by James O'Neal
Wilner nodded as he tried to compose himself.
Leonard ducked at the sound and then saw new headlights as a car eased down the street toward the house. A Mercedes hive slowed and turned into Wilner’s driveway. Leonard watched as a man stepped from the car and slipped on a long all-weather coat then carefully walked out the door.
He milled around the front for several minutes as if he were deciding whether to knock. Then the door swung open and Leonard saw Wilner allow the man into the house.
It looked like his brilliant plan would have to wait, but at least he knew where Wilner lived now.
THIRTY-FIVE
Bejor Simolit sat on the other end of the long couch with his hands folded in his lap. Wilner noticed how the man’s dignified bearing, erect spine and intense gaze made him look like someone out of the nineteenth century. Which might be where he was from.
Wilner had allowed him into his home with a degree of wariness. His experience with the Simolit family had not been positive recently. But the way he had asked and his assurance that he meant no harm made the risk seem a little more manageable.
“I don’t often meet with humans,” said the man in a calm, quiet tone. “But you know most of our secrets.” His eyes flicked to a photo of Tommy and Emma.
“And you know mine.”
“This is not why I have made the trip all the way down here.”
“What did bring you to my house? An address I didn’t realize was public.”
Bejor smiled. “You know by now the reach of our family. We knew your late wife’s address, which was the same as yours. She was, after all, a Simolit.” He looked at the photo again. “As are your children.”
Wilner felt a stab at the comment.
Bejor held up his hand. “That is another matter. The family has conferred most recently on Johann Halleck’s inquiry as to a certain Janos Dadicek. Unfortunately we are unable to find Johann at the moment.”
“Johann is over in the western wilderness.”
“May I ask why?”
“Helping some settlers who are being terrorized by bandits.”
Bejor smiled. “The Hallecks and their human causes.”
“It’s better than slaughtering us.” Wilner focused a look on the older man and said, “I’m sure you’re not here to talk about Johann.”
“No, of course not. I was going to tell you that there is no Janos Dadicek among us. That doesn’t mean he’s not using a different name but based on all we have heard, this man is not a Simolit.”
“I’ll know more tomorrow.”
“You know where this man is?”
“I’m narrowing it down.”
“Then I will send my sons to help.”
“Why, if he’s not a Simolit?”
“Because I want to be sure. If he is, we will deal with him. He is not subject to your laws.”
“What’s that mean? You’ll turn him loose somewhere else?”
Now the man’s icy brown eyes seemed to bore into Wilner. “I give you my word, Detective Wilner, that if this man is a Simolit and has the predilections you have mentioned, he will be dealt with properly. You may even find it harsh.”
Wilner assessed the man.
Bejor held out his hand. “You have my word.”
Wilner felt the honor in him and took his hand.
It was after midnight when Johann Halleck decided he had pushed the men too far. They had traveled most of the night in the big truck they had captured from the Zoners. The two surviving raiders were tied up and tossed in the bed of the truck. Johann, Jim Sewell, Victor and Sean were crammed inside the truck’s oversized cab. Of the settlers, Victor and Sean seemed the best prepared to kill someone for their safety.
Johann had explained that his plan was to use information from the two captured men to follow the trail back across the state, through the Everglades and to the house the Zoners used as a base of operations. The men had said their leader was named Janos and that made him first on Johann’s hit list. If he severed the head of the serpent it was less likely the serpent would ever fight back. He intended to make an example for these men so that no one from the zone would think to threaten the peaceful settlers in the wilderness of southwestern Florida.
Now they had three fire packs broken and burning in a pile next to the truck. The two settlers were asleep in the cab of the truck.
The former Naples cop, Jim Sewell, sat back against one of the truck’s giant tires. He stared into the fire and said, “You know I never shot anyone.”
“Except me.”
Sewell’s eyes moved to Johann. “And that didn’t even do anything.”
“I can handle this. You stay back with the prisoners. I don’t want to waste your talents.”
“I’m still trying to figure out why I wasted years protecting evidence no one would ever use.”
“We used it.”
Sewell smiled. “You’re a good guy to have around to cheer someone up. I guess the long and the short of it is that I’m scared.”
“If you weren’t, you’d be stupid. Tomorrow we’ll recon the place and make a plan. You’ll do your share if it means shooting or watching. You need to go easier on yourself.”
“I think I’d like living in the settlement. I couldn’t go back to regular civilization.”
“It’s hardly civilized anymore. But you’re right, the settlers could use a man like you.”
“You think we can stop them?”
Johann smiled. “I’ve faced a lot worse. This’ll be easy.”
Leonard Hall had given up on the cop after the man in the Mercedes had stayed more than an hour. He had watched the house hoping to follow through on his plan even after the man had arrived. But when he stayed with no signs of leaving soon, Leonard had decided he needed to get back to the zone and make a new plan.
He had no trouble getting across the same bridge he had used to come into the district. The same guardsmen were on duty.
