by Jon Land
“Close.”
“No record you was ever there?”
“Close again.”
Cleese stuck his shovel back in the feed. “You and me, Mac, we both went to war and we’re both survivors. ’Cept back in the sixties, surviving didn’t seem to matter much. War’s all that mattered, and I’m not talking about where you shipped out to. I’m talking about the homeland. While you were fighting for freedom, I was watching it being threatened in the good old U.S. of A. Subtle but concerted effort to make sure everybody toed the mark. Got scary for a time and we did what we could to fight it, till they turned up the heat and we went away. Fringe wasn’t lunatic enough to stick around for the finish. But the real bad guys were. They never stopped. They never will stop till they get what they want.”
“Which is?”
“Nothing’ll satisfy ’em short of the country itself. That’s what they been planning for. That’s what they wanted us out of the way for way back in the beginning.”
McCracken’s thoughts were swimming. Conceivably Tom Daniels’s dying mention of Operation Yellow Rose might not have been meant to point him to the Midnight Riders at all, but at the force behind Yellow Rose: William Carlisle’s shadowy Trilateral Commission subcommittee. Carlisle had intimated that the current crisis was due to the failure of that subcommittee to wipe out men like Cleese when they had the chance. But what if that failure had led to another stage of development, a more complex plan to gain the control they sought? In that event, the former residents of the lunatic fringe were being set up, the blame cast upon them for the plot Daniels had uncovered by its true perpetrators.
“Operation Yellow Rose,” Blaine muttered.
Cleese’s eyebrows went up at that. “Like I said, you standing there, you know.”
“Keep talking.”
“Trilateral shits didn’t have the guts to go through with Yellow Rose. So things get quiet for a while until somebody new takes over. Somebody real good. Got himself a real agenda that makes the old one look like a shopping list. Knows just how to get what he wants without anybody knowing they gave it to him.”
“For example …”
“Check out House Resolution 4079. Cut through the bullshit and check out what it really says, what it paved the way for.”
“Care to give me a hint?”
“You be better off seeing this for yourself.”
“The word ‘Prometheus’ mean anything to you?” McCracken asked Cleese suddenly, recalling another of the shadowy clues passed on by Tom Daniels.
“Should it?”
“If Operation Yellow Rose does, maybe. They’re connected.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Not yet.” Blaine thought briefly. “What about the Delphi?”
Cleese shook his head. “Means nothing to me, man. Best thing you can do is stick to what you know, what I told you. You wanna see who’s driving the train, start with what they’re hiding in the caboose.”
“That House resolution …”
Cleese’s next shovelful of feed landed beyond the trough. The cattle scattered quickly to retrieve it.
“It’ll prove what I’m telling is the truth, ’cause what 4079 does is—”
Cleese’s words ended in an agonized scream. He fell to the ground, clutching his shoulder. McCracken dropped just as quickly and readied his SIG as he heard another burst of silenced spits. Blaine’s eyes probed for the two guards who’d been watching them the whole time. One had vanished from view. The other still lay in the mud.
“Fuck!” Cleese screeched, rolling in the ooze, shielded by cattle.
“Don’t get up.”
“If they yours, motherfucker, you’ll die remembering!”
“Not mine, Cleese.”
More gunshots sounded. The rhythm, the spacing, the cadence made Blaine realize something. All these guards, both seen and unseen, and still Cleese’s security had been penetrated without so much as an alarm.
“Yours,” Blaine finished.
“The fuck you say—”
“A few, enough. They let the attackers enter the property.”
McCracken had slid slightly away from him, searching for the gunmen. Illusion and reality, at least, had clearly parted, his true enemy having revealed itself.
Bill Carlisle had it all wrong. This wasn’t happening because his subcommittee had failed in its mandate; it was happening because that still-thriving offshoot of the Trilateral Commission was pursuing a different mandate.
Blaine guessed they could have killed Cleese at any time, but they’d waited until now. After the bomb on the Miami-bound plane had failed to do the job, they had set a trap where they knew McCracken’s trail would ultimately lead.
