by Jack Cuatt
Vines and briars choke the paths between the larger oaks and scrub pines. He moves from tree to tree, pausing frequently to listen.
It's almost warm here compared to the cold humidity of Low Town. The air is heavy with the scent of freshly cut hay, moldering leaves, and pine trees. Machine hops another fence and lands on grass gone brown with winter. He crosses the pasture swiftly and disappears into thicker woods, heading in a straight line toward the road the gun dealers turned off on. In ten minutes he's beside the dirt road, thirty feet from the half circle driveway. Crouching low behind a triple strand of rusted barbed-wire, he surveys the field of combat, allowing his eyes to dilate to collect more light. It has to be a quick but thorough inspection. The dealers will be getting nervous, worried that he's jilted them.
The painted white rocks reflect the moon's eerie light. The two trucks sit silent, side by side. Jerry, his brother, and Tommy are at the rear of the red truck, at the far end of the driveway. The truck's rear doors are open. Machine can see stacked drab green crates inside but no one else. A bad sign. Tommy has to have an ace up his sleeve somewhere.
Machine doesn't move; his eyes continue their patrol. Tommy will have to wait.
The driveway fronts a dingy-green mobile home perched on stacked cinder blocks. Three rusting cars are parked at the nearest end of the driveway, blocking it completely. Assorted junk, corroded farm equipment, and stacks of rotting lumber fill a yard that slopes away to a swampy creek thirty feet behind the mobile home. A rusty white pre-fab shed sits near the driveway, close to the blockade of abandoned cars, under the widespread limbs of an old pecan tree. The collection of litter is densest around the shed: a confusion of car parts, empty steel oil drums and a stack of wooden pallets rotted into one smooth mound. Machine's gaze reaches the woods. Nothing. His eyes pivot back to the three he's already met.
They're getting agitated. Tommy steps to the end of the driveway, looks up the road and turns back to the brothers, cursing. Machine stays put, eyes roaming, waiting for the others to give their locations away. Another few minutes and he'll have to go in cold or scrap the deal. The first option is unappealing, the second unacceptable. He will go in cold, the Smith in his hand.
He's about to give it up when he spots a small movement on the edge of his vision, near the trio of rusting cars. The movement is not immediately repeated, but he is sure he saw it. Resting on his heels, he scans the deep darkness around the cars and the shed. Another small movement, a shifting shadow, and he spots a man crouched behind the nearest car, a rust-orange Ford Falcon.
Once spotted, Machine can make out the man's general features. He is tall and narrow-shouldered with a high forehead, long hair, and a chin shaped like a dull chisel. He's holding some kind of assault rifle. He shifts and scratches his lower back.
Everyone is fidgety except Machine.
Machine gives the yard one more slow pass. No sign of another shooter. Too much time has already gone by, he has to move. But, first, the sniper.
Machine fades back into the woods and turns parallel with the road, heading away from Tommy and the mobile home. Fifty dark feet and he slips between the fence's rusty wires. A glance up the road and he is across it. He crawls through the opposite fence and rolls to his feet in the woods.
The woods are thinner here, more oak than scrub pine. The moon throws a cobweb of shadows across rotting leaves and scrub brush. He trots across the uneven ground, almost invisible in his dark clothes, making rapid but controlled progress, the small amount of noise he makes covered by Tommy’s cursing. He stops when he reaches the huge pecan that looms over the shed.
The sniper is twenty feet away, gripping an AK-47 like he intends to use it. His forearms are tattooed, hands and neck as well. He's wearing a faded black T-shirt, black khaki pants and running shoes. An old Starlight night vision scope is mounted to the rifle. The sniper's attention is focused on the driveway’s entrance.
“Come on, motherfucker, show yourself,” Machine hears him whisper.
Machine drops to the ground and silently crawls toward the sniper. It takes him a full five minutes to cover the ground. He rises to his knees four feet behind the man. Machine doesn't waste time; he lunges forward, grabs a handful of the sniper's hair, shoves the man’s head forward and down then punches him twice at the base of the skull, putting his weight behind it. The sniper doesn't even whimper. His chin bounces off his chest, his body goes rubbery and he's unconscious. Machine eases him to the ground then checks the moon-lit perimeter.
