the way or see if we can get enough men to push it off the road?”
“Let’s take a look first,” Harry advised.
And so they got out of the truck and walked over to where the bus rested. The rain soaked them within moments. The two men examined the way the bus was laid across the road. One pair of tires rested on asphalt, the other on mud which meant that the bus was slowly sinking in the rear.
“Hell, let’s ram it,” Turk said, too impatient to contemplate any other course of action.
“Whatever you say,” Harry declared. “It’s your show.”
The bus didn’t like being moved. Turk aimed his pickup as if it were some kind of guided missile, and he took it, at twenty-five miles an hour, dead center into the derelict school bus. The school bus shuddered in reaction, the truck shuddered, but that was all.
“Once more!” said Turk.
This time he took the truck in at a higher speed. Harry dreaded to think what the result of this collision might be and kept his head down.
The truck slammed into the bus from another angle, closer to the front, and managed to jar it loose, forcing it farther back into the mud.
“I think if we got out and pushed,” Harry said, “we could do it.”
Several reluctant volunteers, who vastly preferred the shelter of their vehicles, were recruited. Together they strained and slipped and lost their grip again and again because of the wetness. The bus finally gave way and coasted gently into the mud, freeing access to the narrow road that would take them to their first destination, a marijuana farm said to be owned by a man named Harlow Gentry.
Turk, consulting his map again, stated that the Gentry farm was located only three miles down this secondary road. It was now a quarter to nine. Dislodging the bus had exhausted nearly an hour of their time.
No further impediment stood in their way, and the next three miles, along a torturous and sometimes nonexistent road, were conquered without incident. Off to their right lay a grassy expanse and a white structure on the crest of a faraway hill that Harry guessed was where Gentry kept his home and his marijuana.
“This is Xanadu One,” Turk said, speaking into his receiver. “We are at Mark One. Repeat: We are at Charlie Mark One. Prepare for strike.”
One by one the vehicles stopped. The men began to emerge, their weapons in hand, their heads wrapped in folds of raincoats or covered by hardhats that glimmered in the lights of their trucks.
“What do you know about Gentry?” Harry inquired.
“Nothing,” said Turk, “except that he lives here and grows rich dealing in weed.”
Whatever else Gentry did or did not do was unclear because his house was empty. The lights were off but not because he had gone to sleep early. He just wasn’t in. Harry inspected the bathroom. Opening the medicine chest, he was confirmed in his hypothesis.
He went downstairs and found Turk and two other law enforcement officials rummaging through the closets and bureaus, searching for evidence that might implicate the absent occupant.
“He’s split for a while,” Harry said. “Medicine chest’s empty.” When Turk didn’t seem to comprehend what he was saying, he added, “So much for surprise.”
Turk didn’t seem particularly dismayed, however. “That’s only one. You can’t tell. It could be just coincidence. Let’s see what our men have come up with in the fields.”
But there was little there that made Turk happy. There was marijuana all right but not very much of it. The vast majority of the plants appeared to have already been harvested, most likely for the shake weed—droppings from the lower portions of the plants—that was culled at this time of year.
Turk looked glum, no longer so confident that this was coincidence and nothing else.
Twenty pounds of mediocre grass was hardly much of a reward after going to all this effort. Especially when the grower himself had slipped away.
Nonetheless, it was obviously too late to
“Let’s take a look first,” Harry advised.
And so they got out of the truck and walked over to where the bus rested. The rain soaked them within moments. The two men examined the way the bus was laid across the road. One pair of tires rested on asphalt, the other on mud which meant that the bus was slowly sinking in the rear.
“Hell, let’s ram it,” Turk said, too impatient to contemplate any other course of action.
“Whatever you say,” Harry declared. “It’s your show.”
The bus didn’t like being moved. Turk aimed his pickup as if it were some kind of guided missile, and he took it, at twenty-five miles an hour, dead center into the derelict school bus. The school bus shuddered in reaction, the truck shuddered, but that was all.
“Once more!” said Turk.
This time he took the truck in at a higher speed. Harry dreaded to think what the result of this collision might be and kept his head down.
The truck slammed into the bus from another angle, closer to the front, and managed to jar it loose, forcing it farther back into the mud.
“I think if we got out and pushed,” Harry said, “we could do it.”
Several reluctant volunteers, who vastly preferred the shelter of their vehicles, were recruited. Together they strained and slipped and lost their grip again and again because of the wetness. The bus finally gave way and coasted gently into the mud, freeing access to the narrow road that would take them to their first destination, a marijuana farm said to be owned by a man named Harlow Gentry.
Turk, consulting his map again, stated that the Gentry farm was located only three miles down this secondary road. It was now a quarter to nine. Dislodging the bus had exhausted nearly an hour of their time.
No further impediment stood in their way, and the next three miles, along a torturous and sometimes nonexistent road, were conquered without incident. Off to their right lay a grassy expanse and a white structure on the crest of a faraway hill that Harry guessed was where Gentry kept his home and his marijuana.
“This is Xanadu One,” Turk said, speaking into his receiver. “We are at Mark One. Repeat: We are at Charlie Mark One. Prepare for strike.”
One by one the vehicles stopped. The men began to emerge, their weapons in hand, their heads wrapped in folds of raincoats or covered by hardhats that glimmered in the lights of their trucks.
“What do you know about Gentry?” Harry inquired.
“Nothing,” said Turk, “except that he lives here and grows rich dealing in weed.”
Whatever else Gentry did or did not do was unclear because his house was empty. The lights were off but not because he had gone to sleep early. He just wasn’t in. Harry inspected the bathroom. Opening the medicine chest, he was confirmed in his hypothesis.
He went downstairs and found Turk and two other law enforcement officials rummaging through the closets and bureaus, searching for evidence that might implicate the absent occupant.
“He’s split for a while,” Harry said. “Medicine chest’s empty.” When Turk didn’t seem to comprehend what he was saying, he added, “So much for surprise.”
Turk didn’t seem particularly dismayed, however. “That’s only one. You can’t tell. It could be just coincidence. Let’s see what our men have come up with in the fields.”
But there was little there that made Turk happy. There was marijuana all right but not very much of it. The vast majority of the plants appeared to have already been harvested, most likely for the shake weed—droppings from the lower portions of the plants—that was culled at this time of year.
Turk looked glum, no longer so confident that this was coincidence and nothing else.
Twenty pounds of mediocre grass was hardly much of a reward after going to all this effort. Especially when the grower himself had slipped away.
Nonetheless, it was obviously too late to
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