Watch Dogs

by John Shirley

  “Okay but keep the car running in case we gotta get out of here quick.”

  She stopped the car and put it in park. “I thought you said they were friends of yours?”

  “They’re not the reason we might have to get out of here. Come on.”

  They got out of the Explorer into the cold sleety morning, Wolfe putting up his own hood against it.

  “Hey Shuggie,” he said. “What’s up?”

  Shuggie nodded as they walked over to the barrier. All the Viceroys but Shuggie were having a good long look at Seline.

  She looked at Shuggie.

  Shuggie hooked a thumb at her. “We saw you takin’ your woman to that crib you got all up in that crap hole of a building.”

  “I’m not anybody’s woman” Seline said, in flat, informational tone.

  The Viceroys laughed.

  “Bitch, shut up while Shuggie’s talkin,” Renfo said.

  Hearing that, Wolfe felt a tautness come into his shoulders and jaw. He put his hand on the butt of the .45 at his waistband. “Renfo. Don’t talk to the lady like that.”

  “Never mind, Wolfe,” Seline said calmly.

  Without looking at his lieutenant, Shuggie said, “Shut up, Renfo.”

  Wolfe saw Renfo give Shuggie a cold look. Could be Renfo was starting to resent Shuggie.

  Wolfe relaxed a little and dropped his hand from the gun.

  “Wolfe,” Shuggie said, “this is the end of my turf, right here.” He tapped the barrier. “I been having some trouble with a, what you call it, a splinter faction. All Viceroys having trouble with ‘em. And past here, there’s the other Viceroys. Different chapter.” Shuggie shook his head sadly. “Man I cannot guarantee, if you go on from here, you get through where you goin’. It’s looking pretty sketchy down that way. There’s a motherfucker in CPD got some friends in the Chunkies.”

  Wolfe glanced past Shuggie at the street beyond. It looked lifeless from here. “‘Chunkies’ are the splinter faction?”

  “Yeah, Chunky Crunkies, is what they call themselves. Splintered off from the Viceroys. I think they’re working for the Club, is what’s up. They say they got their own thing. I don’t like either one—not Club, not Chunkies.”

  “When you say the ‘other Viceroys’, Shuggie, what’s that about?”

  “You think I tell all Viceroys what to do? No, just my ‘hood, man. Motherfuckers past here are...harsh. I cannot guarantee my protection there. Not from every Viceroy on the Southside, dude. You stay around that crib of yours, it’s okay. But past this point...”

  Wolfe shrugged apologetically. “I got to go down there.”

  Shuggie seemed to think it over. Then he nodded. “I’m committed to staying here—I’m watching this corner, man. But...you got my cell number. And who knows?”

  Wolfe nodded. “Sure. Who knows? How do I identify a Chunkie?”

  “Bull’s eye tattoos—each man got one around his right eye. Center of the bull’s eye is the eye socket.”

  Shuggie moved the barrier out of the way of the Explorer. “Hey Wolfe—that girl there as tough as she acts?”

  Wolfe said, “She just got out of the Marine Corps.”

  “Straight up?”

  “Straight up.”

  Shuggie walked over to Seline. He stared at her. She stared back.

  Then he stuck out his hand.

  They shook hands. She nodded at Shuggie, then turned and went back to the car with Wolfe.

  “So those are definitely friends of yours?” she said, when they’d gotten back into their seats.

  “Shuggie is, I guess. I’d back him up in a fight. I know, maybe we should have a picnic on the roof of that building the safehouse is in. Have all the Viceroys over.”

  She drove the car between the Viceroys and the barrier. “And they bring their AR15s?”

  “So okay, maybe a picnic’s not the best idea.”

  They drove through an area of low rent high rises; then passed onto another block of mostly houses, with fences around the yards. Winter-bare trees stood in margins between the sidewalk and street. The houses seemed clean, and well kept. A small black child looked out the front picture window of a two story house. The child waved to Wolfe. Wolfe waved back.

