“Wrong answer,” Charlie said. The man kept screaming, blood pouring from the mangled stump. Charlie turned to his men and said, “Would somebody shut this lady up, please?” A man stepped forward with a roll of duct tape and wound three good rounds around Short Man’s head, muffling the screams that were now turning into groans.
Tall Man’s eyes had gone wide at first, but quickly narrowed into a steely gaze of defiance. “Shoot me too if you like, but we won’t tell you anything. You’re wasting lead.”
Chief Thurman opened the door and walked lightly to the center of the room, holding the canister apparatus that Charlie had found in the basement of City Hall. Charlie took it from him in one hand, still wielding the Remington in the other. He casually set the device on the floor between the two and pulled the remote control from his pocket. He was turning back around to face Short and Tall when he felt Thurman pulling at his elbow.
“What?” Charlie said.
“Thurman leaned in close and whispered, “Somebody talked. There’s a slew of folks coming up Main, headed this way.”
“Chrissakes, why won’t people listen?” Charlie motioned to several men in the crowd and walked to the side of the room. The designated followed. “We got people coming. I want you boys to head them off. They’ll put up a fight if you tell them to go home, so put them in City Hall for now where they’ll be safe. Tell them they can look out the windows and they won’t miss anything.”
“But they can’t see in here from the windows—” one of the men said with a puzzled look on his face.
Charlie closed his eyes for a moment, rubbed his forehead, and prayed the Patience Prayer he had just invented. “Then lie to them.”
“Okay, can do.”
The men scurried out the door of the Civic Center, and Charlie returned to his captives in the middle of the room.
Short had passed out from the pain. Tall’s eyes had lost any trace of defiance, now filled with terror as they darted back and forth between the canister and the remote in Charlie’s hand. “Please don’t touch that switch. You have no idea what that is,” he said, his voice trembling.
“I’m sure it’s something you planned to use on us,” Charlie said. “Didn’t work out that way, though. So in a few minutes, we’re all gonna take a little stroll outside and leave it right there with you FEMA boys while I start flipping switches. What do you think about that?”
“Please mister, I’m begging you! I’ll tell you what you want to know, I swear. Just get that thing away from me.” Tears streamed down the hard face.
“I have a better idea. You start talking. If I hear one thing that strikes me as a lie, so help me God I’ll walk right out that door and unleash this on you. I dealt with pieces of crap like you for years, so believe me, I know what a lie sounds like. Sing, Pedro.”
Tall Man drew a deep breath and started talking.
1:12 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
CITY HALL
EARTH, TEXAS
“It ain’t right! We got a right to see what’s going on over there. I heard a gunshot!”
“Yeah!”
“Damn straight!”
Bruce Thurman was among the makeshift containment crew sent by Charlie Raymond, and he took admirable charge of a situation that was quickly growing out of control. “I’m telling you right now that you’re not going over there and that’s that. You are to stay right here in City Hall and if you don’t, I will personally arrest you and see that you do some time in the lockup for interfering with an investigation. It’s not up for discussion. Shut your traps and look out the window if you want to, but that’s as close as you’re getting.”
The crowd of thirty to forty Earth citizens grumbled and groused but backed down. Charlie left the rest of his little team in place to maintain order, and locked both the front and rear doors of City Hall before leaving.
1:14 CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
CIVIC CENTER
EARTH, TEXAS
Tall Man explained to Charlie Raymond that, no, they weren’t really FEMA agents. And yes, they had intended to pull some shenanigans in Earth, Texas today. By using knockout gas to put a couple hundred of them to sleep, he and his accomplice would have been able to easily relieve the good townspeople of their valuables. Not a good thing to do for sure, but also not worthy of blowing a foot off if you asked him.
“Sounds like a crock of crap to me,” Charlie said. “When you saw that canister you freaked out. I think there’s more in them than knockout gas. But it’s easy enough to find out, isn’t it?” Charlie said with a one-sided smile.
Unlike before, Tall Man didn’t react. No fear in his eyes. Nothing. Maybe he was telling the truth, Charlie thought. Short had regained consciousness and was making a valiant effort to say something through the duct tape. Charlie sighed and ripped the tape off.
“What time is it?” Short Man said.
“One-fifteen. Why?” Charlie Raymond said.
“Shut up, you dumb-ass,” Tall said, glaring at Short.
“You have to tell him, man. Hurry up!”
“Tell me what?” Charlie’s eyes darted back and forth between the two.
“It’s too late,” Tall Man said. “Praise the Messiah.”
“There’s a timer that’ll go off at one-sixteen,” Short Man said. “I been trying to tell you, honest I have.”
Charlie glanced at his watch. One-seventeen. Nothing was happening in the Civic Center. That left City Hall. He broke in a run out the door and across the street, with several men following him.
Charlie and company heard the screams before they were halfway across the street. “Dear God, no ... ” he said as his run turned into a wide open sprint.
