by Bradley West
Stephanie’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God! Are my mom and dad okay? How’s Barb? Is Carla all right?”
Sal took over. “Steph, it’s Dad. Everyone else’s fine except Jaime who was shot in the shoulder. Carla and three children were uninjured as of ninety minutes ago when Muller’s gang escaped, but their safety may depend on our ability to track them down fast. Over.”
Greg took the handset from Steph. “Do we still have extra Dark Cure doses? Over.”
“Negative,” Sal said. “Assailants took all our extra doses and lab equipment, plus our training video.”
“We have the full video recordings on a USB drive. Is there anyone there who can make the Cure without Carla?”
“Kyle and Jeanie should be able to,” Sal said, “but we don’t have the lab equipment.”
“I may need to break a few windows,” Matt said, “but I can find everything on that list today.”
Greg spoke into the radio: “We have a suppliers list and will fly in a full set of lab equipment.”
Stephanie gestured to Greg and he passed her the handset. “The Horizon should be easy to spot from the air. If we amend our plans and take off soon, we can be there in three or four hours. We’ll fly a search grid. Once we spot the RV, we’ll radio its location.”
“I thought Tyson needed an operation today?” Sal asked. “Are you staying behind and flying up tomorrow?”
Steph looked at Greg, who shook his head. They didn’t have enough to pay for two flights even without the operation and lab equipment. Greg said, “Tyson’s been improving and may not even require surgery. His neurologist Mona Almeida is joining our group. If he needs an operation later, we’ll figure something out. First priority, we agree with you that we have to find Carla and our kids. Over.”
Stephanie squeezed his hand in approval and repressed dark thoughts as her eyes misted up.
Travis took over the handset. “If you think it’s safe, take off as soon as you can. They’ve been on the road since 06:30 and maximum speed will be eighty miles an hour. Track north along Route 95 and once you reach Cobalt, fly in a widening spiral. We’ll be on this frequency every hour from 10:09 until we hear confirmation of your departure time, plus a description of the plane and its tail number. Over.”
“Copy,” Greg said. “73.”
“73.” The transmission ended.
Stephanie cradled a restless Tyson and turned to Matt. “You need to call the pilot and tell him to be on standby starting in an hour and a half.”
“Last night, I confirmed that Alf Salti’s free today,” Matt replied. “He’s a cancer survivor and seldom leaves his house, which is why he’s still alive. But before I call, a full set of lab equipment has to be worth a vaccine before it’s wheels-up.”
“It is if you can take it out of the pilot’s and fuel supplier’s end,” Stephanie said.
“Give Matt the anesthetist’s shot,” Mona said. “I’ll call the hospital and cancel the op. I should pay something to the guards and support people even if we don’t go ahead.”
“How about half?” Stephanie asked. “I’m sure Matt has twenty-five thousand in cash lying around.”
“For that sum, the guards will unlock the medical lab and turn him loose. I’d be surprised if everything you need isn’t right there in the hospital. You won’t have time to disinfect it, but we can clean it at the other end. Don’t expect the guards to help carry that tainted equipment—the hospital lab staff died of Covid-20 in the last three weeks.”
“That’s not a problem,” Matt said. “I have a dolly in the garage.” He turned to Steph and Greg. “I’ll leave you the keys to my Caddy. We’ll meet in ninety minutes at North Las Vegas Airport. Let me get the money and pack a bag. I’ll also need your truck keys.”
Greg handed them over and Meatball Matt was off to the races. “I’ll prep the guards and meet you at the main entrance,” Mona called after him. “Bring that shopping list.”
Greg looked at Steph. “You made the right decision.”
She stared down at her sleeping child’s face. “Our baby’s life is in God’s hands.” Then the floodgates opened.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Let’s Deal
Sunday, July 19, 2020: Spice Land, Idaho; North Las Vegas Airport, Nevada; Route 95 North, Idaho; Idaho County Airport; morning into afternoon
Travis drove the ATV like Matt Damon in a Bourne movie, almost bouncing out one-armed Sal. Both men’s wounds ached from the pounding, but seconds counted. The ATV skidded to a halt in front of the command trailer. Travis hopped out and slung an M-4 while stuffing a spare mag in his shirt. His Glock 17 was ready on his hip. Jaime had returned the magnum revolver to Sal who had it tucked into his trousers.
