Radiant Dawn

by Cody Goodfellow

  "Hey, miss, hey, don't make a sound. I'm gonna get you out of here. Hey, can you hear me, miss?"

  The girl's head lolled back, her cheeks flushing with the pressure on her ear. Her eyes fluttered, opened and looked at him, a girl who should have been in junior high school regarded him with that same stoned, disgusted look that whores gave him when he turned them down. "Jimmy, are we on? Is this the show?" She started giggling, and Storch, backing away towards the slit in the plastic, began to think, this is stupid, this was the very beaucoup fucking stupidest thing he could be doing right now. He'd never been on a mission alone before, never went in without locking himself away with the team and the mission plans, without rehearsing them so when it happened he was just watching his body running through it. He was here for a girl he'd found in a ditch, who just might have some connection to why men posing as feds burned down his store, and now the girl was screaming for somebody or something called crank, and a Latino man in a mesh tanktop and Speedos with a Glock 9 stuffed in them entered the cave, a bag of corn chips in one hand and an Ithaca pump shotgun in the other.

  Storch ducked through the slit just as the man looked around. "How the fuck did you get your hood off?" he screamed at her. Coked to the gills, he was likely to shoot anything that confused or challenged him the way a couch potato changes a channel when Jeopardy stumps him. "Who's here with you? Is somebody fucking here with you?" He prowled the room, passing the slit twice without noticing. Storch, smothering in sinsemilla stench, held his breath and waited to see how many more of them there were.

  "Some fag, Leon. I'm broken, daddy. Fix me." Twirling on her restraints, the girl trying to coax more drugs out of Leon and see where he'd gotten to at the same time. Her glazed, light-blinded eyes passed over the rent in the plastic without registering surprise, passion, life.

  Leon set down the shotgun and pulled her to him by the rope binding her ankles together. His hands slid up her nubile young body with a loan shark's eye for value, came to rest cradling her head. Tender caresses made her swoon, dangling in his arms.

  "You want a rush, baby? There's all kinds…" Gripping her ears fiercely, he shook her head like a master bartender mixing a really good martini, the way the Shah's SAVAK secret police were trained to torture their prisoners without marks. The girl whimpered as her brain rattled against the walls of her skull, then went horribly silent. Leon let go and stepped back, genuinely enjoying her suffering as only one who has never known any other way of touching a woman can. "Just remember, baby, only the first one is free."

  The sprinklers came on full-blast behind and above Storch, who hunched over his rifle. The wet white noise muted his involuntary cough of disgust. On top of everything else he was forcing himself to ignore, the sight was simply too much. If he could've held it in, he might've heard the rustling of the plants behind him even over the splattering water. The first blow from the baseball bat drove his head down into his shoulders; his teeth clicked together through the tip of his tongue. The second scooped him through the slit and out onto the cavern floor, where his legs carried him across the studio to crash into a wheeled toolcaddy. His brain soared on, out of the park, and into the dark.

  Leon hogtied Storch and sat on his shoulders, grinding his face into the gravel floor as he came awake. Scattered screws and bolts from the toolcaddy cut into his cheek. Still reeling from the bat blows, he wrenched his head free and, stretching out his tongue, scooped a three inch screw into his mouth. Leon raised one knee and brought it down hard between his shoulder blades. Storch coughed, almost swallowed the screw. Leon's arm came around with a pair of adjustable pliers and clamped the bridge of his nose. The pain of the ridged steel biting into his skin was scorched away layer by layer as the slaver cranked it down, vising the join of nasal and frontal bones. The pain was so intense he could hear the ocean in his skull, could feel his forehead catch fire. He made the ocean louder until the pain became manageable. Shit, Storch thought to himself. Leon here reads one book in his whole life, and it turns out to be the CIA Manual of Interrogation Protocols. "Torture away, asshole," he hissed through gritted teeth. "I just hope you don't have a batch of crack in the oven, 'cos we're gonna be here all night."

  "Fucking big balls! Turn over so we can get a good look at you, big-balls." Still gripping the pliers, he knelt hard on Storch's right arm, bending it in a direction it wasn't meant to go, so he rolled over. Leon sat on his midriff. His arms immediately began to fall asleep.

