by A. R. Shaw
“I’m OK,” she whispered.
Then he led Jake inside the storage unit, pulling the sled inside with him. After detaching the sled, they brushed the snow off of the children and lifted the heavy blankets from them. They were toasty with the shared heating units.
Maeve made a pallet near a stack of storage boxes for the kids and covered them up again in hopes of keeping their warmth intact.
“You can still see your breath in here,” Bishop said. “I doubt there’s power in town anymore.” Having first rented the unit when he’d returned from war, it was where he’d kept belongings that he didn’t readily need up on the mountain.
Also inside the garage was his snowmobile—of the latest design, before the war made purchasing them forbidden. This one was battery operated, like the old Prius, and it was quiet and stealthy. Only the snow crunching under the cleats announced its presence from afar. The only issue was recharging the battery, but going fifty miles on one charge was sufficient for his needs when he’d purchased it. Luckily, he kept backup batteries for this purpose. Every fall he did the maintenance on the machine in the garage and took it out in the winter on the back hills for days at a time, traveling the deep woods. Though he’d always used it for recreation, this was a job that would require speed and the element of surprise. Lifting the tarp, Bishop’s adrenaline began to rush slightly; this machine had a new mission, and he could finally use it for more than traversing the mountains.
He’d kept various items in the storage unit, and the snowmobile was one of them. These were things he didn’t need up in the mountains most of the year and only played with them in the few months that winter allowed in most years.
Opening another locker in the storage unit, he took out several rounds of ammunition and two other rifles. One was semiautomatic and as illegal as they came. If Bishop were ever caught, he’d spend a lot of time in prison just for having the thing in his possession…and for a few prize items like smoke grenades and flash bombs. Explosives were something he’d taken the liberty of when he’d had the chance. He and Roger took turns bringing things home secretly, and now was the time to use them. If he’d ever thought of a scenario to use them for, this was it.
Then there were the warming units. Pulling a few more out, he handed them to Maeve. She activated one and stuffed it under the blankets between the kids. He would bring a few with him as well. All of these items had sat dormant for years. Except for engine maintenance, Bishop rarely even came there.
After packing up, he needed only to wait a few minutes for darkness to completely descend. He’d planned to hit up the first person he knew who would know exactly what was going on. Although…he wouldn’t be surprised if that man was running the show himself. He’d heard of the guy before, and now that he’d heard his name again from the guys who’d gunned down the police officer, he figured he knew exactly where to find him.
The known drug area of Coeur d’Alene—every town had them—was where the teens went to get high and where they returned until their lives were so screwed up that they kept coming back. Frank ran that part of town. Bishop had never had a reason to engage him before but now was the time.
Once it was pitch dark, Bishop pulled Maeve to the doorway. “Stay absolutely quiet here, no matter what you hear. If someone breaks in, start shooting. You have no other choice. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Please hurry,” she said.
Feeling a strange new sensation, Bishop had the urge to hug her and hold her in his arms. Instead, he squeezed her shoulder. Standing in front of him, she was so frail and terrified, and he’d do anything to change that about her. Without saying another word, he pushed her gently from the doorway, closed and locked the unit, and then covered the tracks they’d made in the snow. Flurries were coming down anyway, but he wanted to ensure he didn’t lead anyone to their position.
Maeve and the kids sharing the unit with his horse was less than ideal, but they were at least out of harm’s way for the moment. Bishop mounted the snowmobile and drove out the gate, covered his tracks again, and locked the gate behind him. There was no guarantee of safety, but it was the best he could do until he could get the main job done.
Staying to the outer snow-covered streets—only by memory did he even know where they were—he skirted the edges of town in the quietest gear. The engine hardly made a noise, unlike the older models. Gust after gust of frigid air buffeted the snowmobile so much that he could barely hold it in a straight line. The town was so eerily dark, it reminded him of the tension he felt before a battle for a reason he could not explain. Luckily, Bishop wore a specialized helmet that lit up inside, played music, told him the temperature and wind speed, and gave directions. An additional feature of the helmet turned night into day with a built-in night vision option that turned off when there was any hint of artificial light so that the owner wouldn’t be blinded.
As he rode through town, a white plastic grocery bag zipped through the air like a tiny parachute on a zip-line along with the snow that clouded his view. Once a dog skittered quickly past, its legs descending into the snow, and Bishop stopped to see where it went. But when he looked, the dog was gone; only his faint tracks remained.
Then his helmet switched off the night vision, alerting him of a vehicle approaching from the west. He turned quickly to a street on the right, and when he came to the next intersection, he took a left and switched a few more streets until he could view the vehicle from behind.
Two men drove a ski tractor and towed a trailer behind them piled high with boxes. Some of them were clear totes. He couldn’t really tell from so far back what was in those totes, but he could guess. He followed at a distance until the truck pulled up in front of an old house. The tracks crunched on the top layer of snow. Bishop released the pressure on the throttle and watched from afar.
