by Nees, David
“Are you nuts? How many IDs have you seen with pictures? You can’t get one of these unless one of the bosses assigns it to you. Joe Nicoletti authorized this. I used to report to Vincent Bonocchi, but now I work directly under Joe.” He reached out his hand for the card. “Now stop trying to bust my balls and give me my ID back so I can get going.”
The officer handed the card back to Jason. “I gotta ask, why are you dressed that way? Nobody I know works for Mr. Nicoletti looks like that. You look like a militia fighter or some kind of highway bandit…well-armed I would say.”
Jason gave him a withering look. “I could say the same about you. You’ve got a half uniform on at best.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No, it doesn’t. And I don’t have to answer it. This ID says I can come and go as I please. And there aren’t any rules about uniforms. Sometimes my work calls for rougher clothes, sometimes for suits and dress shirts. Why and when isn’t your concern.”
With that Jason strode off before the officers could come up with any other objections. As soon as they heard about the shooting, he had no doubt they’d think of him. It was best to put distance between himself and them as quickly as possible. He could sense the cops watching his back as he walked down the block. He forced himself to walk deliberately, not appear to be in a hurry or nervous.
When he turned the corner, he quickened his pace. As he approached the railroad tracks, a group of three militia men came towards him. When they were within fifty feet, they aimed their rifles at him and ordered him to stop.
“Put down your rifle,” one of them ordered.
Jason slipped his .223 off his shoulder and laid it on the ground. He stood facing them.
“What’s up? I’m on an assignment for Joe Nicoletti.”
“Mr. Nicoletti’s dead. Killed this morning. And Mr. Tagliani’s dead as well. He’s just been shot by a sniper. Now we got to search you.”
“Joe’s dead? How can that be? I talked to him just yesterday.”
Jason pretended surprise and shock. It didn’t seem to faze the men.
“I’ve still got to do what Mr. Nicoletti told me to do. We need this information I’m out to collect.”
“That can wait,” the leader of the three said as they approached.
“Can you lower your weapons? It makes me nervous. I can show you my ID. Mr. Nicoletti signed it himself.”
The leader motioned for the men to lower their rifles.
“We’ll still have to check your pack before we can let you go. Where are you headed anyway?”
“East. Joe wanted me to canvas the East End to see if there are any groups fomenting dissent. He heard some things and I’m going to check them out.”
“Why the backpack and gear? You look like you’re on a shooting mission.”
“Can’t be too careful. Besides I have some other work to do, it’s confidential.”
He knew his justifications sounded weak. The men approached. If they looked into his packs, his ruse would be exposed. The M110 was enough to convict him.
“Let me get my ID out,” Jason said. “It’s in my coat pocket.” He pointed to his right-hand pocket which also held his 9mm.
“Slowly,” the leader said.
“I’ll slip off my pack so you can check it.”
Jason slipped off his pack and bent over to set it on the ground. As he straightened up, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pistol. In one quick move, he flicked the safety off and fired.
Thwack, thwack, thwack. Three quick muffled shots rang out. The bullets hitting the men in their chests before they had a chance to react. They fell to the ground. Two were dead when they hit the pavement, the other one looked at Jason in surprise.
“Sorry about that, but you found the sniper. I can’t get caught so I can’t stay to help you. Maybe someone’ll come along, but I’ve got to go.”
He scattered the weapons away from the wounded man. Jason guessed he had only minutes left to live, but he didn’t want to chance the man shooting at him as he walked away. He re-
shouldered his pack and rifle and headed off towards the tracks and his waiting car.
Chapter 41
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W hen he reached the tracks, Jason turned east and walked along the side of the right of way. He had four long blocks to go before he could get through the barrier and reach the car. Running didn’t seem prudent; he could see groups of men blocks away. He needed to look like another member of the militia when seen from afar. Running would attract too much attention.
The rail line was for commuter trains taking people in and out of the city. They had stopped working along with other trains after the EMP attack. Jason’s path took him past a station two blocks from his goal. He heard footsteps coming from a parking lot to his right. The lot was shielded from view by a building. The footsteps were coming closer.
Jason unslung his rifle. He wouldn’t survive a close inspection from a larger group. He stopped at a shelter for the commuters next to the tracks. From there he would be able to see the approaching patrol.
The first of the men came out from the side of the building. There was a dozen of them, headed towards him. He began firing. The first three went down before anyone could react. The rest of the men ran back to the cover of the building. Quickly shots came from the corner, but the shooters were firing blind. Two men sprinted across the opening to get a flanking position. Jason dropped one of them, but the other reached cover. Soon more accurate shots were coming from his direction.
Jason loosed ten shots in quick succession, both at the corner of the building and at the flanker, then he got up and ran towards the barrier two blocks away. Within a moment he heard shots ring out. There was yelling and Jason guessed the men pinned behind the building were now moving out onto the platform.
Beyond the station platform there was a construction site. It took up most of the block. It consisted of sections of poured concrete foundation with holes dug for more forms and now left empty. Jason ducked behind one of the concrete pieces. He put in a fresh magazine and turned to return fire.
