by Nick Petrie
“I guess not a problem anymore,” Peter said. “What’s the bore?”
“Sized for a 5.56. A NATO round, just like your M4. Gives you some idea of what they gonna do with it, right? But without the cartridge and powder, ammo’s a third of the weight. Figure Marty’s magazine will hold two hundred rounds, maybe more? And the claw can reload until the battery runs out.”
Metzger’s face was pale like he was going to be sick. “It’s my fault,” he said. “I should know every order that comes through the shop. I’d have known what it was just by the rifling in the tube.”
Peter said, “What’s the length of the barrel?”
Lewis’s smile got wider, but there was no humor in it. “Twenty-six inches.”
Peter closed his eyes. “It’s a goddamn sniper rifle. On a four-legged platform.”
Metzger’s phone rang on his belt. He took it from the holder and glanced at the screen. “It’s Holloway’s guy.”
Peter said, “Are we sure we want to give him the rest of his shipment?”
“Don’t matter,” Lewis said. “Truck ain’t leaving here anyway. Driver gonna tell us where it’s headed, then we wrap him in duct tape and let Oliver collect the whole package.”
Metzger put the phone on speaker. “Metzger Machine.”
“This is Gary from Mr. Holloway’s office. Our truck is at your gate. I trust you have our load ready?”
* * *
—
Metzger pulled the chain to raise the loading bay’s door, then hit a button on the wall to open the gate. They watched a plain white semi-tractor-trailer roll though the widening gap and circle the parking lot. Aside from the thump of its tires across the cracked pavement, the truck was strangely silent. Its broad windshield was a bright mirror in the afternoon sun.
The driver knew his stuff, got his rig lined up and snug against the dock on the first try without any hesitation. Oddly, the trailer’s cargo door was already up. Metzger climbed into the little electric forklift and started loading pallets, two at a time. Eleven trips wouldn’t take long.
Peter squeezed through the narrow side gap where the trailer met the building wall, then dropped to the asphalt. The wind had picked up again, and carried the smell of ozone from the west.
The rig was a sleek square-front short-haul model, no sleeper berth in the back. It looked new, with not a speck of dirt to be found. There was no visible brand name either. He walked up to the driver’s door, but he couldn’t see through the tinted glass. He was pretty sure it was illegal to tint the windows on a commercial truck, especially this dark, but that would be at the bottom of the list of Holloway’s crimes.
He reached up and knocked on the sheet metal, but nothing happened.
The engine was off, so the guy could definitely hear him. In Peter’s experience, a fair number of truck drivers thought of themselves as hard-asses. Some carried a weapon in the cab, concerned about robberies or hijackings. Peter took the pistol off his belt and held it up, then knocked again, louder. “Come on out, we just have a few questions.”
Lewis had gone out on the other side and now stood past the front passenger tire, shading his eyes with his hand. “Can’t see the guy,” he called. “Windshield’s got too much reflection.”
Peter reached for the door handle. It was locked. He stepped up on the front footholds and tapped the gun barrel on the glass. He still couldn’t catch a glimpse of the driver. “Open up, buddy, or I’ll break your damn window.”
Still no answer. Maybe the guy was calling his boss. Or the police.
The trailer rocked as the little forklift trundled out another stack of pallets. Metzger really wanted that shipment out of his shop.
“You see the sun visor?” Lewis pointed at the brow mounted above the windshield. “That ain’t no factory item.” Usually it was a slim, rounded curve, designed to minimize wind resistance and painted to match the truck. But this one was primer gray with bulbous shapes at strange intervals. The side mirror’s bracket had an odd lump mounted to the bottom, too, made of the same gray plastic, with a wire running out of it.
Screw this, Peter thought. He turned his head to shield his eyes and swung the pistol barrel hard into the window.
The laminated glass starred. No response from inside the truck. He hit the glass again. The star turned into a spiderweb and the tint film tore in the middle. He pinched up a corner of thin plastic film, peeled off a wide strip, and peered inside the cab.
