As soon as he had heard the dispatches on the white Ram, the two people, and the monster.
I'll let you in on a little detail: how many white Ram ProMaster owners are there in southern Idaho? Sixteen. How many of these raise dragons? Two. Old Abbot Smith and, drumroll...yours truly. Ertz had known about the farm since Raminskij and the others had kidnapped Whiskey, and now that he had found me, he couldn't wait to keep his promise.
"Sheriff", Jean said happily. "Are you here to ask me other questions?"
Ertz spit on the ground at our feet and looked at me with half a smile.
"Where were you this morning, Ports?"
I looked at the four men. The officer next to Ertz was a rookie, a twenty year old kid with a shaved head, who was holding his hands on his belt to give himself an image. The other two, instead, looked like Rambo fans. One was tall and thin, almost skin and bones. The other, instead, was a gym enthusiast. They both wore military boots, camouflage pants and jacket, and were staring at us with rifles on their backs.
Hunting fanatics, I thought. I looked back at Ertz and shrugged my shoulders.
"Where I was is none of your business".
Erzt shifted weight from one leg to another and put his hands on his belt as well.
"Oh but they are, Ports".
"We know you're hiding the monster", said the thin hunter. "Where are you keeping him? Is he in the back?"
I tried my best to look surprised. I opened my arms and widened my eyes.
"A monster? I don't know what you're talking about".
Ertz pointed to me and Jean with a finger.
"You two would do best to collaborate, if you don't want to end up in trouble. Where's your van, Ports?"
"I think I left it at the store. Is that right, Jean?"
"But certament, it's at the store", nodded LeBon.
I went back to looking at Ertz and his men and I opened my arms again.
"See? Is that all you wanted to ask me?"
"No", said Ertz. "I would like to take a look at it, if you agree".
That whole time the deputy had been careful to not cross the property line, even with the gate open, as if an invisible barrier was preventing him from going on. In this respect, cops are like vampires. Without a warrant or a valid reason, they can't come into your house. And Ertz didn't have one or the other. Not yet at least.
Poor sheriff. Even this time, you'll have to settle. I scratched my cheek and shook my head.
"I'm sorry, deputy, but my colleague and I don't have time for your paranoia right now. Let's go, Jean".
Ertz nodded without losing composure, almost as if he had expected that answer.
"As you wish. We know you're hiding something, back there".
Jean and I turned around to go into the house. After a few steps, Ertz yelled at me: "The warrant is on its way Ports. You can't stop the law!"
I went back and pointed to the gate line at his feet. If that idiot thought I was going to leave Whiskey in the hands of his rambos, he had another thing coming.
"If you come onto my property", I said, "my dragons will tear you to shreds. That's the only Law I know today".
I closed the iron gate in their faces, and I took the key away, for what it was worth. If the county police officers decided to make a raid, there was no gate that would hold them. But why make things easier for them?
When I got into the house, Jean was looking out one of the windows.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"He sent those two weird guys around the back", Jean said to me. "Him and the other officer are still at the gate".
Jean looked at me with worry in his eyes.
"We're not doing well, are we?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Until they have a warrant, they can't come in. The problem is we can't bring Whiskey away either. Or the van. We're stalled".
"And when the warrant arrives?"
Yeah, what will we do, I asked myself, when they decide to come in?.
I sighed and put a hand on Jean's shoulder. There was only one thing I was sure of.
"I won't let them kill Whiskey", I said. "Not this time. But I understand, if you want to back out".
"Oh, nique ta mère, Jeq!" Exclaimed Jean with a gesture of his hand. "Putain de la merde, stupid yankee, me run away? Jamais!"
And grumbling other insults in French he went toward the back door.
Crazy Frenchie. I knew you would never abandon me.
I took out my smartphone from my jacket and called Raleigh. Two hours had gone by since we had split. It was a hard hit seeing Ertz arrive so early. All plans were cancelled: we couldn't hide anymore waiting for Raleigh and her colleagues to discover something. And the sheriff would never let us escape. In fact, he had surely already called backup to surround the farm. Now, the only hope was that the brains at Pandora discovered the Pitahaya's secret before Ertz and his men, with a warrant in hand, came in to arrest us and kill Whiskey.
