie and hesitated. Who was the man in the baseball cap, waving a toy science fiction cannon at Autumn Reiniger?
Autumn saw the alien-killer gun in Ritter’s hand, heard the “let’s play” snicker in his voice, and ran. The non-smile lingered on Kyle’s face. The speedboat bobbed in the cove, engine rumbling. A man in a ski mask was at the controls. Another was over the side and splashing through the water toward her. He was short and stout, with a huge round head covered by the mask. He too had some kind of gun in his hand, not as flashy as Kyle’s, and was holding it high so as not to get it wet.
He waved. “Autumn. This way. I’ll cover you.”
She dashed for the water, her heart racing. She realized she was smiling. Grinning. She yelled, joyful.
The stout gunman pointed at Dustin. “You too.” He reached shore and swung into a stance: arms straight, gun pointed at the other people on the sand.
Autumn heard Peyton shout. Noah cried, “Come on.”
She looked over her shoulder. Three more masked people, swathed in black, had appeared behind them, armed, charging toward the beach.
The stout gunman beckoned to her. “Hurry.”
She hesitated. Her boots were brand-new Stuart Weitzman black leather, buckled, gleaming, top-bitch riding boots. “I can’t get these wet.”
Peyton squealed. Autumn saw a masked attacker descend on her roomie, grab her around the waist, and sweep her off her feet. One of her little bow-covered ballet slippers flew off. Peyton threw her head back, squealing like a piglet.
Dustin splashed into the water.
“Wait—give me a piggyback,” Autumn said.
Dustin