  Another block down, on the left, was an elementary school. But the windows were boarded over. “I heard Chicago closed a lot of inner city schools,” Seline said. “Seems a shame.”

  “It is. Makes things worse for people around here.” He was looking at the GPS. “Address we want is to the right and then about nine blocks up...”

  They turned, drove past a Golden Chicken and a tavern, and then crossed a street into a more ragged neighborhood. Trash clogged the sidewalks, and old tenements rose gauntly on either side, fenced off and boarded over.

  “You sure this is the neighborhood?”

  “Oh yeah. This is the...”

  That’s when a Molotov cocktail hit the hood of the Ford Explorer, the bomb shattering in flame and broken glass.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I hope the guy you stole this car from has good insurance on his car,” Seline said, as Wolfe gunned the motor. He wanted to get past whoever had thrown the firebomb before dealing with the fire.

  The Ford Explorer surged ahead, trailing flame, black smoke blotting the windshield, and then it skidded out of control.

  The Explorer spun around three times, and slammed a rear door against a steel post. The engine died.

  Flames continued to flicker across the front of the car.

  “Yeah,” Wolfe said, drawing his pistol. “I sure as hell hope the guy has insurance, too. Come on, put on that backpack and let’s get out before the damn car blows up.”

  But when he stepped onto the road his boots skidded and he almost fell—there was oil spread all over the street. And it wasn’t there accidentally.

  “Hold it, Seline! Stay in the car, put that backpack on, and flatten down!”

  He held onto the side of the car and looked around. He saw hooded faces watching him from across the street, about where the Molotov cocktail had come from. The Chunkies were half-sheltered behind a tumble of masonry below a half-fallen building.

  He saw the glint of light on a gun barrel and he fired twice to keep them back. The faces vanished, ducked down. For the moment.

  He reached a hand into the car. “Come on, get out this side!”

  She took his hand and helped her slide across the front seats, and out of the car. She was wearing the backpack. “Hold onto the side...they’ve dumped oil on the street!”

  “What? Oil?”

  She steadied herself. Fire still crackled from the hood of the car.

  “I’ve heard about people doing this...they scare you into hitting the gas, you hit their oil spill and the car goes out of control...”

  She took her gun from her purse. “And then what?”

  “They loot you and...it’s not good. Wait...”

  He turned, catching a movement from the corner of his eye. Someone was raising up behind a dumpster on this side of the street—and pointing a gun at him.

  He fired, and Seline fired too, their guns barking like two dogs side by side. Jets of orange licked out from the two guns and someone shouted in pain.

  “Come on,” Wolfe said firing another shot across the street. “Time to go skiing. Take my arm and we’ll steady each other—into that doorway across the sidewalk.”

  She didn’t argue. She clutched his arm and they half-skidded, half-ran, across the oil slick to the sidewalk, stumbling up it. Two bullets cracked into the wall to their right, spitting chips of brickwork.

  Then they were in the doorway, descending. It went down to a basement apartment, under the main stairway. The door was padlocked—Wolfe kicked it, hard, three times, and broke the hasp of the lock.

  He turned—and saw a dark figure running at him, raising an AK47. The guy had a bull’s eye tattoo around his right eye.

  “Go on, Seline!”

  “But—”


  He was taking careful aim. “Go!”

  She went through the door and he aimed. He had a flickering impulse to fire at the center of the bull’s eye but instead he aimed at a clearer target.

  Wolfe fired. The thug with the AK47 went down, a bullet in the forehead.

  The AK skidded over to the edge of the sidewalk. Wolfe ran up the steps, scooped up the weapon and ran back, bullets humming by him.

  Then he was through the door and into the dim room. She took a small flashlight from her pocket—the flashlight was on a keychain.

  “First chance I ever had to use this...”

  The beam illuminated a dusty, cobwebbed sofa, a few chairs. A hole had been knocked into the farthest wall.

  Voices came from the street. “Just shoot through the door and kill the motherfucker!”

  “He shot Kewpie right in the head, man, I’m not getting close to that fucking door.”

