by James O'Neal
Wilner stood to back up his boss. As he stepped up behind him he heard the young captain say, “We have orders to shut this thing down right now.”
The UPF commander snarled, “This is my problem right now.”
“It was until the government decided they couldn’t let this drag on. There’s too much at stake.”
The commander pointed at the flasher on a tripod. “You gonna use that on civilians? American civilians?”
The captain ignored the commander and ordered his men into position.
Wilner stepped up and said, “There’s a cop in the crowd undercover.”
“Then get him out, fast.”
“We don’t have communications with him. At least give a warning and wait for a response.”
The captain turned to face Wilner. “The warnings to disperse have been ignored. You guys have made no impact. Now it’s our turn. We’re going to end this riot and give future rioters something to think about.”
The captain went back to his preparations. He called over his shoulder to the UPF commander, “Get your men back behind us. We don’t want to nail a cop by mistake.” He chuckled. “Too much paperwork.” His men started to laugh too.
Wilner looked back at the crowd hoping to see Besslia heading back to his V-com or out of the riot altogether, but all he saw were angry transplanted people throwing anything they could at the cops and military on the perimeter.
Wilner looked at his boss to see what the commander had in mind. It was apparent the commander was at a loss as to how to stop the approaching tragedy.
Wilner knew he might need to do something drastic.
Mari thought Leonard’s little house on the edge of the Zone River was cute. Small and old, but nice for two adults with no children. The river ran the length of the zone and had a number of tributaries that were all called the Zone River. It gave a number of houses on the western edge of the zone the chance to be on a nice flowing body of water.
Leonard had mumbled several times to himself as they drove out here. He sounded as if he were talking to someone and twice Mari said, “Excuse me?” Leonard just brushed off her inquiries by shaking his head.
He had started to twitch occasionally too. Mari had never noticed it before and wondered if it was a reaction to his aunt’s death.
She paused on the front porch as Leonard worked an ancient lock and then held the door open for her.
Inside the house was furnished with pre-zone pieces that would’ve seemed out-of-date anywhere. A dusty haze covered the living room.
Leonard turned on a couple of lights, which were powered by a stored ambient light cell. She had become an expert at telling how a house was powered. No generator noise, no windmill out front, so the only alternative was the less-powerful cells. It meant he had no air-conditioning or other high-powered appliance.
Leonard excused himself to change while she settled into the couch in the rear of the living room. Behind it was a big bay window with a view of the river and the Everglades beyond. After sitting and enjoying the view for a moment her mind drifted back to her concern for Tom Wilner. She missed not having access to news as quickly as she once did.
Then she noticed an odor. She sniffed the couch. It was dank but not the source of the strong, unsettling stench.
She stood and tried moving to other parts of the room to see if she could detect where the smell was originating from.
After a minute of trial and error she stopped where the odor was strongest.
The closet.
FORTY-SIX
Wilner felt his eye twitch the more the National Guard captain barked stupid orders.
The young captain turned to the senior UPF man and said, “You don’t understand, Commander. This is bigger than you or me. There are trainloads of new arrivals set to come down here and something like this could ruin those plans.”
“So could a massacre of residents,” the squat commander replied.
Both men had attracted their subordinates behind them like a couple of gangs preparing to rumble.
The younger captain looked out over the crowd. “This is a lot like Tehran toward the end of the Second Iranian War. I don’t want another Tehran.”
Wilner looked at the young man and said, “Were you in Tehran?”
“Well, no, but I’ve read about it.”
“I was there. This is nothing like that. Those rioters were the Iranian army in civilian clothes. They were armed and their plan was to retake the key government buildings. Have you ever seen combat, Captain?” He made it more of an accusation than he meant to.
The captain ignored the question, which meant that he had not seen any combat. He turned and started to deploy his men.
Wilner said, “There’s a UPF officer in there. You can’t shoot.”
“I have my orders. I don’t give a damn about some cop in there. What good could he do in there anyway?”
“He’s trying to figure out who the leader of this mob is.”
“Won’t matter when he doesn’t have a mob to control.”
Wilner watched as the soldiers fanned out with their weapons ready. The three men on the flasher started charging the weapon.
Wilner had had enough. He reverted to the impulsiveness he had as a younger man in the marines. In one motion he drew his pistol with his right hand. At the same time he grabbed the captain by the collar with his left hand. He jerked the smaller man to him and had the pistol up to his cheek in a flash.
“There’s a change of operational plans, Captain.” Wilner had to use restraint not to blow this creep’s face off right that second.
Besslia listened to the man shouting to the crowd gathered behind the restaurant for a few minutes. He also worked his way out from behind the building occasionally so Wilner could see he was okay. He also wanted to ensure he wasn’t rushing to judgment on this man addressing the crowd.
He was about thirty, wearing an L.A. Cowboys football jersey.
Besslia inched into the smaller crowd with the riot surging around them. He could hear the man clearly.
