The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination

by Bright,R. F.

  Max struggled against the ironclad choke-hold Wils had on him.

  “Naw. Ez’s come to see da’ fun. Pervy little fuck,” howled Wils.

  All the wind had been knocked out of Lily. She flopped about and appeared to be drowning.

  Max was drifting into unconsciousness.

  The ugly man climbed on top of Lily.

  Max went raving mad. Wils had to adjust his hold, which gave Max a sip of air.

  The ugly man rubbed his stubbly cheek on Lily’s and smiled lasciviously at Max.

  Roy Wils howled again.

  Suddenly, the ugly man was screaming and thrashing about with his head stuck at an odd angle, legs churning ineffectively. Wils laughed even harder. Lily had the ugly man’s cheek in her teeth and she wasn’t letting go. The ugly man was kneeling on her hands. All she could do was hang on as he pummeled her head with his fists.

  Max would have killed him, but he was no match for Roy Wils.

  The ugly man got to his feet and kicked Lily’s head into the marble fireplace. She slumped onto the hearth. Max twisted and jerked erratically with all his strength, but to no avail. Wils hoisted him above his head and body-slammed him into the fireplace. Max crumpled to the floor next to Lily. The ugly man could now feel the full brunt of Lily’s assault. A chunk of his cheek was dangling by a bloody thread, and only now had his blood started to flow. He slumped to one knee, quaking in agony.

  Roy Wils laughed with mocking sympathy. “Let’s just skull-fuck the two of ’em — and call it even.”

  The ugly man made a feeble attempt to laugh. Wils kicked Max onto his back, put one foot on either side of the boy’s ribcage and sat on his chest.

  Wils unzipped his zipper, looking to see if Lily was watching. She appeared to be out cold. Disappointed, he smacked Max on the forehead. “Wakey wakey!”

  Lily made her move, rolling away and slipping free, but Wils grabbed her hair at the last instant. “Don’t worry love. I’m savin’ the prize for you.”

  Max came to, staring into Roy Wil’s crotch.

  Lily surrendered. But Wils gangster-slapped her twice, and her head lolled across the floor.

  Max flailed about as violently as he could, but Wils was not only a hundred pounds heavier, he was a hundred times meaner. The ugly man mopped the blood from his cheeks with a balled-up desk blotter, aiming his volcanic hate at Lily.

  Lily stayed dead still, scanning the room with feline stealth. A reflection glinting off the ceiling caught her eye. She tried to track it, but the sparkling reflection slashed in eccentric arcs, then disappeared. There it was again, slashing against the wall in rhythm with some motion she could feel. Max! She searched for the reflection as Max bucked. She found it and traced its source. Strapped to Max’s ankle — the shiny little Beretta 9mm.

  Knowing how much spring she’d need this time, she pushed off Wils’ boot with both hands and dove beyond his grasp. He lurched for her, but missed and fell off balance. Max felt him lift and bucked with his last ounce of strength. Wils went over on one leg, with an elbow on the floor.

  Lily dove for Max’s ankle as Wils threw a thunderous back-handed fist into her shoulder — a split second too late. Its force knocked her clear across the floor. His face blackened as he saw the Beretta in her hand and lunged for it.

  She emptied three rounds into his face, watched his head explode, then emptied the clip into the ugly man.

  Max pushed Wils’ hulking corpse away and rushed to the window. MacIan lay dead still on the frozen lawn, in a puddle of sooty blood. The young lovers’ faces filled with despair, just as a whirring sound came from the alley. The Peregrine rose up and over the garden wall and hovered next to MacIan. They jumped from the window and ran to the Peregrine. “What now?” yelled Max. The Peregrine’s wind-dome opened and the triage shelf slid out. They lifted MacIan onto it and jumped in.

  Max poked Destination > South Side Hospital. The Peregrine rocketed into the air, far faster than he had expected — and not in the direction of South Side Hospital.

  50

  A gleaming white Towne Car loped down First Avenue dodging potholes and puddles percolating up from the old subway system. Turnstyle sat in the back texting instructions as they passed Stuyvesant Town and turned left on Tenth Street, toward Avenue A, thirty blocks south of the UN compound. The Lower East Side. Alphabet City.

