by Joe Nobody
The Texan managed to grab the former hostage’s arm, literally throwing the girl back through the portal and out of the line of fire. With the pistol pointing and barking where his mind thought targets should be, Dusty started shouting at Penny and the girls, “Get out! Get out!”
The human brain struggled to reconcile the combination of smoke, earsplitting noise, surprise, and movement. Bullets screamed, sparked and thudded throughout the enclosed space as Dusty was shooting and pushing Penny and the remaining child thought the entrance way. Glass exploded from the display cases as random bullets tore through the air. The fluorescent lights above showered more shrapnel and added strobe-like effects to the bedlam.
“Go! Run! Go!” Dusty heard himself screaming at Penny as he backed out of the chaos. He fired two more shots into the opening and then the Glock locked back empty.
A glance showed the girls were indeed moving, scrambling toward the entrance to another of the seemingly endless passageways.
And then they were through, scurrying down an elongated hall with cool air rushing past, adrenaline-fueled legs pumping faster than they ever had before.
Their desperate flight was motivated even more as a shot ripped off the wall, a clear indicator that the kidnappers were in pursuit. “Through there! Through there!” Dusty shouted as they approached a doorway. Another bullet whizzed by, adding emphasis to his command.
Up a stairway they clamored, both of the girls fighting tears and terror. Penny had somewhat recovered, pushing her children to move faster… faster than they had ever moved before.
The sound of footfalls behind them echoed throughout the enclosed space, and Dusty realized that the grown men chasing them were faster, quickly closing the gap. The thud, whack, and ping of a bullet fired from below confirmed his suspicions.
Then they were darting through another door and dashing again down a corridor, the bland navy-grey walls rushing past.
Penny stopped so suddenly that Dusty almost knocked her over. Before he could even challenge her abrupt halt, he realized the problem. The maze of passageways had hit a dead end.
“Shit!” he hissed, turning to see how closely they were being followed.
“I can’t open this hatch,” Penny wailed, trying desperately to turn the wheel-like mechanism. “It’s stuck.”
Dusty glanced again over his shoulder and then moved her out of the way. He put everything he had into turning the crank. It wouldn’t budge.
Another bullet slammed into the wall beside them, evidence that their foes had caught up. Dusty had stowed another magazine for his pistol in the duffle, but there wasn’t time. Even if he could manage a reload, it probably wouldn’t do any good. They were pinned in a confined area and would eventually go down in a hail of lead.
“Lie flat, close your eyes, and cover your ears,” he snapped at the girls. “Whatever you do, don’t look up.”
He waited until all of the Boyces were on the deck and then took a knee, bringing the rail gun up to his shoulder.
Behind him, down the corridor, he recognized the pursuers’ heads popping out to chance a glimpse. “They’re no doubt trying to figure out how to take me down,” he whispered. “Come on out, boys. Do I have a surprise for you?”
A hand appeared, clutching the machine pistol. Yellow and red flame sprouted from the weapon’s muzzle, and then Dusty detected human shapes filling the passageway.
He squeezed the rail gun’s trigger.
The computer control sequence of voltage surged through the rotating magnets, each pushing and pulling the ball bearing. The black pipeline to another dimension appeared in the lead man’s chest, and the cartel shooter simply disintegrated.
A sphere of molecules was pushed outward, traveling at near the speed of light. The energy expanded in the narrow, steel-lined enclosure. Armored bulkheads folded like cardboard as air condensed to the consistency of iron slammed against them at several thousand meters per second.
The tourists waiting outside to board the great ship instinctively ducked as the outer hull exploded over the bay, ripping a massive hole in the stern of the vessel. Geysers spread across the water below as fragments of steel plate and machinery fell into the bay.
Then as suddenly as it had opened, the portal closed. Gravity, light, and matter rushed to fill the vacuum, the effect unleashing even more violence on the already tortured universe.