“They moved us here against our will. This is the only way to get back to our homes. We must make a statement even if it means destroying every business in the district.” He waved toward the line of cops and soldiers. “They don’t have the men to stop us.” He stepped down from the plastic crate he had stood on. He led the group to the edge of the building. “Look, there are only a few of them. They can’t do anything. If we rush them we can have guns too.”
Besslia listened but his instinct was to rush back and warn his partners. Then he tried to look past the words and see if he could pick up other details that might help in his report.
The speaker’s dark complexion and black hair made him look Hispanic but the three guys who were standing behind him made Besslia recognize that this was an organized effort. The other men followed the speaker as he led the group to view the police line.
Besslia inched up to the front of the group and focused on the three men supporting the speaker. Their alert eyes scanned the crowd and beyond. One man looked to the roof of the building. Besslia followed his eyes and saw another man on the roof with binoculars. These guys were more than they seemed.
He heard one man call back to yet another large man who was watching some crates behind them.
Then Besslia put it all together: they were jihadists.
Leonard Hall stepped out of his bedroom into the hallway just in time to see Mari with her hand on the knob to the closet where his aunt was stored. Before he could shout for her to stop, a voice in his head cackled, distracting him. The slight hesitation was all it took. He watched, helplessly, as Mari twisted the knob and opened the door.
He saw her body tighten and then jump back as his aunt’s corpse, wrapped in a blanket with duct tape and wedged in the closet upright, came tumbling out onto Mari.
She tried to catch it, not realizing that the old blanket held a cadaver. The weight pushed her back and both she and Leonard’s aunt landed
on the floor. The blanket had drawn back from his aunt’s head.
Mari looked like she wanted to scream but no sound came out of her mouth. She scooted away from the body, her eyes never moving from his aunt’s pale, but still pretty, face.
Leonard could clearly see the wounds on her neck and knew Mari could too.
She looked from the body up to Leonard. “Her neck.” She sobbed a couple of times and took in a gasping breath. “You killed her. You’re the Vampire.”
Leonard squeezed his eyes shut a few seconds, then he looked up and quickly moved toward his aunt’s body. Mari was gone.
Then, out the bay window, he saw Mari as she ran out behind his house toward the river.
Now he had to deal with her too.
FORTY-SEVEN
Steve Besslia took a few minutes to retrieve his V-com but no one answered when he called. He started jogging back toward the UPF officers along the edge of the riot.
Now he saw them closely grouped with the National Guardsmen. He eased to the rear of the group, nodding to one of the cops that was watching the crowd.
He said, “Hey guys, what’s up?” Then, as they turned toward him he saw what everyone was looking at. Wilner had his gun to the face of a National Guard captain.
Wilner saw him and immediately lowered his pistol. He actually smiled and said, “Hey, pal. You got it under control for us?”
“There really are just a few guys running the show in there.”
The UPF commander stepped up. “What’d you get, Besslia?”
He pointed toward the restaurant where the crowd got thicker. “See the guy in the L.A. Cowboys jersey?”
The commander and Wilner nodded.
“He and the others are speaking Arabic. They’re coordinated. I think they might be jihadists.”
The National Guard captain said, “He’ll be hit in our first volley.”
Wilner gave him a hard look. The captain immediately backed down and eased away from them.
Wilner turned his attention back to the man in the blue and silver football jersey. Someone handed him a set of binoculars and he zeroed in on the man. He was shouting to the rioters.
Besslia said, “He’s not alone. There are three guys behind him and one on the roof watching us.”
Wilner checked the statement and immediately saw it was true.
The National Guard captain said, “Stand back, men, we’re going to open fire.”
“Hang,” yelled Wilner. “Do you have a couple of soldiers who are good shots with their assault rifles?”
The captain hesitated and then nodded his head.
“Bring them up to take out five men at once. Then see what happens.”
The captain stared at him.
“C’mon, Captain,” started Wilner. “You might avoid a lot of trouble if this works.”
The captain thought about it then pointed to five riflemen. “Move up and listen for targets.”
Wilner watched as Besslia carefully pointed out the instigators. The National Guardsmen took a few minutes to each designate a target. Then they flipped up the short optical sight.
A sergeant coordinated the soldiers. He was a little older and looked like he might have seen action.
“All right, fellas.” He kept a calm voice. “Sight in on target.” He waited. “Aim.” He waited a second then said, “Three, two, one, fire, fire, fire.” He never shouted and the men responded like professionals. The shots weren’t in perfect unison but all the targets were hit.
The man on the roof toppled off and fell somewhere behind the restaurant. The man in the Cowboys jersey had time to look up before the rifleman assigned to him fired. The bullet caught him square in the face, sending him straight to the ground. Two of the support men were down but moving. The last one tried to flee away from the riflemen and the riot only to be cut down by several rounds of fire as they all concentrated on him.