  “Just give me the damn gun...”

  “Motherfucker that’s my gun! You got a niner!”

  “I need more heat than that, now gimme the fucking Ar-five!”

  “I think we oughta wait for Tranter, man. He said we wait here, he come and clean it up.”

  “Sounds like we go this way,” Seline said.

  She led the way through the hole in the wall. On the other side they found a concrete floor with a hole broken in it, and a web-laced aluminum ladder stretching down into the darkness.

  “Great,” Seline muttered. But she put her gun in her pocket and started down the ladder. Wolfe put away the pistol, put the strap of the AR15 over one shoulder and followed her down.

  Wolfe had just gotten halfway down the ladder when a burst from an AR15 came spitting through the hole in the wall from the next room, the rounds zipping over his head.

  He hurried down the ladder and found they were in a sub-basement—in one wall another gap had been smashed through. The rusty sledgehammer that had done it was leaning up against the wall by the hole.

  “They going to follow us down here?” Seline asked.

  “I think they’ll wait for orders on that. May as well go through that hole too. Wouldn’t want to miss out on another scenic Chicago hole in the wall.”

  They followed the thin flashlight beam through the hole and found they were in an old rain runoff tunnel, dripping but not coursing with water.

  “It’s going the way we were driving,” Seline pointed out. “Should we follow it?”

  “No better options. You hear what that guy said about Tranter?”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Tranter. A sleazebag with Chicago PD. Only he works for Verrick too. And the Club. I think he’s kinda the intermediary between Verrick and the Club. And these Chunkies who just chucked a bottle of burning gas at us have started working for the Club. So that means they’re working with Tranter, when he needs ‘em...And he’s apparently coming here to ‘clean this up’.”

  “Meaning he’s gonna bring a lot of cops down here?”

  “I doubt it. That’d cause too much talk around the ol’ department. No, the prick is probably calling Verrick right now asking what to do.”

  “You think they know where we’re going?”

  “Hope not. With any luck—no. They’d have waited for us there if they did. I figure the Chunkies know about me...and you. And they saw us coming.”

  “We should get the hell on, then.”

  “A sound strategy. You’re like a female Napoleon.”

  “Oh shut up.” But she laughed softly and led the way with the light.

  He unstrapped the AK and kept it ready.

  The floor was wet and slippery but they went as quickly as they could. The tunnel stretched on endlessly, occasionally streaked with light from manhole covers and drainage grates. They’d gone what must’ve been several blocks when Wolfe said, “Hold on.”

  They were just entering the vertical shaft of a manhole. A steel ladder went up the side. A little light came down...

  “You thinking of going up there, Wolfe? Might get your head shot off like a gopher if you stick it up there.”

  “No, I’m gonna try something else.” He handed her the AK57. “Keep an eye on the tunnel for me. And better turn off that light—save the battery.”

  “Yeah okay.”

  Wolfe climbed the ladder, almost to the top. He listened. He heard no traffic going by. He reached up, and pushed on the manhole. It moved, just a little. He pushed harder—it came unstuck from the asphalt, and he moved it a few inches aside. He listened again. Nothing.

  He took out the PearcePhone, put it on speaker, and lifted it up so it would have a chance of getting a decent signal. Then he shifted it through its scanning modes with his thumb. It took him a while to locate Tranter’s phone number...

  Tranter hadn’t changed it. Arrogant or sloppy. “...They tell me he’s there with that woman, Verrick. Our guys in the Chunkies spotted him.”

  “You gave them his description?”

  “Hell I gave them that photo of him...He’s somewhere in that four-block area. I can get it blocked off so we can operate kinda quiet. You know, I got some guys in the department who’ll block off the street for me, no questions, if they get a little Paypal bump for it...”

  “Can’t they go in there and do the job?”

  “You don’t own the whole department. Neither does the Club and neither do I, Verrick. Told you that before.”

  “Okay, fine, then have ‘em block off the area and I’ll send in...well, tell ‘em to ignore anything they see flying over the area.”

