Hap smiled. It youthened him. “Sure, no problem.”
“Yeah, the dog’s okay,” agreed Leonard.
We shook hands, and I took my bags of nasty goodies and went out to my stolen truck.
CHAPTER 160
THE PAVILION
BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER
STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON
Bunny met Mia in the woods. Even though they’d been in proximity for weeks, it was the first time they’d seen each other. At five two, she was more than a foot shorter than he was and half his weight.
“How’s it hanging, Donnie Darko?” she asked.
“Might turn out to be a good day, Magpie.”
They grinned at each other and moved like cats through the forest. The Fixers were nearly done loading the crated fighting machines onto the truck and were handing up the carefully packed parachutes. None of the Fixers doing the loading wore sidearms, but there were six guards with rifles.
“Where’s Pappy?”
“He’s coming,” said Bunny, “but we don’t need to wait for him. Fact is, we need to gather some intel ’cause what we find out is going to help whoever has to face the bigger squads down in Florida.”
“What kind of intel?”
Bunny took a Lightning Bug from his pocket. “What we don’t know—and what wasn’t in the data Doc and her boys are looking at—is whether an EMP shutdown of their body armor will nullify the R-33 packets and the explosives or—”
“Or make them go boom,” finished Mia.
“Yeah.”
“Well, crap.”
“Yeah.”
Mia said, “Guess there’s one way to find out.” She patted his bulging biceps. “Bet you can throw that sucker farther than I can. So you do that, and I’ll see if I can get some mischief going on ’round the other side. Worst case, we catch them in a cross fire and shorten the odds. And Mother Mercy’s up there somewhere watching our backs. She’ll want to play.”
“I like this plan,” said Bunny.
They split up, with Mia circling wide to come up on the other side. Bunny was always impressed by how she moved and wished she was on Havoc Team instead of Chaos. Maybe after this, something could be worked out.
He gave her a couple of minutes and then worked his way along a ridge, keeping low behind thick shrubs. When he was within fifty feet, he thumbed the switch on the Lightning Bug, rose up, threw with all his strength, and dropped back behind cover.
The device had just enough heft to make for a good throw. It arced over the truck and, just on the far side, detonated. In bright daylight, it was only a flash that was nearly invisible. And its mild pop was buried beneath the sound of men working. Bunny flattened out with the ridge crest between him and any resulting explosion.
The forklift jerked to a stop, a crate almost level with the flatbed.
“What the hell?” he heard someone growl.
* * *
Men clustered around the forklift, offering the kind of useless suggestions people always thought worth sharing. There was no explosion.
Until there was.
But it wasn’t the massive blast Wilson had told them to expect. This was a good, deep solid crump of a standard-issue fragmentation grenade.
The blast caught everyone by surprise and punched the crated fighting machine off the forklift. The crate slammed against the side of the truck and then crashed to the ground, burning wood showering men who lay dazed and bleeding.
The other Fixers scattered.
Mia rose up and hosed them with her M5, burning through a full magazine and tearing two men to rags. Then she dropped down, rolled into a gully, and ran like hell as return fire from the sentries tore apart the place where she’d been. One of the sentries suddenly jerked forward, the entire front of his face disintegrating as a sniper round found him.
Bunny laughed. This was Magpie and Mother Mercy doing what they did, the fierce women scoring first blood.
As unarmed Fixers ran around to hide behind the truck, Bunny laid his combat shotgun on the ridgetop and opened fire.
A bird drone soared past him and buzzed one of the sentries, who spun and fired at it, but in doing so came out from the cover of the open truck door. Magpie and Mother Mercy both hit him, and the man seemed to become a cloud of red mist.
“Hoo-fucking-ah,” laughed Bunny as he poured fire down the hill.