Two seats, a steering wheel, a dashboard, and controls.
But no goddamn driver.
“Lewis, you’ll never believe this.” Peter pounded the glass again, finally making a hole. He used the gun barrel to enlarge the opening enough to get his arm through. Mindful of the sharp shards surrounding his bicep, he felt around for the door latch. He found it and pulled, but nothing happened. “It won’t open.”
Lewis walked around behind him. “Let me try.”
Peter extracted his arm and dropped to the ground. “Marty, how many pallets left?”
The electric forklift whined. “Last one loading now.” Metzger’s voice was muffled inside the trailer. The truck rocked again as he reversed the heavy machine into the loading bay.
“Don’t close the door,” Peter called. Then heard the trailer door drop down with a clank. “Marty!” Peter hopped up to the concrete corner of the dock and slid through the slim space into the loading area.
Metzger still sat in the forklift, eyes wide. “I didn’t touch it,” he said. “It closed by itself.” His phone rang and he pulled it from his belt. “It’s the same number.” He put it on speaker.
“Hello, this is Gary from Mr. Holloway’s office. Is the shipment fully loaded?”
“Yes,” Metzger said.
Peter looked at the back of the trailer. At the top, instead of a central brake light, there was another gray lump. One of Holloway’s sensor arrays, which no doubt included a camera.
Gary’s voice was calm and even. “Does that include both orders on the manifest?”
“Yes,” Metzger said.
“Once everything is in our facility, I’ll email you a delivery confirmation and waiver of lien,” Gary said. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Lewis shouted, “Jarhead, get your ass out here.”
Peter slipped through the gap again. He saw Lewis up on the truck, one arm hooked through the side mirror bracket, the other hand fumbling with the snap on his shoulder rig. A hatch had opened in the semi’s lower cowling, and a metallic creature crawled out onto the pavement and unfolded itself. It was eerily graceful, like no machine Peter had ever seen. Its twin blue domes and aluminum skin gleamed dully in the late-afternoon light.
Another creature was already on its feet, turning in a slow circle, servos whining softly, the sensors under the hardened glass no doubt gathering information Peter would never fully understand. He recognized the long arm with its powerful claw, still folded along what would have been its spine. An electric rifle barrel was mounted along one flank.
Lewis had his big black automatic out and began to fire at the thing one-handed. It was a small target, but he hit it broadside. The hyena stumbled but recovered and pivoted quickly to face the threat, all fluid motion with no real evidence of damage. The target was even smaller now. Lewis fired twice more and missed.
Peter couldn’t shoot at the second hyena, which seemed to be still waking up, or he’d risk hitting Lewis. He jumped to the ground, ran to the first creature, knocked it over, and stomped on a back leg, hoping to break the joint or at least pin it down. But the other three legs adjusted quickly, their black tips finding a grip on the blacktop.
Despite Peter’s weight, it began to push itself toward upright. The arm unfolded from the spine, the claw open wide and reaching for Peter. This wasn’t going to end well. He put his pistol to the base of the arm and pulled the tr
igger three times. The arm stopped moving, either the joint frozen or the wiring damaged, but the legs kept working. Peter pointed the pistol point-blank at a blue bug eye and pulled the trigger twice more. The legs stopped.
“Little help, motherfucker.” Lewis still clung to the side mirror, but the second creature had his ankle tight in its claw and it was yanking with that segmented arm, trying to pull him off the truck. Lewis kicked out wildly with his free foot, the gun useless in his hand.
Peter ran up and put the pistol to the hyena’s flank and fired.
It bounced sideways but kept jerking at Lewis’s leg. The hardened aluminum showed a deep dent but no hole. Lewis dropped the gun to grab the mirror bracket with his second hand, both legs in the air, flailing. “Kill it, fucking kill it.”
