Wipeout | Book 4 | Overdrawn

by Richards, E. S.

  “Yeah,” Hank nodded. “They’ll be here in a minute.”

  “Good,” Danny smirked again. “I can’t wait for Jeff to see what a rat you turned out to be.”

  Standing just behind his husband, Austin fought back against the urge to lunge at Hank as the young man walked past him. He was armed as well, but Austin doubted whether he could get the gun from Hank before Danny fired his. Samuel, Meghan and the three boys were all hiding upstairs – there was no doubt that Hank would find them all and while Austin wanted to do anything he could to protect his little boy, he could see he was at a disadvantage and any movement could put Bowie’s life in danger.

  “Whoa, Danny! There’s loads of them up here!” Hank’s voice shouted from upstairs.

  Austin winced and tried to calm down. There were still only two of them at the house, if Hank brought Samuel downstairs then that would give them the advantage and the chance to overwhelm them. The idea lingered temptingly in Austin’s mind for a second until he heard the whimpering of his little boy on the stairs behind him. Any aggressive rebuttal was out of the question with Bowie around. If anything happened to him – or either of the other two boys – Austin would never be able to forgive himself.

  “Quite the party you’ve been having here, Dante,” Danny teased. “Shame our invitations got lost in the mail – sounds like we’re all here now, though.”

  A car screeched to a halt outside, followed by the sound of doors opening and slamming shut and four sets of feet thundering toward the house. The men came in armed to the teeth, like a swat team prepared to disable an enemy threat. One man stood out as the leader; a belt of ammo worn diagonally across his chest like some insane survivalist gunman. The other three flanked his sides, two moving over to the stairs and aiming their weapons at Samuel, Meghan and the now crying children, while the last remained loyally behind his leader, stepping in his footsteps like a well-trained dog. As they all took up their positions, a stalemate ensued and everyone waited to see who would have the first word.

  “Jeff please,” Dante knew he had to do everything he could to protect his family while he had a chance. He knew Jeff would go to ridiculous lengths and wouldn’t care about hurting any of them. If he could reason with him first, then maybe, just maybe, they would stand a chance.

  “I can explain,” Dante continued. “Austin is my husband. He was only trying to get back to us. You’ve got to believe me, he never meant to cause any trouble, I swear. He was only –”

  “Shut. Up.” Jeff spoke with such authority, Dante was intimidated into silence. Jeff looked at him and shook his head, tutting with his tongue in disappointment.

  “I had such high hopes for you, Dante,” he sighed. “I had really hoped you could be a part of our group and get behind what we’re trying to do here. Your idea with the wall was genius – it demonstrated a strength in you that I didn’t think existed at first. Now I know I was mistaken – that wasn’t strength at all, it was cowardice.”

  “Jeff…”

  “Say another word and I’ll shoot you right here,” Jeff snapped, lifting his gun and holding it just a couple of inches away from Dante’s forehead. He froze immediately, sucking in his lips and quivering as he stared directly at the deadly weapon in his face.

  The look on Jeff’s face was crazed and power hungry as he aimed his pistol at Dante and looked around the room, taking in everyone that was there. Austin stood with his hands balled into fists by his sides as he wrestled against the urge to act and protect his husband and son. Samuel watched the scene with wide eyes as he tried to comfort Mason and Noah, both boys hugging him in fright and begging to go home. Meghan cradled Bowie in her arms and looked at her own son, standing so defiantly in the way of his family and doing everything he could to protect them. His love far outweighing the fear he felt.

  Jeff sneered at it all and huffed, shaking his head from side to side as he uttered two words.

  “Grab them.”

  Chapter 5

  Walter held up his fist to indicate to the officers with him to stop and wait. He raised the binoculars to his face. It didn’t look dangerous from the periphery, but he had encountered enough terror across the city since the collapse that he wasn’t going to lead a team in without properly checking it out first.

  He scanned the illegal market for any hostiles. The market was set up in an underground parking lot, one entrance closed up by abandoned vehicles and the other guarded by a couple of men. Walter’s team had passed by the guards with relative ease, subduing them quietly and escorting them back to the precinct. The main purpose of this mission wasn’t to capture people or put them in danger, but simply to put a stop to the illegal trade across the city so that they could help establish a normal regime again.

  Stalls were set up in an S-shape, leaving a weaving pathway both around the outside and through the middle for customers and traders to walk through. The variety of things being sold and bargained for was extensive. With money no longer a viable option, people were reconsidering wealth and possessions gradually started to hold more significance.

  Since Walter’s team had brought rationing in across the city, the most sought after item was food. The vast majority was vacuum sealed and dehydrated now, the city relying heavily on government stores while they worked toward producing other options. People were supposed to eat at the food banks and rescue centers and then leave the packaging behind. It was no surprise that items were being smuggled out to the street and used for trade.

  In addition to food, medicine was a valuable resource, as well as precious jewels and anything that could be melted down and then molded into something new. The list of things people were finding a use for in this new, post-dollar world was expanding every day. Walter had confiscated all manner of homemade weapons and tools. Plenty of them were being traded and sold at stalls in the market ahead of him, along with handguns and automatic weapons.

