Firepower

by John Cutter

  Sure, the Brethren had dragged him in here. But he could almost hear his father’s voice asking How’d you get yourself in a position where they could do that, boy?

  He sat up on his bunk and ran his hands through his hair. He’d been here for weeks, and his hair was growing long. What time was it? He couldn’t tell. There were no windows. There was just the twenty by fifteen-foot room, its toilet and sink, the bunk, a small air vent, eternally locked door with its little barred window and food chute, and a shelf of books. Most of them, including The Coming Race War, were by Gustafson himself. One of them had been part of the reason he’d tried to leave the Brethren. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He’d believed, at first, that the book was real — the plans of an ancient Jewish conspiracy against gentiles — until he’d done some research and found out that “The Protocols” was fabricated. It had actually been made up by anti-Semites to smear Jews.

  When he found that out, he started wondering if the other claims the Brethren made were lies as well. The more he looked at sources outside their circle, the more he was sure the Brethren’s sources were false or wild distortions.

  But even then he’d been reluctant to leave. They’d helped him get clean from Oxy. He had a firm identity here in the militia. Something he’d never had before.

  Then he found out the Brethren were planning an attack to kill hundreds of civilians.

  No. He couldn’t live with that.

  He’d made the mistake of telling Mac Colls about his doubts and his plans to leave. Stupid, so stupid to tell Mac. He should have just left the barracks in the dead of night and never come back. He did leave for a while, then he came back to talk to his friend Shaun Adler, trying to get him to leave with him…

  A knock at the bars. He glanced over and saw Professor Gustafson himself, smiling sadly at him through the little barred window. “You don’t seem to be reading.”“I read everything through, sir.”

  “I told you I wanted you to memorize the sixth chapter of my latest book and recite it back to me.”

  “I’m… working on it.”

  Gustafson shook his head. “I don’t think you’re serious about rehabilitating yourself, Bobby. I’d have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a believer before I let you out.”

  “I am, General! I believe!” He said it as convincingly as he was able. He had to try to believe — or pretend to. He couldn’t stay here much longer without losing his mind. Going around and around in his head; pacing, exercising, talking to himself because there was no one else to talk to. “I totally believe, sir!”

  “I am not convinced. And what are my options? It’s not practical to keep you here indefinitely. I can execute you — which is probably the smart move — or I can release you. Which would be foolish. But… there is a test I could put you through.”

  Shaun swallowed. “What test, sir?”

  “I just might give you a special assignment. With a chaperone, of course. You do it… I will give you a pardon.”

  “What kind of assignment?”

  “Oh, well, as to that…” Gustafson chuckled. “You’ll see. It’s all part of the bigger plan… But you’re also required to memorize that chapter I assigned. It’s a short one. You can do it, Bobby. You have to.”

  “General—”

  But then he was gone. Bobby could hear Gustafson’s bootsteps receding down the hallway…

  *

  “Hold it!” Rendell croaked, stopping on the trail with one hand raised. His jaw was cracked, swollen, and it was hard to talk. In his left hand was the heavy Desert Eagle, the biggest handgun he had and one of the most powerful on the market.

  The other three stopped on the trail behind him. Hever almost bumped into him. Behind Rendell, Glenn Hever, Tutty Tutwallager and Scarecrow Hudson were waiting, AK47s in their hands, mouths open, looking scared and stoned. Both the husky Tutty and the skinny, raggedly dressed Scarecrow had gotten high before coming. Rendell had told them not to.

  The fucking Three Stooges. Why didn’t he have better people?

  “There’s a tripwire,” Rendell told them. His effort to whisper came out a rasp.

  “Where?” asked Hever. He was a rail-thin man with a goatish beard and spiky, greasy black hair. “Oh — that fishing line in the brush?”

  It was chilly out here in the woods in the early morning, and Hever’s breath showed as he talked.

  Rendell could smell it, too. “Yes, and keep your voice down! He told me where to come — and I’m pretty sure it’s a trap. But I’ve been watching for shit like this fucking tripwire.”