Raleigh's smartphone, however, was turned off.
Damn it, Raleigh. Where did you put your phone?
I tried calling Ben Dameshek, but his phone was off too.
Bad sign.
Zen calm, Jack. It's not time to press the panic button yet, I told myself. I sent them both a message, hoping they would read it as soon as possible: "Ertz at the farm. He's waiting for a warrant to come in. Hurry up".
I hate depending on others, but in that situation I couldn't do anything but wait. I reached LeBon in the garden. My partner had picked up the sleeping bag and was checking on Whiskey.
"How is he?"
"He's waking up. But he's still sleepy".
Whiskey was looking around with his face above the ProMaster's dashboard, with a piece of the sleeping bag hanging on his forehead.
"Um, we should move him from there", I said to Jean. "I don't think we'll be making other trips today. Give me a hand".
Together, we took the backpacks and camping gear out of the van (squished under Whiskey's paws like crackers after a hike in the mountains). Then, pushing and calling him, we forced Whiskey to get out of the van.
The burnt barn was a mass of carbonized beams. After Tajihara's hit mens' raid, my uncle hadn't wanted to rebuild it. He told everyone it was a waste of time and money. The only thing he had done was to cover the remains of the structure with a large piece of plastic, to avoid it filling up with sand blowing from the steppe.
We dragged Whiskey into the barn's ruins and hid him under the grey and rough plastic tarp.
"I'll go get you some water now, okay?" I said petting the dragon on the head.
He looked at me with sleepy eyes and licked his lips. I went back into the house and from underneath the kitchen sink I got an empty bucket. Then I opened one of Jean's supply bags. Inside, besides a stock of freeze-dried food for us and rice for the Mustangs, there were three two and a half gallon barrels of water.
I opened one of them and poured half of it into the bucket, while Deirdre, on the walnut table, followed every movement. The Mustangs could feel something wasn't right. They had set themselves in the living room in strategic positions and from there observed the situation like winged look-outs.
When I finished filling up the bucket, I went over to the front door and looked out the window.
What is Ertz doing?
I noticed some more cars right away. While Jean and I were in the garden, two other police cars had stopped in front of the gate. An officer was checking the road. He kept his hands crossed in front of his chest and wore large dark sunglasses.
On the right, where a long white picket fence marked the border with the Owens brothers' farm, two men had positioned themselves among the ruins of rusty cars. From there, they kept an eye on our house. They were too far for me to see if they were armed. On the left, instead, there was the dry bed of the Mora canal. It went down toward the south with a curve that went up to the Johnsons' woods, where it marked the edge of their property. In that part, the banks of the ca
nal were eleven yards apart, and more than three deep. A real ditch. That was our strong side: if they decided to come in, they wouldn't go through there.
The five foot brick wall that went along the road, instead, was another deal. Stationed there were Ertz, his two hunting friends, with their rifles pointed at my house, and another two officers armed with automatic rifles.
From my window, I could see the sheriff talking with his officers. Maybe they were deciding what to do.
He's surrounded us but he's still afraid we'll be able to get out from under him.
One of the two hunters, the bigger of the two, was looking into his rifle's viewfinder. Maybe he saw one of the Mustang's shadows on the living room walls, or maybe he just wanted to pull the trigger and rustle things up. Only God knows.
"There it is!" He yelled. "I saw it!"
He took a shot at the other window in the living room. The bullet shattered the glass and jammed into the back wall, making the picture of my aunt's parents fall to the ground.
The skin and bones hunter jumped at the occasion to shoot as well, followed by the other two officers. I didn't even have the time to react. A lead hell ensued. The bullets crossed the living room, breaking windows, vases, bursting couch padding and bouncing around the walls. A spray of gunfire drummed on the front door, reducing it to a pile of splinters. One of the bullets went right by me and through the bucket. The hit ripped it from my hand, making it spill on the floor. Deirdre, in bodyguard version, grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me down. Still under shock I put my hands over my head.