Andrew came down the steps. “We were shocked to hear that Carla—”
“We don’t have time for that,” Travis snapped. “Arkar made a list last night before they shot Ryan. We need our supplies.”
“I, we, uh, there’s a—” Andrew stammered.
“I know our goods are in two stacks, half in the open and half in the back row under a tarp,” Travis said. “Load up everything and we’ll escort the truck back to our camp.”
“What about the Dark Cure doses and training Carla promised?” Andrew asked. “With her gone, that’s not happening, is it? You’re welching.”
Travis casually looked around and noted the poorly concealed men on the roofs. “You have at least four men hiding with weapons aimed at us. If someone takes a shot, you’re the first person I’ll kill. Do you appreciate that my team suffered one man lost to five KIAs from the same gang who rode in and killed three of yours last night without getting a scratch in return?”
Sal spoke in a restrained voice that offered a way out: “I paid Bob in full in advance for the items listed. You have thirty minutes to load supplies onto a truck with a hydraulic lift. I would further appreciate it if you loaned us a mechanic to help repair our sabotaged vehicles. We also need to borrow that backhoe loader over there. There’s a mass grave to dig for seven bodies, plus we need to lift our overturned supply truck off its side and see if it’ll run. If you can do that, we’ll overlook your bad faith and lack of help.”
Andrew mustered his indignity. “That’s a tall order coming—”
“The pickup’s ready,” Shorty interrupted as he walked up. “We patched all four tires and they hold air. It should run fine, but we don’t have keys.”
“I’ve got ’em,” Travis said as he unshouldered the M-4. “Shorty, I see the men on the roofs have AR-15s. That’s a formidable weapon. After we free our people, while Carla shows you the Dark Cure, I’ll come back here and help train them up. I’m guessing they’ve never seen combat. Best you call them off before someone gets hurt.”
Shorty pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke over Andrew’s objections. “This is Shorty. Stand down and get off the roofs. Everyone meet me at the warehouse in five minutes and bring the flatbed over too. We have pallets to load. Also, fill up the backhoe. If Al’s underneath a truck, tell him that he’ll help the visitors the rest of the day.”
“We’re very much obliged,” Sal said.
“I brought back your rifles and shotgun,” Travis said. “The Winchesters scored three kills; we didn’t fire the twelve-gauge. They’re in the back of the ATV along with the extra ammo.”
“Not a problem,” Shorty said. “Sounds like you put a big dent in the varmint population. One other thing you should know—around 6:30, two vehicles tore ass up the perimeter road. We tracked them on CCTV: a big blue motorhome and a white pickup. They took the turnoff to 95 and went off-camera. I figured that meant bad news for your team. I hope you get Carla back; she seems like a special lady.”
Travis nodded. “I thought you were going to salt the road with spikes or tacks?”
“I was overruled,” Shorty said, tilting his head toward Andrew.
“Shorty, you’ve no authority here,” Andrew said. “Keep this up and your ass will be back in town waiting t
o die.”
“I been lookin’ for better work since the day I started this job.”
“We’re headed to northern Canada after we finish up around here,” Travis said. “We’d love to have you join us.”
“I’ll go pack,” Shorty replied. “See you in ten minutes at the storage shed.”
“I’ll pick you up,” Travis said to Sal. He started up the ATV and drove toward the Silverado.
“We would have died last night if not for Shorty’s help,” Sal said to Andrew. “This morning, had you spiked the road, at minimal risk you’d have stopped a child’s murderer and the abduction of three more children and my niece, the woman who’s your only chance to survive Covid. If you want Spice Land to exist after today, don’t countermand anything Shorty just said. If anyone ever stops here and asks, you never saw us, either.” The Silverado pulled up and Sal hauled himself into the cab by his good arm. The truck headed for the warehouse.
