by Bradley West
The two raced outside and were halfway to the Silverado when Arkar ran up from the other direction. “Window broken. M-4s gone! Tires shot out all trucks.”
Shorty approached them at a dead run. They had lights in his face and weapons aimed. “Don’t shoot! Your truck’s got four flats and so do our vehicles except the ATVs. One of them’s down, but one runs. I’ll take you to it.”
The three 3M members ran after Shorty as he sprinted to the equipment shed. With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Travis realized that his insistence on bringing the M-4s had doomed their friends.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Unfriendly Takeovers
Saturday, July 18, and Sunday, July 19, 2020: Spice Land, Idaho, late night into early morning
News that the 3M was to split left everyone in shock. After Travis, Arkar and Carla departed, members wandered from cluster to cluster reaffirming friendships and swearing reunification oaths. Some fretted over whether they’d made the right decision, but no one flipped. Questions bombarded Sal from all sides. His mind was elsewhere and he deflected most queries, preoccupied with what might happen next.
At one of the folding tables, Jaime and Rosa spoke animatedly in Spanish. Johnny and Erinn snuck into the sleeper ’Bago for a private exchange of Covid-20 viral loads, and Derek made ready to relieve Yonten and Tom. Sal talked Derek out of taking the first shift: Sal wouldn’t be able to sleep and Derek looked beat. This was a win-win since it gave Sal the opportunity to duck questions and Derek could grab a few hours in the rack.
As midnight passed, the younger 3Mers laid their sleeping bags on air mattresses or foam mats under the camo netting while the older folks climbed into the sleeper ’Bago. Jaime made certain that the three Garcias were comfortable in the Telluride before he took a seat at the dying campfire. It had been a momentous day. Overall, he was happier than he’d been in a long while.
* * * * *
Glenn Leerdon led the outlaw convoy along the dirt road tracing Spice Land’s southern border until he halted at the southwest corner for an impromptu meeting. Glenn rummaged in his toolbox while Muller stretched his legs. “Nice shot back there. He was dead before he hit the ground,” said the former CIA scorpion, no slouch with a long gun himself.
“Warn’t anything to it,” Glenn spat. “Largest coyote I ever jacklighted is all.” He straightened up and clanked the aluminum lid down. “Here, you’ll need these,” he said and lobbed a pair of bolt cutters to Stenner. “The west gate is where they’s at. That’ll be two miles down this slip road. They’ll hear those cycles if you come any nearer. Put everyone in the back of your pickup and creep along a mile and hike the rest. Hope you find what they took from you.” Glenn got into his cab and started up.
“Thanks, we owe you,” Muller said. “When we’re done, we should have a spare Covid vaccination and we’ll drop it by your house.” In acknowledgment, Glenn raised his hand, then turned his pickup around and headed back the way he’d come. He’d never murdered a man before. The irony was that this killing resulted from his refusal to shoot two trespassers earlier in the day. Ryan Spicer hadn’t been all bad, just full of himself, jealous of Bob and unable to see that firing Glenn made him the perfect outlet for years of pent-up anger.
One of June’s prized possessions was the family Bible. Glenn wasn’t one for church, but try as he might, he hadn’t discarded that heirloom. Back home, maybe he’d try to find something in there to help him make sense of this forlorn world. For certain he would open another bottle of ’shine.
The bikers shook out their smokes and traded stories from the surreal scene they’d just witnessed. “Did you see the women running around everywhere?” Kurt asked. “Tie-dyed shirts, tits bouncing and one broad had a four-foot bong. Add a hundred Buds and we’d have ourselves a proper party.”
“Glenn said there were over fifty women and only fifteen men,” Bails said. “Everyone’s between eighteen and forty-five or thereabouts.”
“Make that thirteen, ’cause I plugged the two on the gate,” Boner bragged. “They won’t get any older.”
“Once we’re done here and fix Norris, we’ll have that party,” Stenner said. “Hell, maybe we stick around. I’m in no hurry to bury Zax and Worm’s dead asses, and we got nowhere else to stay.”