Bullets clanged along the tracks and some thumped against the concrete, chipping chunks of it away. Jason lay in the prone position and fired around the edge of the concrete. He was systematic, not shooing without a target, but taking quick shots at any bodies that presented themselves. His accurate fire sent the patrol diving for cover. The return fire was now slower indicating the men were keeping their heads down.
Jason noted where some of the patrol had ducked and watched them. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see them all, nor could he cover them all. Soon the shots from the patrol made it too dangerous to peek around the edge. He crawled to the other side and found a gap in the concrete. He slipped his M4 through and started firing. Again, his accurate shots shut down the return fire.
Go now. Jason got up and ran towards the barrier. He kept the concrete wall between him and the patrol as much as he could. His goal was escape, not a prolonged firefight.
He hadn’t covered a full block when shots started hitting close. He dove into a hole as bullets screamed over his head. He turned and raised his rifle over the lip and loosed a half-dozen rounds at the figures he saw coming forward. That emptied his magazine. Jason pulled back into the hole, ejected the empty mag, and snapped in a fresh one. Shots were now zinging over the hole he was in with their deadly whistle. Others peppered the dirt around him. It was lethal to stick his head up.
He slipped his rifle over the rim of the hole without raising his head and fired some rounds in the general direction. His earlier accuracy demanded respect and the return fire from the patrol stopped for a moment. Jason took that instant to now aim properly and send more deadly rounds in the patrol’s direction. Then he jumped up and ran again, zig zagging away from the station.
The tracks crossed a road at street level just before the barrier. There was an overgrown planting area along side of the roa
d. The brush and trees offered concealment. Jason ran into the brush at speed with bullets zinging past him.
In the brush were some trees large enough to conceal and protect him. Better still, he could not be easily be seen inside the cover. There was only a half a block to go to the barrier. That stretch was, however, open and dangerous. He had to pin the patrol down and keep them far away when he made his final sprint.
He started sending deadly shots downrange. Every third or fourth shot was hitting a target. As Jason was working his rifle to good effect, he saw some men break off and head to the south, his left. Gonna to try to flank me again. That would reduce the number of shooters with a direct line of fire to him when he made his run for the barrier.
He emptied his third magazine and inserted a fourth. He sent more shots at the pinned-down patrol and stood up. Time to go.
He broke from the cover, partially protected from sight and ran for the barrier. Fifty yards out from his position he could now be seen and shots started coming. Jason ran in an erratic pattern but always towards the barrier. He reached it with shots hitting the wall and ground around him. He didn’t pause. While at a full run, he slipped his pack off and dove through the opening he had made the night before.
Once on the other side of the barrier, he started to return fire. As his shots suppressed incoming rounds, he half crawled back through the gap and reached for his pack. He pulled it back through the small opening. His arms and back were scrapped and bleeding from his dive.
Suddenly a new burst of shots began to hit around the opening. The flankers. Jason got up and ran for the parking garage. He hoped he had enough time to get to the car and drive off. The patrol might have sent a runner back to report the engagement. If that was the case, reinforcements would be coming soon and overwhelm him. He didn’t have the luxury of fighting from a sniper’s distance. This was a close-up fire fight and he would be overwhelmed, or run out of ammunition.
He had parked the car on the second floor in the middle of the garage. He threw his pack with the M110 strapped to it in the passenger seat and jumped in. He squealed down the ramp. There was a rumble coming from the freeway above. Jason could hear it over the roar of his engine. Diesel engines. That meant military vehicles. The rest of the militia had been alerted and was arriving.
Jason swung out into the street and headed north parallel to the higher interstate. Got to put some blocks between me and that road. I’m a sitting duck for them up there. Shots rang out. They were shooting at him on the run. It sounded like an M60 machine gun. Jason swung the steering wheel to the right and the car slewed into a parking lot with a partially built structure giving him some cover. There were trees near the exit.
The machine gun paused as the operator lost his target. Jason knew he couldn’t stay and accelerated. Have to move faster than they anticipate. That’ll give me a second or two. The car burst out from the cover of the abandoned building. Jason heard the chatter of the M60 start again, and, as he hoped, the shots hit behind him. The gunner didn’t waste much time in sweeping forward and bullets raked through the sedan as Jason slid into the road, turning right. The car went wide, and, with a bang, bounced off the curb.
He floored the accelerator and the sedan shot down the road, away from the higher freeway. There was a moment of silence as the Humvee had to stop and back up. The deadly staccato of the machine gun began again. Jason lowered himself in the seat until he could barely see over the dashboard. The rear window burst out and the shots carried through to the windshield. The seat won’t stop those rounds.
Jason yanked the wheel to the left and slid around a corner, again bouncing off the curb. He nearly collided with an abandoned car that was parked. He pulled his car to the right, up on the sidewalk to miss the obstruction and then lurched back into the street. No bullets chased him. He was blocked by buildings.
An intersection approached. He’d be open to the machine gun as he crossed. Jason accelerated the abused sedan forward. He hit the intersection at seventy miles an hour. The car leapt off the ground as he crossed the crown of the intersecting road. He heard the machine gun but it was behind his path. The shooter hadn’t been ready for him.