Marsh came down the trailer’s steps and the co-CEOs watched the Silverado pull away. “They’re fucking arrogant, aren’t they?” Marsh asked. “What do you say we scatter that box of roofing nails like Sal wanted and give our boys a lesson in practical combat?”
“We definitely can’t afford to give back their supplies,” Andrew said. “Since Carla’s gone, I don’t give a fuck about any of ’em. All the men, anyway. We could always use fresh women around the place. And that RV would be nice too. Tell the boys not to shoot it up too badly.”
* * * * *
Officially, the National Guard controlled North Las Vegas Airport. Military ATCs occupied control towers nationwide, and the guidelines dictated that nothing flew without Washington’s prior approval. Unofficially, business was brisk because wealthy people who believed that the rules didn’t apply to them often had predilections for gambling, drugs and sex. These types also owned, leased or chartered aircraft, and Vegas was their destination of choice. If the world was ending, what better place than in a jacuzzi with lines of coke on a silver tray and big-titted blondes to hold the straws?
Their pilot was an interesting character. Of mixed English and Jordanian parentage, Alf Salti had made a fortune trading oil, survived lymphoma and decided that life was too short to swap barrels of hydrocarbons for a living. He retired to Vegas and, as a second career, learned to fly both prop planes and executive jets. At the first sign of the pandemic, he’d exported his wife and daughters to the family ski lodge high in the Colorado Rockies. He was well-prepped and the family’s mountain bunker contained five years’ worth of gourmet freeze-dried meals and vintage Grand Crus. Alf would finish locking down his Las Vegas home and fly up to join them soon. The opportunity to obtain Covid-20 immunity was too good to pass up, so he risked life and limb one more time to visit this crazy, corrupt airport.
Cell service was out at NLVA. Matt met Mona and the Fergusons in the parking lot and they merged cargos in the Sierra. In short order, Meatball located the tail number, waved to Alf, and the dance ensued.
A fuel tanker pulled up alongside the plane as Matt and the others loaded supplies. He winced; refueling should have been completed long ago. “That’s Gerry,” Alf explained. “I cut out the middleman and went to the source. He’s the fellow who gets the shot.”
Dr. Almeida disembarked and put needles into Alf and Gerry’s willing arms. Before she could return to the plane, Matt was by her side. “Mona, I want that last shot now. I’ve held up my end of the bargain.”
Mona went back into the plane for the last vial. Matt handed Gerry the keys to the Sierra. “All yours.”
Greg looked at his watch: 11:05. He hopped down the gangway and had a one-minute shortwave conversation with Johnny Gratton at 11:09, confirming a three-to-four o’clock arrival window at Bananas. Johnny said one or more familiar faces would be there to greet them and got back to inventorying weapons. He was short two M-4s, six magazines, the grenade launcher, grenades, two C4 blocks, ball bearings, detcord and remote triggers. Not a great development, but better to know what they were up against than to fly blind.
Alf climbed the gangway to alert the tower of their pending departure. Eleven minutes later, they were airborne with a flight plan approved for a U.S. Geological Services LiDAR survey of Central Idaho’s prehistoric Native American sites.
* * * * *
Once Muller hit the main road, it was pedal to the metal. Grangeville to Lewiston was eighty miles northwest and from there a straight shot up Route 95 hugging the Idaho-Washington border. They passed through nearly deserted Moscow and Worley in short order. Coeur d’Alene popped up on the highway signs as the featured next destination, but they were less than two hundred miles from Spice Land and still too close to relax. Traffic was light, but they saw the first cop car since Winnemucca. After a few nervous miles in their rearview mirrors, Smoky turned off.
Twelve-year-old Schway sat almost catatonic on a bed and held the hands of Juanito and Lupita. They silently contemplated their losses and recent horrors, too frightened to think about anything else. Every couple of hours, one of them used the toilet and quietly sat down again. The short lady with the unpleasant glare was very scary.
Carla sat cable-tied in a captain’s chair while an armed Katerina across from her with a sneer. Carla was eight inches taller and thirty-five pounds heavier than the five-footer and reckoned that she could be on top of the little bitch in two hops. Carla kept doing the math, and she couldn’t see how she could bludgeon Katerina senseless, cut her bonds and grab that pistol in under the ten seconds Muller needed to stop the ’Bago and shoot her dead.
