As Wind in Dry Grass
Page 31
"Smells like fried fuckin chicken," Deserter said. The dual fuel tanks were full and they wouldn't need much to get where they were going. Albert turned off the motor and then he and Deserter loosened the straps holding the fifty five gallon fuel drums.
"Hard to believe, isn't it?" Albert said. "People killing each other for a gallon of gas and we're about to pour a hundred gallons of diesel into the ground."
"Maybe not," Deserter said. He jumped back down and disappeared into the woods, returning a few moments later dragging a pair of trunks about eight inches thick, totally bare and stripped of branches. They made a ramp with them from the tailgate and were able to lower the cans onto their side and then let them roll down the logs. They bumped on the ground but they didn't burst open.
"Feel better?" Deserter said.
Albert and Deserter walked them to the edge of the woods and left them.
Who knows?
One of the other trucks wouldn't start. They played with it for a while and then the solenoid stopped clicking and the starter smoked out.
"Fuck."
The other truck, the small Nissan that Deserter had been driving the night he met Albert started right up. They drained nine gallons of gasoline from the dead Chev and filled up the Nissan and put the remainder by the barrels.
"We just leaving everything like it is?" Albert said?
"Ya. Somebody will find this place again. Besides, we might all be back here in twenty four hours with a case of whiskey."
They reminded Albert of a band of Mexicans from the days of Pancho Villa, scruffy, but not sickly, disheveled but not decrepit, abandoned but not forsaken. Long-haired and bearded for the most part as bottled water had become a commodity and dry shaving was more than most would bear, they sat in silence in the back of the two vehicles, weapons butt to the ground and barrels pointed up, some loaded down with extra magazines. Several packed the grenades and claymore mines they had managed to steal from their various units and husband for this particular moment. One man hugged the RPG launcher, three rockets dangling from his kit like Christmas decorations. Every one of them but Albert was former military, mostly deserters. Two were men in their sixties who had done this before under the guise of whatever pretense the government had used at the time. One man was crying, silently. The tears dropped from his face with a melting regularity but no one acknowledged this. There were no jokes or speeches, no bravado, no last letters, no prayers. There was nothing to bind them to each other or this moment except a common hatred. This was not a suicide battalion but an avenging phalanx, a beast called forth from the tenebrous gloom the other side.
Brantford was once a town of six thousand with a connection to the Raintree Rail Service which had stopped regularly here right up until it was amalgamated with a larger Ohio Valley Line in the 1960s and then, like almost all rail services, was unceremoniously euthanized. Brantford's economy had evolved from cattle and grain shipments into a small manufacturing area, with three plants producing electric motor parts, wooden broom handles and office furniture. An uneducated and docile labor pool and a town board that slavishly drooled at the foot of anyone willing to invest made it particularly attractive to the humanitarians who waddled in from New York and Chicago, choking on tax concessions and federal grant money, eager to help "our smaller communities get back on their feet" after having first stripped the country of every viable business concern and selling it to the Chinese. Now, of the original six thousand, barely twelve hundred people remained and most of them wandered around in despair, lining up for food as ordered, returning to their shelters as ordered and submitting to random searches round the clock with the knowledge that possession of any weapon, whether it be a pocket knife or a machine gun would result in summary execution by the friendly UN troops who patrolled the area night and day, fulfilling their sacred mission to protect the people. But the rail line had been revitalized, something no one in Brantford ever expected to see.
The Brantford library, a limestone gift from Andrew Carnegie in 1914 squatted on one corner of Raintree St., diagonally opposite the old station house. An abandoned wooden structure about three stories high looked down onto the street from a third corner and the fourth corner, which had been a small variety and soft-porn shop, had been leveled and was now occupied by the Department of Rescued Orphaned and Abandoned Children. It was basically a hastily erected Quonset Hut with an unloading ramp at the front and a large enclosed playground behind, with twelve foot chain link fences, topped with razor wire. At any time, twenty or thirty or three children could be seen wandering around inside their playground, much like prisoners anywhere, staring blankly at the outside world and waiting fearfully for the attentions of their new saviors. These fortunate children had been rescued from the incompetent hands of their parents or found wandering or were simply rounded up for their own good and transported to Brantford for shipment to the main processing centre at Indianapolis, where they would be given new lives and new ideas about life by the friendly folks who brought you eighteen percent unemployment, the modern education system, the social services and child welfare agencies, the national debt, the Iraq war, NAFTA and FDA safety standards, addictive and lethal Pharmaceuticals, biological warfare and secret prison camps for political dissidents. In Brantford, dedicated DROAC administrators paid a bounty of MREs, beer and various other commodities to anyone who rescued any child from any circumstances anywhere by any means at any time. Once a week the train would arrive from Indianapolis and several large-boned lesbians and adenoidal Boy Scout leaders would clump down from the steps and with a Catholic solemnity, usher the little darlings, strictly separated by gender into the various compartments of the train for their field trip to the city. There, They would be thoroughly transformed into new citizens without prejudice, without cultural bias or gender inclinations or religious propensities or racial identity or family loyalty, but with an obdurate belief in this new world order and a perfect understanding of their role in it.