The three gun-dealers are still clustered at the far end of the driveway. Tommy is stomping and waving his arms around. It's time Machine put in an appearance. He'll just have to risk another sniper.
Machine retreats through the woods and steps back to the driveway. Sticking to the shallow trench that serves as a runoff ditch, he creeps toward the three dealers, the silenced Smith leading the way.
Tommy is bitching at Jerry and his brother.
“I should have known better than to team up with you punks. This shit was supposed to be easy. A fucking kid. Probably point-man for a fucking hijack crew. If he don't show we'll have to move the gear.”
“He's just a kid,” Jerry says. “A gangbanger.”
“Like you'd know the fucking difference!” Tommy explodes. “Just shut the fuck up. He don't show, it's your ass. I been using this place for years,” he looks up the road again. “If you fucked that up...”
The question of a rip-off is resolved. Machine was supposed to die here tonight. The sniper made him believe it; Tommy's comments only confirm his instincts. Tommy would not bring a customer to his stash.
Screened by Tommy's bellowing, Machine gets close before anyone is aware. He stops five feet behind Tommy, the Smith aimed at the center of Tommy's back. He won't kill Tommy unless he has to; he can't afford problems with Marshall Jones or the Children of The Blood Militia, but neither will he give the gun dealers a chance to kill him.
“I'm right here,” Machine says from the shadows.
Jerry's hand dives under his jacket and Tommy spins on his heel, swinging the rifle around with him. Both men stop dead when they see the 9mm pointing at them. Machine is about to order both men to ditch their weapons when a voice from the darkness behind him intervenes.
“Step off, asshole,” a woman hisses in heavily accented English, the words followed closely by the sound of feet on loose stones.
Tommy grins at Machine, his rifle pointed at the teenager's navel.
Slow and careful, Machine glances over his shoulder. A mousy brunette with narrow shoulders, a skinny face, and fat thighs climbs out of the run-off ditch on the opposite side of the driveway, shrugging off a ten-foot square of camo-patterned canvas covered in dry grass and dead limbs. She smiles at Machine from under a downy black mustache, dark eyes shining, finger taut on the trigger of a small caliber automatic pistol. Machine is caught in a cross fire.
Machine turns back toward Tommy just in time to see the butt of the gun dealer’s rifle racing toward his head but too late to do anything about it. The blow isn't powerful enough to knock him unconscious, but a burst of white light fills his vision, the 9mm falls from his hand, and he hits the ground on hands and knees. The Smith lands beside him. Instinctively, he reaches for his weapon, but Tommy kicks it out of reach.
Machine shakes his head clear and looks up at Tommy. There is no fear in Machine's expression, only anger. He should have known better. He should have killed the three men and taken what he wanted, and fuck Marshall Jones. It's what Moses would have done.
“I had just about given up on you, boy,” Tommy says as the Hispanic woman hugs his free arm to her chest, the little pistol dangling from her hand. “Get on your feet.”
Jerry steps forward. “I told you, Tommy, he's just—”
“Shut the fuck up, Jerry,” Tommy snaps, eyes steady on Machine.
The woman whispers something in Tommy's ear, looking Machine over with hungry eyes. There's dead grass tangled in her hair and
a crazy look in her eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” Tommy softly replies to the woman, his gaze sliding over Machine's chest, down to his hips then back to his face. “But first things first. Where's the money, boy?”
“In my car,” Machine lies; the cash is in his overcoat pockets, five thick bundles that Tommy is never going to see. Daylight is another thing Tommy is never going to see, if Machine has anything to say about it.
“Jerry,” Tommy says over his shoulder, “We're going to walk over to this boy's car. You bring up the rear and watch my fucking back in case he’s got a friend out there somewhere.”
“Got you covered, Tommy.” Jerry nods and crooks his finger at his little brother, who reluctantly joins them.
“Lead on,” Tommy tells Machine, still grinning.
Machine leads the way up the driveway and down the narrow road, Tommy ten feet back, Jerry and Greg another twenty feet farther behind. They reach the Granada. Machine stops beside the rear passenger door.