  “Just pull up, right there, at the park gate,” she said.

  The Towne Car pulled to the curb at Tomkins Square Park. She jumped out, jogged through the gated entrance and sat on a circle of benches surrounding a huge planter filled with old shrubs about to bud. She folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead.

  Tomkins Square Park is only three blocks square, but nine paths cut through it accompanied by the breezy smells of souvlaki and jerk pork roasting on open grills. People cluster at the intersections, smiling at babies in strollers, munching away.

  The Towne Car driver pulled down the street, slowed just enough for an agent to slip out, then circled back. The agent ducked into a doorway and took out his binoculars. A quick look found Turnstyle still perched on her bench in an oddly rigid posture staring straight ahead. But the crowd seemed to be growing quickly. She pulled her shiny hood up against a nonexistent wind.

  The Towne Car driver tapped his earpiece. “You got her?”

  The agent in the doorway leaned out and looked again. “Yeah. She’s just sitting there.” He ducked back in as a large group of young people brushed by the doorway.

  The Towne Car pulled up on the curb and the driver jumped out, but was swallowed by waves of young people flooding out from every doorway. He tapped his earpiece. “You still got her?”

  “Yeah, but I’m stuck.” A crowd dressed in old coats, faces wrapped in tattered scarves, had hemmed him in.

  The driver double-tapped his ear. “Where’s our back-up?”

  A second Towne Car approached, but the shabby crowd had become so thick it could barely move. Three agents leapt out and tried to push through, but it was no use. The park was now crammed with young people in old topcoats and ratty hats.

  Turnstyle continued to stare straight ahead, standing out brilliantly in her uniquely tailored shiny metallic duster and huge hood.

  “She’s still just sitting there,” reported the agent. “But I’m losing my eye-line.”

  When every inch of the park was packed, the entire crowd tore the old coats off to reveal their shiny metallic dusters. Everyone pulled their hoods up and swirled around Turnstyle. In the chaos, a girl with an identical highly tailored silhouette replaced her on the bench. The crowd turned as one and marched toward the exits.

  Turnstyle, a needle in a shiny haystack, was whisked to the northeast corner of the park. A shoulder-to-shoulder blockade of shiny coats controlled that exit. She slipped through, crossed tiny Avenue B and was hustled up the steps and into a boarded-up church, St. Stanislaus, RC. The crowd reversed course and swirled back into the park as one metallic organism.

  The Towne Car driver watched from a distance, then called Petey. “She disappeared. She had lots of help. This is way bigger than you think.”

  Petey’s lips formed a sinister grin. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Word of the attack on the Quaker Meeting House reached the Bedford Barracks immediately. The attack had lasted only minutes, but the old meeting house was still in flames. Word of Roy Wils’ demise reached Freddy Cochran immediately; he was overcome with an exalted pride that quickly turned into homicidal rage. “Go! Go, lads. Go and destroy all them fuckin’ tinkers. Avenge our fallen Brothers. Start with that god-damned Brewery.”

  Cassandra knew nothing of the Brewery, but the Quaker Meeting House was known to everyone. She stood in the barracks’ lobby watching dozens of men rush to their Peregrines and rocket off toward Pittsburgh.

  From the Brewery, Jon Replogle conferred with Admiral Carson. “We intercepted a message from that maniac Freddy Cochran. He’s sent his men to attack the Brewery. You got about tw
enty minutes.” Jon was on his walkie-talkie at the same time, deploying his men to the 22nd Street Bridge.

  Max and Lily were streaking across the Ligonier Valley toward the wind generators on Somerset Ridge, carrying the dead or dying MacIan. They had no control, but Max knew where they were going. He couldn’t wait. But he feared for MacIan’s life.

  The 22nd Street Bridge spanned the Monongahela River in a single arch supported by an intricate web of steel I-beams. It had a six-lane road surface, and was the most direct approach to the Brewery. Jon knew that when the Leprechauns attacked, the 22nd Street Bridge would be the perfect place to funnel them into a tight formation with two choke points — either end of the bridge.