  He glanced around him, peering through the shadowy underbrush for a sign of the big man who’d jumped him at the bar. All Rendell had been able to find out, calling around later that night, was that the man had given his name as Vince. Was this “Vince” watching, somewhere near? To Rendell’s right was a slope crowded with pines and scrub grass. To his left the ground dropped sharply off, a steeper slope mostly covered by ivy and wild blackberry. About fifty feet below the trail, Chickasaw Creek wound through the bottom of the canyon, chuckling to itself as if amused by the four men.

  Rendell looked back at the tripwire, bending over to see what it led to. Maybe a shotgun, set up to blast someone?

  But then he saw what it was attached to. Grass. Just… grass, on both sides. Nothing else. That wouldn’t have even tripped him up; the grass would’ve just torn. Why bother with it?

  Unless — he was meant to see it. To stall him in this spot…

  Then he gasped and said, “Flatten—”

  But the gunshots interrupted him, two rounds, from upslope in the trees, and Hever yelled once — sounded like he was saying “Yip!” — as the bullets knocked him down the steep slope. He fell back, still clutching the AK, and slid down the slope, over the brush, flattening it down as he went…

  And into a fresh grave.

  Rendell stared, trying to be sure of what he was seeing. Yes. An open grave, perpendicular to the trail, hidden by bushes till now, had just swallowed up Hever’s body.

  “Holy fuck!” Tutty blurted.

  Rendell turned spasmodically toward the direction the shots had come from, fired his Desert Eagle randomly upslope, the recoil from the heavy magnum round jerking his hand back. Then he ducked down, and the other two did the same, firing up the hill and then hunkering low.

  The guy who’d killed Hever called mockingly down to them. “I really, really don’t like drug dealers!” came a maddeningly familiar voice, from somewhere up in the brush.

  Rendell tried to figure out exactly where the voice had come from, but it sounded a fair distance off and there was some echo out here in the canyon.

  “I’m willing to let you go with that one casualty!” the man continued. “You have to throw your weapons down the hill, into the brush, and take off your shirts! Down to the skin, so I can see you’re unarmed. Then you walk back the way you came and you leave town! You do not get to stay! If you don’t leave or if you go to the cops, I’ll watch and wait and I’ll get you. One at a time. That’s my only offer. You’d better take it, Rendell!”

  Rendell shook his head. He’d had one humiliation at this Vince’s hands already. He wasn’t having another. Besides, he had a good understanding with Sheriff Woodbridge here. That was not something he’d find, not easily, somewhere else. No. This guy had to die. And it was still three against this one man.

  “Rendell?” Scarecrow hissed. “Fuck this! Let’s do what he said!”

  “Nope,” said Rendell. “You try to run, I’ll shoot you myself.”

  “Rendell.” Tutty whispering this time. “We can pretend to agree — then regroup. We’ve got more guns in your truck.”

  “No, you fool, he’ll follow us. It’s two miles to the road. We’re gonna tell him okay, tell him we agree. You’ll say that — I can’t shout right now. Then we’ll all three open fire up that slope. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Then we move back along the trail to that fallen pine tree — you see it? We’ll run
behind it and then we’ll split up and hunt him down.”

  “Rendell,” Scarecrow whispered, his voice shaking, “I really think that—”

  “Don’t think, you’re no good at it!” Rendell growled. “Tutty — tell him it’s a deal. Then we open fire.”

  “Hey, dude!” Tutty yelled. “We’re okay! We got a deal!”

  “Now!” Rendell yelled. They jumped up and fired up toward the densest part of the vegetation, where this Vince was probably hiding. The guns cracked and rattled, tree branches spat splinters, pine cones fell, gun smoke thickened around them.

  “Run!” Rendell yelled.

  *

  Vince smiled, hearing the gunshots cracking into the woods where he’d been before. He’d moved on from the “duck blind” he’d made in the brush, immediately after he’d given his ultimatum, running behind a series of granite outcroppings to the pine woods back down the trail. He figured the gang would go for the cover of the big fallen pine tree. If they went anywhere else, he’d still be able to see them head there from the outcropping he crouched behind now. He had a good view of the trail above the creek.

