[right][h3]l'armée des ombres redux[/h3][/right]
[hr]

Dan had tension in his shoulders, but he walked only a little and didn't want to distract a trio of career criminals who knew that handoffs were the most dangerous part of the job. It was true that they were doing a handoff, and didn't care about the money. It was bait. They'd decided against packing some C-4 into the bag and throwing the switch once these guys were away. They figured to keep it looking covert, like a deal gone bad rather than a sign of legitimate guerrilla activity. Handguns here to reinforce that. They had M-4's and M-16's from national guard and police supplies, cached away for the Day, with a capital D, when they'd start the real running war, but for now they were on handguns.

That made it all more complicated; the explosives would have alerted the KGB for certain that there was activity. They wanted to draw out some investigators to find out which agency, potentially, was interested in LeBeau. So here they were, offing this criminal the hard way, because someone wanted to gather intelligence on the response.

[i]Make hay while the sun shines,[/i] he supposed, as he paced through the dusty warehouse. He was wearing a fleece lined flannel vest and a hooded sweatshirt, the better to keep identifiable tattoos covered up nicely. They were reminders of a very different sort of life, more straightforward. He also was wearing a Bruins cap because it concealed him well enough for surveillance cameras. He didn't even want to contemplate what the Russkis would do to the NHL. No one in New England did.

Fitzsimmons was his. He got a good look at the bloodshot blue eyes, the pug nose and dirty-blonde hair kept short. He had a cigarette in hand and was wearing jeans and a leather coat, but he looked rough, like a legbreaker and a thug, not really a guy that was used to using a gun, though he was certainly carrying one. That made a huge difference. Dan didn't gawk at the guy, but he was planning to kill him fast, two to the center mass and then, well, he'd see. 

He didn't necessarily like the idea of killing Eamon Fitzsimmons like this, but it was a moot point -- they had orders, distasteful but necessary. But a couple years ago, if people said that it'd be like this, killing people you were doing business with, betraying people on a suspicion for flag and country, he probably wouldn't have believed it and didn't want to necessarily contemplate it now. But here they were, playing the maquisard and doing the ugly stuff. He could feel the sweat gathering in spots, even in a bit of chill in Vermont.

Worse still were the other orders. The ones that said to keep an eye on Joe and decide if he was loyal. They wanted proof, that's why Joe was the triggerman, and he knew that his end of the business was to pop that guy if he failed. Joe wasn't as dumb as the CIA assholes that dreamed this up imagined, he probably knew what was going on here. 

Get it or not, he just hoped the guy pulled the trigger.