Jason kept up his speed and at the next intersection he turned right in a more controlled slide to gain more distance between himself and the Humvee. As he raced down the road, he heard the machine gun start up. He put the car into random swerves across the street, using abandoned cars as picks to give him a moment of cover. After two more blocks, Jason turned right this time and accelerated. That move would require the Humvee to turn around and give him more time to escape.
Chapter 42
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L uke came back to his high-rise in time to see the militia breaking down a street level door. He walked up to one of the men to find out what was going on.
“Where you been?” the man asked.
“I been out in the city, visiting my old neighborhood,” Luke replied.
“Someone shot Al Tagliani. A sniper. Our commander figures the shot came from one of these buildings along the street. You live here?”
Luke shook his head. “No, no. I live outside of the inner city. I work for Michael Daniels, the FEMA rep. I was just headed back to the city building to report to him when I saw you guys breaking in. Thought I’d see what’s going on.”
“Well that’s what’s going on.” The man turned and went through the door.
Luke headed towards the city building. He did need to report back to Michael. He also needed a place to stay. There was no way Luke was going back to that high-rise. He was sure the militia would find some evidence of a shooter’s set up on the roof. Anyone connected to the building would be locked up and submitted to intense interrogation. Someone had to pay for Big Al’s killing.
Michael was frustrated. While he knew that he had not defended FEMA’s role in how things had developed in Charlotte, it was Martin Chambers, the mayor, primarily, and the city council, secondarily, that had allowed the mafia to gain control over the city’s operations. The mayor was weak, unfortunately. Now Michael had to buck him up so he could help, or at least not get in the way.
He had just finished going over Jason’s theory in detail with Chambers.
“So, you see, we’re on borrowed time, you and me. The city council’s been dissolved, the mob controls all the public functions, the police, the militia. They make the rules, we just put a civic face on it to the public. They soon won’t need us.”
He hoped the argument would move Chambers out of his position of submissive acceptance of his figurehead role into one of more action.
“I don’t know Michael. It seems a bit melodramatic to me. Won’t the organization always want a spokesperson? Someone like me?”
“What’s the saying? Tits on a boar hog? You really think they’ll put up with you after they don’t need you? If they do, it won’t involve a luxurious lifestyle, whatever that means these days. The mob,” he saw Martin wince at the word, “doesn’t like to share. Haven’t you noticed that?”
“If they found out we were plotting against them, they’d kill us…and probably not too pleasantly.”
Michael leaned forward to close the distance between him and Martin. “Didn’t you hear me? Nicoletti’s dead. Tagliani’s dead. Who takes over? There’s going to be a struggle between the capos. They all act like family, but when power is up for grabs, they will kill their own.”
He pointed his finger at Martin.
“Now if they’ll kill their own, why wouldn’t they kill us? We’re going to be told which side to get on before too long. The problem is we don’t know which side will be the winning one and if we’re wrong, we’re dead.”
He leaned back. “Better to plot our own path.” He could still see doubt on Martin’s face. “Besides, aren’t you the least bit remorseful about letting them take over? Now’s the time to take back control.”
“How would we go about that?”
“Martin, you
’re a politician. You should have the answer to that.” Using Jason’s comments, he pressed on. “Use your connections. First the police, then the militia, then the civilians that have been pressed into service, the ones who actually run the city’s infrastructure. They’ve got to be unhappy being under the mob’s thumb. We find out who we can rely on, who’s on our side. That’s how we start.”
“Then what?”
“Shit, I don’t know. But it’s a start. I’ll find someone to head to Atlanta to get some support from FEMA. We’ll see what’s happening with the capos, who’s going to emerge from the fight. They’ll all be wounded by the struggle. You know these guys get bloody. But this time it will be to our advantage.
Michael took a deep breath. “My point is we’ll see what our moves are as things develop.”
“Well…maybe I can reach out, see what others are thinking, reactivate old alliances…”
“You do that. And get the police on our side along with some of the militia officers. Some of them came from our National Guard and police department.”
Michael sighed after leaving Martin’s office. The meeting went well. The mayor was more than cautious. He was frightened. He wouldn’t stick his neck out, but he would make the connections, sound out others. Maybe Michael could do the rest. Suddenly he felt the weight of stepping out of his passivity and his comfort zone. He didn’t like it.
Heading back to his office, Michael ran into Luke who looked panicked.
“They found out where the shot came from. From the roof.” His voice was hushed in a hoarse whisper.
“Let’s go to my office,” Michael said. He pushed Luke down the hall and through his office door. Suzy smiled at seeing Luke. Michael kept pushing him along, not allowing him to stop and talk with Suzy.
“Sit down and tell me what you found out,” Michael said.
Luke took a seat in front of his desk. “I was heading back to the high-rise and ran into a large patrol. They were smashing down the door and told me the shot must have come from one of the tall buildings in the area. They’ll go up to the roof and find Jason’s set up. I can’t go back there. I can’t let anyone know I’ve ever lived there.”