WHEN THE MUSIC DIES (MUSIC CITY MURDERS Book 1) (26 page)

“Open it.” Garrison pointed toward the table.

Brad laid the case on the mahogany conference table, flipped the three latches and raised the lid.

“Wow.” He stared at the contents.

“I take it by your reaction that you recognize it.”

Brad laughed. “Yes, like I would recognize a old friend,” he said, admiring the weapon. “It’s an XM21 with a 3X-9X Adjustable Ranging Telescope. It’s very similar to the one I used in Vietnam in ‘69, except this one has a polymer stock.” Brad rapped on the weapon’s stock with his knuckle. “This one will weigh a lot less than my hardwood stock did.” He said as he lifted the rifle from the foam. “Oh, yeah; at least three, maybe four, pounds less. The one I carried got heavy climbing those damn trees. With optics, it weighed over twelve pounds. This one would have been nice.”

“It’s a beautiful rifle,” Garrison said.

“That it is.” Brad raised the weapon’s stock to his shoulder, placed his right eye at the rear lens and aimed it out Garrison’s window. “It served us well in the years we relied on it. Where did you get it?”

“Oh, you’re not the only one with connections. I also have some friends in accommodating places.”

“I’ll bet you do.” Brad smiled as he returned the rifle to the padded case.

“Well, when we get back,” Garrison said, “you can add it to your collection. It’s yours.”

“What?”

“You deserve it, Brad. You gave the best years of your young life to our country. Accept this as a thank you gift.”

“I—don’t know what to say,” Brad said, glancing at the rifle.

“No comment required, my friend. Just enjoy it, but do me a favor? Don’t use this one on the squirrels.”

Brad chuckled. “Yeah, a 7.62 NATO round would leave a little larger hole than my twenty-two.”

“Are you ready to go to Kentucky?” Garrison asked.

“Sure.” Brad closed the case and latched the lid. He stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Carl. This is a very nice gift.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Garrison smiled.

As they climbed into Brad’s truck and readied themselves for the trip, Brad couldn’t help but wonder why Garrison would present him with such a gift so soon after they met.

Brad had known rich and powerful men before. They all had at least one thing in common: they expected something from everyone. Brad was anxious to discover what it was Carl Garrison wanted from him.

They had been driving for almost an hour when Garrison closed the book he was reading and laid it in the seat.

“Brad, I want to thank you again for your willingness to get involved and show support for our efforts. I can’t begin to tell you how valuable you have been already. I don’t know if meeting each other yesterday was fate or just good fortune for me. But, I do know some of our current initiatives might have had to be abandoned without your help. You’re a good man and I assure you, your service will be rewarded generously.”

“You’re welcome, Carl.”

“As I told you earlier, we at TARPA honor your past service to America and hope to provide you a few avenues where you can stay in practice and continue to serve your country.”

Following a period of silence, Brad’s curiosity peaked. “What were you thinking I could help with?”

“As we started to discuss last night, there are somewhere between eight and ten thousand weapons within our membership. These range from small caliber revolvers many of the women carry in their purses— or somewhere on their bodies,” Garrison looked at Brad and smiled, “up to more powerful weapons such as H&K MP5s, M4s, M16s, and even a handful of fifty caliber rifles owned by our former military men.

“One member I know has a five-acre target range that looks like something the state police would construct. On a regular basis, he and about a dozen others get together at his farm and shoot their small arms as well as an old M2, a couple of M6os and some Barrett rifles. One of them even has an M134 Gatlin gun.”

“Damn, that could get expensive,” Brad said. “The ammo for some of those weapons, even in bulk, is between a buck and five per round.”

“Believe me, they can afford the ammo. Three of those men are lawyers, one is a veterinarian and two others are partners in a successful construction company.”

“I would say they can afford it.” Brad nodded.

“Our men love their guns,” Garrison said. “But, of our three thousand plus members who are gun owners, I’d say there are no more than a third of them who know how to properly disassemble, clean and care for their weapons.

