Hitmen Triumph

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “No?” came the question from Bent Nose Biker. “We’ve had someone watching you since then. Tonight he went into the pizza place and sat in a back booth. Our guy saw you have a meeting with the undercover cop. Explain that, why don’t you?”

  Undercover cop! That’s why the black-bearded guy had gone to the police station. He was a cop! Just like our dad.

  “Some guy stopped at my table because he knows I play for the Hitmen,” Nate said. “If he’s an undercover cop, I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Nice try,” Tattoo Biker growled. “If that was just coincidence, want to tell us how your parents died?”

  Nate didn’t answer.

  “Your dad was an undercover cop too,” Bent Nose Biker said. “Worked the Lower Mainland near Vancouver. A cop who pretended to join a biker gang to try to nail drug dealers.”

  Nate still didn’t answer. My hands were fists. I was beginning to figure things out.

  “Yeah,” Tattoo Biker said. “We heard one of the bikers in the Vancouver gang was driving a cement truck one day. You know the rest, don’t you?”

  “I have nothing to say,” Nate said.

  “We’ve put two and two together,” Tattoo Biker said. “You’re some kid trying to get payback. But guess what—you lost.”

  I thought back on some of what I’d heard Nate say at the pizza place. He’s been following me...We need to do something about it...So can I tell him.

  I remembered Max’s answer. Tell him what you need to tell him. Just make sure you don’t get caught. We need to make sure, one way or another, that he’s completely out of this.

  This meant that Nate had called me to meet him at the pizza place because Max had given him permission to let me know what was going on. Nate had not called in the bikers. They’d captured him. And now I knew why.

  Nate wasn’t betraying me. Or our parents. He was doing what Mercedes was doing. Trying to find a way to stop the bikers.

  And now he was in trouble for it. Because of me.

  The white van crossed the Bow River and headed toward Blackfoot Trail.

  “You know what happens to guys who mess with us?” Bent Nose Biker said. “They have accidents. And since we’ve only got a few minutes left, let me explain. Up ahead is a drowning machine. You’re going to take a long ride.”

  Drowning machine?

  “About once a year we have to do something like this,” Tattoo Biker said. “Everyone always thinks it’s an accident.”

  “Drowning machine,” Nate repeated. He probably sounded tough to them. But he was my twin brother. I knew his voice. I knew when he was afraid. Like now.

  “The weir across the river,” Tattoo Biker said. “We throw you in. It’s like a giant whirlpool. Might take a day or two to spit your body out.”

  “We need to call the cops,” I said to Mercedes.

  But it was too late. The van was already slowing down and turning into Pearce Estate Park. Where the drowning machine waited for my brother.

  chapter twenty-four

  The drowning machine.

  I’d been there during a high school science class.

  Pearce Estate Park was along the Bow River. It was a wetlands area with a huge fish hatchery. Part of the tour had taken us to the weir, which was a low dam all across the Bow River. Water flowed over it, but it also backed up water that was diverted into an irrigation canal.

  There was a project to change the weir to make it safer, because anyone falling over the dam was certain to drown. The water going over the dam dropped and cycled around. It was impossible to get out. That’s why there was a big sign by the weir warning people not to get into the river.

  The sign was right where the bikers were going to throw him in.

  The van’s brake lights brightened and then disappeared. The van was parked. We were half a block away, and the van had turned down a quiet street into Pearce Estate Park.

  “What do we do?” Mercedes asked. “By the time the police get here, it will be too late.”

  I heard her voice through the processor on my ear. What I heard more clearly was the audio from my fm in Nate’s backpack.

  “Hey,” Tattoo Biker said. “Is that car following us?”

  “Drive past the van,” I said to Mercedes.

  “What?”

  “We need to look like we aren’t following them,” I said. “We’ll park and step outside and hold hands like we’re going for a walk.”

  She drove past the van. Far enough away so the bikers couldn’t see our faces.

  “Ready to hold hands?” I asked.