  That was what Walter and his team were there for today. Their aim was to blend in with the people in the market, dressed in plain clothes to try and find out who was the main seller of firearms in the city. So many more people were popping up with guns that it couldn’t just be a result of looting. All the gun stores had been targeted in the immediate days after the collapse, but it was slowly becoming clear that a select group of people had cornered that market. Intel Walter had received the day earlier confirmed that they were selling the weapons to anyone who had the right thing to trade.

  After watching for five minutes or so and identifying key target stalls, Walter made the hand signal for his team to start moving again and they split off, blending into their environment and each going their separate ways. He was joined by three younger officers, Dixon, Josie and Huxley. All of them had proved themselves more than capable ever since Trident had collapsed.

  Walter Davies shifted into his off-duty persona, walking with a more relaxed step and less of a commanding stride. As a cop, he sometimes found it hard to switch off his senses, always alert no matter what he was doing. Being undercover was even more complicated in a way: he had to act and pretend like he was just a normal person, yet at the same time be more alert and aware than ever. His senses were all heightened as he took a lap around the outside of the market, nodding and smiling at stall owners where appropriate and making a mental map of what was located where.

  Upon passing the first stall selling automatic rifles and all kinds of accessories to go with them, from scopes to suppressors and huge quantities of ammunition, Walter slowed and loitered nearby. He acted like someone who was interested in purchasing, but didn’t know too much about what he was getting himself into – a key target for the sellers who wanted to flog their goods at high prices. It didn’t take long until his tactic paid off.

  “Hey pal, see something you like?”

  Walter looked up at the stall owner, a portly man with a thick, graying beard and dark glasses over his eyes. The underground parking lot was already gloomy and poorly lit with fires burning in odd places t
hroughout. The glasses the man was wearing had to limit his sight considerably, a fact which made Walter instantly suspicious of him. Surely no one would put themselves at such a disadvantage unless they were trying to hide something, his instincts telling him to be particularly wary of this man.

  “Uhh maybe,” Walter replied, disguising his voice somewhat and using a thicker New Yorker accent. “My wife thinks we need some form of protection in the house.”

  “Smart woman,” the stall owner replied. “Better to be safe than sorry in these times. I’ve got any number of weapons here that would put your lovely lady’s mind at ease. Depends what you’ve got to trade?”

  Walter was prepared for this and had selected unique pieces from the precinct’s evidence locker to bring to the market. Protocol was changing and while Captain Banes had been difficult to talk into it, Walter had eventually convinced him that they needed to change their ethos and be flexible with their rules if they were going to adapt and advance with the new world. As a general rule; police officers were sticklers for the rules and didn’t take too kindly to change, but with everything outside of the precinct doors so different now, they needed to evolve alongside it or risk being left behind.

  Reaching into his pocket he pulled out two solid gold necklaces, confiscated from a looter in the early days after the collapse. Showing them to the stall owner, Walter watched the man raise his eyebrows in surprise and then quickly try to mask his response.

  “I can work with that,” he nodded. “Step on up, pal. Is there anything you like the look of?”

  The purpose of the mission that day wasn’t to make any arrests or shut the market down, so Walter interacted with the guy just like he would have if he was buying bread and milk at the local store. He smiled and pointed to one rifle in particular, the trader picked it up and demonstrated it to him, upselling the scopes and ammunition that would work along with it. After being shown a couple of different guns, Walter gradually built up a rapport with the man until he felt comfortable broaching the big subject.

  “There’s so many to choose from,” Walter exclaimed in a mock state of confusion. “Where did you even get them all from?”

  “Oh here and there,” the seller replied casually. “There’s no shortage of guns in the city now.”

  “I hit up a couple of stores after the collapse,” Walter continued, acting like an innocent and clueless civilian. “But everything was gone by the time I got there. Cleaned out down to the very last bullet. I guess they were in high demand, huh?”

  The stall owner laughed. “Yeah, or people knew what would be worth a buck or two once the madness died down. There’s a reason you can still saunter around Macy’s and find this seasons fashions, didn’t take much for people to realize what really mattered.”

  Walter laughed along with the man, slowly building his case and working out how much the stall owner actually knew. Currently he couldn’t determine whether he actually owned all these weapons himself, or whether he was trading on behalf of a larger party. Hopefully it would be the latter, the top of the pyramid always the target in operations like this.

  “My wife would say different,” Walter replied. “She’s got to be the only woman in the city who still cares what she looks like now.”

  His response earned another roar of laughter from the portly man, clearly able to relate to Walter’s fake cover story. Smiling, the Lieutenant felt like he was making progress. That was the key to any good ruse, make it relatable to the people you were telling it to and they were all the more likely to buy into it. Walter bet that the stall owner had a wife back at home with similar priorities to his fictional one, meaning the two men could slowly form a bond over their shared opinions and familiar lifestyles.

  “What’ll it be then?” The trader asked as he got a handle on his laughter, putting the last rifle he had been holding back on the table in front of him. “Which one do you think that wife of yours will approve of? If it were me, I’d go for the Remington 700. It’s got the detachable mag and the adjustable trigger, plus we’ve plenty of ammo to go with it. And she’s a beauty.”

