The Redeemers

by T. J. Martinell

  “Why does that matter?”

  His hands back on the steering wheel, Tom gave Carl a desperate look. “I’m not like you. For you, it’s the party that never ends, and you don’t want it to end. I’m having fun, but I don’t this to go on forever. The variety of girls is nice, but sooner or later you want something else.”

  Once more, Carl wouldn’t argue.

  “I envy you sometimes,” Tom said. “You seem to always get what you’re looking for.”

  “I’m not afraid to lose it, either.”

  Carl playfully jabbed his friend in the arm to lighten the mood. “We’re still young. Why are you so worried about what you want when you’re old? Worry about it then. Enjoy what you’ve got while you have it and when it’s gone you look back fondly on the times when it was there. That’s how I see it.”

  “Besides,” he quickly added. “We might not even live to be that old.”

  ***

  “Glad to see ya made it,” the smuggler said.

  “Ain’t too hard to find,” Carl replied as he fought back a winced at the strong aroma in the air.

  They shook hands. It was like gripping an icicle.

  The smuggler was a scrawny man who reeked of saltwater and body odor. His attire of choice was a suit one size too small, the trousers an inch above his ankles and the jacket cutting up into his armpits. His fish belly pale complexion complemented his green eyes as he grinned with several teeth missing, a gaping hole in the corner of a smile.

  His demeanor seemed intended to frighten more than welcome Carl and Tom as they approached him by the edge of the wharf. Storm clouds brewing in the northwest, they moved with a sense of urgency to get back indoors as soon as possible.

  Behind the man was a medium size cargo ship half-caked in rust. He grinned at them and waved at the ship, spitting into the foamy water splashing against the sides.

  “That’s my gorgeous lady, the Orcas Magnus.”

  “Grand,” Carl said, glancing at the buildings by the street where drones were commonly lurking in the hopes of spotting suspicious activity.

  “Don’t worry about ‘em here,” the smuggler said, tapping at his ear. “Ma boys got ‘em covered. If one of ‘em comes near here, they’ll let me know. But we’ve got ‘em timed. They ain’t that creative.”

  “It would seem not. What can you tell us about this whole setup?”

  “First off, no name. Nothing that can be traced back to me.”

  “Sure. What goes on?”

  The smuggler brought them over to the narrow gangway where men in similar getups came out with automatic weapons. They scanned the two reporters with clouded eyes, but a short gesture from their presumed boss had them turn away. On the ship, a crane lowered boxes down onto the wharf, when a forklift took them over to a dock covered by the frame of an old warehouse. The crates were then lowered into smaller boats and covered with tarps.

  “Don’t put this in your story, but the trick is they think we import this stuff,” he said. “What actually happens is one of my dealers buys up the stuff from the companies themselves, brings them over here, and then we transport it across the lake.”

  “Why don’t they just import it directly?”

  “They got better security inside the city, and it’s harder to get the supplies through. Our boys then use smaller ships to bring them into the bay near downtown Bellevue, where they’re unloaded and sold in smaller supply loads to the dealers. The smaller purchases make it harder for them to find out where it’s coming from. That, and having a friend in customs assigned to inspect cargo helps. Again, don’t put any of this in your story.”

  “What are we supposed to put?” Tom asked. “Seems like we can’t say much.”

  The smuggler spat onto the ground. “You can say that when they claim to have shut me down for good they were fulla shit. I ain’t gone nowhere.”

  “Here,” he added, leading them to the warehouse. “I’ll show you something.”

  They came up to one of the crates waiting to be loaded onto a ship. Taking a crowbar from a worker, he pried open the crate and took out an untouched package of a generic antidepressant. The pill was blank and had no recognizable marks.

  “This stuff is more addictive than heroin,” he said. “And it sells twice as well. Good thing is, because it’s technically a legal drug they don’t see it as big of a deal.”

  “So why are so they adamant about shutting you down?” Tom asked.