Tommy, the woman, and the two brothers close ranks at the rear of the car, a group of shadows even to Machine's light-sensitive eyes. Three weapons are pointed at him. He stares back emotionlessly, planning the next few seconds.
“Where?” Tommy asks, teeth flashing white in the darkness.
“The trunk,” Machine says and starts toward the dealers. “I'll get it.”
One handed, Tommy aims his assault rifle at the center of Machine's forehead. “Fuck that,” he says good-naturedly. “You probably got a gun in there. Give Felicia the keys.”
The woman steps forward, palm out. Machine shrugs, feigning indifference, reaches into his pocket and hands the keys over. She grabs his wrist. Her nails dig into him as she stares into his eyes. Blood dribbles from his wrist.
“Sweet meat,” she whispers before she lets go and turns away.
Greg and Jerry have drifted ten feet away from the Granada. They’re snorting meth off a square of aluminum foil. Jerry snorts up a heap then passes it to his brother. He smiles at Machine.
Felicia inserts the key in the trunk, Tommy right behind her. As she begins to turn it, Machine drops to the grass and rolls right fast, covering his eyes to protect his night vision.
A fireball erupts from the trunk as an eighth of a pound of C-4 detonates, lighting up the underside of the bridge like a fireworks display. Felicia takes the brunt of the blast as the small charge sends the trunk's chunky locking mechanism hurtling into her midsection at five-hundred miles an hour. It rips right through her, almost tearing her in half. She drops where she was standing, but the locking mechanism doesn’t slow down; it tears into Tommy at hip-level, lifts the big man off his feet and slaps him against one of the bridge's steel girders with a meaty splat. He flops into the weeds, dead before he hits the ground, his rifle still locked in his fist.
The concussion knocks Greg and Jerry off their feet. They hit the ground on their backs, dazed and confused, eyebrows and hair singed, but otherwise unharmed by the explosion. Before they can regain their senses, Machine is on his feet and running toward them. Jerry starts to sit up, but Machine puts him back down with a kick to the head. A Glock-15 is lying in the grass beside Jerry. Machine stoops and snatches it up then backs off ten feet.
Smoke hangs thick in the air around the Granada. The trunk is a blackened ruin. Nothing to worry about; Horace can fix it. Machine's gaze rakes over the woods, looking for movement but finding only darkness and shadow.
“On your feet,” Machine orders Jerry and his brother.
Jerry and Greg stand. Jerry is bleeding from the mouth and nose. Greg is crying. Both men stick their hands in the air without being asked, identical looks of shock on their faces.
“We're going back to the trailer. But first drag the woman down there with Tommy.”
The brothers don’t argue, but it is grisly work. Felicia comes off the dirt road in two pieces. Greg vomits into the weeds and Jerry goes three shades paler. By the time they’re through they're slick with her blood and pale as ghosts. They look at Machine, standing calmly on the side of the road, their eyes sending out a silent plea they know will be denied.
“Start walking,” Machine says. “Back to the trailer.”
Machine follows them back to Tommy's. He stops them at the rear of the red truck.
“Face-down, hands behind your heads, interlock your fingers and cross your ankles.”
The pair drop to their knees and stretch out flat, faces in the dirt. Machine retrieves his 9mm from the shoulder of the driveway and pitches Jerry's pistol into the weeds.
“Anyone else out there?” Machine asks.
“No,” Jerry says too quickly, the ground muffling his words. His brother keeps his head covered and his mouth shut.
“Lie and die,” Machine says as he steps to the far side of the panel-truck and takes a look. Nothing but more trees, darkness, stars, and weeds. Somewhere nearby a cow lows at the moon.
“By the cars,” Greg sputters in a rush to save his ass. “Sid's by the cars! By the shed!”
“Anyone else?” Machine leans down and presses the barrel of the silenced Smith against Jerry's head.
“No!” Jerry pants, staring wildly from the corner of one eye. “Don't—don’t—” he stammers, but can't finish. Spittle puddles in the dirt under his mouth.