  They did not disappoint him. As he crouched behind the rocks, he could see them running directly to the big fallen pine. They scuttled around the stump to hunker down behind the supine trunk. They were right there, in front of Vince, their backs to him, about forty-five feet away.

  The clean-up was going to be such a pain in the ass. Just get it done.

  Well, he wasn’t going to just shoot them in the back. That was something he was willing to do when he had to, if it was a righteous target. He just didn’t feel like he had to now.

  He stood up, aimed the AR-15 carefully, then shouted, “I’m back here, idiots!”

  They all spun around, Scarecrow even getting off a burst from his AK, the rounds cracking into the boulder that half concealed Vince. Tutty tried to run. Rendell was trying to aim.

  He didn’t have time for that. Vince squeezed off three semi-auto rounds, firing the rifle like a carbine, and the top of each man’s head, starting with Rendell, just vanished in a welter of exploding blood, brains and bone.

  None of the gang got off another shot. They slumped like puppets with their strings cut.

  The echoes of the shots faded, and Vince listened for a reaction, from off in the woods. He’d scouted the area for a quarter mile in four directions and hadn’t seen any campers or fishermen or rangers. But you couldn’t be sure.

  The only reaction to the gunshots came from blue jays, squawking in the branches, and a couple of crows flying away.

  Vince had noticed Rendell’s Desert Eagle. He’d make some calls and see if it was registered to Rendell. If the cops stopped him with it, he didn’t want to be associated with a gun owned by a missing man.

  Good chance it wasn’t registered to the dealer. Kind of guy who’d want to keep his name off his murder weapons. That being the case, he could appropriate it. It was a good weapon to have. The AKs — naw. Bury them with the bodies.

  Vince sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to dragging the three men to their graves. He had more graves ready. He’d figured that Rendell might bring four men. He’d been close.

  Burying them was the right thing to do. And you couldn’t just leave bodies around in the woods. The sheriff’s department would be alerted, at the least.

  Vince shrugged, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and went to Rendell’s body. He dug through Rendell’s pockets, found his car keys, then took the heavy corpse by the ankles, and started dragging. The others he could transport one at a time with a fireman’s carry.

  “You’re going to give me a back-ache, Rendell,” he muttered. “I hope you feel bad about that.”

  Getting them all planted, covered over, the graves hidden, his footprints removed from the area — it took time to do it right.

  He got it done, then he had to take Rendell’s truck off into the woods, off-road it into a good hiding place.

  It was early afternoon before Vince walked up to the cabin. He was hungry. He’d cook up some of the hamburger Rose had left him, along with some home fries.

  His phone ran as he was stepping up onto the porch. Vince didn’t recognize the number. He answered, “Yeah?”

  “Vince? It’s Shaun Adler. Um — look — I’m going out to… to see a friend, out near where we first met, in the woods. He wants me to tell you something and ask you something.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “His name… Professor Gustafson. He says you didn’t need to protect me from Rendell, the Brethren would have done that.”

  The Brethren. Vince had to pretend he’d never heard of them. “And who’s the Brethren?”

  “Germanic Brethren. A… brotherhood. We have a special mission.”

  “Okay. Rendell would have stomped you before they even heard about it.”

  “I told the General that… He wanted me to tell you anyway. The other thing is — he wants to meet with you. He thinks you’d be a good candidate for the Brethren. But — no promises. He wants you to come with me to meet him out by our… our headquarters.”

  “Is this how you and your friends plan to pay me back for our encounter in the forest? You setting me up, Shaun?”

  “No! But it’s not safe for you in town. Rendell Saggett’s got a gang. It’s him and three other guys. They don’t fight fair.”

  “Actually — they’ve left town. I had a little talk with him and he’s chosen to leave. They all did.”

  There was a crackling silence as Shaun took this in. Finally he said, “Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious,” Vince said.

  “Um — okay. But Vince—”

  “Listen, if your professor wants to meet with me, it’s going to be in public. Last night I spotted a roadhouse café — Pat’s Eats?”