Peter fired again, knocking the hyena into the semi’s front tire. Point-blank and still no goddamn hole. What was this thing made of? Peter closed in, holding the machine in place with his weight long enough to put two rounds into the base of the claw. The arm stopped working but the claw still held and the creature thrashed harder. It pushed free of Peter and turned to face him, bringing the rifle barrel to bear. Peter heard a faint rising tone as he quickly transferred the pistol to his right hand. Then he put two rounds into the blue sensor domes and the hyena sank slowly to the ground.
“Get this thing off me,” Lewis said. “I can’t feel my foot.”
“Will you hold still?” Peter got his fingers on the claw but it wouldn’t move. “Shit.”
“Let me.” Metzger ran up with a cordless hammer drill in one hand and a chisel bit in the other. “The servo’s locked. Put the claw against that concrete step there.” They dragged the heavy dead hyena to the side of the building and Metzger bent with the drill rattling.
“Why didn’t it fire at me?” Lewis’s face was tight. He had one hand on the building and the other holding Peter’s shoulder for balance.
“No idea,” Peter said. “Maybe it didn’t want to damage the semi and jeopardize the shipment?”
Behind them, with only the sound of tires on the asphalt, the semi began to pull away from the loading dock. Not a noisy diesel, but silent electric motors.
“Motherfucker,” Lewis said. “Hurry up, Marty.”
“Gimme your keys,” Peter said. “I’ll go get the Yukon.”
Lewis fished in his pocket, swaying on one leg.
The truck straightened out, now pointed unerringly toward the open gate, but instead of accelerating, it slowed to a stop.
Metzger muttered something and the claw fell with a hard clank.
Lewis flexed his ankle. “Thanks. Damn, that hurt.” They were all staring at the semi now.
Then it began to back up. Peter didn’t think the semi could reach them where they stood, not without another round of back and fill, and it would be a slow process. They could always climb up onto the loading dock anyway.
But it didn’t even try.
Instead, it reversed in a crisp, straight line, accelerating as it went. Even fully loaded, it gained speed much faster than a normal vehicle. The silent electric motors had infinite torque.
It shot like an arrow toward the black Yukon parked eighty yards behind it.
Lewis screwed up his face. “Aw, man.”
But no amount of wanting would stop the heavy semi. It smashed hard into the front of the Yukon, the trailer’s underride guard tearing into the SUV’s engine compartment with the sound of a hyperactive child stomping tin cans.
The collision didn’t even slow the semi down. It kept reversing, but now the front wheels turned at some precisely calculated angle and the trailer changed trajectory, pushing the wrecked Yukon in a noisy arc across another forty yards of parking lot, where it T-boned Marty Metzger’s sky-blue Chrysler minivan, knocking the family vehicle on its side like a startled pill bug.
Lewis stood with his arms raised and his mouth open as the white truck jerked to a halt, then pulled forward again, dragging the Yukon with it as the motor mounts broke and the underride guard hauled the engine forward through the wreckage of the radiator until it fell free with a thud. Then the semi, unencumbered, powered toward the exit.
Jaw set, Lewis walked out into the parking lot, picked up his fallen automatic, and began to fire at the tires.
“Lewis, don’t shoot.” Peter took off, go-bag cinched tight, sprinting for the semi, shouting over his shoulder. “We need it functional so we can find out where the hell it’s going.”
Lewis shoved the pistol into its holster and followed, his limp turning into a run as his circulation improved.
As the semi coasted through the gate and turned left down the access road, Peter managed to grab the man-handle on the back corner of the trailer. He hoisted himself up to stand on the bent underride guard, then up to the narrow rear door sill. Lewis was close. Peter reached out and grabbed his hand and pulled him up alongside, where he slid right to grab the other handle.
When the semi turned right onto Hampton without slowing, the hard bounce of the rear wheels knocked their feet off the thin steel ledge and they dropped down, holding on to the long narrow bars for dear life. Peter watched the pavement flash by inches below his feet and felt the adrenaline pour through him like rocket fuel.
