Server Down

by J. M. Hayes

  The boy didn’t comply and didn’t speak. Just waved his hands in that strange manner once again.

  “You can come down and cooperate. Help me get this thing stopped and under control right now. Or I can come up there and give you reasons to help.” There it was, the Wyatt Earp threat, even if the sheriff really couldn’t imagine beating on the kid, no matter what the circumstances. Well, no serious blows, anyway.

  Didn’t matter. The kid stayed where he was and waved again.

  “Damn!” the sheriff said. He balanced his walker and the shotgun and started across the yard. It was a long walk, clumsy for a man whose legs didn’t work right and who had to manipulate a walker while he held onto a shotgun as well. He was beginning to wish he’d left the weapon on the seat of his cruiser. After all, there was no indication he’d need it to arrest a teen who was just sitting on a porch.

  That teen was madly waving his hands, though, back and forth, but just from the wrists as if the rest of his arms were attached to the chair. The sheriff paused and squinted and finally saw the strip of duct tape across the boy’s mouth. And more duct tape that firmly held Cole’s legs to those of the chair. Probably, his arms, at the wrist, to the arms of the chair, as well.

  Maybe his daughters were right. Maybe he really did need to get some eyeglasses.

  “Don’t move, sheriff.”

  The voice wasn’t Cole’s. It came from near the house, over by a corner that wasn’t lit by the beams of the cruiser’s headlights. It was a familiar voice, though. Frank Ball’s.

  The sheriff slowly swung the barrels of his gun in Ball’s direction.

  “You threatening me, Frank?”

  “No, sir. I’m not.”

  “You tape Cole Macklin to that chair?”

  “No, sir.” The boy’s voice was surprisingly small to come from such a large body. “I just discovered him a little bit ago, before I cut the power to this place. Cut the cable, too, and ruined their satellite dish, just in case. They’re off line for sure, Sheriff. That part’s safe.”

  “Then why are you telling me not to move?”

  “That lawn, Sheriff. After he trussed his little brother up in that chair, Billy Macklin mined it with some of those Bouncing Betties.”

  ***

  It wasn’t easy for Heather to follow that wolf, even in Matus’ much faster 4Runner. Hailey didn’t limit her route to streets. Heather had to. In the central city, houses, fences, walls, trees, and giant cacti limited even a four-wheel-drive. So Heather followed when she could and guessed when she couldn’t. But she and Ms. Jardine managed to keep Hailey in sight occasionally. In fact, they always seemed to catch a glimpse of Hailey just when they needed it most. It was as if the wolf purposefully showed herself to keep them from getting lost.

  They crossed Speedway, then threaded the maze of red brick and towering palms that defined the University of Arizona. Most of the campus streets were closed to through traffic, a fact Hailey and Heather ignored. At this unholy hour, they encountered no other drivers, students, or even campus police to care.

  South of the campus, they zigged west toward Tucson High School.

  “You know,” Ms. Jardine said, ever the history teacher, “they built the university first. This was the first high school in Arizona Territory, but it didn’t open its doors till after the university.”

  The knowledge was of very little help when Hailey chose to cut south again, across Tucson High’s football field. Heather made a left at the next street and hoped. She got it right. Hailey continued her southwesterly course and crossed Third Avenue just ahead of the 4Runner.

  “Nice work,” Ms. Jardine said.

  “I think I’ve got her figured,” Heather replied, dodging right when Hailey, as expected, cut west again on Eighth Street.

  “I believe you do, but….” There was admiration in the woman’s voice, and something else as well.

  “What?” Heather asked, throwing the SUV around a corner onto Fourth Avenue.

  Streetcar rails ran down the center of Fourth. They protruded above the roadway and grabbed the Toyota’s knobby tires. The vehicle tried to turn a lot more suddenly than it was designed for. The driver’s-side wheels went into the air as the SUV did its best to roll over. Heather fought the steering wheel and managed to get all four tires back down on the road.

  “Wow!” Ms. Jardine said as they bounced to a halt. “You might want to think about a career in stunt driving.”

