The classic double-tap.
Somebody was finishing off survivors.
That thought sent a stab of fresh pain through Chuck. He knew that a lot of people had to be dead already. People he was supposed to take care of and make sure nothing bad happened to them.
But it had happened anyway, on a beautiful Sunday morning in autumn, in a peaceful little town where folks should have been safe. Evil had come in with no warning and wreaked bloody havoc.
Maybe the universe really was a cold, chaotic place. Maybe the love and kindness in people’s hearts was just an illusion, a wisp of smoke to be blown away by the winds of an uncaring reality.
Chuck tried not to think about that as he stopped at the rear corner of a house across the street from the church. He pressed his back against the wall and slid stealthily along it until he could get a look at the church.
He had to clench his jaw to keep from groaning. As it was, a tiny sound of grief and desolation escaped from him.
The doors of the Methodist church were wide open. Several of the invaders stood in front of them, guns tucked under their arms, laughing.
Chuck knew what that meant.
They had finished their bloody work inside.
In all likelihood, Chuck’s mother and father were dead.
The hell with it, he thought. He brought the rifle to his shoulder. He could cut down most of those bastards before they knew what hit them. That would draw more of them, but he didn’t care. He was ready to die . . .
As long as he could hit back at them first.
Before he could pull the trigger, the screech of rubber on pavement made him jerk his head to the right. A pickup careened around a corner a couple of blocks away. For a second Chuck thought it was going too fast to make the squealing turn and was about to roll over.
But then the tires caught and the vehicle lunged ahead, and to Chuck’s shock, he recognized it.
The truck belonged to his brother, Ernie.
Through the windshield, he saw Ernie hunched over the wheel. The kid was trying to get away from something.
A second later, Chuck saw what his little brother was fleeing from. A bigger truck, a military-type truck, came around the corner after Ernie. The driver sawed at the wheel, trying to control the vehicle, as another man leaned out from the passenger door and fired an automatic weapon at the pickup. Chuck heard the bullets pinging against the tailgate.
He acted instinctively, bringing the AR-15 to his shoulder. He blasted two rounds through the truck’s windshield, then dropped his aim to the front tires. As he kept up a steady fire, the truck’s left front tire exploded.
The driver was already having a hard time keeping the truck under control. Now he either lost it from the blowout—or he was dead from those slugs Chuck had put through the now-shattered windshield.
Either way, the truck went over, crashing down on its right side, with any luck squashing the gunner on the passenger side into bloody pulp. It flipped, then flipped again before it smashed into the front of a hardware store, obliterating the business’s big plate glass front window.
Chuck heard bullets whipping past his head and realized the guys who had been standing in front of the church had opened fire on him. He ducked and swung the rifle toward them, but he was outnumbered four to one. They had automatic weapons, too.
They were going to chop him into little pieces.
The pickup’s engine roared. Ernie didn’t slow down, but he veered hard to the right, up onto the sidewalk. The invaders must have realized he was rocketing toward them, because a couple of them appeared to forget about Chuck. They turned their guns toward the onrushing pickup instead.
From one knee, Chuck aimed and fired. His bullets punched into the men who were about to open fire on Ernie and knocked them down.
A second later, the pickup hurtled over them, crunching bones and mangling flesh, and then its grille slammed into the remaining two gunmen. One of them went down and the truck roared over him. The other flew through the air like a carelessly tossed rag doll.
That man landed in a heap.
Chuck shot him twice just to make sure he was dead.
Then, not seeing any more of the invaders in the vicinity, Chuck leaped up and burst out from his meager cover. He ran toward the pickup, which had slowed to a stop after ramming the quartet of invaders.
“Ernie!” Chuck yelled. “Ernie!”
His brother threw the driver’s door open and leaned out to wave an arm.
“Chuck! Over here! Come on, before any more of those sumbitches catch up to me!”
Keeping an eye out for more of the enemy, Chuck ran around the front of the truck, jerked open the passenger door, and leaped inside. Ernie floored the gas and spun the wheel, and the pickup surged out onto the side street where the Methodist church was located.
“Mom and Dad . . . ?” Ernie gasped. As far as Chuck could see, he wasn’t hurt, although the pickup was shot up pretty bad. It was still running, though.
“I’m pretty sure they’re dead,” Chuck said. The awful words sounded hollow in his ears. “I think those guys wiped out everybody in the church.”
Ernie clenched a hand into a big fist and pounded the dashboard.
“No! It can’t be true! It just can’t!”
“What are you doin’ here?” Chuck asked as he swapped the partially depleted magazine for a full one.
“I knew Mom and Dad were at church. I . . . I couldn’t find you . . . I drove around all over town lookin’ for you . . . Then I saw your police car all burned out—” Ernie had to stop and draw in a deep, ragged breath. “I figured you were in there, Chuck. I figured you were dead. So I thought I’d try to get to the folks—”
He started to cry, big tears running down his cheeks.
“What is this, Chuck?” he asked in a tortured voice between the sobs. “Who are those guys? Why’re they doin’ this to our town?”
