by Ken Benton
“Maybe,” Malcolm answered. “If they had to acquire a car. And maybe they just decided to park it there.”
“Why would they break into one of my sheds?”
“Looking for supplies? I’m only telling you it’s possible that’s who’s in there, after the answering machine greeting I left. Maybe I should call out for Hannah and see.”
“That would be extremely stupid, Malcolm. I admit there’s a chance it’s her, but a small chance. I think you know that. Whoever else it might be is probably armed. We don’t want them to know we’re out here. Come on.”
Malcolm followed Ryan back to the shed that had been broken into. Ryan went inside and came out holding a full-size shovel. “Follow me.”
They made their way through the trees until the trailer vanished behind them. Malcolm could hear the creek gurgling a short distance away.
“Here.” Ryan handed him the rifle, dropped his pack and started digging.
“You and your buried treasure,” Malcolm mumbled. “At least you have a proper tool this time.”
It didn’t take long before Ryan struck something.
“Help me,” he said.
Malcolm conceded to getting the knees of his jeans filthy and kneeled in the dirt beside the hole. They scooped out mounds of soil for what seemed like hours—but was probably less than twenty minutes. Eventually they uncovered a large black plastic container of some sort. It had been wrapped in a clear plastic tarp. Malcolm took one end and Ryan the other. They managed to get it out of the ground.
“What is this?” Malcolm asked.
“A car topper.”
Ryan opened it, removed two more plastic tarps and then unraveled a blanket. Malcolm leaned over his shoulder to see what all the work was for.
Weapons. They just dug up a cache of firearms.
Ryan then gathered up the shotgun and Ruger 10/22. “These were great traveling weapons, but they’ve done their job. It’s time to trade them in.” He set them in the blanket and picked up a different shotgun. A bigger one.
“Here, take the 12-gauge.” He handed it to Malcolm. “You were pretty good with the 20, hanging on to the truck door. Don’t try that with this one. It has significantly more kick, so make sure you’re stably grounded if you need to fire it.”
“I’ve shot a 12-gauge before,” Malcolm said, “at the range. What are you going to use?”
Ryan raised an AR-15 assault rifle out of the blanketed armory.
“Oh.”
Ryan didn’t smile. Malcolm could tell he was highly distressed by the thought of intruders in his trailer. Ryan held the AR-15 upright for ten or twelve seconds—just held it there—before a magazine materialized in his other hand. He popped it in.
After retrieving one box of shells for the shotgun and two boxes of .223 rounds for the AR-15, the blanket got wrapped again and put back in the car topper. Malcolm wondered what the other blankets in there held. In another fifteen minutes the car topper was underground again.
They took the shovel back to the shed, where they also deposited their backpacks. Ryan had Malcolm wait while he took their two water bottles to the creek. He returned again with them full and gave one to Malcolm.
“All right,” Ryan said.
Malcolm peered through the trees at the trailer. “What do we do now?”
“Get in position and wait.”
* * *
“I don’t like it,” Chad said. “Don’t like it at all.” The knot in his stomach became tighter. He looked around for a place to throw up, just in case.
Garth snickered. “The bitch was bluffing. She ain’t coming back. I snowed her good. She bought it. I could tell. She’s just having me build those bikes for spite, ‘cause she knows I don’t like her. And according to what you told me, she doesn’t have any partners left. Lying manipulator.”
“Yep,” Duncan agreed. “We’ve taken them all down, though it’s been costly. She’s the last domino. Kind of wish we’d finished the job instead of letting her drive away.”
“It was best,” Garth said. “Let her go back up in the hills and get lost, now that she’s scratched this place off her list. I’m sure she’ll give up and return to Pittsburgh soon, or wherever the hell she’s from. Besides, there are neighbors within earshot. A gun battle has a distinctly different sound than target practice.”
“What’s the name of this shitsville town again?” Duncan asked.
“West Union.”
