Baker's Dozen

by Amey Zeigler

  He waved his hand in the air. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them, will it?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Listen, we can’t figure out what causes it. It’s completely random. It may not be the converter after all. We couldn’t duplicate it.”

  “We figured it out.”

  “Oh, you’ve figured out what Mertz never could, did you?”

  “The intermediary gasses interact with certain psychiatric drugs.”

  “We’ll have to ban those drugs. No big deal.”

  “This is a big deal. You’d be a fool not to comprehend what’s at stake.”

  Granger only mildly smoothed his mouth with his forefingers. “One does not get to be President by being a fool.”

  “You could put off the distribution, wait until they find out which drugs.”

  “Amanda, timing is everything.”

  “For your Presidential bid? It’s just a cover up, plain and simple.”

  “Yes. Now are you going to be a friend and help me keep our secret? It’s not such a very bad one, is it? One in a thousand, maybe, are affected.”

  Andy remained quiet, pondering his speech. The converter was a brilliant idea for eliminating emissions and protecting the environment. But they manipulated and killed to cover-up the truth.

  The Senator continued. “Besides, there might be some reward for you, too. How much money do you need?”

  Andy stepped back, repulsed.

  He stepped closer. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make sure several thousands of dollars, say a hundred or two, show up in your bank account. And we both pretend nothing happened.”

  Andy licked her lips. “You think I want money? This is about justice.”

  If she didn’t expose their corruption, Scott would never be exonerated. And Brad and Conner would’ve died in vain. And Martinez. Mr. Hershal, as well. Andy gulped, gathering her courage. If he was willing to pay big, he must be desperate.

  “The people should know the risks,” Andy replied, head high, standing firm.

  Granger balked, as if no one had ever said no to him before. His usual amiable demeanor changed. His teeth flashed, spittle flying from his mouth.

  “You want your fifteen minutes of fame, do you? Yes, I know who you are, Andrew Baker. You want your Tweets. Your likes. Your shares. You’ll have your fame and then, when people realize it’s not that big of a deal, they’ll forget about you. They’ll call you an alarmist, a fear-monger, an anti-progressive.” His tone changed becoming more pleading. “I can give you a new future, a life where you never had to worry about money.”

  Andy always wondered why she did her vigilanting. Not for the money. Did she really love justice or was it about her ego?

  In this case, if she wrote the story, something beneficial would be stunted—the Elimination of Greenhouse Gas law, which would help the environment. But if she didn’t tell the story, the whole story, these men would get away with murder, manipulation, and cover-ups.

  Andy wanted justice. She wanted it for Brad, for Conner, for Martinez, for Scott. For Mr. Hershal.

  Straightening up, staring him straight in the eyes, Andy faced him. “I won’t take your filthy money.”

  A hint of fear brushed the edges of his eyes. “What will happen if you tell? I might suffer momentary embarrassment. Will it hurt my long-term goals? Not a bit. People have short memories. Will it delay the law? Yes. Will we get it back on track once we prove yet again it is safe and effective? Yes. But you’ll be halting progress. Wasting time. You”—he pointed to her—“are killing the earth.”

  Andy realized she had the upper hand. She had the truth, the truth about Imperium, and every bit of it mattered. Her eyes blazed as she stared him down.

  “But you spilt blood to cover it all up.” Andy stood strong in her fat suit. “You can tell Tyrone I will tell all.”

  “Tyrone?” He let loose an odd snort of a laugh. “Tyrone is nothing.”

  Andy reevaluated her previous assumptions. She hesitated. “I thought Tyrone was the leader.”

  “Tyrone?” Granger scoffed. “He can’t tie his shoes without permission. He’s like a bludgeon. I’m like a rapier.” He made a quick motion with his wrist, as if he’d studied fencing. Then laughed, his fake-white teeth gleaming in the dim light. His fear disappeared, replaced with confidence. “Anyway, darling, if you are not going to accept my offer, I can’t allow you to expose this little hiccup, so I’m afraid this is where I make my exit.”