  “Flying? You mean like choppers?”

  “No, it’ll come out of a helicopter. So that too.”

  “Out of a...you mean some kinda drone?”

  “Yeah, and so what?”

  There was silence on the line for a moment. “Whatever. If any of them go down they’re your responsibility.”

  “Yeah, they’re not marked in anyway that’ll...just don’t worry about it. I’m sending them in—it’ll give us a chance to test them in Chicago airspace, make sure the control signals work okay. Just get your men on the street to point the way. Let ‘em know they’re going to see drones.”

  “Next the gangs’ll want their own goddamn drones.”

  “Might sell them some, too.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Just do what I said, Tranter.”

  A click, and Verrick hung up.

  “That’s just what we need,” Wolfe muttered.

  “What?” Seline asked. “I couldn’t hear much from here.”

  “Tell you in a minute.”

  Wolfe went through his speed dial, found the one he wanted, dialed it and put the phone to his ear.

  “Wolfe? Where you at?” Pearce’s voice.

  “You can’t see my position?”

  “Yeah. I see it. Kind of a weak signal. Wait—you underground?”

  “Yeah. Drainage tunnel. About five blocks from where I need to be. Tranter’s called Verrick—he’s sending in drones.”

  “The clowns?”

  “The drones, Pearce.”

  “They can’t get to you down there.”

  “These could—and the Chunkies know I’m underground.”

  “Chunkies? As in Chunky Crunkies?”

  “Yeah. Shuggie thinks they’re working for The Club. Anything you can do to help us out here?”

  “There? Underground? I don’t know. You’ve got the phone—you could probably do most of what I could do. If I burst any water pipes, it’ll make it as bad for you as them.”

  “Okay, fine. Just so you know where we are. I’m gonna try something else.”

  “Wait—”

  But Wolfe was dialing another number. Shuggie answered. “Who that?”

  “It’s me, Shuggie. Wolfe. Um...I’m down in the drainage tunnels...” He gave the address. “And I got Chunkies all around me, up above anyway. And uh...I think we’re gonna get some drones here.”

  “Drones. Like back in North Africa-typ
e drones?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They going to be shooting Sidewinders at me and my boys?”

  “I doubt it. I don’t think these use those kind of weapons and I don’t think they’re looking for you.” His arm was aching from holding onto the metal rungs and he pulled closer to it, to distribute his weight better. “I was just wondering if you could pull some of this heat off of us.”

  “I thought I told you, you were on your own if you went down there?”

  “Yeah but uh...I just wanted to say, bro: De Oppresso Liber.” The Delta Force motto.

  Shuggie laughed bitterly. “You know what that motto even means? It means ‘To Liberate the Oppressed.’ Anybody here oppressed, it’s me, man. You should be liberating me, motherfucker.”

  “Next time I liberate you. We take turns.”

  Shuggie snorted. “Yeah right. De Oppresso Liber, fuck! Let me think on it. But I doubt I’m gonna be able to help. Doubt it a lot. Fucking drones...”

  Shuggie hung up.

  Wolfe growled to himself and put the phone in his pocket.

  He descended the ladder. “So much for the cavalry, I guess.”

  “What were you saying to him about drones?”

  “Yeah. Going to be looking for us. This is Verrick’s way to test them in Chicago too. So we’re part of testing the Iceberg Project. Always good to feel useful to Major Roger Verrick. You see anybody coming? Hear anything?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Let’s keep going.”

  They went on down the tunnel. Water dripped down their necks. It began to rush along in a gutter beside the slimy concrete walls.

  Seline said, “That phone of yours...The one you use for hacking...”

  “Yeah. You’re thinking I can use it to control the drones? If it’s the same kind as last time—maybe. But not more than one at a time. And there’s more than one.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because...” He pointed down the tunnel. “Two of ‘em are coming at us right now...”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The UAVs were faintly outlined, small red lights tracing their edges. The drones were both delta shaped, like the one Wolfe had seen at the country SmartHouse, but these were each about a third the size of that one.