Cold Wind by C.J. Box

splitting the money,” Drennen said to Johnny. Johnny agreed.
    “What if I miss?” Johnny asked her.
    She shook her head. “You’ve got only one chance. This is a oneshot weapon, and after it goes off, that’s it. Just remember to bring the tube thing back to me. Don’t throw it aside because it’ll have our prints all over it.”
     
     
    There was a faint footpath through the brush from where they parked to the rim of the canyon. She pointed it out and told them they were to take it. While they cracked the tops off more bottles of beer and watched and listened intently, she showed them the drawing she’d been given. She smoothed it across the hood.
    “This is where the opening of the cave is,” she said, pointing to an oval marked with an X. “There’s a place with some cover on the trail down where you can see the cave entrance, if you know where to look for it. That’s where you hide and aim. But like I told you on the way here, don’t just blast away. Make sure you actually see him. Make sure he’s there.”
    “How far is the cave from this hiding place?” Drennen asked.
    She paused and tried to recall what her adviser had told her. “Five hundred feet. So it’s not that far.”
    “What’s he look like?” Johnny said.
    “I’ve never seen him, but he’s tall with long hair. He’s a big guy. But it’s not like there are going to be other people down there in that canyon.”
    “And we have to actually see him, right?”
    “That’s why I gave you the binoculars,” she said. “We have to confirm he’s there. Don’t just shoot at the cave and hope you catch him inside.”
    “And if he ain’t there?” Drennen asked.
    “Come back after a few hours. We’ll have to try again later.”
    “No one said anything about a later,” Drennen said.
    “I’m only paying you if the job is done,” she said. “That was our deal.”
    Drennen sighed theatrically. “He better be there, then.”
    “That’s what I was told.”
    “Who told you?” Johnny asked. “Who else knows about this?”
    She shook her head. “Someone who knows the situation, and who knows Nate Romanowski.”
    Johnny grimaced, but seemed to accept it.
    “There’s something very important you need to know,” she said, looking from Johnny to Drennen and back again, making sure she had their full attention. “You’ve got to make the shot count. If you miss or screw up, we’re all in deep shit.”
    Drennen sat back against the passenger door, shaking his head. “What are you talking about?”
    “This guy we’re after,” she said. “He’s got a reputation. Have you ever heard the line, ‘When you strike at a king, you must kill him’? Some guy named Emerson said that.”
    “Who the fuck is Emerson?” Drennen asked. “Is he somebody big?”
    “Never mind,” she said, sorry she’d repeated the line from her adviser since she didn’t have a clue, either. “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t miss. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
    They each took another beer with them and stuffed another in the back pockets of their Wranglers. She climbed back into the pickup cab. Her knitting bag was behind the seat and she pulled it out. She’d taken to storing her knitting needles in the shafts of her tall cowboy boots, and she drew them out. She was a piss-poor knitter, but she was nervous and needed something to do with her hands. Since she’d taken up the craft, all she’d managed to complete was a piece that was twelve inches wide and fifteen feet long. It had no purpose. It was the longest scarf in the world, she thought, and she didn’t know how to end it.
    She watched them walk down the path with the rocket launcher, trading it back and forth to get the feel of it. She’d made them repeat the firing procedure back to her before they left and they seemed to recall it. Men were intuitive when it came to weapons, she thought. Maybe it was the only thing they were intuitive about. She recalled how Chase was with his