  The two men grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back. Andy immediately flew into action. With latex flying, she tripped the man to her left, kneeing him in the face as he stumbled. The second man reacted too slowly. Andy elbowed him with her blubbery arm in the sternum, shouldering him until he fell over backward on her outstretched leg. Even with the restrictions of the fat suit, she acted with greater agility and ease than Granger’s men.

  Swiveling, Andy kicked the first in the head, sending him backward to the wood floor of the stage. The latex didn’t hit as hard as bone, and the men recovered quickly. With a swift spin, Andy wrapped the second guy in a black leg curtain, then pummeling him until he fell to the floor. The first man attacked, choking her from behind.

  Andy, using her bulk, lifted up onto her back, spun him around, then rolled on top of him. But the latex wasn’t real weight, and he landed a hit to Andy’s face. Rubber flying off her face and chin, Andy knocked his head repeatedly into the floor until his was out. Feeling quite proud, she glanced up to Granger who had another six men facing her with suppressed Glocks. Andy swore.

  “Most entertaining,” Granger said as the men surrounded Andy, and she struggled to her feet. Two of the men stripped Andy of her fat suit. The cold air chilled her sweaty clothes.

  “You going to kill me here?” she asked as he opened his suit jacket.

  “I can’t have your blood in my theatre,” he said pulling out a gun pointing it at Andy.

  ****

  It wasn’t a gun, Andy decided when she woke up with a bad headache later. It was a Taser. Her bones hurt, her head hurt from falling. Cold seeped through her bones as she lay inside some hard, concrete manger-like tomb.

  Andy glanced up. Above her loomed the underside of a bridge, water lapping nearby, the city lights far away, creating a halo of light on the dark clouds. A bridge under construction, a yellow rusted excavator nearby, more cement mangers, some wire mesh littering the ground. The rumblings of a truck alerted her, and Andy, though tied hand and foot, propped herself up on her elbows. A cement truck pulled up under the bridge.

  “There, you are up,” the Senator said behind her, still in his silver suit, smoking a cigarette. “This one I had to see myself. Tyrone oversees all his victims himself. I’m too squeamish, I don’t like blood, you understand. Don’t have the heart for it. But you, you are so clever, Andy Baker. I had to make sure you didn’t escape.”

  Andy’s voice was hard to find, her throat was dry, and she had a bad headache. He must not have caught her when she fell. The heathen.

  “There are always consequences,” she said, like a schoolmarm.

  Granger flicked his cigarette butt on her chest, the flame burning a little hole in her shirt before the wind blew it out. He leaned close into her. “Yes, I will be President.”

  His eyes glinted in the dim lights. His wind-tossed hair danced around his head like a mad man. With all the strength left in her, Andy lifted up and head-butted him in the face, hearing the crack of his nose.

  “Why you little—” Granger swore, backhanding her head into the concrete, covering his swelling nose with his other hand rolled into a protective fist. Blood issued forth, spilling on her shirt and the trough.

  “Enjoy a broken nose on the campaign trail,” she said, smiling through the aching pain. Seeing his blood dribbling down his shirt and the ground—his beautiful face, marred, made the pain easier to take.

  “For that,” he said, his eyes little slits, “I’ll give the order myself. With p
leasure.”

  The cement truck backed up, the red lights cast an eerie glow under the bridge. Andy’s headache worsened with the beeping, but she knew a little head trauma was the least of her worries. At first, she didn’t understand why there was a cement truck when she was already tied up inside a trough. But as a man pushed the chute toward it, Andy’s heart sickened with realization. The chute landed with a thud against the concrete trough.

  “You got this?” the Senator asked the man exiting the cab, hovering over Andy with a Kimber. The other man nodded. The Senator gave Andy a sinister sneer, giving her one last bloodied stare as the sound of cement slogged down the chute. He then stalked away still clasping his nose with his handkerchief.