“I disagree,” Chad said. “Look how she ended up here. The bitch is carrying a vendetta now, after losing her partners, and will never give up the hunt. To be honest, I’m not sure I want her to. We should have gotten her here, or followed her. I’m telling you, Duncan, I’m going to get her. For Lanny.”
Duncan crossed his arms. “You want to hang in these mountains and chase a Secret Service agent around the rest of your life, that’s your business. Don’t get me wrong—I understand about Lanny. It’s cool and all. We’ve all got to do what we must sometimes. But after we divvy up the rest of the gold, Joseph and I are headed to Chicago, as planned. Wish you’d come along. Right, Joseph?”
Chad looked at Joseph. He was screwing around with the fed’s cell phone again, not paying much attention.
“How are we getting to Chicago?” Joseph said without looking up. “And what are we going to do when we get there? We no longer have a printing operation—and even if we did, it’d be pretty much worthless now.”
Joseph had been paying more attention than Chad thought.
“We have a hell of a lot of gold,” Duncan answered, “so we don’t need to print for a while. A long while. Until they fix the currency in this country, or come up with a new one. I have friends in Chicago, and we’re rich for the time being. Trust me, life will be good there. And we’ll make it, one way or another, even if we have to hijack a food truck. Which I’m thinking we might need to do anyway.”
“Or you can stay with me and go after the fed bitch,” Chad said to Joseph. “Then we’ll go to Chicago and meet up with Duncan, afterwards.”
Joseph finally looked up from the phone screen. “I’m torn. When are we going to dig up the rest of the gold?”
Duncan looked east. “The place ought to cool down enough in another week. Garth can take us in his Jeep.”
Garth tilted his head.
Joseph went back to messing with the phone.
“How long are you going to keep playing with that damn thing?” Chad said.
“It’s pretty cool,” Joseph calmly replied. “Never seen another one like it, with this fat antenna.”
“That’s because it’s a satellite phone,” Garth said.
“If you say so.” Joseph kept poking at the screen. “Hey, I think I found the list of recently made calls. Looks like the number dialed most often has a Pittsburgh area code.” He pushed something on the phone and held it to his ear.
“What the hell are you doing?” Duncan said.
Joseph ignored him. “You were right, Garth. It’s the Pittsburgh Secret Service field office.”
“Hang up before they track you on that thing!”
Joseph hung up. “No worries. Electronic receptionist.” He pushed another button and held it to his ear again.
“Now where are you calling?” Duncan asked.
“There’s a New York number on the list, too. Wait…” Joseph plugged his other ear and strained to listen to something.
“Take that thing away from him,” Chad said to Duncan. “He’s going to get us all found.”
Joseph hung the phone up, stood, and grinned devilishly.
“What?” Chad said.
“The bitch is from New York.”
“So what? Stop using that thing, man.”
“I know where we can find her, Chad.”
Chad shook his head. “Not sure I’m willing to chase her all the way to New York, even for Lanny. I want to get her while she’s local.”
“Right.” Joseph nodded. “I think she’s married, and staying
with her husband in a city called Pennsboro. I have the address.”
“Pennsboro?” Garth said. “Ah, shit. That’s ten miles down the road, man. Means she probably will come back here.”
“Not if we visit her first,” Joseph said.
Chad looked into Joseph’s eyes and encountered a warm, caring look. Chad couldn’t help but smile. “Excellent. Good work, man.”
“All right,” Duncan said. “All right. Looks like we need to handle this after all. Since we have a week to kill, no pun intended, we’ll go take care of the fed bitch—and whoever else is unlucky enough to be staying with her. After that we’ll dig up the gold, and then go to Chicago. Agreed?”
Chad and Joseph did a high five.
Duncan turned to Garth. “You better put our bikes back together.”
Chapter Twenty
The male voice probably belonged to two different people, unless it was from a man who widely varied his tone. But there was at least one man and one woman inside. The woman definitely wasn’t Hannah.