  “Simple. They get a tax whenever the drug companies sell the stuff.”

  The smuggler put his hands on his hips in self-amusement. “What I love the most is that the companies are the ones making this happen. This is off the record, too, but right after they passed that health insurance rate law, they started selling to us. That way, they get the same amount of revenue, except through us they don’t have to pay taxes on the stuff sold, either.”

  He then reached into the crate and took out another package, this one containing another smaller pill.

  “You know what this is?”

  “No,” Carl said. “Enlighten us.”

  “It’s a cure-all. No joke. It kicks your addiction to the antidepressants. A lot of side effects, but it does the trick. We sell it for a hefty price, and there’s some sales, but fortunately not so many that we’d run out of business peddling the other shit.”

  “Why?” Tom asked.

  The smuggler chuckled darkly as he put the package back into the crate and secured it, allowing the workers to load it onto one of the boats. “Because hardly anybody wants to kick the addiction. You take anti-depressants or whatever and you don’t have to deal with reality. I imagine if half the area stopped popping a pill of some kind, they’d blow the back of their head off.”

  Tossing one of them to Carl and Tom, the smuggler gestured with a sweeping hand. “Care to try one?”

  “No,” Carl said. “I never needed to take a pill to deal with life.”

  “Me neither,” Tom said.

  “Well, good thing there ain’t a whole lotta ya out there or I’d have to try a more honest job, ha!”

  They returned to the newsroom and spoke briefly to Childs outside his office, updating him on the story. He was willing to give them an extra day, but stressed that he prefer they get to it sooner than later. Other newspaper reporters had been spotted in the same vicinity asking questions. It caused Carl to wonder once again if Usher did favors for them too or if his contact was where they got their leads from.

  “I’m planning on it for the front page of the news section tomorrow,” Childs said. “Don’t disappoint me.”

  “No, sir.”

  Tom ran to answer his phone. Carl headed to the parking lot and drove his Ford back to the wharf, hiding it beside a collapsed coffee stand. With a small set of binoculars, he observed the smuggler working as usual.

  On the nearby street, a police patrol car drove southbound and slowed as it passed the wharf. Lowering the binoculars, he sensed imminent confrontation. The police car kept driving slowly and at the end of the wharf picked up speed and vanished.

  Out from one of the adjacent buildings emerged a man whom Carl knew from his peculiar stride.

  It was Curtis Emerson, a reporter with the Herald.

  He knew better. Carl had sent him a warning before to stay off his turf.

  Quietly approaching him from the side, Carl concealed himself behind one of the large smuggling trucks pulling out from the warehouse. When it pulled away, he snuck up behind Emerson and struck him in the back of his head with a flat palm. The blow knocked him off his feet, striking the ground face first.

  He tried to get up, but Carl pushed a knee into his neck, immobilizing him as he searched for weapons. All he found was a small .380 pistol.

  Removing the round in the chamber, Carl took the weapon apart and tossed the different sections across the wharf. He then bent down and struck Emerson across the back of the head again.

  “You stupid, son of a bitch!” he said. “I told you
not to come here, but you had to do it, anyway, didn’t you?”

  Emerson groaned, probably half-conscious.

  Carl took the knee of his neck and let him regain his senses. Emerson was not young, a man in his mid-thirties. But he lacked the sensibilities his age and experience should have afforded him. He was terrified of being shot. He deserved to be.

  Carl reached for his gun. As he was taking it out, he put it back in its holster. He stood up and kicked Emerson in the side. “Don’t ever, ever let me see you here again! Now get the hell out of here before I decide you’re worth the bullet!”

  Emerson thanked him repeatedly as he sprang back to his feet and dashed to his car parked behind one of the spare trucks. The stench of burnt rubber filled the air as he raced his car out onto the road.

  Carl chuckled and went for a cigarette as the smuggler confronted him, having watched the whole thing silently.