“Can you get out of here yourself?” Blaine asked Cleese.
“I ain’t stayed free all these years to die like this,” the leader of the Midnight Riders grimaced. “Still got some tricks up my sleeve.”
“Use them. Get out.”
“I ain’t running,” Cleese said stubbornly, breath misting before his face.
“Think of your son.” Blaine knew he had him with that. “Roll away. Keep to the mud, between the cattle.”
Cleese nodded. “Gonna give you a number to memorize. Safe line. ’Case you need to reach me someday. Thing is, I owe you now.”
Cleese recited the number. Blaine memorized it.
“Now get yourself outta here,” McCracken ordered.
CHAPTER 20
Blaine watched Cleese disappear into the cattle crowding toward the corral’s rear and began pulling himself through the muck. Mud spit into the air in his wake as he moved. The converging gunmen were fast drawing a bead on him. The trajectory of their bullets gave him a vague indication of their position. In the narrowing distance he was able to grab glimpses of them when the spaces between the cattle allowed. Blaine still held his SIG-Sauer but hadn’t yet fired it. Just as he brought it forward and started to sight down the barrel, a steer’s leg slammed against his arm.
The pistol went flying, a wild shot blasting skyward. McCracken felt through the muck for the gun. Cattle blocked his search in all directions, their hooves coming dangerously close to crushing his fingers. He was wasting time. Not only was he weaponless now, but the errant shot had signaled the attackers to his position. Only one avenue of cover, perhaps even escape, remained for him: the slaughterhouse itself.
The huge complex was a hundred feet away, accessible via the corral if he could negotiate his way past the frightened, bellowing cattle. The doors leading into the slaughterhouse from the back of the corral had opened and the animals squeezed toward them.
Blaine sank lower and tasted the rancid mud. The animals that weren’t clustered about the fresh feed Cleese had shoveled out were still pressing toward the entrance to the slaughterhouse. The mass of brown hide made for an indistinguishable blanket, awkward in its slow motion forward.
Beyond the corral he could hear screams, shouts, and the heavy thumps of footsteps. A pair of shotgun blasts rang out. More of the soft spits answered them. Some of Cleese’s still-loyal guards must have arrived to offer resistance, at the very least buying Blaine some time. He continued to haul himself through the muck on his elbows. Above him, the hooves of the snorting beasts promised disaster with each step.
The double doors started to swing closed. McCracken frantically picked up his pace, squeezing and slithering between the animals. He lunged through the doorway just as the doors thumped shut behind him. Blaine rose into a crouch, still shielded by the cover of the milling cattle. Revolted by the stench, he pulled his now-muddied mask up to cover his face again. It would steal some measure of sight from him, but the cost was worth it for the moment. The herd was inching its way forward through the massive building, funneled into three separate lines leading onto conveyor belts which would take their carcasses through the stations of the assembly line process.
The ceiling was high and the building’s light quite dim. The machine noises had hidden the so
und of gunshots from those within, accounting for their ignorance of the gun battle raging outside. Blaine caught glimpses of soiled white uniforms as he dodged amidst the cattle.
The cattle pressed onward, herded on by workers who hadn’t yet spotted McCracken. His plan was to launch into a rush once he reached the head of one of the lines the cattle spiraled off into. The conveyor belt would eventually lead him to the doors the beef would be carted through to be loaded onto trucks like his.
Blaine chose the middle of the three lines. When he was still fifteen yards from the entrance, a sudden wash of light cut neat slivers in the chilly darkness. The enemy had trailed him here and had thrown open the main doors to continue their pursuit. Blaine could hear nothing of their approach above the animals’ snorting and see nothing of it over their hulking shapes. All he could do for now was let himself continue to be swept forward by the impetus of the surging animals.
