The Survivalist - 02 by Arthur Bradley Read Free Book Online

truck, its trunk propped open.
    Mason stopped his truck and took a quick look down off the overpass ledge. No one moved below, but he heard the unmistakable echo of a man’s voice. He motioned for Bowie to stay put and keep an eye on the truck while he went down to take a better look.
    Carefully hiking down the steep grassy embankment, he swung around to approach from the front of the Camaro. As he circled around the car, he saw that the trunk contained several canvas money satchels, all stuffed so full that tight bundles of hundred-dollar bills poked out of the top.
    He continued around to the back of the armored truck where he heard the sound of a man’s voice. The tremendous impact from the fall had crumpled the rear doors, and one had subsequently been pried open wide enough for someone to crawl inside. A man knelt down at the back of the truck, talking to someone inside through the makeshift hole in the door. His face was covered with a thick salt-and-pepper beard that matched his receding hairline. He had a big tight belly poking out from under a white t-shirt, and the waist of his pants was so tight that it was lost between folds of skin. Massive arms showed off tattoos of a blacksmith’s hammer on one bicep and a matching anvil on the other.
     “Get that cooler-looking thing in the corner,” he said through the hole. “That’s it. Now, slide it out to me.” He reached in and pulled out a padded blue box about a foot square in size. “Jeezus, this one’s heavy,” he said, setting it beside a three-foot long metal pry bar lying on the ground.
    As he turned around, Blacksmith spotted Mason standing about ten feet away. Startled, he jerked upright, smashing his shoulder into the corner of the armored truck’s bumper.
    “Shit!” he spat, wincing from the pain.
    Mason stood, quietly watching him.
    “What are you looking at, numbnuts?” he said, rubbing his sore shoulder.
    Mason grinned. “I don’t know. Part walrus, part gorilla?”
    Blacksmith put his hands together and folded them back, cracking his knuckles like a Roman wrestler.
    “Congratulations. You just earned yourself a first-class beating.”
    Mason slid his coat open to reveal his badge. He left his hand resting on the butt of the Supergrade.
    “Consider your next move carefully.”
    “Ain’t no cop gonna shoot an unarmed man,” he said with a sneer. “And, by the time you feel my hands around your neck, it’ll be too late.”
    Mason took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Blacksmith was only halfway right. It might indeed be too late if he let a man of his size get hands on him. But assuming that he was unwilling to shoot him was a grave miscalculation. At a full ten feet apart, the odds were not in the big man’s favor.
    “How about we start again?” suggested Mason. “I’m Marshal Raines.”
    Staring at Mason’s hand resting on his pistol, the man shrugged.
    “This ain’t no business of yours, Marshal,” he said. “We got as much right to this money as anyone.”
    “I couldn’t care less what you take from the truck. My guess is that for all your hard work, you’ll end up using the bills as toilet paper.”
    Blacksmith looked down at the blue crate that he’d pulled out, imagining piles of bearer bonds or other precious currency.
    “Money is money,” he said. But his tone was not at all convincing.
    Mason shrugged. “If you say so.”
    Blacksmith thought about it a little more, rubbing his thick beard.
    “Shit,” he muttered. He leaned down and shouted through the hole in the armored truck. “Cletus, get out here. Ain’t a damn thing in there we need.”
    A man’s feet, legs, and then body slowly slid out of the small gap. Cletus was a tall, thin man with greasy red hair and a face covered in a thick layer of acne.
    When he saw Mason, he said, “Who’s he?”
    “Some kind of a nosey cop.”
    Cletus leaned forward trying to read Mason’s badge.
    “It says that I’m a US Marshal.”
    “What’s that mean