  “He was supposed to talk to me,” the smuggler said.

  “He ain’t no more. This is our territory.”

  “You don’t get to─”

  Carl turned, showing a hand on his holstered revolver. He lit his cigarette and blew a cloud of tobacco smoke into the man’s face. “You were saying?”

  “Nothing, boss.”

  “We got rules. Only way this world is going to make sense. The rules say that this is our turf. I get that they try to break the rules. I can’t blame them. But you can’t blame me for making the rules stick. There aren’t cops here to do it, are there? They won’t enforce anybody’s rules, besides their own. Can’t blame them, either. But we got to enforce our rules, or they don’t mean anything. You get me?”

  No response was given, other than a defeated look. It was all Carl needed.

  “Glad to clarify that,” he said.

  When Carl got back to the newsroom, Tom was waiting earnestly, a piece of paper in hand.

  “Just finished chatting with Usher,” he said as Carl sat down at his desk. “It’s all set for tomorrow. We meet up first thing in the morning. with the man outside the old airport by waterway where the ships go through into Lake Washington. He’ll have the documents there.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “What did you go back to the wharf for?”

  “To deal with a pest. It’s under control.”

  Carl wasn’t surprised when Tom didn’t show up at the library later that evening. He didn’t bother to phone his room and ask him to come over. Something else had to be nagging at Tom than just the girl.

  Seeing Carl, Kaylyn handed her duties off to one of the waiters, she sat down next to him, playfully brushing his leg with her foot.

  He gave her a terse description of what had happened to Tom. She gave no reply as she stared at the singers performing onstage.

  “He’s got to realize this isn’t like back home,” Carl said. “He wants a normal life. He expects a normal woman.”

  She fidgeted. “You think I’m abnormal?”

  “I don’t expect us to grow old and die together.”

  “What do you expect?”

  “I don’t expect anything beyond what we say we’re going to do.”

  “Do you want me to say I’m yours and yours only?”

  He shrugged. “If it’s that what you want.”

  “I’m asking what you want.”

  “I don’t want to be lied to. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  She kissed him and wrapped her arms around his. “I’m yours only.”

  ***

  Carl and Tom arrived outside the landing field, finding little left of the original airport across the landing field. The air traffic control tower was still standing like a barren tree amid a meadow of broken concrete and overgrown lanes where planes had once come and gone.

  The airport itself had been used as an emergency shelter during the initial days following the earthquake, but the sheer number of refugees left it deteriorated it to the point where police had built a fence to maintain order.

  Their contact was in the outskirts, sitting by the road torn apart by the earthquake’s tremendous force. He was disheveled, covered in a long overcoat that drooped over his knees. He had his hands shoved into his coat pockets, his eyes cast down at the road.

  Parking their car by the field, they hopped over the crest and approached him cautiously. Tom kept his gun by his side, scanning the traffic control tower for lookouts. The whole area was like a wasteland, but only the fool marked it as truly abandoned.

  Carl barked out to the man and demanded he show his face, then his hands.

  Looking up obediently, the man slowly took his hands out and held them flat palmed in front of his chest.

  They drew closer. Carl then had him stand up while Tom stood behind him.

  “You have it?” he asked.

  The man’s lips trembled. He swallowed loudly. “Of course.”

  “Then let’s see it, shall we?”

  “May I get into my coat?”

  “Yes, but don’t do anything sudden.”

  He took out a stack of documents, slapping them on a slab of concrete beside him. Tom retrieved them and read the first page, nodding to Carl. Everything seemed in order.

  “Did our friend tell you that you’d get paid?” Carl asked.

  The man didn’t answer.

  “Let’s go,” Tom said. “We shouldn’t waste time.”

  They went to leave when the man spoke. “No, you shouldn’t.”

  An empty feeling ran through Carl’s gut. He spun around, seeing the man holding a small Tom had a hand on his gun, but didn’t move. He could get it up fast, though it wouldn’t be quick enough. It was too heavy.