Blaine was close enough to the elevated central opening to see a worker on a slightly raised platform controlling the flow of animals to their deaths. When the light from the open doors reached the man, he turned his masked face rearward and stiffened. Unarmed, he tried to reach for something on his belt when he was jerked against the wall. Huge scarlet chasms opened where only dried blood had been before. The man slumped down. The face of another man on his right vanished in a burst of blood and bone.
The enemy was closing. McCracken could not possibly enter the killing zone without being seen. He was trapped.
Unless …
Blaine stopped. Around him the animals bunched briefly together, then slid by. He lowered his shoulders and peered backward at ground level through the endless hooves.
There! Thirty feet back and just to the right, a pair of boots advanced through the pack. Blaine shuffled to the left. His progress came in agonizing fits and starts as he pushed himself between the bunched and nervous animals. He angled in toward the approaching killer after covering six yards. He calculated that, at the pace the herd allowed him, he would intercept the man just before the final ramp leading up onto the conveyor belt.
Blaine launched his attack through a narrow gap between a pair of animals stalled in their tracks. He came in low, slamming the stalker in the knees and taking him down. The animals gave ground and the two men tumbled to the slimy floor.
The killer was holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle, ineffective in close. Nonetheless, Blaine made sure to pin it against his body before he launched his free hand forward. He had wedged as much mud and feces in his grasp as he could hold and jammed the oozing contents against the killer’s nose and mouth. The man gagged, eyes bulging. In that instant Blaine brought his second hand up to join the first and pounded his face. The third blow landed with a crunching impact. His hands came away bloody. The man moaned and was still. Blaine struggled to free his Kalashnikov.
The sudden nervous shifting of the animals above him provided warning of the rapid approach of another adversary. McCracken gave up on the rifle and lunged to his feet. He caught the second surging attacker by surprise across the jaw with an elbow. The man staggered briefly, then lashed outward with the butt of his rifle. The blow caught Blaine in the chin. His head whiplashed to the side, neck muscles seizing. His torso slammed into the rock-hard bulk of one of the herd and he bounced back the man’s way.
The man’s finger had closed on the trigger just as Blaine grabbed the barrel and shoved it away. The bullets from his Kalashnikov sped errantly into a nearby clutter of cattle. Around them, the already terrified herd erupted into panic. Animals began slamming into each other, discarding the orderly flow and heading in any direction that would have them.
The man kicked out at him, but Blaine refused to release the gun barrel. Ignoring McCracken’s hold on it, he drove forward with the butt as he had before. At impact, the momentum carried the two of them up the ramp leading into the middle of the three killing zones.
They landed at the start of the conveyor belt that ferried cattle along the slaughterhouse’s assembly-line process. Blaine slammed into it hard and felt the tread churning beneath him as his assailant shoved a rifle butt into the soft flesh of his throat, choking off his breath. The man continued to jam the stock downward. A look of triumph started to spread over his filth-laced face.
McCracken held fast to the rifle but couldn’t budge it. He had only seconds left to act before unconsciousness claimed him, but how to act?
Blaine stole a glance behind him and glimpsed the mechanical ramrod that was the only automated feature of the line. A laser guided the ramrod dead-on with each animal’s head and sent it into a swift punching motion forward once the sensor line had been crossed. The result was instantaneous death, the animal then hoisted by its chained forelegs into the air and spirited toward the now-abandoned stations. Being automated, though, the ramrod should still be functional.
Blood hammering inside his head, McCracken abruptly released his hold on the rifle and reached for the hair of the figure above him. He grabbed hold and jerked the man forward enough to break the plane of the ramrod’s sensor. A brief mechanical whine was followed by a swift blur jettisoning forward just within Blaine’s line of vision. It punched against the man’s forehead and drove him violently backward, a strangely bloodless chasm dug out of his skull.
McCracken lunged to his feet and started down the center of the three slimy, blood-soaked catwalks to the slaughterhouse’s rear. The surface was formed of heavy slats positioned with gaps to allow for drainage. The flooring was solid only at each of the major stations along the way where workers alternately sliced, skinned, and quartered the carcasses. Above it the conveyor belt rose to carry the suspended corpses conveniently through the process.