He hauled himself back to his feet and flashed a smile at Lewis, who’d done the same. “We’ve got him now.”
Lewis laughed out loud. “Oh, yeah. He scared of us for damn sure.”
Both of them still shaking from the encounter with the hyenas.
59
HOLLOWAY
Damn it.” Holloway threw the computer pad onto the work van’s center console. He blinked his eyes, surprised how emotional it made him to see the screen go dark after the pistol flashed bright in the lens. Two hyenas shot in the face. He’d have to make some improvements to the sensor ports.
Still, things weren’t so bad. He was on the freeway headed south in the shotgun seat, with his personal assassin driving. Maria sat on the floor behind them with the hyena’s claw clamped tight around her wrist.
He’d texted the killer once he knew the location of the meeting with Maria. His instructions were to take care of any opposition and help capture the young woman.
I’ll follow your lead, the assassin had replied, but I’m not your dog. Are we clear?
That response was slightly unnerving, but Holloway found himself in the unpleasant position of needing another human being’s help, so he didn’t push. Understood, Holloway had texted back.
He hadn’t wanted to ask about the reporter, but assumed she’d been handled like the family in Virginia and the two men from Metzger Machine.
The killer certainly had no problem dispatching Maria’s friend with the slingshot, and had taken Maria unharmed when she ran to attack him barehanded, howling like an animal. When it was clear that Holloway’s car was dead, the assassin had been surprisingly agreeable to taking them all in his van.
“Better stop screaming,” Holloway had told the girl when the hyena hauled her through the van’s side door. “His claw is strong enough to sever your wrist completely. Although you’ve seen the specs, so you probably know that already. Now where’s your computer? Or should Harry Hyena start breaking bones?”
It hadn’t taken much squeezing for her to reveal the backpack hidden behind the red pickup’s seat, along with a bonus item, a working fuel cell built into an actual shoebox. The girl was truly magnificent. Holloway was really looking forward to working with her, he thought, as the hormone cocktail thrummed through his system. His erection was like an iron bar, but it wasn’t sexual, not really. The stimulus was power. Although there was only one way to discharge it.
The killer, who had introduced himself as Edgar, wore a bright smile and dark glasses against the sun lowering in the west. It was fifteen degrees hotter across the Illinois border, and Holloway had the window down, attemp
ting to vent the persistent stink of the dead man in the back.
It was a day of firsts, Holloway thought. He’d already commissioned multiple murders in the course of doing business, but today was his first time watching one. Today was also his first kidnapping, and his first time in a car with a day-old body. He didn’t need to repeat the last one.
“Are you sure we can’t stop someplace and get rid of that dead guy?”
“Mike Dillman?” Edgar shook his head. “No, he’s with me.”
As if it were a soft-spoken friend and not a bloody corpse, Holloway thought. Although obviously a hired killer would have some strange currents running behind those sunglasses.
He remembered the last message from Krueger, the middleman, when Holloway had asked for the killer’s direct contact. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Holloway noticed that the red spots on Edgar’s white dress shirt had gotten larger since they’d begun driving. His forearms were lined with hundreds of razor-slim cuts, he had a red dent in his forehead, and one ear was wrapped in a bandage the size of a golf ball. But aside from shifting in his seat, he didn’t show the pain.
“How did you get hurt?” Holloway asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
Edgar kept his eyes on the road. “Trying to kill your reporter.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Holloway said. “But it’s done, right?”
Edgar turned to face him. “No, it’s not. I should have killed her that first night, when I went into her house. I could have waited in the dark. It would have been easy. The next day she had protectors. And a gun. And a dog. I don’t like dogs. You didn’t tell me about any of those things.”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t know. I needed to learn what she knew about me before making the decision to eliminate her. I just assumed you could handle whatever came up.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
Edgar’s weird smile got wider, the broad face impossible to read behind the mirrored sunglasses. “I bet your doctor makes house calls, though.”