Of course they’d opt for walking.
Nobody wants to die, after all.
They’d start walking, and Johnny would shoot them in the back.
Dead men tell no tales. Dead women don’t either.
He shared his plan with Tina, who tearfully tried to talk him out of it.
“Johnny, you’re better than that. You’ve never killed anybody before. You’ve never crossed that line.”
He argued with her.
“Yeah, well maybe I should have crossed that line a long time ago. Plenty of other people kill. Some kill all the time. And they don’t get caught, either.”
“That’s only because the jails are full, Johnny. The police aren’t making arrests because they have no place to put people. But you can bet they’re keeping track.
“The jails won’t always be full. One day it’ll be warm again and the police will come after those who thought they got away with their crimes. And you’ll be on the top of their list, because there ain’t no statute of limitations on murder.”
He brushed her off. He’d already decided that when he set up his dealing operation again in Big Spring he’d start rebuilding his reputation.
He wanted to be considered what people on the streets call “hard.” He wanted to be a tough guy. He wanted to have a reputation that he was not one to be messed with.
Nothing gains a man such a reputation faster than having a couple of murders under his belt.
The couple went back and forth for more than half an hour before he wore Tina down.
It was a case of him wanting to kill Frank more than she didn’t want him to.
She finally relented.
“Okay, I won’t fight you any more on this. But don’t ask me to help you with the bodies.”
“Oh, the bodies won’t be a problem. I’ll just drag them into the snow bank. They won’t be found until well after the thaw, when some farmer goes out to plant his crops. And there’s no way they can tie it to us.”
As he said those words, Frank stopped the Hummer and got out for a restroom break.
Once he was back in the truck Eddie stepped out and did the same thing.
Then Frank put the Hummer in reverse and backed up so Josie could take a break as well.
Josie’s breaks were much less frequent but a little more involved.
When Josie needed to go Frank backed up about ten feet or so to make a gap between the Hummer and the plowed snow.
Josie crawled around the side of the blade and into the gap, where she took care of her business.
The plow blade blocked Frank’s and Eddie’s view.
The Humvee blocked the view of Johnny and Tina.
Josie therefore had total privacy.
While Frank took his turn outside, Johnny reached into the back seat of his pickup and pulled out his rifle.
“Go ahead and check it, then load it. The next time they stop they’re dead.”
**************************
Thank you for reading
Final Dawn Book 18:
THE BLOCKADE
Please enjoy this preview of the next installment in the series,
Final Dawn Book 19:
EDEN BOUND
**************************
They hadn’t put quite enough thought into their return trip.
And really now, why would they? It wasn’t like they took a hundred mile trip through a treacherous mountain pass on icy roads while the world was frozen over every day.
They weren’t exactly well practiced at the task.
Oh, they thought of the basic things.
They took plenty of MREs to feed the six of them on the way back. They even thought to bring extras in case, God forbid, they broke down and got delayed.
They took plenty of water, a small barbeque grill and three bags of charcoal briquettes, to help them stay warm in case the breakdown happened.
They took a first aid kit, plenty of weapons and ammo, even a flare gun they could use to summon help.
They even underwent a “what if” session, where they called out ugly scenarios they might encounter and tried to talk out solutions for each.
“What if we have a flat tire along the way?”
“Brad, would you mind checking to make sure we have a jack and lug wrench, and that the spare tire is there?”
“Sure. I’ll check it after the meeting.”
“What if we break a belt or a radiator hose springs a leak?”
“I saw a Hummer dealer on Loop 410 a couple of exits away. I’ll raid the place and bring a box full of hoses and belts and cables and stuff with us. And there’s already a toolbox that’s pretty well stocked in the cargo bay.”
“If we get delayed along the way where will we sleep?”
“Not a problem. Captain Wright said they’d provide some surplus tents and sleeping bags.”
“Where will we put them all?”
“Duh… on the cargo rack on top of the Hummer.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“What if we pick up a nail and one of the tires develops a slow leak?”
“Not a problem. We’ll take a portable air compressor and keep airing it up when it gets low.”
“What if a hungry grizzly bear stands in the middle of the road and refuses to leave until we give him something to eat?”
“No problem. We’ll roll down the window and throw Hannah out as a sacrifice.”
“Perfect! Okay, check that one off as solved.”
Okay, so the session got rather silly at times. But they kept it fun that way. And they really did solve some potential issues ahead of time.
We’ve all heard of Murphy’s Law.
If anything can possibly go wrong, it will.
To paraphrase a bit: Even if Hannah and Marty and crew brainstorm for days to think of potential problems, the one problem they never think of is the one they’ll have to face.