Malcolm quietly shifted positions, sitting on the ground leaning against the front of the trailer. His back was beginning to hurt. It couldn’t be helped. He knew they couldn’t see him down here, even if they tried to look down out the front window, because of the circular shape of the trailer.
God only knew where Ryan was lurking. He promised to be ready when the door opened, and would somehow stay out of sight until then. Malcolm hoped it would happen before it got too late in the day.
He didn’t have to wait much longer. The grumpier of the two male voices announced he was “going outside to take a wiz.”
“There’s a bathroom in here,” the female voice objected, equally as grumpy.
“Bathrooms are for women,” the male responded.
Malcolm crouched like a compressed spring.
The trailer door squeaked open.
Nothing happened for a long moment. The trailer then swayed from the weight of the man moving onto the step. As he stepped off, it swayed back. The door smacked the side of the trailer, opening completely.
Malcolm jumped out into the open, squaring his feet and bringing the shotgun to aim at the bare-shouldered man standing sideways to him.
The man didn’t notice him yet. He was looking in the opposite direction, past the picnic table. Malcolm didn’t see a weapon.
“Hold it!” Malcolm said.
The startled man’s head spun to face Malcolm, but his body remained in place.
“Hey!” the female voice screeched from the doorway.
Malcolm moved the gun barrel to her. Disheveled dirty-blond hair and a tattered red dress barely clinging to a bony body were all the details Malcolm was able to take in before the sound of three rapid gunshots rang from across the yard.
Malcolm eyes returned to the man, just in time to see him fall forward, towards Malcolm, with three holes in his back. A frighteningly large revolver hit the ground next to him.
“Luke!” the woman screamed.
Malcolm, suddenly much more cognizant of the potential danger, stepped sideways and leveled the shotgun at her.
An object flew forward in the air from the trailer door. Malcolm squeezed the trigger.
The gun didn’t fire. He didn’t squeeze it hard enough. He wasn’t sure whether he meant to shoot her or not.
The object in the air landed on the ground at Malcolm’s feet. It was another revolver. This one was big, too—but not as big as the other. Either the woman was wisely surrendering her firearm, or it had accidentally flown out of her hand as she raised it to shoot. Malcolm suspected the latter.
“Luke!” she screamed again and stumbled out of the trailer. The woman ran to her downed companion and kneeled beside him. “No, no!”
Malcolm took two more steps sideways and aimed back at the doorway. He glanced back and forth between it and the couple on the ground, knowing she could easily pick up the man’s pistol. But Ryan was now visible just beyond the picnic table, slowly approaching. He had them covered with the assault rifle.
“Come out of the trailer!” Malcolm shouted. “Slowly, with your hands where we can see them.”
Nothing happened.
The woman on the ground shook Luke and begged him to talk to her. “You bastards!” she shouted between sobs. But she didn’t go for the gun.
Malcolm repeated his demand. “You! In the trailer! Come out of there, now!”
Still nothing.
The woman quickly became hysterical, which interfered with Malcolm’s concentration. He was also bothered by the fact the shotgun didn’t fire when he put pressure on the trigger. The 20-gauge surely would have. He decided to fire off a round, in the air over the trailer. This time he squeezed harder.
And this time it fired. The stock of the gun kicked into Malcolm’s shoulder as the shell ejected its buckshot. It must have startled the woman, because she abruptly shut up—thank God.
“Carly!” a panicked voice yelled from inside the trailer. Malcolm pumped the 12-gauge. Two seconds later a new male figure stood in the doorway, holding a rifle in one hand. The rifle was pointed down.
“Toss it out!” Malcolm said.
The new male made eye contact with Malcolm. He was skinny, like the woman, but taller. Something about his eyes told Malcolm he wasn’t much of a threat. He only seemed concerned about the woman, who only seemed concerned about Luke. It took the man a few seconds to process Malcolm’s instructions, but he eventually threw the rifle to the ground and stepped out with his hands in the air.
Malcolm motioned for him to join his friends. The man was anxious to comply.