  “Alright then,” Walter nodded, “sounds good to me. I’ll take your advice on that one, thank you, Mr.…”

  “Packham,” the stall owner replied, taking Walter’s hand and shaking it. “Henry Packham.”

  “Walter Shaw,” Walter replied as he agreed to the transaction. “Pleasure doing business with you Mr. Packham.”

  As Henry Packham began packing away the Remington rifle, Walter knew very well that this was his opportunity to enquire further about where the guns had come from and who was responsible for moving them in such high numbers. He had formed a short relationship with the man and hoped he had earned his trust, Walter happy to let a gentleman such as Mr. Packham go if he could lead him to the bigger fish in the pond.

  “How much ammo will you be needing with it?”

  “Just give me a couple of boxes for now,” Walter replied. “I can always come back and find you if I need more, right?”

  “I go where the market goes,” Mr. Packham replied. “But you should be able to track me down, yes. Me or another person from my circle.”

  “Your circle?”

  “This operation doesn’t run itself, Walter,” Henry Packham replied with a smile. “You said it yourself earlier – everywhere was cleaned out after the collapse. If you want a weapon of any serious caliber now, you have to know which circles to be looking in.”

  Walter laughed, trying to maintain an air of innocence about himself while his mind worked overtime to ensure he didn’t lose this lead now that Mr. Packham was starting to open up. He had to say the right thing to keep the conversation going, yet not seem too intrusive at the same time. It was a fine line to walk and it would’ve made any other man sweat with tension. Walter remained cool under the collar, his years of police training preparing him for situations just like these.

  “Makes sense,” Walter nodded with a smile. “So how would I identify someone else from your circle? If I can’t find you again, of course?”

  “Did you not notice anything about my stall?” Mr. Packham replied with a smile, nodding to the sheet which hung off of his display table. It was adorned with a familiar looking symbol that when Walter noticed it, he realized he had been seeing a lot around the city recently. It was like a flaming eye, with dark swirling lines exuding from its center and spreading out across the fabric.

  “The eye?”

  Mr. Packham nodded. “The eye will always guide you,” he replied with a wink. “Although it is not impossible to see the changes that are starting to flood our city now. People seem to be trying to return to the old ways, without realizing they’re only leading us toward the same demise as before.”

  “What do you mean?” Walter asked, a genuine question now, slightly confused by what Mr. Packham was alluding to. “Are you talking about the introduction of the rations and the city clean up? I think some parts of it are heading in the right direction.”

  “Some, yes,” Mr. Packham mused. “But if you look closely, doesn’t it feel like we’re just repeating the same mistakes as before? Everyone is so quick to rush back into a regime that they don’t realize it may have been the very thing to land us in this mess. They say they’re helping and trying to make things better for us all – these people putting the new limits in place – but when it comes down to it, they’re still towering over us at the top aren’t they? They’re still the ones calling the shots.”

  Walter listened to Mr. Packham’s words and took in what he was saying, processing the man’s feelings as his Remington was packaged up in front of him. Walter had never considered that there were people across the city who weren’t happy with the new regimes they were putting in place. They were doing what they could to help the civilians and they needed order to do that – it had ruffled a few feathers at first, but in the last couple of days they had been coming up against far less resistance. Walter assumed that meant their processes were working, but w
hat Mr. Packham suggested was that maybe the disgruntled were just moving their feelings further underground.

  “One to think about, eh?” Mr. Packham smiled as he handed Walter the wrapped up rifle, complete with the two boxes of ammo.

  “Indeed,” Walter replied, giving Henry Packham the two gold necklaces in return and accepting his new weapon. “Thank you, Mr. Packham. I hope to see you again soon.”

  “The eye will always guide you,” Mr. Packham repeated with a wink. “Good day, Walter.”

  Chapter 6

  Waiting in his vehicle above ground for the others to return from the market, Walter spent some time thinking over what Henry Packham had told him. It had been a successful undercover mission, enabling Walter to find out more about the network of people who were supplying the city with weapons. The fact that he now knew the symbol to look for in order to find people working within the syndicate was very important. It would reduce their pressure time out in the field and make all operations more straightforward when dealing with large groups.

  What Walter mulled over more than the success of his actual mission however, was what Mr. Packham had told him about the unrest amongst the New Yorkers. From his view of it all, people were falling into line and willingly offering up their time and services to help get the city back on its feet. New York had been divided into quadrants and day by day they were sweeping through them with their teams of volunteers, removing the debris from the collapse and restoring areas of the city back to its former glory. They didn’t have the capacity to rebuild stores or mend broken windows, but they were clearing the dead and carrying out the necessary tasks to return things to a sense of normality. People seemed to be happy with the work – at least that’s what Walter had assumed.

  Mr. Packham’s opinion was different. Walter fixated on how Henry Packham had felt like they were just returning to the same way things had been. Restoring everything, without stopping for a moment and considering whether the collapse happened because of the way things were. It was an interesting theory. One that Walter had to admit he had never really thought about. Trident’s collapse had seemed very clear cut to him. It was a hack from an unknown entity. Surely, there was nothing that anyone could’ve done to stop that from happening?