Rose City Renegade

by DL Barbur

  I picked up the AK-47 that lay near him and saw one of my rifle bullets had gone clean through the stamped metal receiver. I tossed it over in the weeds. I pulled a pistol out of his belt and tossed it too. As I dug through his pockets for his phone, he coughed, spraying more blood.

  “Killed my boys,” he breathed.

  “Yep,” I said. I pulled the phone out. There was a folding pouch attached to my vest just for things like this. I pulled it out and dropped the phone inside.

  “Can’t breathe,” he said.

  “That’s because you’ve got a big hole in your lung, asshole,” I said.

  I walked up to the cab of the truck and made myself look inside. What I saw would replay in my head every time I closed my eyes for a long time to come. Judging from the number of parts, there’d been three other men in the cab besides Curtis. I guessed he’d been sitting behind the driver, and the guy next to him had shielded him from some bullets.

  Making myself sort through the mess, I came up with two more phones, one of which had a bullet hole through it. I stowed them both away and trotted back to the rear of the truck. Up the road, I saw a couple Portland Police cruisers making their way towards us slowly, with officers with rifles walking alongside. They weren’t quite pointed at us, but they weren’t quite pointed away either.

  Eddie ran up just then, huffing and puffing like a steam engine. His face was covered with droplets of blood, but he seemed uninjured.

  “How’s Struecker?” I asked.

  “Dead,” Eddie said. “Round went through his neck.”

  I decided to just not think about that at the moment.

  “Will you and Dalton load him in the pickup? I want to see what’s in the back of the truck.”

  He nodded and ran off.

  I undid the latch on the back of the moving truck door and rolled it up a foot or so. I saw blue plastic barrels with strings of det-cord running between them. Some of the barrels were leaking white granular powder from the bullet holes I’d poked through them. The inside of the truck reeked of diesel fuel.

  I walked back over to Curtis. “Is that ANFO in the truck?”

  ANFO was short for ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The ammonium nitrate came from fertilizer and mixed with the fuel oil, it made a bulky but powerful explosive.

  Curtis coughed. “Yeah. ANFO.”

  “When does it go off?”

  He shook his head.

  “Not set yet. 30-minute delay.”

  “Thanks,” I said and turned to go.

  He reached out a bloody hand. “You have to help me.”

  He coughed again, and what looked like a chunk of lung flew off his lips and landed on the ground in front of him.

  “The ambulances are that way.” I jerked a thumb over towards the entrance to the park and walked over to where Eddie was carrying Struecker like a baby in his arms. I put down the tailgate of the truck. I hated to lay Struecker on all the blood and grue in the bed, but this way we didn’t have to fold him up and put him in the cab.

  Eddie put Struecker down. Dalton and I climbed in next to him.

  “Drive us towards the cops real slow,” I said.

  Eddie nodded and climbed behind the wheel. I slung my rifle behind my back and pulled the pin that held the M240B in its makeshift mount. I set the big gun down on the floor of the pickup bed, where it wouldn’t be pointed at anybody, and looked back at Dalton, who was staring down at Struecker’s pale face.

  “I never imagined I’d be shooting it out on American soil.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I pushed my radio mic.

  “Bolle? It’s Dent. We’re coming out. If you could make sure the Portland cops don’t shoot us, that would be great.”

  He must have been standing right next to some vehicles running sirens because I could barely hear his reply.

  “I’m working on it. I’m at the PPB command post now.”

  Up ahead, I saw the Little Bird come to a landing next to the parking lot. Dale unbuckled his belt and held his hands up in front of him for the benefit of the cops standing around there.

  “Tell them not to shoot Dale Williams and Jack too.”

  The posture of the cops blocking the road ahead of us changed. They all relaxed a little, and one of the cruisers pulled aside to make a gap.

  “Ok, Eddie,” I said. “Speed it up a little.”

  The truck wasn’t capable of going much faster than a good run. There were some terminal-sounding grinding noises coming from the transmission. I kept my hands flat on the roof of the truck as we passed among the cops. I recognized a couple of them, and I wondered if they recognized me.

  There was a burly lieutenant getting things organized in the parking lot. They had big sections roped off with crime scene tape where I’d thrown the bodies out of the pickup, and around the other gun truck.

  We ground to a halt and the engine died with a final-sounding sputter. The place was packed with cops, but they gave us a wide berth as we climbed out of the back of the bloody, shot up truck.

  “Shoulda brought more ammo,” a voice said in my ear.

  It was Dale Williams. He had an unlit Marlboro hanging out of the corner of his mouth and his rifle slung over his shoulder. He was damn near seventy and should have been at home next to the fire reading a book. Instead, he’d spent the day strapped to the side of a helicopter shooting at people, and was apparently beating himself up for not bringing an extra box of rounds.

  A car rolled up and Bolle got out. He had a phone glued to his ear.

  He walked up and grabbed my arm, then motioned Eddie over.

  “There’s a Cascade Aviation jet at Portland International being rolled out of a hangar. There’s no flight plan, but it looks like it’s getting ready to take off. Get on the Little Bird, and go stop it.”

  I had about a million questions, but there was no time.

  “Ok,” I said.