  She smiled at me. “For a lot longer than you think.”

  What? Good thing it was dark. I blushed.

  We stepped outside. She leaned into me. She stood on her toes and kissed the side of my cheek.

  Wow.

  Then I got mad at myself. Two bikers were about to throw my brother into the river, and I was thinking about her kiss.

  “Just two kids,” Tattoo Biker said, his voice still transmitted by my fm in Nate’s backpack. “We can relax.”

  “They’ll see us get out of the van,” Bent Nose Biker said. “Should we take them out too?”

  “No,” Tattoo Biker said, “we need the drowning to look like an accident. It will be suspicious if they report an assault on the same night that Nate here goes for a long swim.”

  “What do we do?” Bent Nose Biker asked.

  “There’s another place to park,” Tattoo Biker said. “We’ll drive there.”

  The van behind us turned around.

  The good news was that Mercedes had been recording all the conversations that we overheard, which might help put the bikers in jail. The bad news was that they still had Nate. Seeing them in jail wouldn’t mean a thing to me if Nate didn’t survive.

  The van’s headlights disappeared.

  “I’m going to the river,” I said to Mercedes. “You call the cops. Tell them about the weir and what’s happening.”

  “I hope they believe me,” she said.

  “Remember the license plate number of the undercover cop? If they don’t believe this is important, give the plate number. They’ll find a way to get hold of the guy.”

  “What if it takes too long?” she asked.

  “That’s where I come in,” I said.

  I squeezed her hand and turned toward the park. It was dark among the trees. I needed to find a way through that darkness to get to the weir in time.

  chapter twenty-five

  At the bank of the river, I found a hiding spot among some trees. It was about twenty steps to the river. The water rushing over the weir sparkled in the moonlight.

  I didn’t see the bikers or my brother. It meant either the bikers had already been here, thrown Nate into the water and left. Or that I’d beaten all three of them to this spot.

  I told myself that it would have taken longer for the three of them to walk there than it had for me to run there. I didn’t want to believe that Nate was already in the water below the weir, his body tumbling round and round in the drowning machine.

  Upstream from the weir, framed against the night sky, was downtown Calgary. The lights in the windows of the skyscrapers made a backdrop to the river. Where I was, there wasn’t enough light, even with the moon, to see a thing. I kicked around, trying to find a big stick.

  I wasn’t too worried about making noise. I remembered from my science visit that the rush of the river over the weir made it difficult to hear anything, even if you weren’t deaf. That meant that it would cover my crashing around in the bushes.

  I hoped Nate still had his backpack with him. That way, with my fm inside, I’d be able to hear them talking when they got in range. It would warn me when they were about fifty steps away.

  It took about a minute to find the perfect stick. The size of a baseball bat.

  My plan was to wait until the bikers and Nate had passed me. Their backs would be to me. With the sound of the water over the weir to cover the sound of my footsteps, I�
��d run up behind them. I’d whack one on the head while he wasn’t looking. The other biker would notice, of course. If I were lucky, I’d be able to whack him too. If not, I’d still have the stick. If the second guy tried to keep hold of Nate, I’d be able to smack him. If he let go of Nate, Nate and I would be able to run away. We were smaller and lighter and more athletic. No way any biker would be able to catch us.

  There was nothing left to do except wait.

  “Did you enjoy the money we gave you?” came Tattoo Biker’s voice. “Because you’re sure going to pay for it.”

  “Like pay with your life,” Bent Nose Biker added.

  In a way, it was weird. For anyone else, the noise of the river would have made it difficult to hear any conversation more than five feet away. But the fm in Nate’s backpack was my secret weapon.

  “Didn’t keep a penny of it,” Nate said. “I gave it to a police fund that helps families of cops killed in the line of duty. Nice of you to contribute.”

  I remembered the conversation I’d heard between Nate and Max in the pizza place. Fifteen hundred dollars, Max had said. A lot of guys wouldn’t do what you’re doing.