  Jon watched the convoy of camo-colored transporters rumbling up the road on the other side of the icy Monongahela River. Boyne’s transporter was right in front. It had been so severely damaged at his wake, it had to be pushed into the fray with the Driver at the wheel. As predicted, the heedless Leprechauns charged onto the bridge, straight into the fading sun. They had always underestimated the tinkers, so they didn’t bother to look for them in the shadowy I-beams above.

  Jon stood across the intersection, behind a dead Cadillac, flanked by hundreds of watchers hidden below the pylons. “On my command!” A young man in coveralls the same pale green as the bridge raised a small yellow pennant to nearly sixty watchers blending into the bridge’s superstructure.

  The Driver roared across the bridge, swaying on a tow rope, Boyne’s blood still sopping through the carpets. Once again that feeling hit him — something wasn’t right. “Who slapped a coat of paint on this pontoon?”

  In the intersection on the Brewery side, dozens of people ran about in a frenzy, giving the illusion of panic and distracting the Leprechauns from the danger above. In their zeal, the Leprechauns raced across the bridge bumper to bumper. So when Jon gave the signal and a twelve-ton blast-furnace door, the same green as the bridge, toppled from the arches and landed on Boyne’s transporter, nine others rammed it from behind and the tow rope snapped, flipping the tow-car over the rail into the drink. Now the bridge was blocked by the pile-up, and everyone in Boyne’s transporter was a bloody pancake.

  Brakes squealed! Fenders crunched! Transporters flipped!

  The flagman waved a red pennant. It rained heavy metal. Truck transmissions. Back-hoe buckets. Washing machines. At the far end of the bridge, a section of stadium lights hinged over and crushed four transporters, slamming the door on any retreat. The Leprechauns rushed from their wrecks, firing randomly.

  Six transporters had stopped before getting on the bridge. They U-turned back down the on-ramp, demolition derby style, and raced back toward downtown Pittsburgh. But within seconds the sky was filled with Peregrines. The road along the river ran between a dilapidated industrial park on the shoreline and a nearly vertical mountainside. There was nowhere to hide, so the transporters tried to evade, cutting in and out of the abandoned industrial park.

  On the bridge, the remaining Leprechauns were being crushed by falling air conditioners, pizza ovens, and empty acetylene tanks. Several thought to escape by jumping over the side. Those not killed in the fall froze to death in the Mon’s fast-moving current.

  The Battle of the 22nd Street Bridge was over in minutes.

  Jon and the Watchers surveyed the carnage. The Leprechauns, all of whom had sworn to fight to the death, had been accommodated. Suddenly, what seemed a singular explosion drew their attention to the far roadway. Four Peregrines had fired; four transporters were blown to pieces. But two had slipped into the 10th Street Tunnel and were cowering inside.

  The lead Peregrine dropped onto the pavement in front of the tunnel and aimed its nose straight in.

  51

  The humble doors of St. Stanislaus were swung open by a throng of shiny hackers, and Turnstyle stepped through. She turned to see if she was being followed. But Petey’s agents were still struggling to escape the angry mob swarming around them, yelling. “Aren’t you Americans? You’re Americans! Aren’t you Americans, like us?” they screamed.

  She was taken to the back of the church, down the basement steps and through a hole in the foundation into the building next door. Fellow hackers ushered her up a back stairwell to the roof, where another group took her to a bridge made of wooden planks that spanned over an airshaft and into an open window. Once she was in, they pulled a rope and the bridge crashed down into the airshaft.

  She jumped from the windowsill and into the once spectacular Polish Falcons Dance Hall. A bevy of hackers greeted her with applause as she waltzed across the squeaky parquet floor toward the stage, upon which a middle-aged woman with large brown eyes, called Cellophane, waved victoriously.

  Cellophane, formerly Amy something-hyphenated, wore a permanent frown. She was one of the many jilted lovers of Representative Mahesh Murthy. She’d tell her sad tale to anyone who’d listen, hence the name Cellophane.

  “Priyanka here?” asked Turnstyle.

  “That was fabulous!” said Cellophane.

  Turnstyle tilted her head to an astonished angle. “I was worried about the timing. I tried to stall. He must have thought I was a total idiot. I was just rambling.”