  I started towards the Little Bird. Jack was still in the cockpit and I heard the engine note change as he brought the power up.

  “Is that 7.62 in those ammo boxes in the back of that truck?” Dale asked.

  I nodded and Dale reached through the crush of people and snagged the ammo box. He pulled the belt apart and came up with about 30 rounds still linked together.

  “That’ll do for close range,” he said and started for the Little Bird. He could pull the individual cartridges off the metal links and use them in his rifle.

  “You’re coming?” I asked.

  “Son, this is the most fun I’ve had since the 70’s. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  On the flight over the city, I had nothing to do but check my weapons and listen to the chatter on the radio. Jack was multitasking like a madman. In addition to flying at rooftop level over a major city, he was trying to coordinate with the tower at Portland International to enter their airspace.

  “Negative, Black Jack One,” the exasperated air traffic controller said. “Stay clear of the airspace.”

  “I’m trying to tell you,” Jack said as he climbed to avoid an overpass in front of us. An eighteen wheeler passed half a dozen feet below my dangling boot soles. “I’m already in your airspace, I’m just so low you can’t see me. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I’m headed for the commercial aviation terminal. You should be getting an order to cease all flight ops immediately from the FAA.”

  “I’m not aware of any such order, Black Jack One. Stay clear.”

  They went back and forth, then Bolle broke in.

  “Dent, Jack, I’m trying to get the airport police moving. This is a cluster fuck and I think you’re going to have to deal with it on your own.”

  “Business as usual,” I said as I checked my carbine for the third time. It gave me something to do besides look at all the stuff whizzing by uncomfortably close as we flew over the traffic on Airport Way. Beside me on the bench, Dale was busy delinking the machine gun ammo and stuffing it in his pockets. He
was totally focused on what he was doing. He looked like he was sitting at home in front of the elaborate array of equipment he used to hand load long range rifle cartridges, instead of sitting on the side of a helicopter that was in danger of running into an electrical line at any moment.

  We were approaching the south-east corner of the airport, where all the privately owned business jets were kept.

  “We’re looking for a Gulfstream with tail number N379P,” Jack said over the intercom.

  I looked down below. I saw lots of pointy little business jets, all of them painted white.

  “Uh… What’s a Gulfstream look like?” I asked.

  “Never mind, I see it.”

  I saw one plane, a little bigger than the rest, pulling away from the hangars. Jack goosed the throttle and we headed towards it.

  “Tower, Black Jack One. You’ve got a Gulfstream number three seven niner P headed out for a departure,” Jack said over the radio.

  “Negative. I have no such departure.” The controller was starting to sound more pissed.

  “Well, you better tell him that.”

  I was no pilot, but it seemed like the jet was traveling way too fast. The nose was bouncing up and down and as it made a hard left turn to go out onto the taxiway, one wing tipped so far I thought it might strike the ground.

  “Are we sure Marshall or Todd are on this thing?” I asked over the radio.

  There was a long pause as I looked at the plane through my rifle scope. I wasn’t sure what the little 5.56mm rounds would do to a business jet, but I was willing to find out. Beside me, Dale held his rifle at the ready.

  “We’re not,” Bolle finally said. “They rolled out of a closed hangar while my sources watched. We don’t know who is on it.”

  On the taxiway, an airliner slammed on its brakes as the Gulfstream cut it off. I tried to get a bead on the quick moving little jet, but Jack was flying sideways, trying to keep the jet in view, without flying out over the runway.

  I finally got the red dot centered on the cockpit of the plane, but an Alaska Air airliner on its takeoff run passed behind it, then I lost it again. The Gulfstream only had a few hundred feet to go before it could turn onto the runway proper.

  “Oh shit,” Jack said. I looked up. Another airliner was coming in on its final approach. It was probably a mile or two off, but it would gobble up that distance in seconds.

  “United Air 737 on final at PDX 28R. Wave off. Wave off. Obstruction on the runaway,” Jack said.

  Even over all the other noise, I heard the scream of the 737’s engines as it fought to gain altitude. I thought for a second its landing gear would touch the top of the Gulfstream, then it clawed its way back into the sky. The Gulfstream stopped at the end of the runway, then gunned its engines.

  Jack killed the helo’s forward momentum and brought us into a low hover.

  “I’m not doing this anymore,” he said. “If an airliner full of people crashes, it’s not gonna be because of me.”

  As I watched the Gulfstream screamed down the runway. The rest of the airport was in chaos. There were airliners sitting everywhere, their pilots having decided the best thing to do while things got sorted out was to stop moving. Down at the other end of the airport, I saw several vehicles with flashing red and blue lights approaching. Too little too late.

  The Gulfstream took off, leveled out, and flew straight west, only a few hundred feet above the ground.

  Jack whistled over the radio. “At that speed, he’s gonna be over the Pacific in ten minutes.”

  Bolle came over the radio. “Pack it in, Jack. Head back to base.”

  “Will do.” He pivoted the Little Bird until it’s nose faced east and we started moving at a much more sedate speed.

  “You did the right thing,” I said.

  “I know,” Jack replied.

