“Because I heard that the sheriff’s department special operations division was up there, and they have MRAPs,” Marsh said. “We get our hands on one of those things, we go wherever we want.”
“How do we know if they’re still there?” Reese asked. “Has anyone been able to establish contact?”
No one responded, so Reese wondered if he should forget about it. But the thought of having a heavily armored vehicle was attractive. He’d seen several of the department’s MRAPs in the past, and they were definitely rigged for heavy duty. Driving over dozens of stenches wasn’t likely to even slow them down. “Bates, what do you think about obtaining an MRAP?” he asked.
Bates pursed his lips. “Not something I’d turn my back on. But what if we get up to the Bowl and it’s a shitstorm? We going to turn our backs on those people?”
Reese didn’t know how to answer that. It galled him to allow civilians to face the dead alone, without the support of the LAPD. He’d made the same general argument to Colonel Morton only hours before, but that was when engagements with the dead were still sporadic, rather than the constant barrage they were currently facing. Reese and his men had their squad cars and the RV they sat in, but that was about it. Helping the citizens of Los Angeles was pretty much a pipe dream.
As he was trying to frame a response, someone pounded on the door. Reese leaned over and opened it. Colonel Morton stood outside, dressed in full battle rattle.
“Reese, we’re pulling out. The hospital’s been shut down, and my troops have been ordered to establish a perimeter around the Hollywood Bowl. You have any instructions from your superiors?” Morton practically spit the words, and Reese didn’t need a degree in psychology to know the Guardsman was still pissed with the way Reese had treated him earlier in the day.
“No. Our station house has been overrun, and we have no contact with any remaining elements of the LAPD,” Reese responded.
Morton nodded. “Your guys are welcome to come with us. We’re arranging for ammunition resupply up there, and another two companies of infantry are going to be deployed from the staging area at Griffith Park. There are a couple of thousand people up there who will need our help, and we have to secure the area until we can get enough aviation assets in to lift them out.”
“What about the rest of the people in the hospital, Colonel?”
Morton shook his head. “The medical staff is pretty much gone, Reese. You can stay here and empty bed pans if you feel you need to, but our orders are to displace and head to the Bowl.” He leaned through the RV doorway and peered around at the other cops. “You don’t seem to have a lot of manpower left. You won’t be able to hold out for more than five minutes if one of those waves gets through, and when they come, the aviation guys tell me they’re a thousand strong.” He looked at Reese again. “You’d better come with us. Cedars-Sinai is lost. No doctors, no nurses, no medical staff. Ambulances aren’t bringing in new patients. This place is a dead zone.”
Outside, the big .50-caliber guns opened up again, ripping off longer bursts. Morton stepped back and looked toward San Vincente Boulevard, pulling the stock of his M4 into his armpit. The weapon looked almost like a toy in his grasp. The engagement heated up, and Reese heard more small arms join in the fun.
The muscles in Morton’s jaw stood out in stark relief as he clenched his teeth. He turned back to say, “Okay, we move out in ten minutes. Feel free to form up on us. If not, good luck.” He slammed the command post door closed.
Reese leaned over and locked it again. “Okay, how many guys do we have left here?”
“Twenty-two,” Bates said. “We lost three. Don’t know where they are, but they’re not answering their ROVERs, and no one’s been able to find any bodies. They either got up and walked away, or they got taken down and dragged off somewhere.”
“We going with the Guard, Reese?” Marsh asked. His narrow face was sweaty, and he had a pinched expression, as if he’d just sat on a thumbtack.
“Let’s get the bus,” Reese said. “We’ll take the CP and the bus and maybe a couple of squad cars. Not so sure they’ll be the best protection, but at least people will know who we are when we get close to the Bowl. Last thing we want is for the sheriff’s department to light us up. So yeah, I guess we’re going. No reason to stay if we’re just going to die. Anyone have any rebuttals?”
No one said anything, not even Bates.