One driver stepped off the vehicle. His breath vapored behind him as he made his way through the snow and approached the front door of the house with his rifle at the ready. He pounded on the door with his gloved fist. He yelled, his voice cutting through the peace and quiet of the evening. “We know you’re in there, Mr. Anderson.” Bam, bam, bam. His fist pounded against the door as ice crystals, loosened by the vibration, fell from the roof and cascaded down around him, turning his snowsuit from gray to white.
“You’re on the list, sir. Open the door.” No one came. He flipped his wrist at the trailer, and another man hopped out of the back of the bed and sneaked around the back of the house. They’d obviously had a system to performing what looked to Bishop like nothing more than a raid.
In a second, Bishop saw a light flash up the inside of the house, and the front door opened soon afterward.
“Guy was hiding in the kitchen with a knife,” said the man who’d sneaked around the back. He laughed.
“Hurry up,” said the driver. “This is the last one for the night. It’s too damn cold out here.”
Soon, two other men jumped out of the truck, and three people were pulling items out of the house and tossing them into the back of the trailer with practiced ease while the lead guy kept watch outside. They’d been through this routine a few times before, it seemed.
Then a little old woman in a long, white, flowing nightgown came barreling out of the house screaming. She ran right up to the leader keeping watch and shouted in his face. “You might as well shoot us now! You killers!” He took the verbal onslaught for a while, and Bishop thought that would be it. It wasn’t. The driver simply lifted his rifle and shot her once in the chest. She dropped down dead in front of him in a pile on the ice. The long fabric from her gown flapped in the wind. It was the callousness of the kill that shocked Bishop.
The driver then lit a cigarette and dropped the matchstick onto the woman’s body. “Hurry up!” he yelled to the guys inside, who were running in and out of the house with armloads of food, clothing, blankets and gasoline.
Bishop had seen enough.
He put the snowmobile in gear, and driving wi
th one arm he levered the other with his AR-15, and drove by slowly when he timed the other guys would be outside. He gunned them down. The three men never had a chance to raise their weapons before they were stitched with bullets across the chest and head.
Unfortunately, there was one person left in the house. He’d dropped a large bag of rice onto the snow before he fled back inside. The heavy bag sunk a foot into the snow on impact while he ran to take cover from Bishop’s onslaught. Bishop stopped and waited in the silence for the man to come out again but only heard him make a radio call from within the house.
“Frank, we have a vigilante. Three down. Over…”
Aiming through a window, Bishop easily cut the man down where he hid inside.
“Done.”
Bishop sped through the quiet streets. Every now and then he saw candlelight and a shadow behind it with a curtain draping back down into place quickly. There were people hidden in fear everywhere. Not only from the ice, but from this menace who had to go.
The police would be no help. If what he saw days ago was any indication, this group had already gained control of the town. He knew the best way to gain control himself was to cut off the head of the snake—and Frank Morton, he suspected, was the snake.
After Bishop had turned another corner, two sets of headlights turned on behind him. Finally they’d come out to play, and he was ready for them. He picked up speed and aimed to draw them farther out of town where he could deal with them more efficiently. The problem was the streets. The snow tractors couldn’t keep up with his snowmobile. They were getting bogged down in the snow with increased speed, which forced Bishop to slow down. And they began firing on him in the street. Bishop didn’t want to endanger the area residents, but they apparently didn’t have any qualms about stray bullets taking out innocents.
Instead, Bishop turned a quick right behind another residential block, and in between houses he fired upon the first of his assailants. The driver veered, and the two guys standing in the back fell out onto the road along with several boxes of food. Bishop aimed and fired again, taking out two runners who’d taken off through the side yards of the houses. The second truck veered around the first and was coming up behind Bishop.
He threw a flash grenade and took off to distract them. Suddenly everything turned from night into day in a brief half second and then back again.
While the driver of the first snow tractor threw his arms over his head, the first truck recovered and backed up on the street, aiming to block Bishop on the road.
Bishop fired again, this time at the driver. The remaining guy in the back came out at him with his own illegal semiautomatic rifle. I’ll be damned, Bishop thought. I’m not the only one harboring illegal weapons.
By this time, Bishop was blocked in on both sides of the narrow street. Not one to be intimidated, Bishop took the weakest route and shot down the man directly aiming at him. There were only two thugs left, and Bishop saw no need to let them live another day.
After pulling up behind the empty snow tractor, Bishop used it as coverage while he gunned down the other two men in a firefight that lasted all of five seconds. When both men dropped to the ground, again silence reigned.
The eerie quiet returned for more than a minute, and then a flicker caught his attention. Someone in the adjacent house had opened the door. The slender figure looked like it belonged to a young woman. She saw him standing there behind the truck and pointed to the food in the back of the sled trailer. He said nothing but watched as she ran into the street and grabbed a large bag lying there half-spilled. She picked it up and ran back into her house. Before he left, three more people, like ghosts, ran out as well and took what they could manage to recover and then fled again back into the darkness of their homes.
