We heard the whine of the hovercraft as it started up and ratcheted into the roar matching its arrival. All three of us listened without speaking as the sound changed pitch, then slowly faded.
“Leaving town,” stated Millen.
“All of them?” I asked.
“Maybe so, maybe no,” said Millen cryptically. “Let’s wait a few minutes to see if we get any info from some citizens.”
So we waited . . . all of two minutes before Alfredo Landa rushed into the tavern.
“What happened?” he cried. “I saw Cherkoff and his men come here. Everyone was expecting gunfire, but nothing happened.”
“Oh, something happened,” said Millen, “just not what you expected.”
“Cherkoff talked with Millen for a couple of minutes, then left,” supplied Farr, who proceeded to give details of the confrontation, even down to my waving around the 6-gauge, hearing Millen cock his pistol, and catching the barkeeper to prevent him from hurting himself when he fainted.
During the discourse, a dozen more people came into the tavern, which necessitated Farr repeating his presentation. I was impressed that each iteration was almost exactly the same. People under stress can often confabulate what they saw, embellishing succeeding versions, changing details, or forgetting important chunks. I took note that Farr would be a reliable witness.
Millen listened quietly through the fifth or sixth telling—I quit counting at three—then stirred when the group began to thin.
“I assume Cherkoff got on the hovercraft. Anyone notice how many of his men went with him?”
Several men looked back and forth at the others. Finally, Boril Bossev, the mayor, said, “I assume all of them, but I didn’t really count.”
“Maybe not all,” said Alda Nakasomi. “I didn’t think about it until now, but I’m sure not as many got back on as got off. Maybe two or three fewer.”
Millen and I looked at each other with the same thought. There was a good chance Cherkoff had moved quickly to solve his problem . . . us.
“We’ve got a little time,” he mouthed, then addressed the six men and one woman who hadn’t left yet.
“You people must know that Cherkoff only took over this town because you let him. I wasn’t here, but I’ve seen similar cases before. He shows up, maybe buys a business or two and pretends to be a solid citizen, then slowly tightens his grip.”
“That’s it exactly,” said a man we hadn’t met yet. “My dad saw it happening and tried to warn people, but most wouldn’t listen or thought he was exaggerating. Somehow, Cherkoff got the people running the satellite service in Oslo to cut off our access, while giving it to Dimitar Bozkov, Cherkoff’s man. Dad tried to keep the local news going via comms and limited paper editorials until he died in the fire that burned down our office. I wanted to keep after Cherkoff, but my mother and my wife were frightened, not only for me but also for themselves and the children, so I quit.”
“And you are . . . ?” asked Millen.
“David Ostell, son of the past operator of the local news and communication shop before Cherkoff took over.”
Mayor Bossev sighed and shifted his feet. “It’s easy to blame all of us now, but you weren’t here while it was happening. I liked Sam Ostell, but sorry, David, your father always seemed to have an issue that was calamitous to him. Many of us simply quit listening to his latest warnings.”
“But the time came when you recognized what was happening,” I said, “and you failed to do anything.”
“Again, easy for you to say,” Alda retorted. “A few, like David’s father, tried to do something, and the rest of us saw the result. Then he started taking over businesses and properties. The only ranchers and farmers still independent are those north of Justice in the Carizo district. The others sold their properties for almost nothing, abandoned the property, or now work the property as employees of Cherkoff. Here in Justice, most businesses he doesn’t own are paying protection money to keep operating. He’s careful enough not to drive us out of business, but all of us are hardly more than employees anyway.”
“You can recite why you didn’t do anything from now until the stars burn out, and it’ll do no good,” said Millen “The only relevant question is what are you willing to do in the future?”
“Do? What do you expect any of us to do?” asked Farr. “Cherkoff has forty or fifty men, maybe more. The couple of times someone or a group attempted to organize resistance, they didn’t live long or they disappeared. One of the last men to try was Jolan Harpston. He went all the way to Oslo to try to convince someone, anyone, in authority there to help us. He couldn’t get a meeting with anyone of importance and was planning to continue pestering offices until he got results. That’s the last we heard of him. Inquiries to Oslo turned up nothing—as if he hadn’t even gotten to the city.
“Also, one thing Cherkoff did several months ago was confiscate all the weapons in town. Even if we wanted to organize against him, we don’t have the means to fight.”
“Don’t tell me every single firearm was surrendered,” I said. “I’ll bet there are as many hidden away as were turned in.” I had firefight experiences at places on Earth that had supposedly been “pacified” and disarmed.
“I agree with my friend,” said Millen, “but the fundamental question is what would it take to motivate you.”
“Who are you?” asked Bossev. “If you aren’t here for yourselves, what entity supports you, and why haven’t we gotten help before?”
“All you need to know is that Mr. Cole and I want to establish justice here in your town, but it can only be done with your help,” said Millen.
“You two plus us?” questioned Landa. “That’s too much to ask until whoever you represent sends more help than just you two.”
“Well, we are what you’ve got,” said Millen.