Meanwhile, Muller held a private conversation with Burns. “Once I drive another mile, I’ll leave the keys with you while we hike the rest of the way. Stay there until you see a red road flare. That’ll be your signal to drive up in a hurry. In the meantime, watch Norris. If he wakes up, pour water down his throat. Keep the bitch away from him—no more meds. She’s fucking him up and we need him alive.”
“Why do you care? You wanted him dead two days ago.”
“My control over these animals only lasts as long as Norris is alive and receives an injection. If they refuse to listen to me, what do you think they’ll do to damaged goods like you? Use your head, Elephant Man.”
* * * * *
Sal shivered as the semi-desert temperature continued to drop. He’d declined Yonten’s offer of an M-4, entrusting their safety to a revolver he could barely control even when he had two healthy arms. He winced at the memory of the .357 Magnum’s front gunsight recoiling and putting a dent between his eyes last week when he’d shot the would-be RV thief.
If Sal sat perfectly still with his back against a rock, his lightweight fleece jacket kept his upper body warm and he had a faint view of the padlocked gate thirty yards down the dirt track. His heart’s steady, sedate rhythm was a source of newfound confidence. Maybe he’d lead his half of the group to the promised land after all. His eyes grew heavy, and his chin soon rested on his chest.
Ten minutes later, Kurt sheared the padlock using Glenn’s double-action bolt cutters. Muller was there to keep the chain quiet and ease open the gate. Four bikers moved silently ahead of the M-4–armed Dirty Pete and Muller.
Like Sal, Jaime had also fallen asleep. Unlike Sal, he’d tuned his professional soldier’s ears to hear aberrant noises. A stubbed toe and a muffled curse had him on his feet, hand on the Beretta 9mm in his quick draw holster. The first two inbound rounds missed, but the third struck home just under his clavicle. Jaime was down with a through-and-through as all hell broke loose. He shot the first man to reach the campfire, ending Boner’s pipedream of screwing a Spice Land hippie.
Muller fired at the muzzle flash and put his man down.
Within a minute, the gang’s plan had succeeded. With guns held to unarmed people’s heads, Muller’s demand was simple: “Everyone come out with your hands showing by the time I count to five. If you’re not outside by then, I’ll shoot one hostage. If you shoot at us, we shoot five hostages. One . . . two . . . three . . .”
The door to the sleeper ’Bago sprung open and eight terrified people streamed out. Rosa Garcia and her children trudged up from the Telluride. The marauders had missed a sleeping Sal. He was wide awake and armed, but realized there was nothing he could do to reverse the tide, not when he wasn’t well enough even to hide. He cached his weapon and walked up the mild grade to join the others.
Kurt felt anguish for brother Dale Boner, shot through the heart by the cocksucker lying almost in the embers of the campfire. He gave the corpse a hearty kick in the trunk and was shocked to hear a moan. In a flash, he had his pistol pointed at the unmoving man’s head.
“Leave him be!” Muller yelled. “Could be useful as collateral. Deal with him later.” He turned to Stenner. “Go down to the road and light that road flare. That’s the signal to bring up Norris for his shot.” Stenner hurried off. The mention of Norris’ name held a magical sway over these men like Muller’s never did with Black Ice. That irritated him to no end.
Muller shined his flashlight at the frightened faces huddled together. “No one else has to die,” he said. “We’re here for the Covid vaccine. Where is it?”
“There isn’t any,” Sal said. “We injected everyone and the four leftovers went to Las Vegas with a s
maller group that needed medical attention for their child. You remember Tyson, the baby you kidnapped? He was injured in the escape and we’re paying for his treatment with the last of the plasma treatments.”
Not for the first time, Muller regretted not shooting Sal Maggio dead at Stinson Beach last week. “I doubt that’s true, but if it is, I’ll need your scientist to make more. Where’s Carla?”
“She’s not here,” Sal said. “She drove to Las Vegas with Stephanie, her husband Greg and Tyson.”