Machine believes Jerry; if the dealer gave up Sid, not knowing he was already unconscious, then he would give up anyone else. Machine holsters the Smith and quickly searches both men. Jerry has a .44 derringer in his boot and a five-inch lock-blade in his back pocket. Machine pitches the weapons into the weeds. The younger brother has only a pocket-knife. Machine lets him keep it.
“Stay where you are. Move and you won't for long,” he promises the two gun dealers then fades into the trees. He stalks the silent woods like a specter, making it fast, pausing frequently to listen. Nothing but night sounds. He stops beside the stream. It's wide and shallow, choked with marsh grass and half-dead trees. On the other side of the stream is a barbed-wire fence and a field dotted with the bulky silhouettes of cows. Machine walks over to the shed to check on Sid. He should be coming around any time now.
Sid is still out. Machine makes it permanent with a bullet behind the ear then crosses the littered yard to the trailer. The front door isn't locked. After a quick look at the two men lying prone in the driveway, he ventures inside.
It smells musty, unused, with the heavier smells of gun oil and packing grease. In the dim light coming through the shaded windows, he can make out the shapes of packing crates stacked in rows. Tommy's stash. Machine's now. The law of the jungle. But the crates in the trailer and the ones in Tommy's truck present him with a windfall and a dilemma; how to get it all back to the city? He thinks it over as he tours the rest of the dwelling, checking on the brothers through the dirty windows every couple of minutes, but every idea he comes up with includes a return trip to Tommy’s, either for the Granada or the load. Unacceptable.
Machine exits the tin house, crosses to the panel-truck and nudges Jerry with the toe of his shoe.
“Get up,” he says harshly. He actually pities the brothers their ineptness and choice of partners, but they are a link in a chain that leads from three bodies to Machine. They are dead men walking, but they can be useful in the next few minutes.
Jerry stumbles to his feet, faded cap turned askew, greasy hair falling across his eyes. He thrusts his hands into the air.
“Get him up,” Machine nods at Greg, who's still hugging the ground.
“Greg, get up.” Jerry says, his voice shaking.
Greg moans in protest, but slowly stands. Dirt and bits of grass stick to his face and clothes. He blinks the tears away, fingernails carving up his palms.
Machine points the Smith in their general direction. “Grab Sid and drag him into the trailer. Put him in the back room away from the window,” he orders. The farther out of sight the better.
The brothers hesitate. Greg looks at Jerry. Both remain motionless for a heartbeat.
The dealers pick their friend up by ankles and wrists and stagger down the driveway and up the trailer’s steps. They drop Sid in the back room, in a doorless walk-in closet. With luck it will be a few days before anyone finds the body. Tommy and Felicia can stay where they are.
Machine escorts the brothers to the trailer's living room.
Jerry and Greg stand close together, narrow shoulders touching, eyes on the carpet.
“What's in these crates and the ones in the truck?” Machine asks.
“I don't know for sure,” Jerry answers. He sounds like he's having a hard time getting his breath. “The frags you wanted and other stuff. Tommy knows,” he shudders and corrects himself, “knew a guy at Fort Benning that worked in the armory.”
Machine nods. “Load all the weapons and ammunition into your van,” he says, “Leave the survival gear, the food and clothes.” He steps left, stopping just inside the front door. The brothers don’t move. Machine waves at the crates with the pistol.
“Get busy.”
Jerry and Greg scramble to comply.
Machine is amazed at the variety of weaponry. Fragmentation grenades, assault rifles, anti-personnel mines, remote detonators, boxes of ammunition, Kevlar bulletproof vests, and the assorted exotica of the mercenary trade; pen knives, tear gas cigarette packs, and a few nicer items. The collection of half a lifetime. He removes what he needs for the Scarpo work as the loading progresses, placing it in a drab green crate emptied for the purpose.
It takes thirty minutes to fill the rear of the yellow van with a half-dozen overloaded crates. A lot of good equipment is left behind. Machine takes only the best.
Machine waits, the 9mm at Greg's head, as Jerry drives Tommy's truck behind the trailer and into the deepest part of the creek. When Jerry returns, his dingy jeans are damp to the knee and his face is pale and drawn tight. Machine orders the brothers into the van and climbs in behind them.