“If we’re going to be ready for the coming conflicts, we have to be sure our weapons are also going to be ready when we’re called upon to defend ourselves. That’s where I need you and your expertise. I need you to teach all our gun-totin’ hillbillies, who go hunting and then hang their dirty weapon on a gun rack until next time, how to service and see that their weapons remain ready for a greater purpose.”

Garrison let his words sink in. “What do you say? I’ll pay you a competitive monthly salary to develop and teach a weapon maintenance program. I’ll also pay you whatever you charge for your gunsmith work and a healthy bonus for other special tasks I need you to perform.”

“Special tasks?”

“The kind of tasks which will utilize your higher level skills; the kind of tasks only you and I can talk about—ever. Covert and critical to our continued existence, they will be quite profitable for you.”

Brad looked across the truck cab at Garrison. He could see the sincerity in the man’s face. It caused Brad to wonder who of TARPA’s adversaries Garrison was thinking of.

After a few miles without conversation, Garrison held his gaze out the front window and spoke with a menacing tone.

“There is a small group of people that, regardless of what we do, are determined to eliminate us. In the near future, we may find ourselves in the position of needing to use the same approach toward them.” Garrison turned to look at Brad.

Brad wasn’t sure what to say as he turned on his blinker and slowed for the exit.

“Is this it?” Garrison asked.

“This exit is where we meet him. There’s a Mapco here where I’ll leave my truck, and from there we’ll ride the rest of the way with him.”

“I assume there is a reason for such precautions?”

“Security. He was trained, as I was, to eliminate any potential threat as standard procedure. If we leave our vehicle here, he can see everything we are bringing into his world, and he’ll continue to control his environment. It’s the way you have to operate if you’re in a high-risk business. He’s an intelligent soldier.”

“Impressive.”

“There he is now,” Brad said.

The man was leaning against his dark green Humvee dressed in camo pants, a black t-shirt and combat boots.

“Good morning,” Brad said as he climbed from the truck.

“How was the drive?” the man asked in a gruff baritone voice.

“Rough on an old man’s back. How have you been?” Brad extended his hand.

“I’m doing okay.”

“Roger, this is Carl. Carl, Roger.”

As Roger stepped forward to shake Garrison’s hand, Brad could see the image of a semi-auto in his front pocket.

“A pleasure to meet you, Roger.” Garrison nodded.

Roger gave a half smile and glanced at Garrison’s briefcase.

Brad wondered if Garrison noted his intentional use of first names only.

“You want to pick up some coffee or get rid of some before we leave?” Roger asked.

“We’re good,” Brad said. “We stopped not long ago. Let’s mount up. Carl, you ride shotgun.”

The men climbed into the Humvee and drove northwest on the Kentucky state highway.

Almost an hour of repetitive tree-lined roads coupled with Brad and Roger catching up, gave them time to reach Roger’s rural property.

At first glance, it appeared to be like all the other farms they’d seen along the highway. The white clapboard two-story house sported a wrap-a-round front porch with matching white rocking chairs. It sat near a large tin-roof barn with a hay-filled loft and its weathered wood construction declaring its age. Between the back of the house and the barn sat a half dozen out buildings.

Roger drove past the house and around the barn, stopping at a large galvanized steel gate.

He looked back at Brad. “Can you do the honors?”

“Sure.” Brad climbed from the Humvee and opened the gate allowing Roger to drive past him and wait.

“It’s not much farther,” Roger said, as they waited for Brad to latch the gate.

Brad climbed back in the Humvee. Roger shifted into four wheel drive and continued the trip off-road.

Another few minutes of driving along fence rows and across pasture took the men over several hills and down into a valley with a large creek running along a fence row. As they climbed the steep hillside above the creek, they came to a lone outbuilding.

This building was constructed of steel and concrete block, and it looked to be built into the hillside with the pitch of the roof matching the downward slope of the terrain above it.

Roger stopped next to one of the two stretch cab pickup trucks parked near an oversized rollup door. Brad and Garrison climbed from the Humvee and followed Roger inside the building.

The three men were met by two short bursts of barking meant to identify for their masters the presence of a potential threat. The two handlers instructed their canine partners that the visitors were not adversaries and the dogs sat.

