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body. There was a rectangular bulge in his right hip pocket, and using just his fingers, Zeb fished in and withdrew a phone. It was a low-end smart phone that glowed dimly when he thumbed it on. He went through the menus till he found its number – it was the same number Broker had given him.
    He slipped the phone in his pocket and turned to leave, when a thought struck him. This feels like a cleanup operation by the gang erasing its own tracks. But why leave the body here where it could be found. Why leave the phone? Unless…?
    He dived out of the RV just as a hail of bullets cut the air where he had been standing.

Chapter 8
    A split second later a spotlight bathed the RV, seeking Zeb.
    Zeb wasn’t there.
    He rolled to his left and kept on rolling once he landed, seeking the sanctuary of darkness. He tumbled into a natural depression in the ground and stopped moving just in time as he spotted the shine of water.
    Zeb hugged the ground close, listening hard, and heard nothing but the night listening back.
    Now these are real pros. I didn’t detect their presence, and if they had shot me when I was back on the ground, I would’ve been toast. They stopped firing as soon as I escaped and turned off the spotlight. No firing blind and making a target of themselves for these guys.
    He checked his gun in the dark to make sure dirt hadn’t clogged the barrel when he had dived, and crawled up the small incline. The darkness all around was comforting and was like a second skin to him. He peeked once over the depression and saw the RV standing slack jawed, with its door open.
    They’ll be waiting for me to make a move. Two can play that game.
    He settled down, making himself one with the woods, aware of the slightest unnatural movement.
    An hour later he heard it. Felt it, rather than heard it. A change in the shape of the darkness, a difference in the way the night hung over him. The feeling diminished slowly, and after another half an hour he heard an engine start and its sound fade.
    He continued waiting. It was entirely possible their exit was a dummy and one or more shooters had stayed back to pepper him if he showed.
    Several hours later, when the sky lightened, Zeb backed himself into deeper cover that gave him a good view of the RV. Seven hours had passed since the shooting, and the chances were high that the shooters had disappeared, but he was happy to wait. He had seen enough dead men who had paid the price for impatience.
    The sun was painting yellow shadows on the grassy floor when Zeb broke his near motionless vigil and circled the RV in an outward spiral till he was sure they had left.
    He faced the RV, worked out shooting angles, and tracked the likely position of the shooters – a hundred feet away from the open door, with a clear firing line, behind a couple of trees thick enough to cover a couple of shooters. There were faint marks in the hard ground that could’ve been their prints, but without any forensic equipment, he couldn’t be sure. He cut a sign on one of the trees, marking it for Kelly’s people, headed back to the RV and, after searching it carefully, found one of the spent bullets embedded in the rear wall.
     
    He called Kelly as he was driving back.
    ‘No names. You’ll find a body in an RV, one of those four guys.’
    He winced as Kelly shouted in his ear.
    ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Will explain when we meet. Nope, I didn’t kill that guy. You can run ballistics on my gun if you wish.’
    He called Broker and updated him, who heard him out without interruption. They had worked with each other so long that they often knew what the other was thinking by just looking at each other.
    ‘Send me the bullet, and I’ll see what I can find. The phone, have you left it on the body?’
    ‘Nope. It’s with me.’ Zeb explained what he thought would happen. ‘Can you track its movements, say in the last few weeks?’
    Broker grunted, ‘Does a bear shit in the woods?’ and hung up.
    Glorious vistas