  If she could just get out, distract them both. If she had her bag, something to throw, anything. But her hands were tied, she was at the bottom of the trough.

  She glanced to the spinning drum of the truck, to an excavator crane barely visible against the skyline, to the cement wall behind her, to the river rushing nearby. Her final destination.

  The cement fell, weighing her down.

  Her ankles were covered in gray heavy, thick, cold sludge. She struggled to get up, using her elbows as leverage, but the man held her down. The other held her feet until the cement covered her legs.

  The cement weighed on her chest. She stared hard at the men holding her down, but they didn’t make eye contact.

  Cement pooled around her head, filling the box and matting her hair. A tear slipped down her cheek, an angry tear. Helpless, powerless, stupid tear. She struggled again.

  She glanced once more to the sky. Cement filled her ears, and the world muted.

  This was it. The cement covered her hair and cheeks.

  She glanced up. A dark streak flew across the sky. Andy followed it with her eye. Then one of the men fell on top of her, struck from something forcefully behind him.

  Andy glanced around again.

  Another streak of black through the night. Another man crouched over her, his eyes wide, wary, holding her down. Emboldened by the chaos, she struggled against the crushing cement. Using all her strength, she kicked through the muck and knocked the guy backward.

  Someone was helping her. Andy struggled through the heavy cement, but it weighed her down, stifling her breath, pressing her under.

  Through the last remaining bit of eyesight, Andy caught a glimpse of a pulley and sheave with a lifting hook.

  A hook?

  She managed to drag her face out of the gritty cement.

  The pulley and sheave was the size of her face, and it swung around one more time, knocking out the last of the men. The contraption lowered gently toward her.

  Breaking through the heavy mire, she fastened her hands on the safety latch. Immediately, it raised her up, tearing at her wrists with incredible pain, extracting her from the mire.

  She glanced around for the source of the hook. Men ran toward the crane which was all lit up, and inside sat a familiar face. His hands were too busy with the controls to wave, and time too precious to waste on such a formality.

  Christiaan set her down gently, her head, hands, and body aching. A man approached her. She head-butted him then jabbed with an elbow.

  He dropped.

  She was too slow for another man behind her. He grabbed her, but she managed to slip free, kicking him with both legs bound together, both of them falling to the ground.

  Andy flipped to her feet and readied to attack another man, when the hook swung around nearly clashing with her face. She dodged it with a quick side-step.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled to Christiaan in the cab. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  But he was busy. Three other men cornered Christiaan, but he was holding his own by kicking them one by one down off the chassis as they comically ran one at a time to the door.

  When the first one raced to the excavator, Christiaan slammed open the door into his face. Blood flowed from his broken nose as he staggered back. The second caught the door, tearing at Christiaan as he climbed onto the crawler tracks. Christiaan smashed his foot into his face sending him backward to the ground.

  The third grabbed a steel rod, thrusting the jagged end toward Christiaan in the cab. Christiaan batted it away with a kick, then jumping, he exited the cab, just as the man jabbed forward. Christiaan easily side-stepped him, blocking the plunge with his left hand, then with his right, backhanded him twice in the face before stepping inside the man’s spread legs, grappling him behind his neck and flipped him over, landing him in the mud. Christiaan crashed down on his chest with a stomp.

  Free of the men, Christiaan ran down to meet Andy.

  “We better get you into the water,” he said, picked her up under her legs and neck, sticky with hardening cement. The extra weight made him groan.

  “Still trying to kill me, then?” She tried to smile but the heaviness of the cement clinging in clumps and smears to her face made it difficult. “I always wanted to model a cement kimono.”

  He stepped into the river, up to his waist then lowered Andy down into the water, in a sort of baptism, the current washing away much of the thinner parts of the cement. Christiaan, hand still under her neck, wiped her body free of cement, legs first then ending with her hair.

  At first, Christiaan frantically thrust cement from her legs and clothing, but then he slowed with the washing of her face and hair, letting his hands wash over her forehead, down her hair, making sure all the grit washed free, his gaze deep in hers.

