Chaingang

by Rex Miller

  “I'd like to open 421, please,” she told the woman at the counter, who admitted them to a huge, dimly lit room full of locked vaults and screened partitions. Sam had rented one of the partitions. They didn't spend long inside—it was about the temperature of a meat locker—and the old gun, wrapped in a blanket and then fastened with wire, was the solitary occupant of the partition.

  Mary teared up a little but made it okay, and they took the long package with them and returned to the motel.

  She was sound asleep before Royce had the wire off the blanket. He had to bite his tongue to keep from waking her when he found the roll of paper.

  Sam Perkins had taken the Ramparts material and his notes, laid all the correspondence and documentation in a pile, and rolled it into a tight cylinder, with a plastic sheet around the outside of the papers so that it would slide in and out of the old musket.

  Royce worked on the papers and the notes for three hours, finally waking Mary about the time it was getting dark. He was scared shitless, and had to talk to her about it. For the first time he had some glimmer of a notion as to just how much trouble they were in.

  “Hi,” she said, her pretty face wreathed in a silky tangle of hair, still half-asleep. “How long—what time is it?” He told her. “Did you sleep?” she asked.

  “No. I found out why...” He started over. “I think I know what happened to Sam."

  He told her about the roll of papers hidden away inside the big barrel of the old rifle.

  “Do you remember someone named Leonard Schuette or Lenny Schuette—someone Sam knew?"

  “He went to school with him. Lenny Schuette—I heard him mention the name. He called him ‘Lenny the Spook.’ He was supposed to be with the State Department or something—a political strategist or, you know, that kind of thing."

  “He was the one Sam kept calling. All those calls were to him. He was in military intelligence. They'd been in college together—right?"

  “Yeah.” Some of the haze cleared. “He ... uh, called Sam once ... I forget—"

  “Sam apparently had stayed in touch with him, or at least he knew how to track him down. He was suspicious of the deal—the land thing. It was a hush-hush operation with code names and stuff, and he thought there was something very fishy about it. He had Lenny Schuette check it out, and the word was it was a U.S. government training center for covert operations. Schuette said it was supposed to be a school for assassination. Sam wanted to blow the whistle on it, and either he had talked a few of the landowners out of the deal, telling them what their land was going to be used for, or they were people who had not agreed to sell.

  “I've tried to put it all together, and my guess is that they had Sam and Luther and the others killed."

  “The government did?"

  “Not the government, a faction of total crazies within the intelligence community—fanatics who thought having a force of trained killers would protect us against other countries, against terrorists, against traitors—"

  “You mean Ecoworld isn't about drugs at all?"

  “I don't know. Who the hell knows?"

  “Who can we go to about this?"

  “I don't know that either."

  “My God."

  “Yeah. Exactly."

  “Could we contact Lenny Schuette—tell him about what happened to Sam?"

  “How? The number's a dead end. Who's to say they didn't get that guy as well? Everyone who's stood up to them has vanished. These are people who look at assassination as the logical solution to every problem."

  “But those chemicals—” She couldn't sort it all out in her mind, and he wasn't much help.

  “For all I know, making drugs was going to be a sideline. I still say it looked like they were putting together a crack lab. But let's say it is going to be a training school for government assassins. That implies that the Feds, the DEA, ATF, the CIA, the DIA—the damn Sheriff's Benevolent Society of Greater Podunk—everybody could be part of the cover-up."

  Her hands tightened on a piece of paper. One of Sam's notes. He could read the word “Ramparts."

  “We'd better go back to the cabin. It's too dangerous to stay here.” She nodded numbly, and they got in the old car and started back in the direction of Whitetail.

  31

  NORTH OF WATERTON

  He hated everything about the monkey people, but one of the things he loathed the most about this alien planet was, there were fewer and fewer places to find true isolation. When one was anywhere near urban centers, it took an increasing amount of effort to find raw chunks of emptiness where one's thoughts and privacy would not be invaded by the loud laughter and grating voices of the imbeciles who populated every corner of the globe.