CHAPTER 161
EAST TEXAS CONVENTION CENTER
LABORDE, TEXAS
It was drizzling when I pulled into the parking lot for the convention center. There was a sea of cars, with perhaps a bias toward pickup trucks of every make, model, color, and condition. Not particularly surprising in the South. A whole roped-off area for black SUVs, too, and lots of cops on foot and motor patrol. No hordes of Fixers in evidence, but I hadn’t really expected any. On the way there, I’d gotten a call from Church informing me that Top had discovered the real target—the Going Viral charity fundraiser back in Lauder-damn-dale, where I’d just left.
Ah well. Maybe I didn’t need another gun battle, you know? My nerves were totally shot, and I hadn’t slept in two days. I was, at least, a freshly washed zombie.
Checking this place out was the tactical equivalent of dotting the last i.
Then what?
Home.
To Junie, who was at FreeTech in San Diego.
Home, maybe for good.
The Darkness in my head was quiet. Was it gone? Had Church’s revelation that Nicodemus was working mojo on me somehow broken the spell? I looked around for night birds, but if they were there, then the rain hid them. Or maybe they were off scaring the piss out of some other poor schlump. It didn’t exactly make me weep with longing that they weren’t here.
Oh yeah, and fuck Nicodemus. Maybe Church didn’t do the job right. Maybe the old stories are true, and you have to drive a stake through his black heart. No, that doesn’t mean I think he’s a vampire. It just occurs to me that a sharpened piece of lumber through the ticker tends to do the trick. I’m not above beheading, either. There’s a reason those have been fan favorites for a long while. Just saying.
In a weird way, it almost made me smile. I was legitimately considering the possibility that supernatural evil existed and that I was a victim of a real-world magic spell. It is to laugh. The world, it seemed, was even crazier than I was, and that was not a low bar.
I found a spot and parked the truck, killed the engine, and opened one of the cases. From it, I took a nylon shoulder holster and snugged the gas dart pistol into it, then clipped a Sig Sauer to my belt. There was a jacket with lots of pockets padded to hide the magazines I was shoving into slots. As promised, there was a tidy little Wilson Rapid Response folding combat knife there, and I clipped it to the inside of my right pants pocket. It has a three-and-a-half-inch blade that locks into place with the flick of a thumb. It’s short, but the weapon weighs so little that it puts no drag on the hand, allowing for top speed and dexterity.
There were several sets of IDs in the bag, all nicely built around identities Bug had set up for me. I picked one that said that I was a special agent of the Secret Service. Anyone running that ID would discover it was rock solid, because that’s how Bug rolls. And Church would have made a few calls to ensure that I was allowed total access.
I was about to pop the door when I decided what the hell and stuffed a few of Doc Holliday’s electronic goodies into my pocket because—no apologies—I am a pessimistic sumbitch on my best days.
Then I got out and jogged through the rain to the building. There was a big banner strung across the front of the convention center, welcoming the United States governors. It occurred to me that I doubted I could name five of them, let alone all fifty. I am, by nature and inclination, apolitical. I kind of despise the people on both sides of the aisle because they are typically self-serving con men and opportunists. Sure, I vote, even with absentee ballots sent from Greece, but more than half the time, it was a coin toss. Or me edging toward the lesser
of two evils. If it were up to me, I’d replace the system with a roomful of wombats, and I think history would validate my decision.
A hell of a lot of umbrellas created a decorative river flowing into the convention center. Texas was an open-carry state, but even so, I was amazed that anyone was being admitted with a sidearm to a rally with all these political figures.
I bypassed the lane and walked right to the door, where a guard tried to wave me back into the press until he saw the ID wallet I held up. The door guards did their due diligence and checked me out, then gave me a snazzy clip-on badge and waved me through.
“You get hung up in traffic?” asked the guard. “You almost missed the show.”
“Wouldn’t want to do that,” I said and gave him a quick professional smile. The kind that only reaches the mouth and means nothing. He reciprocated in kind.