  “Well?” Carl asked.

  The man was crying silently. “You should go.”

  Carl blinked. “What?”

  “They’re coming.”

  The man unceremoniously turned the gun at himself and pulled the trigger. The gunshot blew through off half of his face. He collapsed on the ground, the gruesome remains of his head concealed by the tall grass blades.

  There was no time for shock.

  The suicide could only mean one thing.

  They ran for the car, leaping over the crest in the road. They were just about to the car when the first bullets flew past their heads like wasps. Carl ducked and rolled across the ground, using the car as a shield while Tom provided covering fire for him to get inside.

  Across the landing field, a long row of armored vehicles came at them. They were joined by two Humvees with machine gunners on top. Luckily, all were out of accurate range, but that would change fast.

  “Let’s go!” Carl yelled.

  Tom sprayed the air, then hopped inside and tossed the gun to Carl, telling him to get in the back and hold them off. He had the car in second gear by the time they got back on the road and were heading north toward safe territory. Behind them, Carl watched as the Humvees smashed through the asphalt crest and tore through the fields. They had no ISA insignias, but it could be no one else.

  “Get on the radio,” Carl said. “Tell them we’re under attack.”

  Tom only received a static sound. He tried again. Nothing.

  “What the hell is going on?” he exclaimed. “Where the hell are they?”

  Carl peered at one of the armored cars, seeing an oblong device sitting on the side of it.

  “They got a radio jammer,” he said. “No need to discuss how it had happened.”

  “We’ll cut across the interstate,” Tom said. “Then we’ll lose them in the neighborhood roads.”

  “The Humvees don’t care about potholes.”

  “Still, it’ll make it harder for them to use those guns.”

  Carl rolled down the rear passenger window and stuck his head out to get a good pose to fire from. He rested the gun atop the roof and found a solid footing against the front passenger seat. Two bursts kept the gunners timid. As they swerved around a corner, the turn left one of them exposed.

  Carl took a well-placed shot, s
triking the gunner in the side. Wounded, the agent scrambled back into the Humvee as the driver slowed down and allowed others to lead the chase.

  Tom had raced through the roads so many times he acted like an automatic driver, navigating with ease through conical alleyways and off-streets that forced the armored cars to find alternative routes, while the Humvees smashed through the remnants of buildings to avoid losing their prey. However, their girth couldn’t match the Ford’s speed, augmented by a refurbished V8 engine.

  Across the interstate, Tom brought them along the old Martin Luther King Jr. Way., following the former light rail line in the center between the opposite lanes. The Humvees caught up and tried to trap the Ford between them, but Tom slowed and faked a turn. Convinced, they braked. He hit the gas and put solid distance between them. Carl fired off more rounds, near misses forcing the gunner back down into the cabin.

  He went to reload and checked their ammunition supply. Four mags left. That would last them until they got into their safe zone, where they wouldn’t need a working radio to alert Norton.

  They were approaching Columbia City when Tom cried out. “We’re in deep shit!”

  Carl looked over his shoulder. Two armored cars sat like beached whales in the center of the road, blocking all three lanes. Their fronts spat out machine gun fire and broke through the windshield, leaving a spider web-like impression in the glass.

  Unable to see past it, Tom panicked. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  He swerved off the road. Unprepared, Carl almost dropped the gun and fell out. He pulled back inside and held the gun close.

  “Put your seat belt on!” Tom implored. “This is gonna get rough!”

  Pulling off to the right, he drove east. They were heading to an intersection when something struck the car.

  For a second all seemed well.

  Then the car thrashed around and flipped. Before he was knocked out cold, Carl vowed he wouldn’t allow himself to be captured.

  He would be free or die - by their hand, or his own.

  ***

  “Wake up!”

  Carl opened his eyes and saw black. He grabbed his head, a dizzy sensation robbing his sense of balance.