  “Sure, everyone knows it.”

  “I’ll be there tonight for dinner. Seven o’clock. I invite you and your friends for pie and coffee at seven-thirty. I’m not going to meet your Brethren anywhere else.”

  Vince hung up and went in to make his lunch. Maybe cut up some onions in the potatoes…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pat’s Eats was a one-story log-cabin-style structure, built to attract passing tourists. The rounded timbers were painted dark brown, chinked with white concrete, and the floor was polished wood. The interior was decorated with old-timey artifacts, like mule harnesses and motheaten deer heads. The booths were wooden; cracks in their leather seats repaired with duct tape. Vince liked the smell, the redolence from decades of bacon and maple syrup and burgers.

  He pushed aside the plate that had contained his venison steak and small salad. The pretty young black-haired waitress cleared it away. “Anything else?”

  “I’m good. I’ll just finish my Coca-Cola. Expecting some… friends.”

  She smiled at him, seemed to want to say something more, then hurried away with his plate. The little bell on the door tinkled and Vince glanced over to see Shaun Adler, Mac Colls and a stocky, middle-aged, wide-faced man in a neat, tailored blue suit. He wore a white shirt and a red tie. His gray hair was flat-topped.

  His face, with its wide mouth and bulging eyes, was vaguely familiar to Vince. A newspaper report? Something about a professor who’d been forced out of a university under a cloud?

  Vince nodded and gestured for them to sit down.

  Gustafson sat across from him, close to the wall; Shaun on Vince’s left, Mac Colls on Gustafson’s right.

  Gustafson gave him a wintry smile. “I’m Professor Gustafson. I take it you’ve met the other men?”

  “I have,” Vince said, nodding. “You gentleman like to order something? I had some apple pie. Not bad at all.”

  Maybe to keep from seeming conspicuous, they ordered coffee and apple pie. Three slices of pie and three cups of coffee arrived. Gustafson and Colls ate a few bites of theirs, and Shaun wolfed his down. “Totally rockin’ pie,” he said.

  Gustafson was looking at Vince in
a way that seemed analytic. A measuring; an assessing. Colls was looking at him with a kind of sullen vigilance. Shaun was studiously putting four spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee.

  “I understand there’s something you wanted to talk to me about,” said Vince. “The guns I appropriated?”

  “We found the broken ones,” Gustafson said. “I assume you left them for us to find. Some kind of message?”

  Vince shrugged. “If you like.”

  “What’s the message, precisely?”

  Vince smiled. “‘Don’t point guns at me’.”

  “I see. The other AR-15 is intact?”

  “Yes. If we have an understanding, I’ll give it to Shaun. He can take it back to you.”

  “What kind of understanding?”

  “That you don’t tell me where I can and can’t go. I stay off private property. Apart from that…”

  “You didn’t have any right to be where you were,” Colls said. “You were on—"

  Gustafson raised a hand and Colls instantly shut up, as if someone hit a mute button.

  “We’re working at cross purposes here,” Gustafson said. “It’s a bad start. But I hope for a good outcome. You’re a valuable man. You proved that on the trail. And you’re a decorated professional soldier, Mr. Bellator. From a genuinely ancient family of soldiers, I understand. Your father. His father. And on… Martial ancestors going a long, long ways back.”

  “You have been busy,” Vince said. He took a sip of his Coke. “How’d you do it? Fingerprints on the guns?”

  Gustafson shook his head. He glanced around, probably confirming that the place was almost empty. No one was sitting close by. But he lowered his voice as he said, “We had a clear camera image of your face. There was that look at your ID. I ran it past an… a friend in government.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Vince nodded. That told him something. Someone fairly highly placed in national security.

  Gustafson cleared his throat and folded his hands on the table. “You’re clearly an intelligent man, Mr. Bellator. And you’re an educated man — that’s in your files. You know history and culture. You know that Germanic and Anglo-Saxon cultures created civilization. They created its art and science, its architecture, its engineering.”