  Hailey cut across a parking lot in front of a night club on their right. Fourth Avenue was closed ahead of them.

  “That’s what I was about to tell you,” Ms. Jardine said. “Urban renewal.”

  The Fourth Avenue viaduct, where it went under the railroad tracks, was being reconstructed.

  Heather followed Hailey into the parking lot. What had once been an exit onto the street paralleling the tracks was blocked by chain-link fence. Hailey ducked under it and kept going. Heather hit the brakes just in time to avoid hitting the fence.

  “Damn! Which way do I go?”

  “Got me,” Ms. Jardine said as Hailey made her way through the mess of dirt and rubble the ongoing construction had created just beyond. The wolf climbed the grade to the tracks and disappeared on the far side of the berm. “There isn’t another crossing till four blocks northwest of here, or maybe ten blocks east and south.”

  “Shit!” Heather said. She jammed the 4Runner in all-wheel-drive and followed Hailey’s path. The Toyota was way too big for the opening Hailey had navigated, but Heather thought it was powerful enough to create its own. It wasn’t. The chain-link caught the truck’s front bumper and slewed it around and one of the tires found a hole to drop into. And that was it. The Toyota wasn’t going anywhere else without the help of a tow truck.

  “Well, don’t just sit there, kid,” Ms. Jardine said. “Your uncle may need you.”

  The woman could be right. Heather threw the door open and hit the ground running.

  ***

  Delay?” Parker said. She knew the lexicon. Delay meant there’d been a screw up. Something was wrong and she wanted to know what it was.

  Dempsey stepped closer to her car and waved in the general direction of the Ronstadt Transit Center. “Hey. It’s nothing. He’s in a building nearby. We’ve got him, but he hasn’t been secured yet. They just want us to wait a….”

  “Bullshit!” Parker said. “You’re acting chief. You don’t wait for anybody. And Matus and I, we’re here because we can persuade Mad Dog to give himself up. If he’s not secured, you need us in there now.”

  “Cool down, Sergeant.” Dempsey leaned in her window and got in her face. “You’re right. I decide who waits and when. Right now, that’s you.”

  “You don’t decide for me, Chief Dempsey,” Matus said. He pushed his door open, on the verge of getting out. Parker thought he probably would have done so if he’d known where to go.

  And suddenly, all that was peripheral for Sergeant Parker. Something big and silver-grey and lightning-fast flashed across the street on four legs, about a block in front of her. She recognized the wolf even though it had been four years and a thousand miles since they last met.

  “Hailey,” she whispered.

  Dempsey was confused, “What?”

  Matus turned her way, curious.

  “Shut the door,” she told the Sewa. “Please step away from my window and watch your feet, Chief.”

  Matus obeyed. The chief’s face just darkened as he started to sputter something. She didn’t give him enough time to say anything comprehensible. She yanked the selector into gear and hit the accelerator—hard, but not quite hard enough to lay rubber.

  The doorpost bumped the chief out of her window. The growl of her engine made his shout incomprehensible. She’d find out later whether the rear tires had missed his feet.

  Something had gone wrong with this effort to take Mad Dog prisoner and Dempsey had been lying about it. She and Matus hadn’t been able to do anything because they hadn’t known where t
o go. They’d had no choice but to wait. That changed when Hailey streaked across the street ahead of them. The wannabe Cheyenne Shaman had an uncommon bond with that animal. Dempsey be damned. If she could follow Hailey, the wolf would lead them straight to Mad Dog.

  “What…?” Matus echoed Dempsey’s query. Parker threw the vehicle around a corner, fast, but again, avoided breaking tires loose. Close—she had a feeling they were close and she didn’t want to announce their presence. Dempsey would probably take care of that, but they might gain some minutes.

  “There.” She took one hand off the wheel for a second and pointed.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yeah. Mad Dog’s wolf.”

  The street was meant for one-way traffic going the other way. There was no traffic so it didn’t matter. Hailey took the first right and Parker used the advantage of the unmarked unit’s horsepower to close in behind her. Hailey went left and Parker followed and then Hailey wasn’t there anymore. Parker’s foot came off the accelerator.