His little Honda chugged along on the steam power at a decent eighteen miles an hour through the damp and empty streets of the Miami Quarantine Zone. He cut over to the river road and then went south toward his house. Along the way he saw several houses with lights from stored solar power or from their own generators.
As he walked in the front door, shaking off the droplets of rain, he was surprised by his aunt moving suddenly on the couch in the living room.
As Leonard stepped into the small room his aunt said, “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“But I hardly see you.”
He stared at her, huddled under a real wool blanket. An impulse made him reach down and yank the blanket. He stood back, shocked to see his aunt nude underneath. He realized what he had interrupted, but didn’t move to cover her.
For his aunt’s part, she didn’t seem embarrassed. She stood and faced him, her body still in good shape with large, if saggy, boobs. She was only slightly older than him, which in his family was not unusual. Many uncles and aunts were younger than their nephews and nieces.
Leonard took a second to stare at his aunt whom he had lived with for all these years but had never looked at this way before.
Despite her attractive body and ageless face he noticed one thing more than the rest. Her lovely neck.
THIRTY-SIX
Steve Besslia pulled Tom Wilner over to the side away from the others.
“Willie, are you kidding me? We’re gonna take these two into the zone with us?” His eyes cut over to the tall young men standing patiently near the car.
“Why not?”
“For one thing, they’re Simolits. For another, this is a police investigation and they’re not cops.”
“Calm down, Steve.”
Besslia realized he might have sounded a little panicked but he didn’t like the idea of potential enemies riding with them into an area without laws.
Wilner said, “Bejor Simolit seemed troubled by the idea that a Simolit could be doing the killings. He volunteered his sons. I thi
nk they might be a help and it avoids other problems later.”
“Like what?”
“Like explaining how we killed a Simolit family member, if that’s what Dadicek is. I’m not worried about them and neither should you.”
Besslia wished his friend Johann Halleck was with them instead. Johann had proven to be reliable and trustworthy. He wondered what his friend was doing out in the wilderness right now. Besslia thought he could help out there but knew Johann was right when he said Besslia’s destiny lay over here with the UPF.
Then Besslia realized what bothered him almost as much as the Simolits being shady. He was worried they might steal his chance to prove himself.
Johann stirred from a restless sleep, with ants gnawing into his ankle. The sun was up enough to disperse light into the low, gray clouds. Now he could see ahead on the trail. He knew they were on part of the old Tamiami Trail, which had been flooded after the rains had started in earnest. The water had receded a little but no one used the road, which was constructed to connect Tampa and Miami. Now it formed the solid ground for weeds and grass and fungus to cover it; a perfect back way for raiders out of the zone to sneak into the wilderness.
He stood and stretched, then checked on the two tied and gagged men in the rear of the truck. One man had given up waiting for someone to untie them and urinated in his pants. Johann hopped up into the bed of the truck and roughly yanked down the gags. “We’ll be close to the zone in a couple of hours. Then you better lead us to the right house or pissing in your pants will be the most pleasant thing to happen to you.”
The man who had shot Johann kept a defiant glare and said, “You have no idea who you’re pissing off.”
Johann smiled.
“And you do?”
Leonard Hall felt the buildup in his nervous system. The urge. The usual pleasant feeling that was fueled by anticipation and sometimes built to a fever if he fixated on someone for too long. It was a feeling that could pass if he didn’t see his potential victim for a while but once it started it was hard to stop.
This buildup started with the cop. If Leonard could have plunged his combat spike into the big UPF detective’s neck then he’d be in a calm, quiet state now. A satisfaction that could last for up to a month. Instead he had seen his aunt in a new light and now was concerned he had transferred the buildup to her.
To make matters worse he thought that she had derived more than a little excitement from Leonard’s increased attention. Just the way she sauntered into the kitchen in an open robe and let her fingers dance across his back as she passed. That was unlike anything she had ever done.
Perhaps it was all the years living apart from most other people. Just she and Leonard. He had hardly paid any attention to her at all. Now, as she scrambled two mismatched eggs—one chicken, the other some sort of reptile—all he could do was stare at her neck with her hair tied to one side.
Without turning her head she said, “Are you going to work at that school today?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you be back tonight?”
“Why?”
She turned and Leonard focused on her lovely neck. An odd mix of emotions hit him as his buildup increased as well as his uneasiness.
Wilner was surprised how diligent the border guardsmen were. Even after he and Besslia had shown them their official UPF IDs they had wanted to see the two Simolit men’s IDs too.
“They’re with us.”
“So?” said a fat sergeant.
“So, it’s official business.”
“In a foreign country?”
“That’s right, it’s an invasion, now open the gate unless you guys want to be stopped every thirty feet once you get off duty.”
Wilner stared the sergeant down and was a little ashamed at the satisfaction he felt as they roared across the bridge in the flashy hive.