  I craned my neck and watched the Gulfstream until it vanished. I wondered who was on board. I didn’t know how far the little jet could fly, but I was guessing it would be out of our reach in no time.

  I knew I should have been happy with our victory at the reservoir, but it was hollow. I wanted Todd, and I wanted Marshall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Casey met us in the loading bay after Jack dropped us off. I trudged toward the big roll-up doors of the old factory feeling like I was a million years old. I hurt all over, and everything still sounded muffled and far away.

  “Jesus, Dent. You’re covered in blood.”

  I looked down. The knees of the jeans I was wearing had big bloody splotches on them. My boots stuck to the concrete floor as I walked. I smelled like an abattoir. I swayed a little on my feet and my eyes felt gritty like they were full of sand.

  Seeing Casey triggered a memory. I dug in the dump pouch attached to my vest and pulled out the phones.

  “Here,” I said. “I pulled these off the guys at the reservoir.”

  She hesitated to take them from my sticky hands, but she did.

  “I’ll run them as soon as I can.”

  I nodded. “Can you help settle Dale? I think he’s gonna stay with us for a while.”

  “Sure.” She kept looking at me funny like there was something wrong with me. I felt like there was something more I should say, but I didn’t know what it was.

  “I’m gonna take a shower,” I said.

  “That’s a good idea.” She pointed over to a corner of the cavernous factory floor. “We got your Explorer towed over there.”

  She gave me one last look, then led Dale towards the operations center. Eddie followed. I’d never seen him this subdued before. Again, I felt like I should say something to him, but it just wouldn’t come, so I wound up just walking over to my Explorer and digging a duffel bag out of the back. I walked to the door of my trailer and, after a glance to make sure nobody was around, stripped naked, leaving the bloody clothes in a big pile. Inside I scrubbed myself raw, going over every inch of my body with soap three times, but I was still convinced I could smell blood. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the inside of the moving van cab. Every time I opened my eyes, the moment that Strueucker was shot replayed in my head. Had I screwed up and gotten him shot? I’d been closer to the back end of the moving van, it should have been my sector to cover. Was it just one of those things that happened? Sometimes no matter how good you were, the other side got a shot in.

  Finally, I gave up and got out. I knew I needed sleep, but I also knew if I tried to lie down right now, I would just lie in bed with my mind racing. I toweled off and dressed. I had a spare 10mm in the bag, along with duplicates of my knives and such. When I walked back out of the trailer, I almost felt normal, and that seemed wrong.

  I’d felt this way several times in my life. The first was after the fight in Mogadishu. Then after that, it had happened when I was a cop, and I’d killed two men, and even more after the events of last fall when I’d lost my job and gotten tangled up with Marshall and Todd. There was this feeling that my life had taken a profound shift, that I’d been involved in something exceptional and life-altering, then realizing that I still needed to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom, just like before. Humans were animals that were always seeking to go back to their baseline and no matter how much your head told you things were different, your body was just glad to be alive and was wondering where your next meal was coming from.

  Dale was standing in the doorway of the shop, smoking a cigarette and staring meditatively off into space. He still had his bolt gun slung over his shoulder, and I made a mental note to see if there was more ammo for it in the armory. I had half a mind not to disturb him but walked over anyway.

  He looked at me as I walked up and blew smoke out of his nostrils.

  “Well, that was different,” he said.

  “Yeah. I appreciate your help today.”

  “Least I could do.” He shook his head. “Fucking skinhead Nazis. Who would have guessed it? I’ve half a mind to start driving to the retirement homes and handing out surplus Garand rifles. Th
ere are some boys in their nineties that know how to take care of Nazis.”

  I laughed. “That’s what we were missing today. A bunch of old geezers with M1’s. I shoulda thought of that.”

  He gave me a sharp glance. I don’t know if it was something in my tone, or my body language or what, but he homed in on it.

  “I’d say you boys did a pretty good job on your own today, Dent. Something eating you about it?”

  “I think I got Struecker killed. I keep wondering if it was my fault.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  So I did. I recounted the last couple minutes of that frantic, wild ride in the pickup truck. I didn’t leave anything out. I told him just like I remembered it, focusing on details of where I was, what I could see, even what my mental state had been. I tried to be as clinical as possible. We’d done this in the Rangers, examining each minute of an operation, looking for deficiencies in our tactics, techniques, and procedures. The after action reviews could be coldly brutal. Nobody was out to hurt your feelings, but nobody was going to go out of their way to spare them if you screwed up either. I’d tried to bring that same work ethic to my work at the Police Bureau and had found most people weren’t interested. They just wanted to exaggerate their excesses and gloss over their mistakes. Over the years, I’d known of at least officer who had died because of that, and more who had gotten hurt. I’d learned to accept it, and, whenever I could, tried to surround myself with people who were willing to do the same kind of rigorous self-assessment.

  After I was done talking, Dale lit another cigarette, and took a few drags while he stared off into space. I could practically hear the wheels turning in his mind. Finally, he exhaled another cloud of smoke and shook his head.

  “I don’t think anybody fucked up, least of all you. It’s just one of those things that happened. Big boy games, big boy rules. Struecker knew the risks. Sometimes the other side gets a punch in.”