One of the younger men passed Charlie and had his hand on the door handle, thumb pressing the button down to open it when Charlie arrived. He looked in through the small pane of reinforced glass in the door and knocked the man back. Just as Tall Man had said, it was too late.
Of all the situations Charlie Raymond had faced over the years, the gunfights, investigating the scenes of hideous crimes, watching killers go free on technicalities, and a thousand other heartbreaking scenarios dealt with during his tenure as a Texas Ranger, not one incident came close to the horror of what he was forced to watch unfold through a pane of glass in a door that he had ordered locked. He may as well have lined up his fellow citizens, his constituents he swore to protect, his friends—against a brick wall and shot them himself, for he had just as surely sent them all to this grotesque poison-gas death.
He turned and walked away from the building, away from the screams, back toward the Civic Center.
“Jesus, Charlie, aren’t we going to help them?” someone said.
Charlie kept walking, his eyes as lifeless as puddles of stagnant water in a field of mud. “There’s nothing we can do. They’re dead already and if we go in there we’ll be dead too.”
When he walked back into the Civic Center, one of the few men who had stayed behind was holding the shotgun on the men in the chairs. Without saying a word, Charlie Raymond took the shotgun from him, held it a foot from Tall Man’s face, and pulled the trigger, covering himself in a grisly spray of blood, brain, and bone.
He leveled the gun at Short Man. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, Hoss?”
“Please don’t shoot me, mister.” Tears rolled off his blockish face.
“More people coming?”
Short nodded.
“How many?”
“Not sure, a few.”
“When?”
“Two o’clock.”
“Somebody find something to bandage his foot with. And let’s get ready for the rest of our guests.”
39
1:58 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
CIVIC CENTER
EARTH, TEXAS
Charlie and what remained of his crew—many lost family members in the carnage at City Hall and were hardly in a state of mind to do battle—were positioned on both sides of Main Street.
He had reached the state police by radio and they were en route, but they would not make it in time. Crouched behind a garbage truck on one side and a row of hedges on the other, they waited.
His radio squawked, “White Suburban just turned onto Main.”
“Roger that.” He stood and yelled, “Heads up! Showtime in sixty.”
As the Suburban drew near and slowed to a stop in the middle of the street, Charlie jutted his neck around the corner of the garbage truck. His view was at an angle, but predominantly from the passenger side. The windows were tinted to a deep charcoal and he couldn’t see how many men were inside. He clenched a chrome whistle in his teeth, drew a deep breath, and waited.
The passenger door opened and a black-booted foot touched down on the pavement. Then another, followed by a man so tall he unfolded more than he stepped from the vehicle. A dirt devil danced its way down the street, kicking a Pepsi can in circles of sand and grit and died out when it hit the front end of the Suburban. The man was dressed in black assault coveralls, blond hair cut so close that he looked bald at first glance. He scanned toward City Hall on his right, then checked out the Civic Center to his left, looking across the top of the vehicle.
Charlie realized he was holding his breath and slowly exhaled. The man reached inside the truck with a “come on” gesture and then stepped away from the truck as the other three doors opened in near unison. Charlie appraised the situation as they exited; a four-man fire team, each of whom moved with a fluid style that screamed professional. They also outgunned the Texans from a firepower perspective, each holding Uzi 9mm assault weapons, most likely full auto. The two on the passenger side moved toward City Hall, the others toward the Civic Center. Charlie drew one more deep breath, closed his lips around the mouthpiece, and loosed a banshee shriek from the whistle. He was the first to fire. Charlie Raymond was a marksman, his aim true as the 30-30 round found purchase directly on the first man’s heart.
The impact drove the man back against the right front fender of the Suburban, where he slid to the ground like a cartoon character as Charlie levered another round into the chamber of his old Winchester. The man from the rear passenger side immediately fell back behind the door he had exited and returned fire with the Uzi, a rapid-fire barrage of rounds hitting the garbage truck like a dozen sledgehammers.
Charlie’s men were now firing and all being fired upon as the three remaining attackers retreated into the Suburban. It lasted less than thirty seconds, claimed the lives of all four attackers and two of the hometown boys, and left several more injured. He screamed for them to hold fire and stepped into the street. An acrid haze of burnt gunpowder hung in the air, the silence so abrupt it was deafening. Big Charlie Raymond cried.
40
3:53 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
NEAR OMAHA, NEBRASKA
Hank Harrington drove. Jana pointed the gun. “Can you please put that handgun down? Those things make me nervous. I don’t believe in them.”
“You’re a fool if this one doesn’t scare you. Shut up and drive.”
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”
“You’re taking me to civilization. We’re going to find someone who has a working telephone and hopefully a computer. You’re going to tag along with your stinky self and act like we’re big pals so I don’t have to shoot you. There are some houses up ahead. Slow down.” Hank slowed the car and Jana said, “Turn into the second house on the right, the one with the blue car.”
They knocked on the front door and an attractive lady who looked to be in her mid-forties answered. “Could I help you?”
“We desperately need to use a phone. Is yours working?”