Reese figured that was about as good as it was going to get, so he nodded and got to his feet. “All right. I’ll get back with Morton and tell him we’re forming up.”
SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA
The sun was setting by the time Grady made it to the highway, his Ford Expedition bumping across the desert landscape. A small crowd stood next to a gray-and-green bus that was mostly unmarked save for a series of registration numbers above the windshield.
He pulled up next to the bus and flipped on the Expedition’s light bar, bathing the area in sporadic flashes of red and blue. After stepping out of the vehicle, he adjusted his belt, ensuring his stick, pistol, and Taser were in the right places. “Fourteen on scene,” he said into his radio.
“Fourteen on scene, copy.”
He waved the people away from the bus. “All right, let’s step back here.”
Not far from where he had parked, a man in a corrections officer uniform lay sprawled on the ground. He’d been hit by what Grady assumed was a shotgun at relatively close range, right in the head. Half his face was missing, and flies buzzed around the corpse. Farther down, another body lay amidst the scrub. That one had been a fairly portly man in life, and his skull had been smashed open. Insects and dirt had already covered the whitish goo spilling out of his head.
Victor Kuruk appeared in the doorway of the bus. He was wearing his “official” uniform: a reservation police jacket over a black T-shirt and black jeans. “Good afternoon, Chief,” Victor said.
That struck Grady as kind of funny since Victor was an actual chief of a Native American tribe, whereas Grady was just a politically appointed law enforcement officer. “Hi, Victor. What, ah, brings you here?” Grady asked.
“Some of my people came across the scene and told me about it. I only just arrived.” Victor pointed to the rear of the bus, where his lovingly restored Dodge pickup truck sat. He then jabbed a thumb back at the bus’s interior. “The driver’s dead. Looks like there were three prison guards, and they were overwhelmed. I don’t know how many prisoners were on the bus, but they’re gone now. Are you going to assist me?”
Grady raised an eyebrow. “Assist you?”
Victor pointed at the ground. “They’re on reservation territory, Chief.”
Grady almost guffawed. “Victor, I don’t think so. The bus is on the shoulder of the highway.”
Victor sighed. “Which goes right through the res. Normally, this would be the Highway Patrol’s bailiwick, but I’m guessing they’re not exactly running down to take a look, are they? Or the FBI?”
“Not able to get through to them,” Grady said.
“Think you can help me with crowd control while I take a look around?” Victor asked.
Grady shook his head. “Victor… this isn’t your investigation.”
Victor crossed his arms. “Oh? Very well, then. Do carry on, Chief Grady. I’m not really all that interested in heading up a murder investigation right now. We have something that’s probably more pressing.”
“What’s that?” Grady turned and looked at the people milling around the area. They were definitely motorists, and many of them had likely seen what had happened. He was going to have to conduct a lot of interviews.
“Whoever killed these men are probably criminals, and they have a few hours’ lead on us. And if I were them, I’d be headed for Single Tree. Just in case you wanted to know what my thinking on the matter might be.”
Grady turned back to look at Victor with a frown. A chill ran through him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you might be right about that.” He reached for the radio on hi
s shoulder.
###
The news that there were potential murderers on the loose in Single Tree galvanized the town’s small law enforcement team into action. Since Chief Grady was tied up out on the highway, Hailey and the others had to start scouring the town while also remaining available to other calls for assistance. Single Tree was only two miles wide and four long, but access was restricted by the heavy traffic clogging up Highway 395, which essentially split the town in two.
Hailey happened to be on the eastern side of town, keeping watch on one of the local gas stations. There had already been two incidents there with exhausted motorists fighting each other for access to the pumps. The sun was setting, and the temperature was beginning to drop, but blood pressure wasn’t following in suit. The owner had informed him that the underground tanks were running dry, and he estimated that soon he wouldn’t have any fuel to sell to anyone. Things were going to get ugly. Before leaving, Hailey advised him to close the station and head for home as soon as the tanks were tapped.