Burns piloted the XLT through the gate. The heavily bandaged Brit drew gasps when his grotesque features came into view. Katerina Kiel strutted up like a gymnast after a perfect floor routine.
“They claim Carla’s in Las Vegas and there’s no Dark Cure here,” Muller said.
“I call bullshit,” the little scientist said. “Start with the children and clip a finger off each of them every minute until we get more useful answers.”
“Please calm down,” Sal said. “Before Carla left, she set up a lab to make the Dark Cure. We were waiting for her to come back, but Katerina knows what to do, right? The lab’s over there in the blue RV. Have a look.”
Tina asked Muller for permission to examine Jaime and was denied. Jaime hadn’t moved after being kicked, and there was no way of knowing if he was alive or dead.
Once aboard, the evil pixie took her time conducting her inspection. After a long two minutes, she stood at the top of the stairs and leaned out. “It’s fucking perfect. Better than what I had back at Cal.”
Sal and others let out sighs of relief.
“We leave here in ten,” Muller said. “Pete and Bailey, search for weapons, money and fuel. We’ll take the blue RV and the supply truck. We don’t have enough drivers for any more.” Addressing the hostages, he said, “I’ll give you one chance to produce the keys to four vehicles plus weapons. If we find keys or weapons later, we’ll execute two people at random. Got it?”
“I should kill you where you stand after what you did to me,” Burns said in an aside directed at Sal.
“I’m relieved you survived,” Sal said with compassion he didn’t feel. “We were under fire and couldn’t have carried you onto the ferry. Even if we had, you wouldn’t have survived. It looks like you’ve had expert medical attention.”
“A team of army doctors. That doesn’t excuse what you did. You stole my vaccine formula, my wife’s dead, and my face is ruined. This is all because of you.”
“I’d feel worse if I didn’t know that you hired Muller to torch our headquarters and killed Nancy Jacobs, that you were behind my grandson’s kidnapping, and almost got Tyson and Stephanie killed as well. Don’t act as if you’re the only injured party.”
“We need to talk,” Dirty Pete said to Muller, who followed him out of earshot, the two of them cradling M-4s. “What, we’re leaving all these people behind and two rigs? That’s an invitation for trouble.”
“Did I say anything about leaving them alive?” Muller asked.
“I can see offing the men, but not the women and children. That’s sick shit.”
“You never served in Libya.”
Enough was enough. “Let’s get something straight,” the big biker said. “We don’t go anywhere until Norris gets his shot. Your girlfriend better get her ass to work because I’m not feeling so great either. Have her whip up a batch right here so we all get the Cure.”
Muller contemplated killing Pete, but the timing was poor and the man had a point. He forced himself to keep a calm façade. “Let’s see what Katerina has to say, but so long as we have hostages, we can stay as long as we like. Take another man, and the two of you strip everything of value and load it onto the supply truck.”
Dirty Pete stared with distaste at Muller and walked off.
“We have a generator and plenty of fuel if you need more power,” Sal said to Muller when he returned.
Katerina took another look in the Horizon and confirmed that she had everything but blood from an immune person. “Fraser, can I see you for a moment?” She then turned and whispered to Kurt.
Burns had drawn his S & W Police Special and waved it at Sal’s head to punctuate his repeated death threats. Katerina’s call caught him in mid-rant. “What is it?” he asked.
“Come with me,” Kurt said. “Katerina says you’re providing the plasma that will save all our lives.”
Burns tried to shake the bigger man’s hand off his arm. “You can use any of these people—they all had the vaccine too!”
“You’ve survived two bouts of Covid-20,” Katerina called out. “You’ll have the best antibody count on the planet. It’s only a pint; don’t be a baby.”
* * * * *
“The gunshots stopped in a hurry, too fast for our people to have killed the attackers,” Travis said. Carla and Arkar stood next to the ATV, ears straining to hear more in the darkness. Two more quiet minutes passed. “Arkar, look but don’t engage. I’ll wait here with Carla.” The former commando nodded and disappeared at a trot.