"Jeq! Jeq!" LeBon called above the gunshot racket.
"I'm here!" I yelled crawling on the wet pavement toward the kitchen. "Don't come in!"
LeBon was hiding behind the back door. Another spray of gunfire finished destroying the living room windows and knocked over an old leather armchair next to the fireplace.
Then someone, maybe Ertz, ordered a cease fire and there was silence again.
"What the fuck is going on", yelled Jean. "Assholes! Do you want to kill us?"
Even the Mustangs were pissed off. They were flying from one place to the other in the living room, hissing with fury. Deirdre wouldn't let me get back up.
"Hey, Ports", yelled Ertz from the gate. "Are you alive?"
On all fours, with the Mustang matron still on my back, I reached the windows and moved the pieces of glass.
"Why don't you come in and discover it for yourself, motherfucker?" I yelled beyond the window.
Ertz and the other officers had a laugh.
"That's exactly what I intend on doing", Ertz answered. "The warrant is here. Do you and that French piece of shit have any intention of giving up?"
On my shoulders Deirdre snapped her jaws. Give up? That word didn't exist in Mustang language. Not even in latin.
"Fuck you, Ertz"
That's all I had to say.
"Good, just as I expected" . Ertz rubbed his hands together. "Okay, guys", he said to his men, "let's get ready".
The Monster Revealed
TWO HOURS WENT BY without anything happening. Ertz's men didn't leave their positions around the farm. Nobody tried to come in.
Jean and I had set ourselves under one of the destroyed windows in the living room, and were peeking out. We had gone around the whole house, to understand where they would come from. The Mora canal was free and Ertz hadn't stationed anybody on the side of the garden. It wasn't a surprise, seeing as there was only steppe beyond there. If we had tried escaping from that side, we would have had no way out.
For a while we hoped the story about the warrant was a bluff ("a warrant so soon?") but, at four in the afternoon, backup arrived. A Caiman model MRAP paraded in front of the gate and stopped just a few feet away. It was an armored tank with six wheels, more than thirty feet long and with a sort of little tower on the roof. The body was painted black, and there was writing in white paint: "Boise Police S.W.A.T.", which took up the entire sides. Out from the back of the Caiman came ten agents in war gear. Helmets, visors, armored uniforms with bulletproof vests and assault rifles. The S.W.A.T. Team.
The Caiman wasn't the only vehicle that the Department had decided to bring to the party. After a while a tow truck arrived carrying a Mech Knight IV. It stopped close to the Caiman and, slowly, lowered the crane to let the Mech off.
"What the fuck is that?" LeBon asked me.
On his forehead, where a plaster splinter had hit him, he was holding a piece of bloody cloth. We were both in a gloomy mood.
"It's a Mech", I said looking at the truck unload the large assault exoskeleton. "A sort of piloted robot. The Army use them to escort convoys in hot places".
"And now? What do they want to do?"
"Well", I said lowering myself under the window, "I imagine they'll use it to kick our ass".
Everyone already knew that Ertz liked playing with Army weapons. I tried calling Raleigh and Ben again, but their smartphones were still off.
"Damn it, Raleigh!"
I almost threw the phone into the fireplace. Really, I couldn't understand how it was possible. I wrote another message: "Warrant is here. They're about to come in. Where the fuck are you?". I was about to hit send, but then I added: "They have a Mech".
I didn't receive an answer to that message either.
"We have to barricade ourselves, Jeq", said LeBon crawling toward the kitchen, and I followed him.
Staying under shelter behind the walls, we flipped the walnut table over against the kitchen door, nearly three inches of hard aged wood. I didn't know if it would resist the rifles' bullets, but it was better than nothing. I had gotten the dart gun from the van, along with my bag. I had three tranquilizer darts left. I handed the rifle to Jean, but he refused it.
"You're the one that knows about weapons", he said tearing a leg off of the table. He swung it in the air like a baseball bat.
"There, this will be fine".