“I don’t know for sure, Ernie,” Chuck said. “All I know is they’re bad guys and we have to stop them.”
“You and me? There’s a whole freakin’ army of ’em!”
“I know. So we need an army of our own.” An idea had occurred to Chuck. “All the numbers of the guys on the team are in your phone, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Hand it here.”
Ernie took the phone from his shirt pocket and handed it to his brother.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to call and tell them to get to the high school if they can. We’ll meet in the field house. Let’s head for there right now.” Chuck took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his raging nerves. “We may need an army . . . but what we’ve got are the Fuego Mules.”
CHAPTER 17
Lucas Kincaid was really good at controlling his emotions, Stark had to give him that.
But the tiniest flicker of startled reaction in the man’s eyes told him that his guess about Kincaid’s not wanting to be recognized was correct.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Stark,” Kincaid said.
That answer didn’t surprise Stark. He didn’t expect Kincaid to admit anything. But Kincaid’s denial didn’t mean that Stark was convinced.
“So you didn’t mind the warden coming in here with a reporter and a camera crew?”
Kincaid shrugged and said, “The warden does whatever he wants to do. He’s the boss.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Kincaid was dug in and braced now, Stark saw. He wasn’t going to be giving anything up. Trying to get him to would just be a waste of time.
“All right. Reckon I was wrong, then.” Stark smiled and lifted a hand in farewell as he left the library to catch up to Baldwin and the others.
They appeared to be on their way to the room where Stark and Baldwin had been earlier, the one Stark had described as a rec room—with guards.
When they got there, Baldwin explained to Alexis about the television, the computer access, even the
domino tournaments that some of the inmates had organized.
“But the new Muslim prisoners aren’t allowed to take part in any of those activities, are they?” Alexis asked. “They’re probably not even allowed in here.”
She was prettier than any bulldog he had ever seen, Stark thought, but once she got her jaws locked on something, she was just as stubborn.
“We don’t know for sure yet just what our procedures regarding that will be,” Baldwin replied. Stark could tell that he was struggling to remain patient. “Right now we have no plans to mix those inmates with the general population, but things can always change.”
“So you admit that you’re discriminating against them.”
Baldwin grimaced, took a deep breath, and said, “Ms. Devereaux, if you were a Christian inmate locked up in a prison in a Muslim country, how do you think you’d be treated?”
Alexis rolled her eyes dramatically. Stark noticed that she made sure she was turned so the camera Riley Nichols held could catch the reaction.
“Don’t start on that tired old cliché about how the United States is a Christian nation,” she said in a scolding tone. “It never has been and never will be. The Founders didn’t intend that. The Constitution is very clear on that point.”
Stark smiled slightly. As usual, a liberal invoked the Constitution to support her own agenda, when most of the efforts of the past three Democratic administrations had been devoted to weakening and outright ignoring the Constitution.
That was one reason trying to have an honest discussion with a liberal about almost anything could be incredibly frustrating. They were totally blind to their own hypocrisy.
“I didn’t say anything about the U.S.,” Baldwin replied. “I simply asked how you think a Christian inmate would be treated in an Islamic prison.”
“I don’t see how that’s at all relevant,” Alexis told him with obvious sincerity.
Stark could have told his old friend just to give it up. Alexis wasn’t going to change her mind about this or anything else.
She couldn’t change her mind, because her ideology told her what to think.
Facts had nothing to do with it.
One of the inmates sitting at a table in the rec room stood up and approached the group. The man who had been at the table with him followed along like a big, friendly dog.
One of the guards moved to intercept them before they got too close.
“It’s all right, Cambridge,” Baldwin said. “I don’t think Albert intends to cause any trouble. Do you, Albert?”
Stark remembered that the smaller man was Albert Carbona, the organized crime kingpin Baldwin had pointed out to him earlier. The big man, whose name Stark had forgotten, hovered over him like an unofficial bodyguard.
“Trouble?” Carbona echoed. He held up both hands, palms out, as if to demonstrate that he was harmless. “Why would I cause trouble for such a beautiful lady, Warden? And such a famous one, at that.” He smiled at Alexis. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Devereaux. I’ve seen you on the television many times.”
“All right,” Alexis said, obviously wondering who this weaselly little man was.
Travis Jessup leaned in and asked, “Have you seen me on TV, too?”
Carbona ignored him and went on, “I used to ask my lawyers why they couldn’t be as pretty as you were.”
The big guy—Billy Gardner, that was his name, Stark recalled—added, “That’s true, ma’am. I heard him say that.”
“Thank you,” Alexis said. She had been thrown for a loop for a second, but she looked like she’d recovered. “I’ve been told that I have many admirers among the incarcerated.”
“Yeah, you do,” Carbona said. The little wiggle his caterpillar-like eyebrows made as he spoke gave the innocuous words a lascivious edge.
“That’s enough, Albert,” Baldwin said, moving between Alexis and Carbona.
“No, wait a minute,” Alexis said. She stepped to the side so she could look around the warden at Carbona. “Albert . . . can I ask you a question?”