Inside, it was more crowded than I’d expected, though still modest as political events went. There was so much lingering exhaustion from the last presidential gutter fight. The floor was damp from water running from folded umbrellas and lots of yellow rain slickers and cowboy Stetsons. Bit of a Marlboro Man convention, but that was okay. Lots of farms in Texas.
I tapped into the TOC channel for the first time in a month.
“Outlaw,” said Wilson, “my dear fellow. Let me say what a great relief and pleasure it is to have you back with us.”
“Sure,” I said blandly. “Hooray.”
I told him where I was and that everything looked nice and calm and wonderfully boring.
“Rather a delight to hear it,” he said.
“No joke.”
Church came on the line. “Outlaw, be advised that Havoc Team has engaged a group of Fixers at the Pavilion. Will provide details as we get them.”
That stopped me. “Do they have backup?”
“We have assets in the air, but this was an impromptu mission,” said Church. “Pappy called the play based on activity unfolding on the ground. We rolled Bedlam Team from their staging area in Spokane, but they’re still an hour out. The National Guard is sending helos, but they are forty minutes away.”
“Shit.”
Regret stabbed me, because had I not gone on my weird mission, I would have been with them and could have helped.
And … I realized how arrogant that thought was. Top was a brilliant, brave, and extremely experienced soldier and leader of troops. If not for his loyalty to me, he’d have easily earned his own team years ago. Bunny, too. They didn’t need me to do their jobs at an exceptional level.
Yeah, Rudy was going to have a real piece of work cut out for him when he finally got me on his couch again. I did not envy him that.
To the folks at the TOC, I said, “I’ll hang around here for a couple of hours. Talk to the heads of the various security details, look backstage and whatnot. But I think this was, at best, a feint or maybe a plan B. Lauderdale is where the fun’s going to be.”
“We are in the process of evacuating that venue now,” said Wilson.
“Hey, sugar buns,” said the sweet voice of Doc Holliday. “Got some potentially good news for you.”
“Jeez,” I said, “please, for the love of god.”
“Bunny said that so far it seems—and notice how I’m leaning ever so slightly on that word—that my little Lightning Bugs can scramble the eggs of the Fixer tech without causing it to go boom.”
“Well … hell … that’s actually awesome.”
“And Mr. Church has talked the president into putting a plane in the air heading for Fort Lauderdale, with an e-bomb in it. Mind you, it’ll fry cell phones, cars, and computers and do about five billion dollars’ worth of damage to the city infrastructure, and it won’t do anyone any good if they’re in surgery or wearing a pacemaker … but it will keep those K-110 fighting machines from turning a hundred thousand people into hot dust.”
“So, when you say good news, you’re being facetious?”
“Just a little.”
“Swell. Maybe go look up what good means and…”
My voice trailed off as I looked up at a digital sign above the huge dais set up. It was a welcome message for the governors.
The fifty governors of the United States.
And the governors of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
It stopped me dead in my tracks.
There weren’t fifty American governors. Not when you added the five territories.
There were fifty-five.
And they were all here.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“What?” asked Church.
“G-55. It’s right here.”
CHAPTER 162
THE PAVILION
BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER
STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON
Bunny kept firing as he moved laterally along the ridge. He was firing explosive rounds, and the whole area around the truck was pocked with smoking craters. Half a dozen bodies lay in the path of his barrage, and more lay where Mia or Belle had dropped them.
But now the Fixers were rallying. Those who were unarmed had crawled under the semi while two brave—and foolish—techs climbed onto the truck, opened a crate, and were handing guns and ammunition belts down. Mia shot one of them, but the other was at an angle that afforded no clear hit. Until, that is, he moved to his right to hand a belt of grenades down to another Fixer, and as he leaned out, it gave Belle three inches of his forehead to aim at. Even at 180 yards, that was enough.
The Fixers under the truck loaded their weapons and opened up, and the fusillade drove Bunny down behind the ridge. Two of them shimmied to the end of the semi and began trying to pick Mia off, and she, too, had to find better cover.