Now they were well into the zone and headed south along the Zone River. Their best information was that Dadicek and his group lived in a series of houses along the river. Wilner had studied maps of the area as well as satellite photographs and saw several areas where it looked like some kind of trail started on the far side of the river. There were even a few houses with little homemade bridges that crossed the small flowing river.
He slowed the car near where he was told two women had been stabbed in the necks. At a house farther south, a man whose face was wrapped with bandages sat on a covered porch. The white wrapped head turned slowly, tracking the car as it went past. Wilner got a creepy feeling from the man.
Soon they were at the first house on his map. He decided they would hit the house hard once they were sure. He’d use regular police procedures down here just like he did in the district.
He parked down the street, leaving Besslia with the two Simolits who had not bothered to introduce themselves. One was tall with a tangle of dark curly hair and the other was beefy with a shaved head. Like with any of their species, Wilner couldn’t tell how old they were. Anywhere from thirty to three hundred.
He stopped at a house a block away and knocked on the door. A young woman with long black hair and a beautiful face answered the door. Her appearance was so startling that it took Wilner by surprise.
Wilner smiled and said, “I’m sorry, I was looking for the Dadicek house. Do you know where it is?”
She shook her head then mumbled, “No English.” She called over her shoulder to an older, heavyset man with hair popping out of his collar.
The man said nothing but just stared at him.
Wilner repeated the question.
The man shook his head. “No, don’t know him.”
Before Wilner could ask any follow-up questions the man slammed the door in his face.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Johann Halleck and his makeshift army had parked the truck off the soggy trail about a half a mile from the Zone River. Johann had one of the prisoners out of the truck and separated from everyone else off in the high weeds. The water was deep directly behind him and the man knew how vulnerable he was with his hands and feet tied, sitting next to a deep-water pond in the Everglades.
The man was smart enough to have heard the stories of how the alligators had adapted to the cooler temperatures, still active even in the near constant sixty-degree temperatures. They had also lost any fear of man. Although attacks weren’t common, compared to the tiny human population, the percentage of attacks had skyrocketed. The same with snakebites. Without the encroachment of man the cottonmouth and rattler populations had soared.
The Zoner whimpered slightly as Johann just stared at him. That was another reason he had moved him from the others. He was prepared to do things his comrades probably wouldn’t if this guy didn’t talk.
Johann said, “Okay, my friend. Where’s the house after we reach the river?”
“What are you gonna do?”
Without warning, Johann flicked open a folding knife. He made a quick slash across the man’s forearm. Instantly blood leaked out down his wrists, over the synthetic ropes, and dripped into the water.
Then he said, “I’d worry what was going to happen to you. The blood will attract all kinds of predators and you can’t do anything about it.”
“Who are you, mister? You’re not one of them settlers.”
“I’m what bad men like you dream about at night. I’m someone who’ll kill men who prey on others. Now you gonna talk?”
The man’s lips started to quiver.
Johann played with the open knife in front of him. Then he heard the croak of an alligator close by.
The man flinched. “What the hell was that?”
“That was a good-sized gator.”
“Okay, okay. The house is a mile south of the end of the trail. You cut along the river and he has a shitty wooden bridge that goes right into his backyard.”
“Will they see us coming?”
“When you get close to the house the weeds thin out.”
“How many men will be there?”
�
��Five, maybe six.”
Something slithered around the man’s leg.
“God, help me. I told you all you need, cut me loose.” A tear ran down his dirty face.
Johann nodded. I’m gonna leave you in the truck then decide what to do with you and your buddy.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t have you coming back to the west coast.”
“Mister, I swear I’ll never leave the zone again. Just get me away from these snakes and gators.”
Johann started to reach for the man when he heard gunfire near the truck. He sprang to his feet and raced back along the wet path, leaving the bound man at the water’s edge.
Leonard Hall and his family had spent many years separate from the rest of the world.
Leonard’s father had always called it the family’s “secret” and it was the main reason he had kept Leonard isolated through most of his childhood. The secret had involved an unfortunate argument where Leonard’s father had killed a female cousin in an argument. He’d choked her right in front of the rest of the family. No one panicked. No one called the police. She was simply buried in the back of their modest Pompano Beach home.
He had blocked out the incident as much as possible. Sometimes he’d dream about the day he watched his father murder Cousin Lilly. Once in a while it popped into his head during the day. He had never connected it to any of his own activities. Until now.
His aunt craned her neck to look out the back window and said, “There’s a vehicle across the river.”
Leonard barely noticed the big four-wheel drive as it cut to the south. A man ran ahead of the vehicle, but it was his aunt’s neck that drew all his concentration.
Leonard reached into his pocket, relieved to feel his combat knife within easy reach.
Now the urge had taken hold and there was only one thing he could do.
Johann felt sick when he saw Sean dead on the ground behind the truck. A gash in his bald head and a bloody metal rod next to his long body told the story. Victor knelt beside him, sobbing over his dead friend.