By this time Ryan was right next to them. He kicked the huge revolver away from the three intruders.
“Anyone else inside?” Ryan asked them.
The girl only spoke to Luke, continuing her hopeless attempts to revive him.
The conscious man put his hands on Carly’s shoulders, in a vain attempt to console her. Malcolm got the impression he wasn’t all that sorrowful over the loss of Luke. But he did answer Ryan’s question.
“No, man. There’s no one else. Just us three. Please let us go.”
“All right,” Ryan said. “I’m going inside to check it out. If no one else is in there, like you said, we’ll let you go. Malcolm, if you hear even one shot inside the trailer when I’m in there, shoot them both. Starting with him.”
“Will do.” Malcolm stepped closer to the intruders.
“There’s no one else in there,” the man said. “Carly, he’s dead. Come on. He said they’ll let us go.”
“No!” Carly screamed. “No! I’ll kill you bastards! Come on, Luke, wake up!”
The man wrapped his arms around her and dragged her away from Luke’s body. She kicked, screamed, and cried.
Ryan fired three quick shots in the air above the trailer, then rolled into it commando-style through the doorway. The gunfire, once again, had the effect of calming Carly.
An extremely long twenty seconds later, Ryan reappeared. He stepped back outside, walked over to Carly and her restrainer, and threw a key ring on the ground beside them.
“Drag your friend to your car, put him inside, and leave.”
The woman let loose with a barrage of curses. “I’ll be back, you son of a bitch! And when I come back I’ll kill both of you!”
“No we won’t!” the man said. “I promise you’ll never see either of us again. Thank you!”
“Yes you will,” Carly said. “You’ll see me right before I kill you!”
“I promise,” the man repeated.
Ryan nodded. “Load up your friend and go. Or else we’ll burn his body until all his ashes are swept away by the wind.”
“No,” Carly said in a calmer, pleading voice. She stretched out her arms towards the body. “No, Luke, Luke.”
Luke had been a heavy, muscular man. Carly and her admirer had a difficult time dragging his corpse to the Duster and shoving him in the back seat. In the end, Malcolm had to help. It was not a task
he enjoyed. But it was worth it when they watched the trail of dirt in the air follow the old car off the property, back down the road towards Pennsboro.
Before the Duster vanished from sight, it swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle—a white Toyota 4-runner, about ten years old. The 4-Runner then turned into Ryan’s driveway and stopped.
“Relax,” Ryan said. “That’s Spence, my next-door neighbor. He’s cool.”
* * *
“You should have come and gotten me first,” Spence said. “I would have helped.”
“Spence, I do appreciate that.” Ryan lifted his tumbler of scotch and gazed at it with prolonged appreciation. “You’re a fine neighbor. But I could never ask you to put yourself in harm’s way on my account. Malcolm and I handled it.”
Malcolm spoke. “Just wondering, what made you think we needed help?”
Spence stood from the cushy leather recliner before responding. His trim body was athletic enough, moving in quick coordinated motions—but his balding head of grey-white hair betrayed his age.
“Guns fired for target practice make a different music than those used in more desperate situations.” Spence picked up the scotch bottle. “Anyone need topping up?”
Ryan extended his glass, still half-full.
“I call it being neighborly,” Spence said as he refilled Ryan’s drink. “Now, I’ll admit I have nothing so fancy as that.” He motioned to Ryan’s AR-15 leaning in the corner of his living room. “But I’m pretty handy with my 30-30, even if I do have to crank the lever after every shot.”
“Winchester?” Ryan asked.
“Naturally.”
“Pretty sure that’s the same rifle we just acquired. Too bad the intruders only left half a box of ammo behind with it.”
“Hell, I have enough to get me through Armageddon.” Spence set the bottle on his gnarled-wood coffee table and retook his seat. “I’ll send a couple boxes home in your laundry basket.”
Ryan smiled. “That’s downright …neighborly of you.”