  The man who'd apparently sucker-whacked Storch spoke up. "Just kill him now, dude. He's probably a fucking pig."

  Leon's face leaned in to his, and Storch gagged on his breath, a melange of corn chips, vaginal mucus, unfiltered Camels and rampant tooth decay. "Shut up, Keith. He's just some survivalist shithead. He's pretty ugly, but I think we can use him. Hey, jarhead, you ever been in a snuff video?"

  Storch spat the screw like a watermelon seed into Leon's right eye. The eye popped with a wet sucking sound, like the float bladders on a piece of kelp. His face split open in a scream as he jolted back, allowing Storch to sit up and drive his forehead into Leon's nose at an upward angle. Storch made cartilage buckle and slide up the sinuses into yielding brain matter. Leon sat down hard, eyes wide open, one russet brown, the other a flathead notch in steel. His last breath gushed out, and he flopped over.

  Storch humped out from under the corpse, wrangled the automatic free of the Speedos and pointed it at Keith, a fat guy in a jungle camo poncho. Keith halfheartedly brandished the bat he'd used to brain Storch, staring at his dead friend until Storch shouted at him.

  "Hey! Untie me!"

  "Fuck you!" Keith, backing away, turned to run. The gun barked in Storch's hand, kicking Keith's right leg out from under him and toppling him into the wall. Keith goggled at his own half-severed leg, lost, so Storch had to shout again.

  "Asshole! Untie me!"

  "How'd—you—?"

  "I was aiming at your spine. Untie me!"

  "You're one of those guys, right?"

  "What guys?"

  "The guys—who—robbed China Lake last night. We know lots of— Navy guys."

  "China Lake Naval Weapons Station? What're you talking about?"

  Keith's eyes were glazing over, already going into shock. Slowly, painfully, Storch wormed his way across the studio to the toolcaddy. Kicking it over, he fumbled around among the tools until he found a hacksaw and went to work on his bonds.

  The girl vomited on herself, came to with a gurgled, "Leon? Leon, where's my fix, you faggot?"

  Storch's bad hand clasped over her mouth, his bloodied lips pressed to her ear. "Don't scream. I can get you out, but you have to try to help me. How many more are there?" Teeth clamped down on the meat of his palm was her only answer. Her hungry eyes told him where her loyalties lay.

  "If I get you your fix, will you cooperate?"

  Vigorously, she nodded.

  "Where is it?" He tracked her eyes over to the glassed-in editing booth. Storch started to let her go, gripped her head harder to drive home how quickly he could snap her neck. "How many more?" He let go.

  Her voice was a low stage-whisper, her eyes eager to please now they spoke the same language. "Just the guys outside, and they can't get in unless you buzz them in from down here. My name's Gina, what's yours?" She looked around. "Omigod, what'd you do to—"

  "Leon's dead, Gina, and Keith's in shock, going on dead," he answered as he retrieved his MP5 and sidled over to the booth. "Nobody's going to hurt you any more." Inside, towering racks of dubbing decks blinked like miniature skyscrapers in a bottled Toho Tokyo set. At the end of one aisle, Storch spotted an editing console. A thick whoosh of chilled air pushed past him when he opened the door; the booth was pressurized to keep out dust. Tinny shrieks and moans pealed out over the massed hum of the decks. "I'll just be getting your works, and we'll go out the way I came in. How long have you been here?" he asked, but the door swung shut, cutting off her reply. The booth was soundproofed, as well.

&n
bsp; Storch crept up the aisle, training his gun on the oversized office chair parked before the console. A half-moon of bald pate peered over the top of the chair; the editor, so engrossed in the bloodletting on the screen that he never noticed the killing on the other side of the glass. "Hey, Leon, look at this smash cut I got in from the prodding sequence to the double-dong—"

  Storch strafed the chair. The bald head shuddered and sank out of sight. One of the monitors exploded. There were six others. Gina was on all of them, and she was dancing. She slam-danced with another girl who was hanging in the rig she was in now. Both were naked, and Gina was jabbing the captive with a cattle prod. The camera slamzoomed into her eyes, sparkling with a gleam of ecstasy that was only half narcotic-driven. When the camera zoomed out again, the hostage was covered in gleaming oil, and her legs were suspended akimbo by more chains. Gina knelt before her with the cattle prod in one hand and the Pear in the other. Storch couldn't figure out how to shut it off, so he shot at it until the last red light stopped blinking.