  Time stood still. He lifted her out of the water, his hand under her head, supporting her, his thumb brushing the side of her cheek. His face was near hers. Andy held her breath in anticipation. Closing his eyes, he bent over and grazed his lips on hers. As if a graze was all he would allow himself, he drew back.

  From his jacket pocket he drew a knife, slicing through the ropes, first on her ankles so she could stand. The current rushed all around her, tugging her downstream as her feet found the bottom of the river. When her toes landed in the silty mud, she found her balance and stood. “I have your bag, too,” he said.

  Relief flooded her as she threw her arms around his neck in a spray of water.

  “Thank you,” she said, when he finished blinking off the water dripping from his face.

  Gun shots sounded.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Christiaan snatched her bag from the cab of the excavator and grabbed Andy’s hand as they ran northwest for the city lights.

  “Hurry. More of Granger’s men are coming.”

  Shadows stretched across the horizon from the north.

  “Who are they over there?” Andy asked as he draped his flight jacket over her shoulders.

  Several thugs in turtle necks and masks approached from the west. “Tyrone’s men.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve been following us since we captured Tyrone.”

  “And those?” She pointed to more men in suits coming from south.

  “Granger’s.”

  A few shots rang out ahead of them. “Then who are those guys?”

  Still running, he squinted back over his left shoulder at the black leather jackets, sawed off shot guns coming southwest. “Mexican cartel?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Andy shivered both from the cold and the realization all these men were all trying to kill them. They paused, crouching in the tall weeds to catch their breath.

  “They’ve been tracking me since we left Mexico.”

  “Is this just everyday life for you?”

  Christiaan tossed his head back and forth trying to determine if what she said was an accurate statement. “Maybe seven out of ten days. Yeah.”

  “Okay we need a plan to get rid of these guys.”

  Christiaan nodded forward, then crouch-ran halfway up a slight hill, the weeds offering some cover in the darkness, his breath blowing from his mouth in a steady stream. “What do you suggest?”

  Andy crouched beside him, glancing over at
the hordes of people chasing after them. “Get some guns, mow them down.”

  “No guns. I told you. I don’t use guns.”

  “Right the only guns you have are your biceps.”

  Gunfire crackled around them as someone spotted movement. Both crouched farther into the grass.

  “Okay, well let’s survey the situation,” she said.

  Andy glanced around where they stood on a small rise covered in prairie grass. “There’s roughly five to seven guys from the cartel coming from the southwest with automatics and what sounds like sawed off shotguns trying to kill us. And from the city we have oh, ten to twelve of Tyrone’s men after us with semi-automatics. And last, but not least, from the prairie we have, my guess would be, about ten henchmen of Granger’s also with handguns, trying to get us. I think we need guns.”

  Christiaan still crouched in the hill, the grass blowing over his head, offering little protection. As the thugs crept closer, zero protection.

  Andy was not going to die this way. Trapped, no way out.

  Andy studied Christiaan’s face in the dim light the reflection of the city lights in the cloud cover. He concentrated on the problem, his jaw clinching. Twenty yards down a road, an abandoned warehouse broke the horizon. “We don’t need guns because they brought guns. They will be their own undoing.”

  As the men approached, fear nearly crippled her thoughts. “What if we are caught in their crossfire?”

  “We’ll probably die.”

  Then an idea struck her. “What if we caused a crossfire?”

  “What?”

  She dug around in her bag. She pulled out a wig, her umbrella, and floss. She opened the umbrella, putting the crown upside-down on the ground, then tied the floss to the handle.

  “What are you doing?” Christiaan asked, unable to make sense of her actions. She maneuvered a few stones around to help make the umbrella stand upright.

  “If we convince them we are still crouched here…”

  Christiaan broke into a wide smile. “A dummy.”

  She stashed her bag as a counterweight on the other side of the umbrella’s cup. Once the umbrella was secured and stationary, she put the wig on the handle. She slipped off the jacket.