“I’m sorry, but it’s too much to ask,” said Bossev. “Yes, you shot some of Cherkoff’s men, but trust me, those four aren’t the most dangerous. That advantage is now gone. Even if you’re as capable as you seem to think you are, why would we trust two men we don’t know and whose motives are unknown?”
“Only you can answer your questions,” said Millen. “If you can’t come up with any scenarios that convince you to stand up, then at least you’ll know your options are leaving Justice or accepting permanent serfdom to Cherkoff.”
We left the small group huddled around the table. My back itched, as I slid through the doorway’s left jamb and against the outer wall. It was without thinking—reflexes not to be exposed in a doorway. Millen did the same to the right. The sun had set after Cherkoff left, and illumination came from a combination of lingering daylight and the light shining through a few windows.
“What’s your intuition say, Everett?”
“It says we should go hunting before we end up being hunted.”
“I agree. Never a good idea to give bushwhackers the advantage.”
I looked askance at Millen. “Bushwhackers? I’ll take a flying leap and predict that’s part of the Western’s lexicon.”
“Bushwhackers,” Millen repeated. “Ambushers. People who wait in hiding to attack when the victim is unaware. There’re other meanings from different places on Earth—like referring to general guerrilla warfare or people living in remote areas—but you can think of it as the ambushers. You might also hear me refer to ‘back shooters’ and think of it as the same as bushwhackers.”
“Thanks for the history lesson and warning,” I snarked. “Now can we get on with the current business?”
“If they’re going to try to bushwhack us tonight, I’d expect it to be when it gets darker, but you never know. Let’s wait a while at the hotel and give these suits a rest.”
“How about sending the drone up to scan ahead of us as we work around the town?”
“It’s a simple model. No infra-red,” said Millen. “No, I’m afraid this will have to be on us.”
“Makes it simpler,” I said. “Never a good idea to trust tec
hnology too much, and it can get confusing to try combining gadgets with your own senses. I like one or the other, and if comes down to it, I trust both about the same.”
CHAPTER 10
Two hours later, we had the suits back on under our clothes and were ready to hunt—or present ourselves as targets, depending on your point of view. Most businesses were concentrated in a five- by six-block rectangle, with a tail of businesses extending along imaginatively named “Main Street.” We stood at the end of the tail.
“You take the other side,” said Millen. “No point staying together and making it easier on them.”
Both of us inserted earpieces that picked up subvocalizations. I’d used similar models in the FSES. When I crossed the street, I keyed the mike and checked operation.
“Cole here.”
“Got you,” said Millen. “Lag a bit to let me get twenty meters ahead of you, then we’ll switch every half block, and I’ll lag and you get ahead. It’ll help keep anyone guessing just what we’re doing and what our positions are.”
“Got it.”
I stepped into a shadow to double-check my guns, while I watched Millen saunter off. Both the pistol and the shotgun had chambered rounds. We’d chosen the shotguns over rifles because the confrontations were likely to be personal versus long-range, and the ambushers couldn’t number more than two or three men.
When I judged that Millen was far enough along his side of the street, I came out of the shadows and followed him, my thumb poised against the safety switch.
All my senses were on highest alert. It was at times like these when I felt the most alive. I periodically worried that it said something about me. Yet whatever it meant, I was still alive, while many I’d served with weren’t.
We crossed two side streets. All was quiet. Whether because of the town’s usual routine or because word had spread that it was best to stay inside, we saw only an occasional resident: an elderly man walking slowly with the help of a cane, his head down and humming; a group of four teenage boys talking trash at the universe, as only teenage boys can do to show their masculinity; a middle-aged woman I thought I remembered from Alda’s restaurant; a woman so cloaked, I couldn’t make out her features or age; and a man walking two large dogs on leashes.
Justice hadn’t put in streetlights, maybe because night traffic didn’t justify it, and only a few businesses had illuminated signs. Solar-generated electricity was by battery at night, and probably not every business wanted to pay the cost for too few late-evening customers.
I took my turn leading, then Millen again. A block passed without us seeing another soul. We came to the main section.
“We’ll go counterclockwise around once, then scope out the central businesses,” said Millen.
“Check,” I replied.
Two blocks later, I saw the first suspicious movements out of the corner of my eye. A dog slinking out of an alley. A man I didn’t recognize hurried across the street a half block ahead of us and disappeared into an unlit building.
We went through the intersection of another cross-street. I thought I could make out the name: Redondo.
“Hold up,” I subvocalized. The next block was the darkest yet, with no illumination coming from any window, except on Millen’s side where the last building had light shining from every second-floor window. The structure had an empty lot next to it and shrubbery about two meters high growing along the side.
“You see something?” asked Millen.
“See? No. But I’ve got an itch along my back. Nothing definite, but it doesn’t feel right.”
“If you had to guess, where do you think someone would be lurking?”
I surveyed what I could see. On my side of the street and across from Millen was what appeared to be an abandoned store. Broken windows and a front door hanging slightly ajar testified it had been months or years sitting idle.
“It’s not a place I’d put an ambush, but something tells me there’s one or more men in the vacant store and at least one in the bushes on your side. They might think our attention will be on the end building, wondering about all the lights. Once you clear the building before the vacant lot, the lights from the second floor will reveal you, but they should have already seen me. If shooting starts, they’ll be firing at us from two positions.”
