“I ain’t gonna run,” Billy said, tearing the tape from his wrists.

She and Henning tracked him with their pistols across the garage floor and back.

“I’m going to check the perimeter,” Henning said. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes,” Holly acknowledged.

Henning disappeared into the darkness.

Tight and professional, Nathan thought.

Holly refocused on Billy. “Start digging.”

Nathan and Holly backed away to a safe distance. It was close enough to plug Billy if he tried to bolt and hopefully far enough away from any sort of IED the Bridgestones might have rigged. He looked at Holly again. She was really quite striking, even in the reflective glow of their flashlights. She had well-defined Slavic cheekbones and a small compact figure. She stood five-three or four. She acted confident and self-assured.

Holly kept her voice low. “I’m sorry about Henning’s attitude.”

“Already forgotten,” he said.

“I reviewed your classified file.”

Nathan said nothing.

“I wouldn’t agree to your involvement unless I knew exactly who you two were.”

“Understood,” Nathan said. “I would’ve played it the same way.”

“Not many would’ve survived what you went through.”

“I did the best I could under the circumstances.”

They were silent for a few seconds. Billy’s shovel clanked on metal.

“You don’t have many friends,” she said.

He kept his voice low so Billy couldn’t hear him. “Just Harv.”

“I don’t either. You didn’t seriously hurt them in there, did you?”

“Not really.”

“Did you want to?”

“No.”

“We should get up to that cabin.”

“Let’s play this out. A few more minutes won’t make or break things. James Ortega’s been missing for over a week.”

Henning retuned and joined them. “What have we got?”

“We’re about to find out,” she said.

Billy was just finishing the dig. On his knees, he cleared the last of the dirt away with his hands. He looked up.

Holly told him to pull the first one out slowly.

“Could be a gun in one or more of them,” Nathan said.

“Agreed.”

Billy did as he was told. He reached into the hole, tore the plastic garbage bag away, and tugged one of the handles. He hefted the ammo can out and set it on the ground. It was matte-green and about the size of a large shoe box. Nathan read the five lines of yellow stenciled lettering and knew the can used to hold a disintegrating link of one hundred, armor-piercing, incendiary, fifty-caliber rounds with every fifth round being a tracer.

Billy looked up and squinted against the flashlight beams.

“Pull the others out,” Holly said, “and place them five feet apart with their latches facing us. Stand behind the one on your left, reach over the top, and pull its lid open. Do it slowly.”