The Hunters by Chris Kuzneski

before. He stowed his rifle in the saddlebags then climbed aboard his bike as if mounting a horse. He even patted its side while making horsy sounds.
    To complete his charade, McNutt tipped an imaginary cowboy hat toward Callahan, who was still trying to figure out why the mysterious stranger had saved his life. Then, before the Fed could see his face or try to question him, McNutt revved his bike’s accelerator and roared up the beach into the darkness.

10

Friday, August 24
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

    The early-morning sun streamed into Terminal 1 at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The overworked air conditioner tried to compete, but it was fighting a losing battle. During the summer months, the local weather forecast rarely changed: temperature in the mid-nineties with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. And when it did change, it was only because a hurricane was passing through.
    Needless to say, Cobb wasn’t thrilled about the locale.
    He had spent enough time in Iraq to be an expert on stifling heat, but there was something about the shirt-drenching humidity of Florida that really pissed him off. He was dressed comfortably - black T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers - yet he could already feel his clothes sticking to him as he strolled up the walkway.
    Of course, Cobb had no one to blame but himself. If he had used the first-class ticket that had been bought for him, his flight from LaGuardia wouldn’t have landed until later that afternoon. But due to his careful nature, he decided to fly in several hours early under an assumed name. And he wouldn’t be traveling from New York.
    This was his first chance to meet the man who had assembled the team for the job in Brighton Beach. Having passed that test with flying colors, Cobb had been summoned for a meeting with his new employer. Perhaps to discuss another job.
    Cobb planned to control the terms as much as possible.
    In the military, this kind of advance jaunt was known as a ‘rekky’ or ‘recce’, short for reconnaissance. As time went on, a rekky came to mean any preceding trip to scope out the locals, but originally it meant surveying a region to obtain information specifically regarding enemy troops.
    With that in mind, Cobb had used money from his personal stash to purchase the redeye ticket from Las Vegas, where he had been decompressing for the past few days. He spent the majority of the flight learning as much as he could about the airport and region from the mini-computer that was still laughably called a cell phone.
    Within minutes of takeoff, Cobb knew he’d be landing in Broward County, three miles southwest of Fort Lauderdale’s central business district and twenty-one miles north of Miami. Although his arrival in Florida would be well concealed - the airport was ranked the twenty-second busiest in the US and one of the fifty busiest airports in the world - he knew he had a full day of work ahead of him.
    Why couldn’t it have been Sarasota instead?
    If it had been, he could have checked out the much smaller airport in ten minutes and would have had plenty of time to grab a newspaper at Circle Books and an early lunch in Saint Armand’s Circle before his original flight had even landed. But here in Fort Lauderdale, he’d have to cover four terminals, six concourses, and fifty-seven gates. He’d even have to ‘look for a friend’ in three private airline clubs. Not bad for a place that was originally built on an abandoned nine-hole golf course.
    While deplaning, Cobb didn’t race ahead with all of the others. Instead, he stepped out of the crush of passengers and took a moment to get his bearings.
    ‘May I help you?’ someone said.
    Cobb wasn’t surprised by the question, but he was pleasantly surprised by the woman asking it. He turned to see an attractive ground attendant standing beside him at the line where the gate becomes the concourse. In the earliest morning light, her red hair was lustrous, and her green eyes