Dusty was bowled over by the reverberating shockwave of noise and atmosphere. He experienced a sense of weightlessness and then landed on top of Penny, pinned against the bulkhead.
The first thing Dusty noticed was the absolute silence. A warm trickle running down his neck forced him to move an arm just as Penny surged beneath him. Rolling off the struggling woman, Dusty blinked several times, worried for a moment that he was blind and deaf.
Now free of his weight, Penny moved to check the girls, relieved that both of them seemed to be unharmed.
The smoke was the next thing they all noticed.
Dusty heard his own voice say, “Fire! We’ve got to get out of here,” as he attempted to rise on unsteady legs. A minute later, they had all managed to stand, and then they were stumbling down the corridor toward a dim light shining in the distance.
Black smoke began to boil into the space as they reached the first entrance. Again, they were climbing stairs, some aspect of survival prompting them to climb rather than descend. Alarms were clanging all over the ship.
The fire suppression system engaged next, showering the foursome with cold, stinging water as they exited the stairwell. Dusty pointed toward the red, glowing letters of an exit sign, and then they were in the open spaces of the main hangar deck.
Sightseers were scrambling for the gangway, uniformed museum employees funneling the frightened crowd toward the outside air and safety.
Dusty managed to shove the rail gun into the duffle, and then they hustled toward the growing line of disembarking passengers.
The bright sunshine was a welcome sensation after being in the confined bowels of the ship. Penny and the girls followed the orderly evacuation down the ramp, eventually reaching the parking lot.
“We have to go… and go right now,” Dusty heard himself shouting. “I can’t stay here.”
Mrs. Boyce didn’t argue the point and began herding the girls toward the pickup. They exited the lot just as the first police cars and fire trucks came speeding onto the wharf.
Corpus was in their rearview mirror before anyone inside the truck spoke. Dusty fully expected Penny to be furious, but she wasn’t. “We need to talk as soon as we get back to the ranch,” were her only words.
Dusty was thankful for the respite. He would use the long drive home to calm down and gather his wits.
Day Nine - Afternoon
Vega awoke on a stretcher, a fire department EMT hovering over his head. “I’ve got multiple trauma wounds, a severely damaged right leg, and internal bleeding,” the man was reporting into a radio.
A wall of pain racked the cartel man’s brain, seemingly every nerve in his body screaming in protest. Struggling to remain conscious, he heard a desperate voice call out, “Did anyone find his left leg?”
His vision was dark around the edges, as if he were peering through some sort of stained lead crystal. Still, he could see well enough to note he was alone in the back of the ambulance.
He was dying. He thought of his mother and sister, their humble flat in southern Mexico. He worried about what would happen to them without the financial support of his regular monthly checks.
Anger began to fill his soul. What little blood was left in his body simmered with the rage and injustice of his demise. He was too young. Healthy. Vibrant. The man with the rail gun was just as evil as Tio. Weathers was a butcher, no better than the man who ran the cartel.
Whispering a prayer, Vega managed to reach inside his jacket pocket and withdraw a cell phone. He dialed a number from touch alone, his vision too blurry to read the keypad.
There were two ring
s, and then voice mail answered, just as he expected. “We are all dead. The rail gun killed us all. You will find it at the Boyce Poultry Farm outside Laredo, Texas.”
Somehow, knowing Tio would achieve his goal didn’t make death any easier. Revenge didn’t satisfy in death as it had in life. The visions of Tio killing Weathers put a foul taste in his throat.
Vega’s arm dropped to his side, the phone rattling onto the metal floor as his chest exhaled a final breath.
The helicopter landed in an area of the Lexington parking lot that had been roped off by the Corpus police. Agent Shultz was met by the man in charge of the regional office.
As soon as they were far enough away from the whining turbine engine, Shultz began a staccato round of questions. “How many bodies have you recovered so far?”
“Just two dead. There are two more with life threatening injuries and another dozen or so that had minor bruises and lacerations. We’ve got people watching at the hospitals, keeping an eye on the wounded.”