  I’m not a lot of guys, Nate had said.

  Nate had been giving the money away. Not keeping it. I felt horrible for believing the worst about Nate.

  “You did this just to give away money?” Bent Nose Biker said.

  “No,” Nate said, “to get enough evidence to help the cops bust you guys, the way my dad was trying to stop bikers. I wasn’t going to keep your money. Neither would my dad.”

  “Any other last words?” Tattoo Biker said. “Not that anyone is going to hear them.”

  I saw them now. Three dark shapes walking toward the river. There was a small circle of light pointing at the ground. A flashlight.

  Nate knew the bikers were taking him to the river to drown him. Why wasn’t he trying to run?

  “The cops will know the drowning wasn’t an accident,” I heard Nate say. “They’ll hunt you down for this. Enjoy life in prison.”

  Closer now, I could see why Nate hadn’t tried to run. It looked like they had a dog leash around his neck. Tattoo Biker was holding on to the end of the leash. This complicated things.

  “What the cops know and what they can prove are two different things,” Tattoo Biker said. “Without witnesses, they have nothing. They’ll just find your drowned body and your backpack with it. This stun gun won’t leave any marks that point to murder. All it does is paralyze you and make it easy to throw you in the water.”

  Stun gun!

  I’d been so worried about the drowning machine, I’d forgotten about the stun gun the bikers had used on me by the train tracks. That’s what they were going to do: Make him as helpless as I had been and then throw him in like a sack of potatoes.

  How could I stop them now?

  chapter twenty-six

  I stepped out from the trees. I stood between the three of them and the river.

  “That’s far enough,” I said as loudly and as boldly as my fear let me.

  The flashlight beam hit my face, blinding me.

  “It’s his brother!” Bent Nose Biker said.

  I turned sideways to take the light directly out of my eyes. It would still let me see if the beam moved closer.

  “Do you point at the sky and tell people it’s blue?” I said.

  “Huh?” Bent Nose Biker answered.

  “That’s a way of saying that you point out the obvious,” I said. “Of course, people dumb enough to point out the obvious do it because they’re not smart enough to see the obvious.”

  “Be just as fun to get rid of both of you,” Tattoo Biker said.

  “Run,” Nate yelled. “Don’t let—”

  Nate gagged. Tattoo Biker had yanked on the leash.

  “Shut up,” Tattoo Biker said pleasantly to Nate. “Or you get more of the choke chain.”

  They’d been dragging my brother along, just like a dog on a choke chain.

  Sudden fury filled my head like the roar of an avalanche, a fury that took over my body as if I were a puppet.

  My head was down and I was charging forward without even considering what might happen next. I had the stick in my hands like a lance.

  The flashlight beam blinded me again.

  But I was all right with that. It gave me a target.

  I didn’t come in swinging. I came in with the stick pointed forward, like a knight charging a dragon.

  They’d been dragging my brother along, just like a dog.

  I wanted to put the spear through the biker.

  I hit something—hard. Heard a scream of pain.

  At the same time, something hit me—hard. It felt as if I were on the C-train tracks and the train had actually smashed into me. I knew what it was. I’d been popped with the stun gun as I hit the biker who held the flashlight. The burst of electric shock sent every nerve ending of my body into a spasm, and my legs buckled.

  On the C-train tracks, I’d been standing still when the electric prod hit me. Here, I’d been moving fast. As I lost control over all my muscles, I tumbled forward like a rag doll.

  I saw a rolling circle of light. The stun gun flashlight. I couldn’t do anything. Not even reach for it.

  But another hand did.

  Just like on the C-train tracks, I could see and think. What I couldn’t do was move. I recognized the hand as Nate’s. Then his hand and the flashlight disappeared as he was jerked out of my sight by the biker holding the choke chain.

  This is it, I thought.

  I can’t move. They’ll drag me to the river. They’ll shock Nate and drag him to the river too.