  “In there,” Matus said, pointing.

  In there was an old department store. The owners had gone out of downtown, and then out of business, decades ago. The building, now a vivid chartreuse, had been converted into a multi-story parking garage. Parker stopped, considered the arm of the gate that kept her car out but hadn’t even slowed the wolf. She maneuvered into a spot that blocked, as best she could, all the entrance and exit lanes.

  “Let’s go,” she said, but Matus was already out his door, rounding the hood, and ducking under the wooden arm. Parker drew her SIG Sauer and followed.

  ***

  Mad Dog heard that buzzing again. It made a nice harmony with what was going on inside his head. The man who seemed to be in charge of his execution squad, the guy in the suit, reached for his cell again, put it to his ear, said, “Yeah?”

  Outside, Mad Dog heard a car, moving fast, coming this way from the sound of it.

  “Coming here?” the detective said. The man sounded surprised. The uniforms stepped away from the wall they’d been leaning against and listened intently.

  “What about Macklin?” The man’s voice was agitated. Something was happening. Their plans were changing. Mad Dog wasn’t foolish enough to think it would make things better for him. He considered testing his arms and legs. He was going to have to do whatever he could very soon. But the detective was looking right at him as the man folded his phone shut. Mad Dog decided he didn’t want to know if his arms and legs wouldn’t work. Either they’d function and he’d make a break for it, or….

  “Dempsey says Parker and Matus are on their way,” the guy in the suit told the uniforms. “Says this guy’s got some kind of big dog and it ran by and they’re following it. Here, apparently. Says we should do what we have to do. The hell with Macklin.”

  Hailey? Coming here? And bringing a posse in her wake? He felt a flood of hope. A flash of dread, too. The wolf and the people following her might get killed because of him.

  “Leave him where he lies,” the detective said. “Bait. They’ll come up the stairwell or the ramp. You two, get your guns out. You’re guarding this guy. You just caught him and ordered him to the ground. I’m going up the stairs to the next level. I’ll cover you from there. Get their backs to me and I’ll do the shooting…unless something goes wrong. Then take them down any way you have to.”

  “Right,” one of the uniforms said.

  “What about the dog?” the other asked.

  The detective was already climbing the stairs. Outside, that hurrying car stopped, went quiet. Doors slammed.

  “There still any charge in that taser of yours?”

  The uniform who’d brought Mad Dog in shook his head.

  “In mine,” his partner said.

  “Then just stop it for now. Quietly,” the detective said. “We’ll kill it later.”

  ***

  Bull!” Sheriff English said. “Nobody had time to turn this lawn into a mine field.”

  “There aren’t many,” Frank Ball said. “We didn’t have many left after we set off a bunch of ordnance up in the sand hills. But Billy Macklin knew things were coming apart. He knew you’d be here soon, so he set his little brother up on that porch to draw you into a trap.”

  “Bull,” English said again and took another step.

  The kid on the porch waved his hands again, frantically. Frank Ball yelled, “No, really.”

  A bunch of local teenagers couldn’t have gotten their hands on Vietnam era mines. But they had. One mine had been part of the cobbled together bomb that blew the windows out of the sheriff’s office…and killed the man who threw it. Another had been on the front seat of that man’s pickup—with the sheriff’s name almost literally on it.

  “Don’t you see?” Ball said. “It’s like in the game. You locate a treasure, only it’s on an island in the middle of a burning lake. You’ve got to find a magician who knows the spell that raises a bridge and gets you there and back safely. Games—that’s how Billy thinks.”

  “Games? And I suppose Cole’s having fun being tied up on a porch behind a minefield?”

  “I’m not arguing with you, Sheriff. I’m still trying to get my head around this being real. But I’ve done everything I could to shut things down since I realized it might not all be imaginary.”

  The sheriff shook his head, trying to comprehend dead people and loved ones at risk because some kids had confused fantasy and reality in a twisted amusement.

  “I promise you, none of the guys thought we were involved in more than an elaborate game. Cole? He must know by now, being in the position he is. But he’s our genius. And even if he should have known all this was real, I think he just got caught up in the challenge of making it work.”