  He pushed open the door and Gina's screams filled the cavern. Her shrill voice scraped sand off the ceiling. "Mr. Otis! Mr. Laliotitis! Somebody! There's a fucking psycho down here! He killed Leon and Keith and he's gonna kidnap me!" She shut up when he stuck the gun in her navel. "When he catches you, Mr. Laliotitis is going to fuck you with a chainsaw, you jarhead faggot. He's going to make you love it. Then he's gonna give you to me."

  Storch felt like throwing up, like something deep inside him was spoiled and festering. "You like it here, don't you?"

  "It grows on you. No, like, don't get me wrong, it's, like—but—you get used to it."

  "Then stay here." He stuffed the ballgag back in her mouth and hooded her again. She didn't hear him when he passed her and ducked through the plastic, she was screaming so loud, and her sinuses were too congested to smell the smoke from the editing booth, so she didn't know about the fire until she felt it.

  8

  Deputy Kenny Landis liked the cowboy life. He liked heat. He liked guns. He liked lazy days around the office, shooting the shit with Sheriff Twombley and Sammy Asaro, the other deputy. He liked the jumbo burritos Mr. Montoya had his nephew bring by, free of charge, every day. Even on a hundred and eight degree scorcher like this, nothing beat a good spicy carne asada burrito slathered in guacamole and chile verde sauce. He liked cruising around the desert, helping people with flats and busted radiators, the way they beamed at him like he was an angel of the Lord, and sometimes tried to tip him. He liked the relaxed pace; there were few felonies, just local folks blowing off steam and tourists getting stupid doing things they couldn't get away with in the city and thought they could here. He liked life in Furnace Creek. And life in Furnace Creek seemed to have no beef with him. Least it hadn't until yesterday; since then, life in Furnace Creek had begun to seem a lot like police work.

  First, there was the raid. Sheriff Twombley didn't have much contact with or use for the FBI, which he took to calling either the Keystone Kowards or the Federal Barbecue Idiots after the mishandled Waco siege. The nearest resident office was in Victorville, and they didn't get out to Death Valley too often. Twombley honestly believed he just hated outsiders trying to pave over his citizenry with their intrusive and irrelevant federal law, but Deputy Landis knew him well enough to understand he just liked being the biggest fish in the pond, even if it was a dried-up sandpit like Furnace Creek.

  In Landis's time on the force, there'd been exactly one fugitive who'd aroused the federal beast, a note-passing bank robber who crossed the state line after a one-man crimewave in Las Vegas. The man knocked over six check-cashing places in two days, unarmed. He crossed the state line and holed up in the Furnace Creek Castle Motel, seemingly oblivious to the implications of interstate flight.

  The Victorville and Las Vegas offices had each sent out a team, and they'd used up reams of paper and miles of tape, and tied up the phones for hours, waiting for the fugitive to fall asleep. The Sheriff had been happy to oblige while they were around, but cussed up a blue streak as soon as they took their man away. Fags and Hooverite cowards, every last one of them, Twombley grumbled. The Sheriff was a certified master marksman, and could have taken the chiseler out at a thousand yards, right on the state line, but the FBI stepped in and smothered him in G-men in his sleep.

  So it was no mystery why the tactical raid on Sgt. Storch's Quartermaster Supply the morning before had stuck in the Sheriff's craw. At least the FBI had the minimal courtesy to tell them beforehand what they were going to do. These assholes had simply stormed into Thermopylae right after breakfast and seized a bunch of contraband weapons, shooting that poor mutant fella whose legal name nobody seemed to know, and scattering the town—well, squatters, really, but decent people, on the whole—to the four winds, but arresting nobody.

  What's more, they ordered—yup, ordered—Sheriff Twombley to keep mum about the whole thing, and under no circumstances put anything on paper, for twenty-four hours. Said Storch's gang were just bait, the big fish were due in to pick up their gear sometime during the night. The way the Sheriff had looked when they released him—yup, that's what they called it—from the interview in his own office—all milk-white under his leathery eternal sunburn, and with his mouth hanging open like he'd been punched in the stomach or just awakened from sleepwalking—that had Landis worried, but by the time the their stink was out of the air, Jim Twombley was back in form.