  How he despised their blank faces brimming with confidence and herd instinct. The cleansing of the lonely places invariably renewed him—made him feel whole again.

  Their crap, which they dropped everywhere in a nauseating litter of garish billboards, empty beer cans, and discarded TV sets, followed him everywhere, it seemed. Even back of beyond the monkeys came, laughing and chittering and taking one another's pictures.

  Chaingang was irritated to begin with, at the prospect of having to go through the enormous effort of relocation, but it was time to go. His sensors felt them closing the net. He knew he was no longer safe. Whatever he'd been a part of was drawing to an end.

  This was his dark mood as he waddled to his ride, removed the huge camouflaged bush-net from it, and squeezed his blubber-gut behind the wheel, starting the car and pulling out down the gravel road in a northbound direction.

  He had one more small chore to attend to, and then he could be on his way. There was the small matter of misdirection, for which he would now prepare. He would find a safe, isolated spot to hunker down for the night, far away from the sharecropper shack. Take care of the last-minute details tomorrow, then be about his business.

  He turned on a country road that looked fetchingly untraveled, and followed it up over a steep embankment where it dead-ended abruptly. The other side of the tall bank was covered in weeds. An abandoned pasture, perhaps?

  Turning off the motor, he eased his bulk out from behind the wheel and got out of the car, unzipping his fly and urinating carelessly in the direction of the road behind him. A stinking stream of pee splashed across the gravel, and he noticed, as a few drops of urine fell onto his 15EEEEE combat boots, a detail he'd overlooked. Rather astonishingly, to him, he realized that he had to be bugged in some way.

  It was so obvious that it was amusing he hadn't bothered to consider it. Clearly those watching and manipulating him would have taken the precaution of marking him in some discernible way. He thought immediately of the most practical methods, rejecting each as he did so: A marked car was out—he'd switched them; a hidden homing device in his gear was out—too much chance of being discarded. It had to be his clothing.

  What would be the most difficult thing for Daniel Bunkowski to replace? His enormous pants, belt, shirt, and custom-made gunboats. He smiled venomously at the thought, walking over to examine a brightly colored object that had caught his eye.

  It was a plastic wrapper. Cheap stuff. Day-Glo pink. Wrapped around some sort of food advertisement. His stomach rumbled at the thought of groceries as he idly unwrapped the ads, glancing at the listings of munchies while he considered his next move. If there was a current newspaper here, that meant there'd be a dwelling close at hand, so it wasn't an abandoned pasture after all. No mailbox. Maybe there'd be a cottage tucked away behind those trees. Should he investigate or move along? He took pleasure from reading about food:

  Butter and eggs, beans and bacon, cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake. Somewhere between the Velveeta and the hot pepper cheese, the word CONSPIRACY caught his eye.

  “WE BELIEVE THAT THE MURDERS OCCURRING IN THIS COMMUNITY MAY BE DIRECTLY LINKED TO THE CLANDESTINE DRUG LAB'S CONSTRUCTION.” His coughing bark shook his gigantic stomach like a bowl full of jelly.

  Those arrogant
fools. The second he fed the words into his computer, he matched it to a newspaper story he'd read about an unlikely construction project, and felt the hot juices dripping through his thoughts. He saw himself in the house where he'd had a live one, reading about a monkey “theme park called Ecoworld.” It stretched his face into a fierce mask of hatred when he read about the poisoned dog.

  They wanted a scapegoat, it seemed. One who could be put into play to divert attention from whatever lame nonsense they were concocting.

  No. He didn't think so. Instead he thought he might go sniff around this construction project and see if he couldn't help them with their problem. If people thought there was a conspiracy afoot, then obviously the monkeys needed a helping hand. Perhaps he could redecorate the thing.

  First things first. He unbuckled his belt, a huge thing big as a blacksnake whip, and began taking his custom-made boots and voluminous pants off.

  It took him all of three minutes to find the small devices, which he knew must be microbugs, that his benefactors had secreted in his clothing. No wonder they knew exactly where he was at all times. In due course he would eliminate that bothersome problem too.