The lady looked skeptically at Jana in the fatigue jacket and sniffed the air trying to figure out what the odd odor was, but finally said, “Yes, it’s working. Come on in. It’s over there on the end table.”
“Thanks so much,” Jana said. She turned to Hank and said, “Come on, dear.” She went to the phone, picked it up, and dialed.
“Great Central Electric,” came the answer, the most beautiful words Jana had ever heard.
“Is Brett Fulton there?” she asked.
“No, I’m sorry ma’am. Mr. Fulton was killed in an automobile accident.”
Jana stood there, stunned, but no tears fell. Her brother lived hard and fast, and news of his death was something the whole family had come to expect. She could cry later, if she could manage to stay alive herself—
“Ma’am, are you still there?”
“Yes, who’s in the control room right now?”
“I’m not allowed to give out that information.”
“Who are you?”
“Ma’am, security has been stepped up a lot around here in the past few days. I’m not allowed to say much of anything about what’s going on here. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have released the information about Mr. Fulton. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Jana Fulton, Brett’s sister.”
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry! My name is Andrea. I used to work in accounting but they moved me to the switchboard to help out with all the calls—”
Jana felt something cold on the back of her neck and turned around to see the bull-of-a-man guard from Hart’s place, holding a gun. She scanned the area and saw the lady who owned the house standing across the room with a terrified look on her face. Hank looked even worse. The situation didn’t look good, but she decided she plain would not go back to the hellhole she had just escaped. She swung at the bull and he grabbed her wrist. Her strength was no match for his, but it didn’t have to be. While he was occupied with her left hand, her right slipped into the pocket of the jacket. She pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
The bullet entered his lower abdomen and tore through his intestines before hitting and shattering two lumbar vertebrae and severing his spinal cord. His newly-paralyzed legs collapsed under him and he crumpled to the floor moaning as black blood gushed from the hole in his stomach. It was the last thing Jana saw before everything went black.
Hank Harrington dropped the vase he had clubbed her on the back of the head with and said, “This woman is crazy. Let’s get the police over here.”
The lady who owned the house disconnected Jana’s call and dialed 911, shaking all the while.
41
4:00 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
I was talking to Tark when Andrea ran into the room. “Mr. Tarkleton, I didn’t know you were back! Jana Fulton called!”
“Come again?” Tark said.
“Jana Fulton, that’s Brett’s sister!”
“I know who she is, Andrea. When did she call? Where from?”
“I don’t know. That’s the weird part. She didn’t even know about Brett and then she just stopped talking, and ... ” Her eyes started tearing up and she was gasping for breath.
“Calm down, Andrea. We need the details,” Tark said.
“She’s hyperventilating,” I said. Abdul sprinted out of the room and returned in what seemed like two seconds with a paper bag. We sat her down and had her breathe into it for a couple of minutes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay, just tell us the rest of it if you can,” I said.
“I answered the phone and she asked for Brett. Before I even thought about the rules, I blurted out what had happened to him. She went real quiet, didn’t say anything for a while. Then she wanted to know who else was here. I wouldn’t tell her anything and asked who she was. She told me she was Brett’s sister. Then I told her who I was, but she didn’t answer me and I thought she was just upset ... ”
Her eyes started tearing up again. Tark gently put his arm around her and whispered something in her ear. She dried her eyes.
“I heard someone else talking in the background, and then I heard a bunch of scuffling and a loud bang. I’m sure it was a gunshot. It scared me to death. I kept screaming for her over and over but no one answered and then someone
hung the phone up on that end.”
“Thanks, Andrea. Tark, please tell me you have caller ID or some sort of call logging on the switchboard,” I said.
“Not locally. All of our calls get routed through a switch at headquarters. I’ll call them and see if they can track it for us.”
42
4:40 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
DOUGLAS COUNTY JAIL
OMAHA, NEBRASKA
Jana’s eyes fluttered open to the sight of a dingy ceiling. She rose up and the back of her head exploded in pain, quickly bringing her back down. Rolling her head to the left, she saw the bars of the jail cell door. At first she thought she was dreaming but as the fog cleared it was evident it was all too real. Her heart started racing, which increased the pounding in her head, and she forced herself to stand up and walk to the door. “Hello, is anyone there?” she said, softly at first, then in a scream. After the fifth time, a female guard clanked her way through an outer cell door and made her way down the hall.
“You need to be quiet, missy. I’m not about to listen to a bunch of this.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the Douglas County jail, little lady, after being arrested for murder. I suspect you’ll be arraigned in the morning.”
“Murder? Have you lost your mind? I shot that guy in self defense! And I have important information about what’s going on with the electricity!”
“Uh-huh. Half the guests this week have had ‘important information’ about what’s going on. Everybody’s looking for a deal, sugar, but we ain’t dealing.”
“Would you please listen to me? There’s a bomb at Great Central Electric back in Mississippi!”
“Well that’s one I haven’t heard yet. Still not dealing, though. Save your stories and your innocence for your lawyer.”
Seven Unholy Days Page 20