So here they were, forty miles from nowhere, on a single lane of roadway which they’d carved from Eden to San Antonio.
Back then, of course, they had a snow plow.
Now all they had was a Humvee.
And as fine as their Hummer was, as much as it drove on pretty much any terrain, as much as it scoffed at the ice beneath its feet, there were some things it simply could not do.
Like, for example, drive over the passenger van directly in front of them. Headed south.
Just a reminder for those of you who haven’t been paying attention: Marty and Hannah and the others were headed north.
On a one lane road.
Marty brought the Hummer to a dead stop.
The driver of the van realized his high beams were blasting Marty right in the eyes. He or she turned them off.
Marty returned the favor and followed suit.
In Texan parlance, it was a Mexican standoff.
“Marty,” Al asked from the front seat, “How much room do we have on each side of the vehicle?”
“Maybe two feet on each side.”
“That’s four feet total, isn’t it?”
“Was when I was in school. Reckon it still is.”
“And how wide would you say that van is?”
“Seven feet, more or less.”
“So it’s too wide to pass?”
“Yup.”
Marty was a man of few words already. And when he was trying to think his way out of a problem he used even fewer. A one word answer meant his brain was working overtime and was in danger of catching fire.
“How far back was the last place we saw where we had room for somebody to pass?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“Oh yes. I do, I do.”
“About fifteen, maybe twenty miles.”
“Can we back this thing that far?”
“Sure. I didn’t need any feeling in my neck anyway. Not a problem at all.”
“Sorry. I just…”
“Let me think, Al. There’s got to be a better solution.”
There might be.
But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was.
**************************
Final Dawn Book 19:
EDEN BOUND
will be available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Booksellers, Hastings Books, and more than two dozen on line book stores in June, 2020.
**************************
*************************
If you enjoyed
Final Dawn Book 18:
THE BLOCKADE
you might also enjoy Darrell Maloney’s
The Cleansing
Our loveable but grumpy friend Frank Woodard is a detective, living the life of an ordinary citizen in Washington, D.C.
But not for long. One night his life becomes anything but ordinary. Over the span of just three seconds, fifty citizens fall dead in their tracks, killed instantly with no sign of trauma save a quarter-sized bruise directly over their sternums.
There are hundreds of witnesses, yet none of them saw a thing.
Frank’s struggle for answers makes him first a suspect, then a villain, then a hero. And the answers he seeks come, quite literally, from out of this world.
*************************
The Cleansing
is available now at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
Here’s a preview…
This case was just what Frank Woodard needed to ease back into homicide division’s line of fire.
In this case, there was no wondering who the murderer might be. No witnesses who refused to cooperate. No family who was hiding key suspects. No instance where the murder weapon was destroyed, or was thrown into a deep river or canyon, or buried in a desert where it would never be found again.
Not at all. This murder took place inside a packed bar on a Saturday night. Two drunks started making passes at the same woman, who did nothing to discourage either of them. One thing led to another, words were exchanged and a line was crossed.
One pulled a four inch knife and told the other to leave.
The second man, bolstered by bravado supplied by the liquor he’d been swilling, refused.
It cost him his life.
The killer almost immediately realized he’d gone way too far. He handed the bartender the bloody knife and sat in a corner of the bar, head in hands, crying until the police showed up.
Over and over, he kept saying, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
But sorry didn’t cut it. Not when another man lay dead in a puddle of blood senselessly shed.
There was a barroom of witnesses. Surveillance cameras captured the whole thing. And the killer confessed to the first officer on the scene. Told to shut up and listen, he did so. His Miranda rights were read to him, he waived them and confessed again.
This was what homicide detectives called a “quickie.”
It was open and shut. There would be no long drawn out investigation. No endless series of witnesses to interview. No long list of possible suspects to interrogate. No weeks-long trial or endless appeals.
Homicide detectives called it a “quickie” because once all the statements were taken, once all the witnesses were recorded, once the reports were filed, the case was considered closed.
It was the homicide equivalent of finding a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk on your way to work.
It seldom got any better than that.
Frank remembered back when he used the term “quickie” at a staff meeting.
His new lieutenant, freshly transferred in from the Robbery Division, was a looker. Tall and thin, with all the right curves in all the right places. It was impossible not to notice.
After introductions, the new lieutenant thanked the group for the warm welcome she was given and said she looked forward to working with each and every detective.
Then she asked each detective to give her a rundown on the cases they were working on.
When Frank’s turn came around he said, “I just wrapped up a double homicide, turned it over to the D.A. yesterday. We have him dead to rights. He’s confessed to avoid the death penalty. He’ll never see the light of day again.”