Immediately there was a different mood in the crowd. The sight of fellow rioters being killed, as well as the main leader’s head exploding in front of spectators, caused a mass exodus of people.
The UPF commander looked at the National Guard captain. “Good shooting, Captain. Now let’s see what the crowd does.”
The captain’s eyes flicked over to Wilner and his big duty weapon.
Mari took a chance when Leonard spaced out and shut his eyes. She had fled immediately through a rear door out into the backyard. The setting sun and rising moon, both reflected in low clouds, provided a surprising amount of light. She could make out a footbridge behind a field near Leonard’s house.
She calculated her chances of reaching a neighbor or of fleeing across the bridge where Leonard would be less likely to think she ran. The hollow sound of her hard shoes over the wooden bridge made her slow slightly to sound less obvious. The water under the bridge flowed steadily with a light, easy sound.
She crossed the grassy slope on the far side of the river. The sounds of the swampy lowlands seemed to envelop her as she sought the darkest shadow to hide in.
There was still no sign of Leonard. She slowed, thinking she had escaped.
Wilner was amazed at how quickly the crowd had dispersed after the short volley from the National Guardsmen. Three UPF men ventured into the fleeing crowd and captured one of the men wounded by the rifle fire. The other four were already dead.
The man bled from one wound in his shoulder. His dark skin was turning pasty as they waited for a medic to show up.
Wilner listened as the UPF commander kneeled down next to him. The combat veteran wasn’t in the mood to follow guidelines laid out by policy.
“Son, if you want help, you better start talking.”
“I want help but there’s nothing I can say.”
“We know about you and your buddies starting this thing and keeping it going.”
The young man’s dark eyes moved around the crowd of men watching him.
The commander grabbed him by the arm and shook him. “Should I just let you go and tell the rioters they had been used by a jihadist? You think they’ll understand?”
The man still didn’t answer.
The commander looked up and said, “Make an announcement over the loudspeaker of who was responsible and let’s let this one go back.” He didn’t even look at the prisoner.
The man immediately started to panic. “Wait. What do you need to know?”
“Who sent you guys in here?”
The man hesitated.
The commander stood up “Get this asshole outta here. Let’s see what they do to him. Should be funny.”
This time the man spoke right up. “We’re from Jordan. We’ve been in the United States since the Crescent War.”
“Who told you to stir up this shit?”
“The head of the intelligence services. He said that they had to stop the repopulation of Florida and isolate you. I don’t know why.”
The commander looked toward two uniformed officers. “Transport this man to the district hospital and stay with him until relieved. I believe the feds need to hear what he has to say.”
Wilner liked his boss’s style. He slid next to the squat commander and said, “Boss, I need to go.”
The commander turned and looked at him.
“The killer. I know where to look in the zone now.”
“Okay, okay, Willie, you can go, but I need Besslia here.”
Wilner looked and saw his partner swell with pride at the idea the commander needed him for anything.
Wilner nodded. “No problem, but I’m gonna take a car down there.”
“Go ahead and be careful. We got it here.”
Wilner was in a UPF hive racing south in a few seconds.
FORTY-EIGHT
Steve Besslia stood next to the commander as they watched the last of the crowd quickly run back to their homes. The restaurant was trashed and the street covered in debris and a few bodies. But there were no active fires, and the houses surrounding the scene were all intact.
The commander said, “Okay, here’s the plan.” He pointed at the two uniformed cops. “You two get up on the interstate near the Northern Enclave and make sure no news crews are coming down. If they are stop them and send them north again.” He turned to another patrolman. “Frank, get some help and recover every body out there. We want just trash and debris when the maintenance crew comes to clear the road.”
“What about the restaurant?” one patrolman asked.
“Once we got everything cleaned up, the restaurant is gonna have a fire. Nothing special just a regular fire.”
Besslia looked at the boss. “What about me?”
“You’re gonna supervise the cleanup.”
“Supervise?”
“Sure, you’re a detective now. You need some responsibility.”
Besslia tried to act cool but couldn’t hide his smile.
Tom Wilner flew over the bridge into the zone so fast the lone guardsman didn’t have a chance to protest. The streets of the zone were empty. He figured people heard what was going on and fled to safety in case things got out of control.
He pulled up to the little house where Mari lived. Before he was to the front door the Jamaican lady that lived next door called from her porch, “She ain’t home.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Might be at the school but she ain’t come home since she left for work this morning.”
Wilner nodded his thanks and hopped back in the big hive. He was at the school in a few minutes, pulling up to the curb in front of the closed building. He still jumped out and ran up the front yard to the locked main door.
He pounded, hoping that Mari might answer. But no one did.
Checking his pockets he felt his small handheld light with a radium battery that would last a lifetime. Then he felt his locking combat blade in his rear pocket. Flipping it open, he slid the hard steel blade between the double doors and worked it up until he felt the latch. Losing all patience he shoved the knife handle hard to the side like a pry bar and popped the doors wide open.