Periodically, patrols were sent out from the UN headquarters at the library and periodically they would not come back because groups like the one Deserter and Albert had joined would ambush them. When that happened, there would be a general clampdown on the people of the town, several would be arrested at random and publicly executed for aiding and abetting terrorist activity. The favored method of execution in Brantford had been adopted directly from the annals of the Gestapo. Slow strangulation by hanging someone with a wire was the most effective means, as Adolf Hitler had noted so many years before. As the victims choked and sputtered, their faces bulging and eyeballs bursting from pressure, they would still bicycle madly, a spectacle that caused Hitler to chuckle with delight and still entranced the gathered crowds. Then things would subside for a while and the dull business of processing children and maintaining order would settle once again over the town.
They had a good drawing of the library and the area around it. They knew where the two .50 caliber machine guns had been placed and where the tank was, they knew how many soldiers were inside, how many outside, how many patrolled the streets. They knew that this day there were 27 children in the compound and the train was due at 1:45 p.m. They had decided to attack in daylight because the curfew in Brantford was so strictly enforced and the troops were on such high alert during the night hours that they risked discovery. Anyone on the street of Brantford after sundown was shot. There were no exceptions.
The plan was simple on the surface. They would infiltrate the town, dressed in the same drab clothing as the residents, dirty and disheveled, line up for food and water, sit quietly under the trees in front of the town hall and wait to be ordered to do something. They would not speak or draw any attention to themselves as they slowly made their way towards the library. There was a perimeter fence of barbed wire set up a hundred feet around the library with a control booth and two guards. There were two guards stationed inside the abandoned three-storey building and there was a machine gun in front of the Quonset. The tank crew
would be lounging outside, convinced that no one would be insane enough to attack the post directly and even if they did, they could get into the tank in time. Randolf had explained that the rivalries among the different nationalities pretending to be of one blood under the UN flag created constant problems in discipline. Poles and Russians didn't even consider blacks human beings and ignored their orders; Africans were disinterested and would rather gamble and sleep; the Indians hated the French and the French hated everyone. They would not have a well defined and organized response to an attack, especially one they didn't believe would even come. Besides, they had no stomach for this fight; they didn't know what they were doing here or why any more than the fools who had slogged it into Iraq and Afghanistan and perished for the glory of Halliburton, KBR, Dynacorp, Veritas Capital, Environmental Chemical, International American Products, Fluor, Perini, Parsons, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, L-3 Communications, Raytheon, United Technologies, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics, to name just a few.
A man who called himself Clive had taken Albert's captured M24 and had fifty armor piercing .308 rounds he'd collected. He had come into town ahead of them while it was still dark and was able to get into the empty building across from the library. He had worked his way in through broken siding and then lay on the first floor for half an hour, breathing slowly and waiting for the two guards to leave the front door and patrol the grounds around the structure as they were supposed to. He made it to the second storey when they returned and he heard them clumping up the stairs. He had always been a nervous man, even before the troubles and his army instructors couldn't decide if it made him the marksman he was or prevented him from being a better one. He couldn't lie still. His knee started to jitter up and down and he gripped the rifle so tightly his hands were aching when the two entered the room and shone a flashlight against the walls. The building had been stripped inside and the old studs and the inspissated plaster pressed between the old lathe boards were visible. The light skipped around and danced here and there and then they mounted the last flight of stairs and he heard them walking around. He did not want to be the first casualty of this raid, but he knew that it was over and that all he could do was wait for them to descend and kill them and then either escape or not. As long as he killed some of them first, he didn't care all that much. Everyone he had ever known was dead and revenge was his only suitor. He rolled to a prone position and then waiting again until he heard their footsteps on the stairs, used that noise as cover to stand up and press himself into a corner behind a fat, pine column. He raised the rifle and the night scope outlined them as they came into view, chattering in Indian, he figured, their rifles slung instead of ready. They looked right at him and stopped and he squeezed the trigger a sixteenth and held his breath and they continued walking and talking, right past him as if he wasn't there and clumped back down the stairs and he heard their chairs scraping on the floor and a sharp clicking as they resumed their game of Carrom. Clive smiled for the first time in months. He started to laugh. A barely suppressed hysteria shook him uncontrollably and tears streamed from his eyes. They had looked right at him and not seen him, or seen him and denied it to themselves. Their brains had refused the information.
Albert hid the truck as best he could but was not completely satisfied with the results. It could be spotted from the air and anyone who got within ten feet would see it on the ground, but there was no time to look for a better place.
It didn't take them long to kit up and then he saw them nod to each other and shake hands and several embraced briefly, giving Albert the sick sensation of doom. They collected in three separate groups and the first coterie of eight set out. Albert started to follow and Deserter called him back.