  I heard a scream from Nate’s direction.

  Something thumped me. A boot. The biker that I’d knocked to the ground was up again and had just kicked me. I braced myself for another kick.

  Instead I heard a second scream. From the biker.

  What was happening?

  I found out a second later as someone knelt in front of me. Two hands grabbed my shoulder and lifted me. In the moonlight, I saw silver glinting from what looked like a giant necklace.

  “Nate?” I managed to say. It wasn’t a necklace. It was the choke chain.

  “‘You point at the sky and tell people it’s blue’?” he said. “Of course it’s me.”

  I was shaking. He pulled me close and hugged me.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. My voice was croaky, but I was starting to get some control of my muscles. “I thought he got you with the prod too.”

  “Nope,” Nate said. “Look.”

  He turned the flashlight beam toward the bikers. Both were on the ground, curled up like worms.

  “This flashlight stun gun is wicked,” he said. “You knocked it from his hand when you charged him. I fell and grabbed it. When the guy yanked me in again, I gave him a good shot. Then a shot to the guy kicking you.”

  Both bikers were starting to get to their knees.

  “Hang on,” Nate said. “Hate to say it, but I’m going to enjoy this.”

  He took a couple of steps. Jabbed one with the stun gun and then the other.

  Both screamed and toppled again. Nate slipped the choke chain off his neck and dropped it over Tattoo Biker’s neck.

  “Hate to say it,” I said, “but I enjoyed that too.”

  Nate tilted his head instead of answering me. He had heard it first.

  Then I heard it, filtered through the fm in his backpack. And from my processor. The thump-thump sound of a helicopter.

  Seconds later a floodlight hit us. I knew what it was. I guess I had just as much to explain to Nate as he did to me. I was very glad we were going to have time to do the explaining.

  “Friends in high places!” I yelled at Nate. Mercedes had gotten through to someone. “Police chopper.”

  chapter twenty-seven

  We were down three goals, halfway into the third period against Vancouver, when Coach Jon finally gave Nate and me some ice time by sending us out
for a face-off on the left side of the ice in our end.

  Although I felt like a spring colt that had been trapped in a stall for two days, I managed not to kick up my heels and gallop as I jumped out of the players’ box. I took my spot just in front of Rooster and in front of our goalie.

  I felt good for a few reasons. The first was that Nate and I were talking again. He had told me that the cash he had at the charity golf tournament was money that he was going to donate. Just like he was going to donate the winnings of his little golf trick, after explaining it to the people who’d made wagers. His new clothes were so he would look like someone who wanted money enough to get involved with bikers. He’d been trying to protect me by keeping everything a secret. He’d even called the bikers and asked them to scare me, to make it look like I wasn’t part of it. Of course, he thought they were only going to threaten me, not put me on train tracks.

  The second reason I felt good was because Mercedes had agreed to go out with me again, on a real date. I would get to see more of that smile. Lots more.

  I also felt good because of this—the chance to play.

  When the puck dropped, it was my job to head toward the point, in case Nate lost the draw.

  He didn’t.

  But he didn’t win either.

  He and the Vancouver center fought for the puck between their skates. I stepped in and jabbed it loose. Somehow I knew that Nate would squirt free and chase it. So I spun off for some open ice.

  Before the puck reached my stick, I knew it was coming, even with my back to it. Don’t ask how. I just knew that Nate knew where I was headed and that he would slap it toward me.

  I widened my legs slightly.

  Sure enough, the puck came through. Softly. Like a butterfly waiting to land on my stick.

  I had plenty of energy. I kicked it up a gear and raced over our blue line into the neutral zone, puck on my stick. Their defenseman made an aggressive move to check me.

  I dropped the puck for Nate.

  A lot of young players think that a drop pass needs to be pushed backward. Wrong. The best thing to do is stop the puck and keep skating forward. That way your teammate doesn’t have to try to juggle a puck coming toward him. Instead it’s waiting like a ripe cherry.