After pulling out of the back entrance to the station’s parking lot, Hailey turned south. A lot of traffic had boiled off of Main Street—what 395 was called when it bisected the town—which slowed his progress considerably. Most of the people were hopelessly lost, searching for a nonexistent alternate route to the highway. Though impatient, Hailey didn’t want to run code three, because lights and sirens would only alert the bad guys that he was coming. And since he’d heard that several armed corrections officers had been killed, giving the convicts a heads-up wasn’t high on his to-do list.
He kept his eyes open as he drove, looking for anything amiss. Things didn’t change very much or often in Single Tree, but a few houses were newly vacant, their residents having fled. A few were vacation homes, and all but one of those were empty. Hailey gave the passing cars and SUVs a look-over wherever he could, but no one seemed overtly suspicious.
And would you really know what murderers look like? he asked himself. He was a small-town, low-time cop. He knew what alcoholics, shoplifters, and vagrants looked like, but he wasn’t sure he could spot a murderer. If they were still wearing their prison uniforms and carried guns out in the open, then sure, but he guessed that wouldn’t be the case.
Chief Grady’s voice came over the radio. “Six, this is fourteen. Copy?”
Hailey reached for his radio transceiver. “Fourteen, this is six.”
“Six, head down to Substation Road. I’m with Res One and Three. Make a pass through the neighborhood. We’ll be right with you. Copy?”
“Fourteen, copy. Direct to Substation. Be there in about five minutes.”
Res One and Three were tribal reservation units. One was Victor Kuruk, and three was Suzy Kuruk. Hailey smiled. He hadn’t been able to see much of Suzy since their brief lunch together on the day old Wally had apparently turned into a zombie and attacked him.
He drove past the high school. Several trucks and containers were in the parking lot, being tended to by Corbett’s work crews. Some Native Americans were working alongside Corbett’s crew. They appeared to be unloading a shit-ton of building supplies. Hailey didn’t know everything that was going on, but the chief had passed on that the town was about to go under a pretty massive change. Unofficially, he’d also heard that Old Man Corbett wanted to turn the entire town into a fortress, and that suited Hailey just fine.
He made it to Substation Road just as Chief Grady’s Expedition pulled around the far corner, followed by a shiny Dodge pickup and a reservation Suburban. As the other vehicles pulled to the curb, Hailey brought his vehicle to a halt abreast of Chief Grady’s and rolled down the passenger window.
“What’s up, Chief?” he asked.
“We’re going to take a walk around and make sure there haven’t been any break-ins,” Grady said. “Anyone else with you?”
Hailey shook his head. “Just me. All the other guys are tied up on the other side of town. It’s going to take a bit for them to get down here. So what’s the deal?”
Victor Kuruk alighted from his tall Dodge pickup. Beyond him, Suzy climbed out of her Expedition and adjusted her gun belt. She favored Hailey with a sly smile and a not-so-sly wink. Hailey smiled back then noticed Victor’s frown, so he returned his attention back to Grady.
“We’ve got three dead corrections officers on the highway,” Grady said. “From the documentation on the bus, there were five prisoners being transported downstate. Looks like they shot their way out, and they’re probably holing up around here somewhere. I want you to head up to Muir and make a couple of passes. Keep your eyes open.”
“Anyone see anything?” Hailey asked.
Grady nodded. “Several motorists saw it go down, or at least part of it. They said a bunch of guys went out into the desert. There’s a chance they could still be moving east, but with a town nearby, I think they’d come here first.” The police chief pushed open his door. “If you see something, call me. Don’t get directly involved in something. Wait for the rest of us.”
“You sure you don’t want me to stick around?” Hailey regarded the short row of houses in front of him.
It was getting dark, and lights were starting to shine through several windows. A lost motorist turned onto the street but stopped when he saw the collection of police vehicles sitting at the end of the street. The car turned around and went up another street.
“I’m good,” Grady said. “Victor and Suzy are going to help out, so I’ll manage for the time being.”
“You got it, Chief,” Hailey said. He took his foot off the brake and pulled away.