Shultz nodded, “And the roadblocks?”
“They were in place 45 minutes after we received your call. It’s just not possible to shut down a city the size of Corpus any faster than that.”
The two agents paced toward the now-crippled carrier, Shultz gazing at the torn metal and gaping hole in the stern. The local man took advantage of the pause to ask his own question. “Any idea what kind of explosive we’re dealing with? My people have never seen anything like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve got six-inch steel plate that now crumbles in your hands like chalk. Mr. Burns, one of the museum’s curators, served aboard the Lexington during World War II. He claims to have seen the damage first hand from a Japanese torpedo strike – damage that wasn’t nearly as extensive as what we have now.”
Shultz stopped mid-stride and looked the junior man squarely in the eye. “You don’t want to know. You have to trust me on this… you really don’t want to know. Now what about the surveillance tapes?”
“You can see them over here,” came the reply.
The two men approached a nearby van that was surrounded by a dozen men in windbreakers, each sporting gold-embodied initials from several government agencies, including ATF, FBI, and CCPD. Shultz was led to the back where a small, flat screen monitor was made available.
He began watching grainy video of what appeared to be the typical tourist crowd meandering up the gangplank leading to the ship. In less than two minutes, he pointed to the screen and snapped, “Stop.”
The image frozen on the screen was of a woman herding two girls along the ramp, closely followed by a man with a duffle bag strapped onto his back. The low-tilted western hat blocked much of his face, but Shultz could see enough to identify Durham Weathers. “That’s our man,” he whispered. “But who was he using as a target?”
Then, almost as a second thought, Shultz instructed, “Pull copies of the pictures of that family, and pass them around. I want to know if anyone noticed them, what they were doing, or who they might be. Did they pay with a credit card? Did anyone see them leave the parking lot?”
Shultz then studied the woman closely, sure he had never seen her before. “Okay, let it play,” he instructed the technician.
The monitor showed a break in the foot traffic, the early weekday crowd sparse. Ten minutes of video-time later, Shultz again asked that the playback be paused.
This time he was looking at four men who somehow seemed out of place. Turning to his local co-worker, Shultz inquired, “Do you know any of these men?”
“No, sir.”
“Circulate these as well. My gut says these are the shooters.”
“We’ve recovered dozens of 9mm casings and another handful of .45 empties. They were scattered over two decks and one stairwell. We recovered a MAC-10 off one of the bodies, but so far there’s no sign of the weapon that discharged the bigger rounds.”
Shultz thought about the statement for a moment before responding. He glanced at the huge vessel and thought, Who were you fighting, Weathers… and why?
It took Penny a while to settle the girls down, the young ones worried that bad men were going to visit their house.
Dusty washed up and changed clothes quickly, then dawdled with his hat in hand by the back porch. The look on his hostess’s face made it clear that a serious conversation was about to ensue.
“I know who you are… now,” she opened. “I don’t watch the news much, especially concerning matters in the big cities like Houston. But now I know.”
Dusty sighed, scuffing some dirt with his boots. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Penny. I only ask that you give me a few hours head start before you call the police.”
“Pfffffft,” she exhaled, waving her hand through the air. “I’m not sure who’s worse these days… a man who blows up ships and cities or the local cops.”
Dusty had to laugh at the statement. He glanced around the ranch, a little unsure that they had left all of the trouble behind. “I didn’t mean to bring anything down on you or your family. I’m just trying to buy my friends some time so we can get this whole mess straightened out.”
“So tell me your story, Durham Weathers. Make me understand why a man I’ve grown to trust is the most wanted fugitive in the world.”
“I built a device in my workshop. Purely by accident… only via circumstance… I mixed the right components together and created a monster,” Dusty began. He stopped for a bit, nodding toward the duffle bag with his head. “Man, can I bake a cake.”
Penny chuckled and then tilted her head, “Go on.”