"You're with us," he said, and then added with a grin, "If that's okay."
The second group set out about five minutes later and then after a pause, Deserter and Albert followed them. One scout in each group knew the exact route and everyone followed, ten feet apart, completely silent.
When they got to a large farmhouse, Deserter crouched down and waited and the others followed. A few moments later a single flash of light from a window beckoned them and they crossed the graveled driveway and went inside.
"Everybody here?" Deserter asked. They remained in total darkness while he went over the attack plans with the other two groups. There were no questions or suggestions, just a morose, dark silence. The two other groups left and one of Deserter's men went outside to stand guard.
"You sure?" Rumplestiltskin asked Deserter?
"No," he answered. "Why even fucking ask?"
Albert finally couldn't hold back any longer and he touched Deserter's shoulder.
"What's going on?" he asked. "I thought we were supposed to be infiltrating with the rest of them."
"You'll see," Deserter said.
Deserter sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall and the others followed suit. Only Rumplestiltskin's snoring broke the silence until about an hour before dawn when the creaking of a wheeled cart could be heard down the road, approaching at a slow clop.
"He's here," a voice came into the room and everyone was instantly awake.
They went into combat stance and took cover at windows and two ran upstairs to set up sniper positions. Albert found a place near the door and plastered himself against the wall. Deserter leaned his rifle against the wall, took out his Beretta and placed it on his pack and then opened the door. He left it slightly ajar and Albert watched him as he walked to the road and waited. In a few moments a horse pulled into view, followed by a two-wheeled horse trailer hitched up with a makeshift singletree and driven by a man sitting in a kitchen chair that hand been strapped down in front. Deserter held his hands up and turned around slowly and another man that Albert hadn't seen patted him down and then signaled to the driver that everything seemed okay. Albert could only see the front of the horse trailer and he couldn't see what was inside. In a moment, the men returned with two young girls, maybe twelve or thirteen. They stood silently while Deserter and the men talked for a while. Then Deserter handed a small package to one of the men and he shone a flashlight into it and then nodded at his partner. They let go of the two little girls and climbed back on the rig. The driver snapped the reins and whistled through his teeth and the horse jerked the wagon loose again and started plodding down the road.
Deserter took the children by the hand and led them to the house. Dawn was breaking and some light was coming through the windows.
"Come in, it's all right," he heard Deserter say and then the door opened and he pushed them gently inside.
The other men in the room looked at them briefly and then away and the two upstairs descended and reported that the wagon had kept right on going.
Albert watched them come into the room holding hands, extremely dirty and wearing torn clothing. They looked just like everyone else these days except that they were twelve or thirteen and refused to speak just like the Amish boy and wouldn't look up from the floor. Albert looked at Deserter who led them over to a table and sat them down and opened some packages for them. They ate without hesitation but paid no mind to the men in the room. Albert came off the wall and stood by the table. The others glanced their way but their gaze wouldn't hold and they went back to watching the road through the windows.
Deserter signaled him and Albert followed him outside.
"It's not how it looks," Deserter began and Albert waved his hand at him to stop speaking.
"Don't," Albert said. "If I thought that for a second I'd kill you right now. I know what you are up to, believe me."
"There's no other way. We can't get in, otherwise."
"You never told me about this part."
"No, because I knew you'd freak out and I don't want to have to kill you, Albert. I like you. We all do. And we respect you. But if you try and get in the way we're going to kill you."
"Maybe I'll kill you right now," Albert said.
"So you're just going to kill those two little girls?"
"They are already dead, Albert."
As the daylight came on, the others were anxious to get going. It was only a few hundred yards into town, now, but they had to get there and enter the stream without being detected. They slipped out one at a time, dressed now in the same rags that everyone else wore but carrying their weapons underneath. Blankets and ponchos were not uncommon as outer wear and by spacing themselves in the crowds they hoped they'd be invisible long enough to get into position. Albert knew where he was expected, but he didn't move.
Deserter said nothing, just took the two little girls by the hand and started walking to town, the incongruity of their yellow shoes against the grey road and drab clothing adding a kind of monstrous dimension to the magnitude of the horror of watching them walk away.
The guards at the perimeter fence lowered machine pistols on Deserter and the two girls as they approached and ordered them to stop.
"I'm here to ask for some help for my daughters," Deserter said.
The guards exchanged a look and motioned him forward but did not stand down the weapons. A guard motioned to one of the girls to come forward while the other one kept Deserter pinned. The guard pressed his hand over her stick-like body and then pressed his fingers between her legs and grinned at his partner. Then he signaled to the other one and did the same thing. Deserter's guard, disgruntled by having to search him instead, did a perfunctory wave, checked the usual places and missed the hand grenade jammed under Deserter's testicles.
They waved him through and he took the girls by the hand and headed for the Quonset.
Inside, a large Nigerian wearing numerous medals and white hat grinned and waved them in. His partner was a Frenchman or Belgian by the spelling of his name tag and he stared at Deserter with contempt.