His new boss was impressed. Frank would have scored some brownie points if it had gone no further.
But Lieutenant Cutie Pie asked him, “Good work, detective. So what’s next for you?”
Frank said, “Right now, ma’am, I could really use a quickie. I’m so stressed after the last couple of cases I could use some relief.”
The room fell suddenly silent.
It was then and there that Frank realized he was getting old.
And that the younger detectives and the lieutenant understood the term “quickie” to have more than one meaning. Something having absolutely nothing to do with homicide cases.
That was in Bexar County, Texas some years before. Everyone got a good laugh at Frank’s expense, but no permanent harm was done. Frank and the lieutenant ended up having an excellent working relationship and were still good friends, even after he made the move east to Washington.
And she still liked ribbing him about it every chance she got.
The bar murder was a two day case at most. He could stretch it out to three just by taking his time doing the reports if he wanted to.
Frank was a two finger typist. In his early days in homicide it took him days to do reports. In those days he had an IBM Selectric, considered the Cadillac of typewriters. But for a detective who typed with two fingers, and who wasn’t the best speller in the world, it still took a while.
Department policy was that any report which had more than three corrections per page had to be redone.
And retyping a page that was three quarters done before the fourth mistake was struck was the pits.
Frank tried whiteout to hide some of the errors, but his supervisors wouldn’t accept it.
Then he tried pretending his words weren’t misspelled, but his bosses caught those as well.
Frank, more than anybody else in the department, was happy when typewriters went the way of the dinosaurs and personal computers started showing up on each man’s desk.
But he still typed with two fingers.
And it still took forever to type his reports.
So even after drawing a quickie case it took Frank two days, maybe three, to get everything typed up and submitted to the Assistant District Attorney.
But that was okay. He was back on the firing line, where he belonged.
Back doing what he loved to do… solving murders and throwing bad people in jail.
Making the streets safer for the good guys.
He was back in his element and happy as a clam.
That was about to change.
*************************
If you enjoyed
Final Dawn Book 18:
THE BLOCKADE
you might also enjoy
Countdown to Armageddon
Available now at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
*************************
Scott Harter wasn’t special by anybody’s standards. He wasn’t a handsome guy at all. He wasn’t dumb, but he’d never win a Nobel Prize either. He had no hidden talents, although he fancied himself a fairly good karaoke singer.
His friends didn’t necessarily share that opinion, but what did they know?
No, if those friends were tasked to choose one word to describe Scott Harter that word might well be “average.”
If Scott excelled at one thing, it was that he was a very good businessman. And he was also a lot luckier than most.
And it was that combination – his penchant for making a buck and being lucky, that led him here on this day to the Guerra Public Library on the west side of San Antonio.
To research what he believed was the pending collapse of mankind.
Twenty three years earlier, Scott had done two things that would change his life forever. Even back then, he was just an average Joe. He’d had plans
to become a doctor, but his average grades weren’t cutting it. So he dropped out of college halfway through his junior year.
He’d have loved to have married a beauty queen, but his average looks certainly did nothing to attract any. Neither did his average amount of charm. So instead he started dating Linda Amparano, who was a sweet girl but somewhat average herself. They seemed to make a perfect, if slightly vanilla, couple.
The second thing Scott did that year was buy a dilapidated self-storage unit on the north side of San Antonio. It was one of those places where people rent lockers to store their things when their garages have run out of space. Or their kids go off to college. Or when they just accumulate so many things that they’ve run out of room to put them all.
Pat, the guy who sold the property to Scott, was a friendly enough sort, but not a businessman at all. He didn’t understand some of the basic principles of running such an operation.
Not that Scott was an expert. At least back then he wasn’t.
But even back then, Scott knew the value of curb appeal, and that a fresh paint job and a few repairs could attract a few more customers. And a few more customers would help supply money for advertising, and special offers, and long-term lease discounts. No brainers, actually.
So by the end of that year, two things happened. Scott had turned around the business and turned it into a money-making operation. And he married Linda.
The pair said their vows on December 17th of that year. It was bitterly cold that day. The coldest December 17th on record for that part of Texas.
If the cold was an omen, though, neither of them saw it. If either of them had, and had gotten cold feet, their lives would be so much different today.
But they just laughed it off, as young couples in love are wont to do. And they went ahead with their nuptials and started their lives together and never looked back at that cold day in December when they ran headlong into a marriage that shouldn’t have happened.
The marriage lasted nine years. It produced two great sons, so there was that. And Scott and Linda remained friends. That was something else. So there was a good legacy, of sorts, left behind by their mistake that cold December day.
The Blockade Page 17