  The Sheriff stayed in his office with the door closed all the rest of the morning, cussing the paint off the walls. He respected authority, Landis heard him say more than once, clear as a bell through two adobe walls, but he didn't have to hunker down and suck its dick.

  They hadn't even caught their breath from that one when Asaro fielded a call from the manager of the trailer park in Death Valley Junction, saying he'd heard shots from one of the trailers, and wanted they should come check it out. The resident in question was one Harley Pettigrew, the—small world, this—assistant manager of Sgt. Storch's Quartermaster Supply. Sammy was the first one brave enough to go in, even though no shots had been fired since the first two, almost two whole hours before. As you might expect, Pettigrew was tipped over in a rocking chair with a gun in his hand and his brains in the next county.

  Him still being too burnt up to talk civilly, Sheriff Twombley had Landis go and call the feds up at the cell number they'd left to report it. They surprised yet again by saying they'd be satisfied to take a look at the Sheriff's report on the incident after the fact, as they were busy observing the survivalist store.

  Apparently, they were busy jerking each other off or praying to their Almighty Hoover when it burned down, the Sheriff would say. When Steve Goines, the local Park Ranger, reported the fire, they sent in the volunteer brigade, but the whole place was flattened, and nobody in sight to explain it to them. Minutes later, the Sheriff got a phone call telling them the situation was under control, and to proceed under his previous instructions. Hunker down, Jim, suck that dick.

  This morning had gotten off a little less eventfully than the one before, but not by much. Kenny Landis had been awakened not by the shrill beeping of his cheap alarm clock but by a rumble deep within the earth, like a subterranean freight train trying to force its way to the surface, and a pummeling rain of Louis L'Amour paperbacks from the shelves above his head. Landis had leapt out of bed and braced himself in the doorway of his trailer, feeling like an idiot, because the tremor'd subsided right then and there, and then his alarm went off, as if he might've slept through the quake. The radio called it a minor tremor epicentered in the Owens Valley, some seventy miles away. No fatalities, no major injuries even, just a lot of folks dumped out of bed with a few minutes lost sleep and their refrigerators' contents all shook up and busted. A religious man might take to believing these were the last days, indeed, if a streak like this kept up.

  Now, Landis and Asaro sat in the front office at their respective desks, looking at each other every once in awhile and listening t
o Sheriff Twombley winding into another cursing fit in his office. The twenty-four hours the federal agents had demanded were just about up, and the Sheriff was trying to decide whom to call first.

  Landis had ten bucks said Twombley was going to call the FBI, work his way up the chain of command, burning the ears off everyone from the Barstow office to the Director. Asaro reckoned he'd call the press first, either the Los Angeles Times or the Las Vegas Journal, to make sure the whole affair didn't get buried under a government gag order. But so far, he hadn't called anybody, just sat there at his desk swearing his head off, like he couldn't do anything else. Landis picked up enough of the Sheriff's ranting to understand that he didn't want to go off half-cocked and end up looking the fool, because all he had was the feds' say-so that any crimes had been committed, and said feds hadn't kicked down with enough information to make a plausible dimestore yarn, let alone an account of conspiracy.

  "Side bet," Landis said in a stage whisper. "Sheriff's gonna come out and tell us to clear outta here in a few minutes. Side-side bet, he calls us 'goldbrickin' bastards' at least once."

  "Not takin' that bet, Kenny," Asaro answered, and stood up, adjusting his Sam Browne belt with his thumbs to let his belly settle. "'Bout time one of us hit the road, anyway. Rate this place's been tearing itself apart, there's bound to be something brewing somewhere we ought to be on top of." He picked up his hat and checked his gun. Landis took special notice of that, because he hadn't seen Sammy do that but one or two times before, when there was clear and present trouble around the corner. Sheriff Twombley was a certified high-power rifle marksman and a bully pulpitbanger for the NRA, but both deputies held the unspoken opinion that guns were dangerous, and once they entered the picture things went downhill fast so far as control was concerned.