Belle was providing as much plunging fire as she could, but the Fixers were making maximum use of the semi.
There was a roar, and an armored personnel carrier came rocketing along the road from the front gate, with a Fixer in full armor standing behind a Browning .50-caliber machine gun, and he filled the trees with a deadly swarm of bullets. Belle’s sniper fire stopped, and Bunny’s heart sank.
He ran down a gully and burst out onto the road around the bend from the battle zone, swapping in a new drum for his shotgun. A Fixer in full armor came out of nowhere and swatted the weapon from his hand, and the brutal impact was so intense that it sent Bunny sprawling.
The Fixer laughed loudly and wickedly, and as Bunny scrambled to his feet, he saw that the man’s eyes were turning a weird and dangerous red. R-33 was already at work, sending that deadly mix of chemicals that powered him up and drove him to madness and rage.
“Oh shit!” cried Bunny as the man charged at him, raising an AK-47. Bunny dived for cover, rolled, and came up with his handgun in a two-handed grip, firing center mass. The bullets barely staggered the Fixer, who burned through half a mag trying to kill him. But Bunny was moving, using trees as cover, letting their trunks soak up the rounds as he took running potshots, hoping to get a head shot.
On the far side of the truck, Mia was running low at the bottom of a rain gutter, swapping a new magazine in, and then coming up at an angle that put one of the semi’s double rear tires between her and the shooters. She saw a foot sticking out past the tires and blew it off with a three-round burst.
As she ran, there was a sound that made her blood run cold. It was a mechanical noise like a hydraulic loader powering up. A moment later, one of the crates burst apart as a K-110 fighting machine rose up. It spun toward her, and the six barrels of the minigun whined as they spun, sending a barrage of death at Mia.
CHAPTER 163
EAST TEXAS CONVENTION CENTER
LABORDE, TEXAS
I glanced around the room, and suddenly everything looked like a threat.
All those big men in concealing rain slickers and cowboy hats—were they Fixers? Were they with the New Founding Fathers? The swirling crowds held umbrellas that I knew from spy craft could conceal guns and kn
ives. I knew the attendees had come in through metal detectors, but I also knew how subtle Santoro was in his long game. There was every chance he could have applied his cruel techniques of coercion to force them to allow Kuga’s killers in through security. Hell, maybe the event staff itself was under Santoro’s thumb. I’d learned the hard way that no one is safe from that little murderous bastard.
My thoughts were so tangled that I was not paying sufficient attention to the droning voice over the PA system, but the sudden applause smacked me back to full awareness. I turned to see lines of well-dressed men and women filing out of doors on either side of the dais. Local and state police, along with a mix of Secret Service agents, stood facing the crowd, eyes watching.
The fifty-five governors were coming into the room.
“Grendel,” I said, using Wilson’s call sign, “we need to shut this down right now.”
“I’m on the phone with the chief of security—”
I lost whatever else he was going to say, because suddenly a big man stepped out of the crowd and removed a folded sheet of cardboard that he spread wide as he raised it over his head. In big black letters, it read:
TRAITORS TO THE AMERICAN WAY
And below that were the letters NFF.
New Founding Fathers.
But then another man held up a sign:
NO GOVERNMENT = REAL FREEDOM
All around the room, people—men and women—were raising signs. Some were slogans, but most had an acronym, a logo, or the actual name of some group. There were at least a dozen different extremist militia groups, including a few that had figured prominently in last year’s BLM riots, but there were also Black Lives Matter signs, Blue Lives Matter, the Second Amendment Coalition, and others, including one claiming to be Antifa. The hall had suddenly become a microcosm of American political hot-button contention. White, Black, and brown people were suddenly waving their placards and shouting while onstage the governors stood in uncertain clusters, glancing at security, jabbering with one another, and a few trying to calm the protesters. In the crowd, I could see everyone with a cell phone taking pics.
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