“We’re in a likely hostage situation,” Travis said. “Without night-vision optics and long guns, there’s not much we can do before first light. They’ll steal everything they want and leave. I just hope they don’t decide to kill everyone first.”
“My god, why would you even say that?” Carla asked.
“I counted a single high-velocity 5.56 round followed an instant later by a pair, then a pause and a 9mm pistol shot, and another 5.56. If I had to guess, they used our M-4s to kill our sentries, we shot one of theirs and they plugged our shooter. Then they captured our survivors. The captors don’t know where we are and that gives us an edge.”
“An edge? We’re out here in the dark with two pistols up against Muller and a motorcycle gang. That’s not an edge.”
“Don’t underestimate Arkar. If they posted sentries around the perimeter, even still recovering from Covid, he could kill two or three before they realized something was wrong.”
A breathless Arkar came running up. “Too dark to see. Lights on in blue RV. Men holding flashlights and our people all captured. Four hundred meters away.”
“Drive back up to Spice Land,” Travis said to Carla. “Andrew’s smitten and now’s the time for a charm offensive. Borrow two night-vision devices, plus long guns and ammo. The website photos showed AR-15s, so ask for those. Drive the ATV back and we’ll meet you here in two hours, at 2:45.”
“You want me to bring men back as well?” she asked.
“We don’t know how good they are,” Travis said. “With all those hostages, it’ll be safer with just Arkar and me. We’ll go down and survey the situation and come back up here to meet you.”
Carla drove off in the ATV, wondering if she’d see Travis again.
* * * * *
Katerina had already warned Muller that she faced at least ten hours’ work before the Dark Cure could be isolated, stabilized and prepped for injection. In truth, she didn’t know why a refrigerated blood PRP centrifuge was in the array instead of the discontinuous flow centrifuge she’d used on campus. It shouldn’t make that much difference, but she knew her life hung in the balance. It was the height of unfairness that the genius responsible for their salvation had to labor under the threat of execution by numbskulls and sadists.
Outside, Muller figured the counterattack would come at dawn. The ex-military man who’d driven the pickup and at least one other sniper for sure. The big Mexican had bled out by the fire, or would soon. For now, Muller could stay safe, provided he was among the captives and delegated flashlight duties. After sunrise, he’d move inside one of the RVs and keep his head down.
“What’s your name?” Muller asked a frightened teen.
“Kyaw,” replied the slender girl with braces.
“Point that flashlight at each person’s face until I tell you to move it,” Muller said. In a louder voice, he addressed everyone: “When the light hits your face, tell me your full name, age and role. If you lie to me, I’ll know it.”
Melvin complied. “I can still whup your ass with only one arm and one leg.”
“Don’t forget the one ear, too,” Muller said. “You might just get your wish. Pete! You biker boys have any blades on you?”
Pete had been hanging around outside the blue RV, thinking about pinning the tail on Katerina’s tight ass as she hopped around in there spinning Burns’ reluctantly contributed plasma. At Muller’s call, he ambled over to where a flashlight illuminated a big spade with his right arm in a sling. “I reckon you can borrow my Sharpfinger,” he said as he freed the curved, pointed blade from its sheath.
The three-and-a-half-inch blade failed to impress Muller. “Anyone else?” he asked.
“Boner has a fucking bayonet strapped to his leg,” Bailey ventured. “He don’t need it no more.”
“Bring it to me,” Muller said. Turning to Melvin, he added in an almost pleasant voice. “You and me will have a little dance to the death, and then I’ll leave your black ass for the wild animals. No Christian burial for you.”
“And what happens if I cut your racist throat first?” Melvin asked as he stepped out of the clustered hostages.
“Don’t fight him!” Pat cried out. “You’re hurt.”
“If you get lucky, Dirty Pete gives you two to the back of the head and Grandma over there reads a few words over your grave,” Muller said. “Fair enough?”
Bails handed Muller a double-edged knife with a foot-long blade. “This was Dale’s. I’ve seen it in hilt-deep in a darkie before; it’s razor sharp.”