###
“Okay, one cop just left,” Big Tone said. He was stationed next to the living room window, peering around the edge of the curtains. “Got three more out there. Heh, one guy looks like an Indian.”
Doddridge held the shotgun with sweaty hands. “What, you mean like a dot head?”
“No, man, like a fucking Indian looking for a buffalo to shoot. Funny shit.”
The old lady who owned the house sat on the plastic-wrapped couch, her silhouette barely visible in the darkness. When she had come home, Doddridge had met her at the carport door and took her in without incident. He had thought she was a blue-haired white woman when he’d seen her from a distance, but it turned out she was a Mexican named Estelle. She and Big Tone conversed in Spanish for a bit, and the Latin King seemed satisfied that she wasn’t going to cause any trouble. Doddridge didn’t quite believe that. He’d had more than a little bit of trouble from old ladies in the past, but as long as she sat on the couch and didn’t move, everyone was going to be fine.
Then, the cops showed up. Doddridge wasn’t surprised, though he’d hoped that the small town’s police department would be too tied up with other things to start pressing them so soon. They’d at least had a few hours to get cleaned up and eat. In the middle of the night, Doddridge intended to take the old lady’s Cadillac and enter the stream of slowly moving traffic in what was certain to be a slow-motion escape from the town. It wasn’t an ideal plan, but there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to do anything else. From the maps he’d found in old lady Estelle’s house, there was really only one road out of there, the highway. There wasn’t enough food and water in the house to sustain them for several days in the desert, and Doddridge wasn’t at all interested in busting his ass climbing over mountains and rocky ridges, anyway.
“What’re we gonna do?” Auto asked.
“Not gonna do shit,” Doddridge said. “Wait for them to move on, then let’s sit tight for a bit before we bug out.”
“Hey, one of the cops is coming toward the house,” Big Tone said. He eased away from the window and reached into his waistband and pulled out one of the guards’ liberated pistols.
“Easy, ese,” Doddridge whispered. “Take it easy.”
“Not sweatin’ it,” Big Tone said.
There was a knock on the door, and in the silence that ensued, Doddridge heard the cop’s feet scrape against the stoop outside. After
a lengthy pause, the policeman knocked louder.
“Estelle! It’s Chief Grady!” a man called out.
“Dude’s got to know she’s home,” Shaliq whispered. “Car’s out there.”
“Quiet,” Doddridge said.
In the hallway, Bruce whimpered. “I don’t want to go back.”
“You’re not going back. Now be fuckin’ quiet,” Doddridge said. You ain’t goin’ back, you pussy, because I’ll fuckin’ kill you myself.
The cop knocked again.
For the first time in over an hour, the old lady on the couch stirred. “Maybe I just answer?” she whispered.
“Shut up,” Doddridge said, wondering why everyone had to start talking all the sudden. He took his hand off the shotgun and wiped his palm against his pants, trying to get rid of the sweat.
###
Grady stood at the front door of Estelle Garcia’s neat little house. The lights were off, and the house was silent. He knocked one more time and called out, but Estelle didn’t come to the door. She wasn’t deaf, and her big vintage Caddy was still in the carport. That worried him. He turned and looked back at the street. Victor stood on the sidewalk beside his truck, one hand on the butt of the pistol on his hip. A few dozen yards away, Suzy was in the street, feet planted apart, right hand on her pistol.
“Could she not be home?” Victor asked quietly. “Could she be with friends?”
“She doesn’t like to be out at night, if I recall correctly,” Grady said. He stepped away from the door to peer at the windows. He reached for his radio. “Base, this is fourteen.”
“Fourteen, go.”
“Base, give a call to the Estelle Garcia residence. If she answers, have her come open the front door.”
“Fourteen, copy.”
While he waited, Grady slowly stepped toward the carport. He didn’t hear the clicking sounds of cooling metal, so the Caddy hadn’t moved in a while. He heard the peal of a ringing telephone inside the house. Five rings. Ten. Fifteen.
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