Bishop left then. He had to find a place to strike again. Taking them down one by one was the only way a single man could beat an army.
34
“Who the hell is killing my men?” Frank demanded. He strangled the handheld radio, his blood pressure rising. “We already took care of the officers who didn’t see things our way. Was there someone you missed?”
The police officer on the other end stuttered. “Frank, every…everyone here is on board. It’s not one of us. Must be a resident. Over.”
“Well, get down here and deal with him. There was only one witness that we found. Her tracks in the snow led us to her house. One man on a black snowmobile, full helmet—could be anyone. That’s all she could tell us, anyway.”
“All right. We’ll go through town and see if anyone fits that description. There aren’t that many people who are coming out of their houses let alone riding at night with their snowmobiles. I can’t imagine who this could be. We’ve already taken possession of all working snow vehicles.”
“Could this—I’m just saying—could this be one of your men?”
Frank was pissed at even the insinuation. His men were loyal: he’d made sure of that over the past few years. “Hell no! He gunned down four of my men. None of them would do that. Not unless they had a death wish or something. Get moving, Reuben.”
“Yes, sir. Out.”
“Cannot believe he would even suggest a thing like that. Cops…” Frank shook his head and smashed his cigarette butt out on a plate that Roman had handed him.
“We’ve got other problems,” Roman said as he unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat at the head of the conference room table. With only him and Frank at the table, his voice seemed to boom off the walls of the spacious room. He turned his chair to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the frozen lake. “See those marks coming from across the bay?”
Frank stood and walked over to the window. The scene was unmistakable. A winter wonderland is what he saw, but as Roman warned him, the wonder was deceptive; these conditions were a kind of hell, and that was what he was looking at. Coming from the side of the lake were two unmistakable marks in the snow made by a sled tractor. “Yeah, I see them. Those are different than the ones we found by the massacre last night.”
Roman nodded his head; his finger propped up his chin in thought. “Those are from the sheriff in Rockford Bay. He left us a note of his own last night. He says the people on the south side of the lake are starving. He wants food deliveries.”
Frank chuckled. “Or what?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I see two sets of tracks out there. You let him go?”
Roman nodded. “I did. Let’s see what he’s got first. If we take him out now, he won’t show his hand. His people are desperate. Desperate people do stupid things. There’s no way they’ll survive out there for long. I told him to bring his people in and we’d take care of them. He refused, of course.”
“Are they armed?”
This time Roman chuckled. “Frank, everyone in Idaho is armed.”
Frank put his hands on his hips and seemed transfixed by the scene beyond the window. “Still, I don’t know. I’ve known the sheriff for a long time. He’s a good man. He knows we killed off some of his officers because they wouldn’t go along with things. We know he took some of his people with him when he left. He’s not corruptible. He knew what he was doing. He knew he was beaten when all of this went down.”
Roman nodded. “He did. He anticipated our move. The sheriff’s a good leader. In time, he’ll have to go. For now, let’s see what he’s got planned.”
Frank stepped away from the window, breaking his trance on the winter scene. “Great, we’ve got a vigilante and a sheriff to deal with.”
As Frank was leaving the office, Roman said, “Frank, they’re both very dangerous. Don’t underestimate either.”
Frank paused at the heavy door and nodded with a grim but menacing expression.
35
After returning to the storage unit, Bishop spent an additional hour covering his snow tracks in the early morning hours. The children were still asleep, and Maeve was relieved to see him. After she fell asleep, he bedded down near Jake and slept for a few h
ours until Jake began nibbling on his hair and tonguing his ear.
“Knock it off, you weirdo,” he’d said and shoved his muzzle away. When he sat up, Maeve smiled at him and tried to suppress a laugh. Her hair was a fiery, wild, tangled mess. He’d never seen a lovelier sight.
He’d made it up to Jake later by rubbing him down and giving him feed and melted snow. His horse was like a good dog companion in many ways. He’d come when he whistled and demanded he pet him if he was nearby. Jake was like a big dumb Lab; he always seemed to sport a goofy grin and lolled around when he wasn’t working.
“OK, you big goofball, that’s all you’re getting today. Stay out of trouble,” he said. Again Bishop said goodbye to Maeve and the children before slipping out just before dawn.
Even dressed warmly, the temperature still seeped between the layers the instant Bishop went outside. Since it was near freezing inside the shelter, the temperature outside had to be closer to the single digits if not well below zero by now. This limited his activities, and if it limited his, it would also limit those of his enemies. Bishop would try to use that to his advantage, but unfortunately it meant that his adversaries would not come out to play where he could get to them without injuring innocent people. He’d have to go to them.
Starting where he’d last seen them, he intended to follow their tracks. Bishop raced over the snow to where he’d taken out the last of the looters. When he drove down that street with his night vision helmet activated, there was now only one body lying in the street, and it wasn’t one of the guys he’d killed just a few hours before. The closer he came to the body, the worse the feeling in the pit of his stomach became.