Blaine dashed along the planking beneath the shackles left empty by the sudden breakdown in the system. He stopped long enough to retrieve a pair of bloodied, machete-like slicers dropped when the workers ran for their lives. He heard a man shouting to another behind him and swung. He flung the knives before his aim was sure. One flew hopelessly errant. But the other grazed one of the gunman’s arms and spun him into the path of the ramrod. The steel end caught him in the throat and punctured it, the man struggling wildly as the ramrod impaled him and snapped him backward with its recoil.
Others pushed by his flailing frame and began firing McCracken’s way. Blaine charged away from them, catching up with the last of the cattle to be hoisted upon the line. With the bullets bearing down, he jumped up and grabbed hold of a pair of shackles harnessing a steer’s forelegs so that the carcass behind it would serve as his cover. He tucked his legs up so they wouldn’t dangle below the animal’s length and just managed to avoid incurring a nasty gash from a huge scissor-like contraption suspended from the ceiling at the quartering station.
Suddenly the belt stopped. Blaine dropped back down to the planking and nearly slipped in an oozing pile of entrails and stray limbs.
“There he is!”
The shout barely preceded the fresh hail of gunfire. Blaine crouched and ran along the last of the planking toward an opening where ordinarily the conveyor belt deposited its finished products for storage. Quite expectedly here too Cleese’s workers had deserted their posts, leaving the six freezers unattended. To confuse the closing opposition, McCracken cracked two of the freezers open and then charged into a third one. He slammed the door behind him and his body was instantly engulfed by the intense cold. Quartered and halved steer carcasses were stacked or hung everywhere. The air was rich-with ice crystals. Clearly he could not last long in here. But escape was on his mind, not refuge.
Blaine had glimpsed enough of the loading process outside to know these freezers were equipped with rear hatch-type doors. He dashed to the back and yanked the hatch door open to reveal a steeply angled slide the carcasses were dropped onto for easy packing on the trucks. Twenty yards beyond this chute, his truck waited, its engine still idling.
Blaine heard the door to the freezer burst open behind him and threw himself onto the s
lide head first. A slimy coat of oil and blood quickened his ride down. He started pulling himself upward when the slide bottomed out. His feet touched hard-packed gravel already running, and he leaped behind the wheel of his truck
Ignoring the bullets already slamming into its side and rear, he jammed the truck into drive and tore off through the parking lot. The truck bucked and rattled, and Blaine shut down the refrigerator in the rear to gather more power. Almost like a boost from a turbo, the truck surged gratefully toward the refuge promised by the open road.
The refuge, of course, was temporary; McCracken abandoned the refrigerated truck in the woods ten miles from Arlo Cleese’s stockyard. He then set off on foot until he came to a small farmhouse that had a clothesline strung between two trees in its rear. The one-piece stockyard uniform he’d stripped off had prevented most of the dirt and blood from reaching his own garments. The stink, though, seemed in them forever. Fortunately, hanging with the other clothes on the line were a pair of jeans and a shirt that looked to be about his size. After a silent apology to the owner, he yanked them off and pulled them on in place of his own ruined garments.
Blaine’s next goal was to obtain a vehicle to replace his abandoned truck. A long hike down the road brought him to a combination filling station and general store. From the small parking lot alongside it he chose the car with the coldest engine, indicating it belonged to someone who worked inside and likely wouldn’t miss it for a few more hours. The owner had carelessly left the key in the ignition, an unexpected bonus for McCracken, who was intent on saving as much time as possible. He pulled into a motel just past nightfall, the plates on the stolen car changed once en route.
The first thing he did was phone Sal Belamo to tell him to dig up everything he could on House of Representatives Law 4079, the law Arlo Cleese had alluded to just prior to the attack at the stockyard. It took two hours for the pug-nosed ex-boxer to call him back.
“This is crazy shit, boss,” Belamo began. “Crazy.”