We went back to piling the fridge and chairs one on top of the other, forming a wall of furniture in front of the kitchen door. The sun was starting to set on the steppe and on the Owens' abandoned farmhouse roof when Ertz's men went into action.
For a few minutes, just before, sheriff Bowman, Ertz's boss, had showed up at the gate as well. With a megaphone, he had commanded us to surrender and give up the "monster". I tried to tell him they were making a mistake, that we weren't hiding any monster.
Bowman didn't listen to me.
As an answer, he sent out the drones. Three HomeBusters flew over the fence, darted across the driveway reflecting the sunlight on their oval shaped shells, then they came in through the windows, moving like giant dragonflies. They were so fast you could barely follow them with your eyes. Their attack was instantaneous.
When the first drone arrived into the living room, it let out two spheres from its stomach. Flashbombs. Two small suns exploded on the floor, one close to the couch and one just a few steps from our barricade. Two 170 decibel rumbles, enough to knock a person out, echoed in the house.
We had foreseen such an attack. To contrast the sound wave, Jean and I had put candle wax in our ears. The flash, however, took Jean by surprise. For a moment he stumbled out of the shelter, and the other two drones framed him in their viewfinders through the piled chairs. Their operators fired and a part of the barricade exploded into a billion splinters.
A piece longer than an inch jabbed into my right shoulder. Another one went through Jean's calf as bullets riddled the refrigerator. Without thinking about it, I grabbed Jean and pulled him behind the table. Barely three seconds. This was the time that had passed since they came in. The drones lined up to shoot on our hideout again, but the Mustangs reacted. They attacked the drones before they fired again.
Drakkar and Ursus landed on the first, the one that had set off the flashbombs. Nahar and Lutezia attacked the second one and Deirdre, alone, the third. The matron landed on the drone's flat back, unbalancing it with her weight. With a swing of her paw she ripped off th
e central micro camera, curled her tail around one of the machine gun arms and launched the drone into a crash against the fireplace. One of the rotors came off, the operator tried to pilot the drone out of the window but the matron reached it and smashed it on the ground. Then, she attacked the top cap with her claws. Her nails opened large gashes in the metal, while the drone tried to get back up. Infuriated, Deirdre kept it still with her back paws and started ripping up the internal circuits.
The living room filled with the mechanical buzz of the remaining drones, mixed with the terrible sound of the Mustangs' roars. A drone tried to escape, the other shot blindly, the bullets hitting the wall above the fireplace. It was a short fight. One after the other the dragons took down the robots and scattered their fragments all over the floor.
I helped Jean get up and then moved one of the chairs.
"Is it over?" Jean asked me.
"Yes", I answered. "For now".
My right shoulder hurt like hell. Cursing, I ripped out the splinter and threw it beyond the barricade.
The living room was a mess. A vague fog of plaster dust hovered in the air. The fireplace wall was full of holes as big as coins, the cupboard and wooden table on the rug were destroyed. Drakkar was flying around the living room with a piece of metal between his teeth, and Lutezia was hissing next to the armchair, above her drone's carcass. The other Mustangs were circled around Deirdre, snapping their jaws in admiration for their matron. Without my dragons' intervention, there was a good chance the drones would have killed us. I didn't know if I should be proud or pissed off.
Sons of bitches, I thought. They don't want to arrest us. They want to take us out.
"Merde!" LeBon grabbed my wounded shoulder, sending a strike of pain along my whole arm. "They're coming, Jeq!"
He pointed out the window. While the drones were keeping us occupied, the officers had broken the gate open. The SWAT team was coming up the driveway.
"Okay", I said taking a breath. "You've really pissed me off".
There are three words a Mustang Dragon Breeder should never say. They're secret words, considered a legend by most people. According to some, those three words were one of the reasons the Mustang project had been abandoned(15). I myself had learned them only six years earlier from Antone Davis, my teacher, a night when we were both a bit drunk. It was the day the State had given me my Breeder's license. He had obviously tried to hide them by citing the whole sentence, but I had understood anyway.
The Dragon Seller: A Tale of Love and Dragons Page 23