  Cellophane looked askance. “You were smack on, girl. You just max-trolled reptile number one. Smack fuckin’ on!”

  Turnstyle took a deep breath. She could relax a little, but remembered something that made her howl. “That asshole thinks I have an actual turnstile, like from a stadium, in my living room. The best and brightest?”

  “You don’t even have a living room.”

  Turnstyle shrugged her shoulders.

  “Wait’ll you see this.” Cellophane launched a high-angle clip of General Joe Scaletta imploring his men to make sure the monitors were turned off, capped by him saying: “We must attack New York before Tuke can have his way.”

  The hall erupted with cheers as the stunning Priyanka and her wealthy patrons, The Ladies Who Lunch, in their outlandish hats, entered triumphantly.

  Turnstyle raised her arms to Priyanka in a joyful, air-hug salute.

  Priyanka returned a barrage of air-kisses, and yelled, “We got him.”

  52

  Max and Lily shot over the wind generators on Somerset Ridge in a blink. Once they cleared the ridge, they could see for miles down the mountain range. Lily was unaware of just how hard she was squeezing Max’s knee in sheer terror, until she felt him relax. She rolled one eye at him. “What is it?”

  Max looked into her eyes, smiled, and turned into the distance. “The Spires.”

  Her eyes followed his. The Peregrine slowed. She didn’t notice. Her gaze was riveted to the enchanted spires. He waved a scrunched-up smile at her and poked his thumb at the hillside below. “Lily.”

  She laughed out loud and pointed furiously, as though she’d discovered something. “Engineered habitat?”

  Max couldn’t stop smiling.

  Sheer momentum put them at the Spires in seconds. The spoilers flipped open, they slowed abruptly and their weight sloshed forward. The Peregrine hooked a tight arc around one spire and dove straight into the other through an opening hidden in an eternal shadow facing the sunless north.

  Max took Lily’s hand as they flew down a dark tunnel on autopilot. This Peregrine had been here before. A brightly lit area appeared where a few people stood waiting. The wheels dropped and they braked to a stop. The triage shelf slid out and MacIan was whisked away by a group in crisp hospital scrubs. A striking woman with dark hair and wearing a deconstructed men’s suit in multicolored herringbone stepped forward. She aimed an oddly shaped, fire-engine red remote control at the Peregrine. The wind-dome opened. Max and Lily jumped out, happy to be on solid ground.

  “Max?” asked the woman with a puppy-talk lilt.

  He wagged his chin.

  “We brought you here.” She waved the oddly shaped, fire-engine red remote control. “The time differential to South Side Hospital was negligible. The difference in care — monume
ntal. He would’ve died there.”

  Max agreed.

  Lily extended her hand. “Hello. I’m Lily.”

  “Welcome. I’m Catrina Enders. Your room is ready. Or do you need separate rooms?”

  Max turned purple.

  “Oh, no.” said Lily, taking Max’s arm. “We’re together.”

  The atmosphere in the Bedford Barracks conference room grew cheery, now that they’d defeated the Leprechauns on the 22nd Street Bridge. The Peregrines transmitted scenes of carnage from every angle that flashed from monitor to monitor. But Cassandra kept a close eye on the stand-off inside the 10th Street Tunnel, until a stern face filled the central monitor.

  “Admiral? Squadron Leader Kolojejchick — permission to pursue.”

  “Do not fire on them in the tunnel. Get them out of there before they damage it. That tunnel is irreplaceable.”

  Kolojejchick nodded, and gave his orders. “Lieutenant DeFeo, flush those turds. Gently.”

  Lieutenant DeFeo dropped onto the roadway, bouncing on all four tires, taxied to the tunnel’s entrance, tapped his command screen, and said, “One hundred meters, five seconds.” A small trapdoor opened from the nose of his Peregrine. A ramp descended. What looked like a large bowling ball rolled out and into the tunnel. Five seconds later, a huge, powdery white cloud puffed quietly from both ends of the tunnel.

  Inside, pandemonium reigned. The transporter drivers were blinded and choking. One was panicked enough to back out of the tunnel, straight at the Peregrines.