“Brad and Carl,” Roger pointed at his two guests, “this is Frank and Don and their buddies on the leashes are Hoover and Doc. Hoover there is a Belgian Malinois and Doc is a Lab. These boys are trained bomb sniffers; the dogs that is.”

Garrison took a step toward the men to shake hands, but Brad grabbed the back of his shirt as the dogs stood, “It might be best not to do that,” Brad said. So, Garrison gave a faint wave to the handlers.

The men nodded their greetings.

“Carl,” Roger said, “I don’t want you to think that you’ve come here on false pretenses, but I can’t sell you C-4.”

“What? Why not?” Garrison asked.

“Because if you use C-4, it and any of your people who touch it, will be discovered by trained dogs from any police force.”

“I don’t understand,” Garrison looked at Brad then back at Roger.

“Of all the more powerful explosives, C-4 has a detectible odor that’s one of the easiest for trained animals to sense.”

“I thought you told Brad you developed a masking agent to take care of that issue?”

“The masking agent is good. It works, but not on C-4. The smell is too pungent.”

“So, why are we here?” Garrison asked, becoming frustrated.

“Have you heard of Semtex.”

“Yeah, I think so. Isn’t that what the Irish Republican Army was famous for using back in the ‘80s?”

“Yes, they and other terrorist groups around the world made it popular. Kaddafi’s terrorists used it to bring down the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. Do you know why they chose Semtex?”

“No, but I’ll bet you’re about to tell me.”

“They chose it because it was equal in power output to C-4, but a minor variation in its production causes Semtex to be nearly odorless and much less likely to be detected.”

“Do you have Semtex?” Garrison asked.

“Yes. I’d suggest you consider it.”

“Makes sense to me.” Garrison turned to Brad who nodded his agreement. “One question though. If the Semtex is nearly odorless, why is the masking agent needed?”

“To hide the detonators—and as insurance,” Roger said.

“Understood.”

“Good,” Roger said. “A couple of years ago I began work on a product that could hide the scent of many explosives, so that the trained dogs would not be able to detect them in the field. Obviously, if successful, something like this would be a high value item on the black market, or any market for that matter.

“This agent, when properly used, is able to confuse trained dogs so they cannot pickup and zero in on the location of explosives or detonators. It works by adequately masking the scent with one they do not know and which effectively dominates their olfactory sensors.”

“What’s in the liquid?” Garrison asked.

“We won’t be discussing the chemical composition of the liquid. I suggest you forget about its makeup and focus on its capabilities.” Roger accented his assertion with a period of pointed silence.

The look on Garrison’s face said he heard the message, but he was still seeing dollar signs.

“It’s been tested thoroughly. The agent will mask the scent as long as you follow the instructions to the letter. Once your device is completed and ready to be armed, you must wear protective gloves such as latex or nitrile, then mist the device with the liquid and allow it to air dry. You must mist the surface of your device on all sides. You can use a couple of small fans at a distance on low speed, but the drying process should take between two and three hours.

“Once the device is allowed to dry, you will place it into a ten mil sterilized poly bag that I’ll provide. Then, using a device I will also make available to you, you will heat seal the one open side of the bag. When the bag is heat sealed and allowed to cool, you will then spray the liquid over the entire surface of the bag, top and bottom, until the bag is covered and dripping. Then using the low speed fans, you’ll allow the bag, once again, to air dry. This will also take a couple of hours. At this point, you will place your bagged device, sealed side first, into another ten mil sterilized bag and repeat the spraying and drying processes as before. When completely dry, your device is ready to be concealed.”

“You are going to supply
everything
we need?” Garrison asked.

“Yes, everything,” Roger said, “including written instructions. That’s why this turnkey package isn’t cheap.”

Garrison looked at Brad, then back at Roger and nodded. “I understand.”

“To demonstrate what I’ve explained to you, I have prepared a typical device using Semtex,” Roger pulled on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and reached under a table. He placed a small, but ominous looking, device on top of the table.

Garrison stepped backward tripping over Brad’s boots. He would have fallen if Brad hadn’t caught him.