“We’ll flush them out with stun rounds,” said Millen.
I’d been thinking the same thing. I used the hand away from my shotgun trigger housing to rotate a lever that switched from the lower to the upper magazine. One handy feature of this model shotgun was the option of two magazines. The lower one housed four standard cartridges, what people still called double-odd buckshot, for whatever reason. The upper magazine held four cartridges that could be flash and stun, more shot, or different gases, incapacitating or poisonous, the latter of which was technically outlawed. We had loaded with flash and stun.
“Each of us cover the other’s side?” I asked. I wouldn’t have a straight shot into the abandoned store on my side, but Millen would have a clear shot from across the street. At the same time, I could cover the shrubbery on Millen’s side before he lost the protection of the previous storefront.
“Yeah,” said Miller. “Let’s make it just before I get to the empty lot. I’ll go first and drop a couple of flash-and-stuns through the main window of your building, then you follow to rouse anyone out of the shrubbery on my side.”
It was a plan based on no solid intel, but I trusted my instincts. They hadn’t always panned out and led to more than a few embarrassing incidents and official remonstrations, but what the hell. The times my instincts had paid off more than made up for the mistakes.
Millen started off again and I followed, picking up my pace to come abreast of him across the street. I glanced occasionally at the dark building, but most of my attention was on the bushes. I didn’t expect to see anything because only an incompetent ambusher would give himself away. But you never knew.
Millen passed the front door of the last business before we were to act, and I thumbed off the safety. When he turned 80 degrees and braced his right foot against the wall, I brought my shotgun up to my shoulder.
The flash-and-stun rounds had different amounts of propellant and chemicals than buckshot had, so instead of the sharp crack, the flash from Millen’s shotgun was accompanied by a heavy thump. I was occupied with firing two cartridges that hit the lit building’s outer wall just above the bushes. I heard Millen curse. I shifted in time to see that his first shot had hit the outer wall of the store on my side, but the next two rounds scored through the window.
For a second after we fired, I wondered whether we’d just shocked some foliage and disrupted an ambush party consisting of dust, broken furniture, and whatever local critter passed for rats. I’d already planned to tell any Justice citizens who asked why we were shooting up their town that we’d driven off Cherkoff’s men—rather than admit firing at nothing and hurting our image.
Turns out, I didn’t have to change my story or lie. A cry erupted from just below where my shots hit the wall, and a man’s body ejected from hiding. He hit the ground and clamped his hands over his ears, which were temporarily ringing enough to incapacitate him. He had obviously lost interest in the two strangers in Justice. Millen would handle him, so my attention was on the abandoned building and the cries of at least two other men, one shocked and the other hurting. They were hardly likely to exit the front, where they expected Millen and me to be, so I trotted around to the back.
In the seconds it took to run between buildings, I had flashbacks to other nights, other towns, and other opponents. Yemen. Argentina. What used to be Bangladesh had been the worst: teeming, squalid shanty towns that hadn’t changed in centuries, sitting next to towering high-rises of the more fortunate. We’d had to dig out armed men who didn’t hesitate to use women and children as shields. Relatively, tonight was almost a game—if anything involving guns would or should be considered a game.
I switched the selector bac
k to the lower magazine just as I turned the corner to the back of the building. A door opened, and two men staggered out. I flicked on the small light attachment clipped to my shotgun. One man supported the other and held his rifle to his other side. The injured man dragged one leg—the stun-and-flash round or shrapnel must have struck him.
“Freeze!” I yelled, hoping they spoke English. It was standard on Astrild, but most planets had multiple languages.
The next seconds of real-time lasted minutes of subjective time. Startled, both men faced the light. The helping man released the injured one, who teetered and fell forward. The standing, unhurt man had wild, wide eyes that signaled he was going to do something stupid.
“Don’t do it!” I urged. “Drop the gun!”
His free hand trembled in place, then inched toward the gun now rising in the other hand.
Oh, shit! He’s going to do it, I thought, and my finger put a little more pressure on the trigger. The downside of the 6-gauge was limited options. You didn’t bother to think about wounding if you had to fire at someone.
Fear, uncertainty, and the urge to take action washed over his face. I didn’t want to kill him, but we were both on edge. An eternity passed, meaning four or five seconds before the hand holding the gun sagged back down.
“Don’t shoot!” he shouted. All his interest in shooting had dissipated, especially with himself on the receiving end. He slowly bent his knees and lowered the rifle to the ground—which may have saved my life.
In those seconds, with my focus on the man facing me, I hadn’t followed the injured man. As I watched the standing man surrender, my eyes caught peripheral movement illuminated by my small light. The injured man had lost the rifle he’d used as a cane when he fell, but now he held a pistol. I only had to swing the shotgun a few degrees to line up on him and pull the trigger.
Even though I was behind the flash, I was momentarily blinded. Through my ears’ ringing, I heard my shotgun click another cartridge into place.
A Tangled Road to Justice Page 13