For the time being, Carla’s only weapon was rhetoric. “You should know my people will never let a child murderer live. Even if Muller lets us go, that might not be enough to save your life if you keep being an active accomplice in all of this.”
“What do you suggest, I shoot myself?” Katerina hated everything about Dr. Carla Maggio, from her PhD and glittering work record to her Barbie figure and overweening self-confidence.
“Force Muller to pull over when once we hit the next town. Norris and Burns hate him too, and they’ll keep driving once they see what’s up. You dump him from the RV and I’ll drive us to the nearest police station or military outpost. The kids and I will be safe and you can keep the RV. So long as you stay away from my group, I give you my word that we won’t come after you.”
“Your word? Oh, my. That’s really special,” Katerina hissed. She looked at the equipment laid out on the countertop. She remembered the recorded instructions on the laptop Muller had safely secured in the RV when the shit hit the fan at the campground. “Rolf! We don’t need this cunt to finish the Cure! I have all I need. She’s a distraction. If you slow down, I’ll leave her dead ass in a ditch.”
* * * * *
Team Spice Land met Sal’s demands in full. Jaime insisted he was well enough to man the Saw, releasing Tom to help Johnny and the others. The men worked on cargo or vehicles while the women buried Melvin and Tina doubled-up in a proper grave close to where Kyaw lay entombed. As Pat observed, “God must want the best people by His side because He so often calls them home first.”
The backhoe operator used his shovel to prop the supply truck upright before scooping the outlaws’ bodies into a sandy pit and covering their plastic-wrapped remains with rubble. Al-the-mechanic declared the Telluride, the supply truck and the Forza ’Bago roadworthy a little after one-thirty. Travis, Sal and Shorty commended the two Spice Landers and sent them back.
Al-mechanic offered to stop by the Harleys on his way back, pop in sparkplugs and see if anything in his box of fuses fit. Any bike that ran, he’d move into the road and leave the key or fob on the seat.
The supply goods truck ran, but the power steering didn’t work and the suspension was shot. Diesel and gasoline drums and pallets of bottled water and food combined with the original cargo to fill the back. Derek took it for a test drive and maxed it out at thirty miles an hour on the perimeter gravel track. Extrapolating, he figured fifty mph tops o
n a paved road.
Sal took stock of the 3M’s diminished flock. No one had an active Covid infection except possibly Rosa, and she claimed she was much improved. Jaime had already said he’d take her in the Telluride along with Arkar, Zarni and Yonten. Derek and Tom would wrestle with the crippled supply truck. Travis would team up with Shorty, Tien and Johnny in the Silverado. That left Sal, Erinn, Barb, Pat, Kyle and the Fergusons, plus the newcomers Mona and Matt, for the ten-person green sleeper RV. But where would they head?
The men took a late lunch, and Sal convened another town hall. “The last time we met like this, our world was very different. Our common mission, the safe return of our kidnapped friends and family, unites us. However, as before, I think the best approach is for us to split up.”
Several loud voices, among them Jaime and Derek’s, interrupted in disagreement.
“Hear me out, please,” Sal said. “There are two important pieces of information to be aware of. First, the fuel, food, goods and weapons in that white truck are vital to the 3M. It will travel much slower than we would like. We’ll have to replace it once we have the children and Carla back. For now, it needs to be guarded and moved only by night. Let’s make a virtue out of a necessity by pairing the green Winnebago with the truck and sending them north tonight to wait near the Canada border.”
“What about Steph, Greg and Tyson?” Barb asked as she topped off a paper cup with a half-empty bottle of wine.
“I’m coming to that. As most of you know, Stephanie and Greg are flying up here from Las Vegas. Johnny spoke to them a little after eleven. They’re due to land at a nearby airfield between three and four o’clock. We can be there in a half-hour, so we have plenty of time. I propose to put all the new arrivals into the Winnebago. We’ll pick up another vehicle along the way north.