  32

  WATERTON

  If Royce's fears alone had been ruling him, it might have ended differently, but he was bone-weary. He just couldn't go through the long hassle of driving all the way out Market to the back road, taking another twenty minutes of driving to get to Whitetail Pond, especially tonight, with the headlight glare as blinding as he could remember seeing it. Maybe he needed glasses for night driving—or perhaps he was just more tired than he had realized.

  He decided to take Cotton to W.W. south, and that was how they picked him up. The car must have come fishtailing all over W.W. when it pulled out, which in fact is how he happened to notice it, headlights all over the highway in his rearview, coming like a bat out of hell, one second two little dots of fishtailing lights, the next second some fool with his high beams right in Royce's eyes.

  Then the lights disappeared, but the inside of his ride lit up. They were on top of Royce's car! He swore just as they cracked him hard, reaching out with his right hand to catch Mary, slamming his foot to the gas, swerving left to right as the car stayed with him, dangerously close.

  “Get that safety belt on!"

  “Who is—"

  “Do it!” he screamed, catching a glimpse of the car enough to see what it was as the cars shot past a bright yard light. Not that there was any doubt who was behind them.

  “Shit,” he said, his foot to the floorboard, “it's Happy.” Happy Ruiz, and, for all he knew, a load of bikers. The black LTD. Happy with his foot in the carburetor, both of them with the pedals mashed, Royce's needle crawling in the direction of 110. Then 115 mph as they rocketed down the long, straight stretch of W.W. southbound.

  He took the curve before he got to Industrial and careened around the curving road in the direction of Ecoworld, trying his best to shake them. Royce's weird car, a 1970 Ranchero junker, was painted in a charming shade of murrey primer and mismatched paint. A brownish, purple-black sort of rotten mulberry color, with tints of mauve, lilac, purple, and violet were all visible along with the rust. But that was on the outside.

  He had one of the last models made with a 351 Cleveland high-performance engine. Once in a rare while a ‘69 or ‘70 would surface in a junkyard; an old Ranchero with that original big-block Cleveland in there. Compression ratio like a damn diesel. Four-barrel-carb gas-sucker—and in this case, Royce'd had a guy bore it and cut a high-lift cam to make it step out and pony. They dropped a four-eleven rear end in the lady, and she could flat out strut to the party!

  The first shot hit the tailgate as they were almost on the next straightaway, inching toward 120, and you take a round moving that fast, it's like somebody bounced a concrete block off one of the fenders.

  There was another bark, and the back window spider-tracked. Whoever was doing the shooting was damn good—too damn good!

  “We're going off."

  “Jesus!"

  “Hold on!"

  “You're going too fast! We won't make it!"

  “Hang tough!” he shouted, as much for his own courage as anything, praying to God—with both hands clenching the wheel in a death grip—getting ready to reach down and yank the taillight wire.

  He'd had it rigged so he could jerk the wire if somebody was right behind him, and in theory you could tap the brake and the car in pursuit would be denied that extra half-second warning before it had to duplicate your sharp, high-speed turn.

  All that's well and good in theory, but in actual practice, doing 120 miles per fucking hour down some dark road, in a 1970 Ranchero, with Happy Ruiz on your case—you reach down and jerk something, it's likely to be the ignition wiring or your dick!

  It was a two-handed job, just to keep it from rolling as they went fishtailing like a bandit, swerving down onto a stretch of service road leading into Ecoworld, those brights still in his eyes as he zoomed past crop stubble and onto concrete—miraculously, rubber side down.

  33

  ECOWORLD

  The beast waited, having parked at the edge of the vast sprawl of construction. He'd spotted an old smokehouse and penetrated it, wrapped himself in cammo tarp and let the darkness close in around him.