  “Just a kids’ game,” the sheriff said.

  “Well, Billy started it. Got a relative in Tucson to provide the front money. If it’s real, Billy has to know it. And his daddy and the people here backing the ethanol plant—they’d have known some of it. That must be why Billy set this trap for you. To give them time to make a run for the Caribbean and those numbered accounts before everything comes apart.”

  “Why leave Cole at such risk?”

  “Jealousy. Billy invented the game, got the money from Arizona to start things, but it took Cole to make it really work. I don’t think Billy ever forgave him for that. Their dad, he doesn’t know about this part. He thinks Cole’s spending the night at my place. And, probably, that Cole’s too young to be in serious trouble and can just join them later.”

  “Where is the supervisor? Where are Billy and Dana and the rest of them?”

  “The ethanol company keeps a Cessna jet parked in the shed at the airport.”

  Buffalo Springs’ airport consisted of a bladed north-south strip where half a dozen local farmers kept small planes. No tower, no lights, nothing more than some flat ground and a tattered windsock. Lots of flat ground, actually.

  “All of us but Cole and Billy just worked on pieces of the game. I did elections. Kevin moved money. Isaac looked for hit men and clients. That leaves you just one person who knows how everything fits together,” Ball said. “One who might stop our assassin, if he’s still out there trying for a kill.”

  “Cole?” the sheriff said, knowing it couldn’t be anyone else.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which means I’ve got to navigate a mine field and get him off that porch, only you don’t know where the mines are or you’d have gotten him loose yourself.”

  “Yup. I only got here in time to see Billy and Dana plant the last one.”

  “And where was that, Frank?”

  “Well, sir, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s right about where you’re standing.”

  ***

  Mad Dog knew this had to be the time. Parker and Matus were in the building, headed into a trap. Hailey was here too, and equally at risk. He tensed some muscles, relaxed them, and found that they’d responded. A little sluggishly, but it wasn’t like he could take more
time to let them recover. It had to be now.

  The detective was way beyond his reach, perched up in the stairwell where he had a clear view of Mad Dog. The uniformed officers had positioned themselves on either side of him as if he were a dangerous suspect they’d just put on the floor but hadn’t gotten around to cuffing. They weren’t really watching him because they weren’t afraid of him. Their eyes shifted back and forth between the ramp and the stair case. What they feared was who or what might come from one of those places. If Mad Dog’s muscles responded as well as he hoped, he could probably get to one of them before the other shot him. Or tasered him. Or simply knocked him over the head. And if none of those things happened, the guy in the stairwell could take him out. But it wouldn’t let them stay quiet. Interrupting the stillness required for their impending trap was the only thing he had going for him. If he made trouble, made some noise, he might spoil their plans…. Or make them more effective by bringing his rescuers running.

  “Damn!” Mad Dog thought the curse had only been in his mind at first. Then he realized the cops were looking at each other, trying to figure out who’d uttered the oath. And the one on the level above had a finger to his lips.

  His body had failed to work for so long that Mad Dog hadn’t considered simply shouting. His voice would carry well. The building was unnaturally silent. He couldn’t hear anyone climbing those stairs. He couldn’t hear Hailey clawing concrete. All he could hear were the two cops beside him, breathing hard, excited, anticipating the kill. That and another car. Coming fast—faster than the last one. Fast enough for its tires to break loose on turns. It was right outside. He heard brakes, a thump, the splintering sound of someone driving through one of the wooden gates down at street level. He didn’t have a clue who this might be, but apparently still more company was coming to his execution.

  “What the…?” one of the uniforms whispered. The other shrugged, and then broke into one of the least welcoming smiles Mad Dog had ever seen.

  “Sergeant Parker,” he said, turning to the stairwell. “Look what we just bagged.”

  Parker’s head emerged above the level of the concrete floor. So did her gun. There was no sign of Matus yet. Or Hailey. But tires howled down below as someone circled the building, taking corners as fast as they could. The detective directly above Parker leaned down, aiming.