“I took it to my brother who is some sort of physics genius at A&M. Even he couldn’t explain the ‘why,’ but he had a pretty good idea as to the ‘how.’ It became real clear, real quick, that I had opened the Pandora’s box to practically unlimited power and energy. Suddenly, I went from a redneck West Texas gunsmith to a guy who could relate to why Albert Einstein was so worried about splitting the atom and creating a horrible weapon.”
“So why didn’t you just destroy it and go back to West Texas?”
Dusty grunted, a hurt expression crossing his face. “I wanted to. I’ve started to destroy the blasted thing a dozen times… but my brother convinced me that it could be the single greatest step forward for our species… our greatest advancement of all time. He believes it can create free energy and perhaps even save the human race. So we made a pact. I would hide the gun from those who would use it as a weapon while he worked with the authorities to set up some way… some method that would ensure only the peaceful benefits would see the light of day. It was a noble plan, but things just spiraled out of control.”
Penny shook her head, a grin appearing at the corners of her mouth. “I think I liked you better when I thought you might be an axe murderer,” she teased.
Dusty exhaled, a deep sigh of regret summing up his feelings. “I don’t know who those men were today or how they found out about the rail gun. Really, it doesn’t matter. You can’t be associating with a known criminal, or you’ll be in hot water too. So I’ll be on my way just as soon as I can pack up my things.”
Penny nodded, a look of sadness crossing her face. “You did right by the girls and me. I’ll be sorry to see you go. I hope it all works out for you.”
Dusty turned to walk toward the barn when a voice sounded from the corner of the house.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Mitch said. “They’ll let anyone hang out around these parts.”
Furious would have been an understatement. Tio paced the worn concrete floor of the warehouse, the energy of anger obvious in every step and motion.
None of the 50 odd cartel soldiers standing idly around wanted to be noticed by the boss in his current state of mind. They pretended to be busy, checking weapons, whispering hushed remarks about the weather, the local cantina, or a señorita who had caught their eye.
Each of them fully understood the ramifications of the boss’s temper boiling over. Such volcanic
eruptions weren’t common, but all of them had heard the sordid stories of such events. None wanted to suffer the consequences of the Uncle’s furor.
The rumbling of a diesel engine signaled yet another truck was arriving. All heads, including Tio’s, glanced toward the loading dock bay, many hopeful that the newest arrival might explain why they had all been urgently summoned from the far reaches of the cartel’s territory. This was an unprecedented gathering.
A few moments later, a large, open bed truck bearing the military logo of the Mexican Army rolled to a stop and began disgorging the platoon of what were obviously troops, but dressed in civilian garb. For a moment, everyone except Tio tensed. The army could be friend or foe, and no one was quite sure what was going on.
The tension quickly dissipated when a senior officer approached the cartel boss and extended his hand and a warm smile. Friend. But what the hell was going on?
In fact, there were nine trucks in a convoy, each dispatching its soldiers in an orderly fashion. The huge warehouse soon became crowded.
Someone handed Tio a bullhorn, and the low rumblings of the crowd silenced as the boss climbed onto a desk, his dark gaze sweeping the throng.
“For years we have been forced to endure the arrest, detention and death of our comrades,” Tio began, his voice slightly distorted by the electronic device. “Our livelihood has been assaulted by authorities, corrupt officials and competing organizations. We have all lost friends and family members, felt the sting of money being withdrawn from our worthy pockets, and stood by helpless as the Yankee DEA has locked away our associates.”
Tio paused for a moment, scanning the crowd as if to judge their collective reaction before continuing. “But our fight has been more than a battle of right versus wrong. The American policies that deny our brothers and sisters at the border… deny them a chance at a better life... this is wrong. They claim to embrace free enterprise and market driven commerce, yet they declare our product illegal and seize our hard-won gains. I could go on and on about how the Americans play with two faces, but you all already know the facts. And I, for one, have long harbored a desire to fight them… to set things straight… to right the injustice they impose upon our people and our land.”