Baldwin started to say, “I don’t know if that’s a—”
“You can ask me anything you want, dollface,” Carbona interrupted. “You can even ask me for my number if you want—but they don’t really do that in these joints anymore!”
“My God,” Alexis murmured. “You’re like something out of a 1940s movie, aren’t you?”
“That’s the best thing anybody coulda’ said about me. Now, what is it you want to know?”
From the expression on Baldwin’s face, it was clear that he realized he had lost control of this situation and decided to just let it play out. Stark felt some sympathy for his old friend, but at the same time it was hard not to chuckle.
Things grew serious, though, as Alexis said, “How do you feel about all the new inmates here at Hell’s Gate, these so-called terrorists?”
Carbona’s bushy eyebrows drew down in a frown. He said, “I don’t like ’em. Don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em.”
“Because they’re Muslims?”
“Because they want to tear down this country! My guys and me, we were crooks, sure, but we didn’t want to overthrow the government and put a bunch of crazy ayatollahs or whatever you call ’em in charge.”
“I don’t think that’s what the Islamic movement actually wants—”
“It ain’t? I read, ya know? I get on the computer and I study up on current events.”
Billy nodded and said, “He does. I seen him.”
“And I’ve read plenty about how these Muslims want to scrap our legal system and replace it with that, what do you call it, sherry law.”
Jessup leaned into the camera shot again and said, “That’s sharia law.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, it’s the law accordin’ to their religion. Not the Constitution and the Bill o’ Rights or even the freakin’ Magna Carter. Now, I ain’t what you’d call the biggest fan of our legal system . . .” Carbona spread his hands to encompass their surroundings. “We haven’t always gotten along that well, know what I mean? But it’s ours. It’s American. For the most part it treats everybody the same. Sure, it falls down on the job now and then, but we don’t chop a guy’s hand off for stealin’ a loaf of bread. We don’t think it’s all right to murder a girl just because she smiles at some young fella her papa and her brothers don’t approve of. You want a system like that runnin’ things here in the good ol’ U.S. of A., Ms. Devereaux? Because I gotta tell you, a system like that ain’t gonna want a woman like you who’s used to doin’ things her own way.”
Billy Gardner lifted his ham-like hands and began to clap them together slowly. As he sped up, some of the other inmates in the room joined in the applause. A bald, skinny prisoner with tattoos all over his head called out, “You tell it, Al Capone!” More cheers and yells of encouragement followed.
Alexis looked flustered and angry now. She said, “I think I’ve seen enough.”
“You mean you don’t want to see the rest of the prison?” Baldwin asked. Stark thought he sounded hopeful.
“I mean I want to see where those political prisoners are being kept.” She looked at Riley and made a slashing motion across her throat. As soon as the camera was down, she added, “I’ve had enough of this bullshit runaround.”
“That’s too bad,” Baldwin told her. “I can’t allow you into the maximum security wing where the new inmates are being housed.”
“I’ll get a court order—”
“On what grounds? You don’t represent any of those men. You have no standing in any of their cases.” Baldwin paused and took a deep breath. Stark could tell that his old friend was trying to rein in his anger. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take you to the entrance of that wing so you can see it, but that’s as far as you go.”
Alexis looked just as angry and stubborn as Baldwin did, but after a second she nodded and said, “All right.”
Stark’s eyes narrowed slightly. It seemed to him that she had agreed a little too
easily.
Like she might have done if she planned on trying some sort of grandstand stunt.
But Baldwin had to be as aware of that possibility as he was, so Stark figured there was no point in saying anything.
“Let’s go,” Alexis added curtly. She turned and stalked away.
Of course, she didn’t actually know where she was going, so she had to pause and let Baldwin catch up and lead the way.
“So long, Ms. Devereaux!” Albert Carbona called from behind them. “You can come back and visit me anytime you want!”
As they walked along the corridor with its walls painted an institutional green, Travis Jessup leaned over to Riley and said, “That was really good TV, wasn’t it? That was really good TV.”
“Yes, Travis,” she replied, shooting a glance and a flicker of a smile at Stark as he followed them. “That was really good TV.”
Mitch Cambridge watched the warden and the others leave and wished his shift here was over so he could go with them. That Devereaux woman was some good looker, and Mitch wouldn’t have minded getting on TV some more. He had tried to make sure he was standing where the camera angles would get him.
Not that Mitch wanted to be an actor or anything like that. He actually had an unusual ambition for a young man.
He wanted to be the warden of a prison.
If anyone had asked him, he couldn’t have said why he felt that way. The desire had always been there, that’s all.
Maybe his mother had watched some old prison movie on TV while she was carrying him.
Whatever the reason, he had decided to pursue prison administration as a career, and being a guard seemed to be the best way to start.
George Baldwin was lucky. For him, running a prison was just the family business, easy to get into.
Mitch had known he would have to work a lot harder.
He hadn’t been a very impressive physical specimen in high school, sort of scrawny and geeky. But once he’d hit college and started majoring in criminology, he began working out as well, training intensively in mixed martial arts, building up his strength and speed and stamina.
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