  He was waiting for his night eyes. It was still very black. Stars were barely visible out there in the measureless void. But he simply shut his internal engines down and relaxed, thinking of a time when he'd waited for a night ambush very far away. He pictured the mist that clung to the jungle floor, watching it swirl through the darkening foliage like a cottony, solid thing, as he waited for the ones he would kill. It was pleasant to fantasize about these things, and the time passed quickly for him.

  The moon had come back out, and inside the small, ramshackle smokehouse he watched clouds move across the killer's moon, and remembered the house where Mrs. Irby lived, where he'd filled his tanks and watched dust motes falling like snow imprisoned in an antique paperweight. He was in a fine mood again, and with a massive grunt he lurched to his feet and waddled down toward the nearest concrete, the full weight of his weapons and munitions cases in hand.

  There were two guards, and they were both imbeciles. Amateurs. He ignored them and went about his business. Setting timers on HBX haversacks, wiring the satchel charges, moving closer to the guards all the while.

  His strange mind computed cone diameters, air cavity physics, jet energy statistics. One of his areas of expertise was improvised shaped charges utilizing high-velocity explosives.

  He pulled a ‘nade from his voluminous coat and felt the notched spoon. Good. One of the short-fused jobs. He was just starting to fasten it to one of his bomb devices when the car shot by. An old junker of some kind—looked like a Ranchero—kids hot-rodding, he assumed.

  The guard closest to the access road opened up with a machine gun, spraying everything in that general direction as the car sped by, and Chaingang flung himself behind the nearest concrete wall, the grenade falling to the ground—fortunately with the pin in place—and rolling.

  Just as he started to peer around to see how near the guard was, here came another car, roaring out of nowhere! More gunfire whocked off the surrounding walls. These intrusions were not to be tolerated. Grimly Chaingang reached for the duffel and his long-range killing tool.

  They were going too fast, even on the concrete, blasting through the Ecoworld construction project, every separation between the footings feeling like sledgehammers bouncing off the Ranchero's rusting frame. Happy was right on him.

  “Oh, fuck!” A wall. It was ending—the fucking thing was dead-ending!

  “Stop!"

  “Stay down!” There was no room to maneuver or turn around, and Happy would plow right into them. He reached down and yanked the wire—by luck hit the one to the taillights—then mashed the brake, holding Mary and gritting his teeth for the crash. But Ruiz was damn good. He slammed him, but he was on his own brake, and t
he cars skidded to a halt.

  “Run, Mary! Get behind the wall!” It was their one chance.

  “I can't. The door's stuck. Oh God!"

  “Come on—” He tried to pull her, got her arm but she was at an angle, and it took an instant longer than it should have to get her out on his side. Happy and Luis were on them. Both held MAC-11s. “Wait! She isn't part of—” He was in the middle of a shouted plea when Ruiz and Londoño were stitched in half, literally.

  He and Mary were almost dead. They were greased. And suddenly two dudes with guns turn to bloody dead meat, right before their eyes.

  Royce forced himself to move. Made himself kick one of the MAC-11 shooters away from the bodies. Picked it up. That's when he saw the giant. His skin crawled as he looked into the face of “Bigfoot,” the Goliath he'd seen on Willow River Road that day. If he thought the dude was big from across a blacktop, he was breathtaking up close. The largest man he'd ever seen, not just tall but big, a giant of a fat man with a weapon of some kind, looking at him with those same hard eyes; he could see them in a reflection of moonlight, and he'd never forget the look on that face as the huge man calmly began loading a magazine into his empty piece.

  Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski never saw the guard. He was too occupied shooting these monkey intruders. But his warning sensors let him know the nearest guard, the one without the dog, was right in back of him, about to squeeze the trigger, when this other monkey man raised a weapon and fired a magazine off in the guard's direction, saving his life.

  Chaingang clicked the next mag into his SKS, but by then the first car of monkeys was pulling away and he concentrated on the other guard. He had to get out of there soon. His inner clock was ticking at him. He saw the dog coming first and squatted down and got something, putting his weapon beside him. He took the dog from a balanced position, but it still nearly knocked him over—such was the power of the dog's spring at the moment of attack.