by Soren Petrek
She was hard on collaborators, some of whom she killed for treason, women and men she knew or had grown up with. Once the Allies came and France was liberated, she resurfaced and tried to return to her life, but the collaborators and many of the people in her community were either afraid of her or didn’t know how to relate to the person the war had turned her into.
She could not remain in France and left with her new husband initially for England and then the United States. Her husband, Jack Teach had been a British Special Operations Officer, and the head of the training division. Both he and then others prepared her for the three years she operated as an assassin. Jack never treated her as anything other than a soldier. The training had been painful and hard, and they formed a bond. On her first assignment they were together and encountered a patrol that would have discovered the bombs they had just carefully lain on the train tracks to take out a train moving munitions. Teach pointed to the two German soldiers and to himself and her. He gave her a look she remembered even after his death: pure confidence. The two moved from the shadows as the Germans passed, each killing their target silently and dragging them off the track. Teach hadn’t congratulated her, patted her on the back or in any way demonstrated to her that she had passed some test or baptism of fire. It was the greatest compliment he could have given her, his respect. It was she that came to him the night before he was to leave to train others. Their love was passionate and abrupt. Afterwards, they spoke and talked of everything but the war. He told her he would see her again if he wasn’t killed, and she believed him.
It was the week the Allies crossed into Germany, and she was no longer at risk. She was working with her mother in the kitchen when she saw him through the window, tall, handsome, and all shoulders, walking towards her gate wearing his full uniform. She quietly set down the knife that she was peeling potatoes with, ran through the front door and into his arms. Before he said hello, he asked her to marry him. She kissed him yes. She led him by the hand back into the house and collected her parents. They walked to the church, found the priest, and were married, remaining that way until his death a couple of years ago.
She’d taken his ashes back to France. Alone she walked off into the countryside to place them along the side of an old railroad track, long since unused, a memory, like the war, all but forgotten except by the people who had lived it and put their family and friends in the ground because of it.
Over the years she’d visited her hometown more and more. The pain had dulled and the faces changed. It was funny how she and her husband had decided to move to America to a place called Patience, all on the say so of one crazy American paratrooper, no more than a boy.
The group in the basement of the restaurant sat around one of the heavy oak tables that was used upstairs and brought out when larger gatherings required it. Sam loved the basement. It was full of bottles of wine, sausages and peppers hanging from the ceiling. On the shelves were big cans of imported olive oil, onions, garlic, and truffles all blending into a fragrance that whispered a promise of exceptional cuisine.
Madeleine, John Trunce and his wife, Nathan, his father and mother, TJ, Sam, Moon, and a heavyset man named Martin, ‘Davy’ Crockett, a local used car salesman and Vietnam veteran, were all gathered. Just as everybody sat down, Christine and Yves came down carrying a ceramic jug of wine and glasses.
Yves sat next to his grandmother. Christine set the jug down in the middle of the table, along with some bread and cheese, and took a seat on the bench right next to Sam. A few people smiled a little, mostly at the flash of surprise that crossed Sam’s face.
“Samson, let’s hear what you’ve got,” John Trunce began.
Sam gave a detailed explanation of what they knew so far. It wasn’t much.
“How do you think we should handle it?” TJ asked.
“We all need to be on the lookout for strangers and to spread the word around. It shouldn’t be too hard to spot Mexican gang members. We don’t exactly have a huge Hispanic population,” Nathan said.
“It’s a mistake to assume that this gang is all Hispanic or that they aren’t sophisticated enough to not attract attention,” John said.
“If they spend any amount of time here, they will end up either getting gas or buying food. We’ll watch for them where they are most likely to go. If cars come into town and just drive around without stopping anywhere, that’s out of the ordinary and will need watching,” Sam added.
“When will the dogs come?” Nathan’s mother asked. She was dressed in a brilliant red Kanga signifying the power of her tribe. Her posture and bearing were unmistakably royal, completely at ease in a council of war, ready to embrace bloodshed without fear.
“It depends how pissed off they are that their van got Panzerfausted,” Sam said.
“A Panzerfauste? My compliments, John,” Madeleine said with a slight smile.
“If something works, stick with it,” John agreed.
There was some more discussion and the wine and cheese were attacked. Soon, Sam called an end to the meeting and followed the group upstairs. Only John and Madeleine stayed behind.
“Up in a second,” John said as his wife glanced back.
“We should try to do this with a minimum of casualties, Madeleine”
“John, I think you may have already moved this thing beyond that,” she said without reproach.
“They fired automatic weapons on Sam and Nathan. I will kill all of them if they come for any of the people I love.”
“As will I,” Madeleine said as she raised a glass to the other pure warrior in the room.
Doc and Billy sat in a thicket of brush swatting flies and kept an eye on Henry the Head’s trailer. It was a miserable excuse for any kind of structure, much less a dwelling. They had been sitting there awhile and the flies seemed to be getting thicker. Doc moved the metal lawn chair he had appropriated from a near-by home as far from Billy as possible. Virgil lay prone, watching the trailer through cheap binoculars. Doc had cut Billy off from any meth until after their little meeting with Henry. He was beginning to question the wisdom of his decision. He was sure Billy was picking and eating the scabs on his arm, searching for a little taste of meth to tide him over. He couldn’t believe it, but he had seen a meth addict do that once during a short stay in a county jail in Iowa. The guy had not only eaten every one of his own scabs, but had offered to purchase another inmate’s for consumption. After seeing that, he never had to remind himself how really bad meth was.
To avoid puking himself, Doc was considering giving, Billy the Scab Cannibal, a mini-dose to guarantee his attention. The need immediately disappeared when Billy saw Henry ride up on a bicycle that seemed to be at least two sizes too small for him. Billy charged before Doc could even stand up. Despite his considerable mass, Billy moved like an orca attacking a seal. He flew into Henry, smashing him to the ground.
“Don’t kill him, Billy,” Doc said.
Billy looked up at him with vacant eyes as he sat on Henry the Head’s head.
“That’s all I know. All I said was that those two dudes were coming later. I don’t know anything about you guys and I don’t want to know,” was the muffled plea from Henry.
“The Sheriff, Sam Trunce, and a giant black dude? The sheriff maybe, but a giant black guy?” Doc said skeptically.
“Wait until you see the dude. You’ll need an army if you go after that monster. I’ve heard lots of stories about Trunce. He’s flat out crazy. The last guy who tried to sell anything other than pot over there ended up in the nut house, babbling about being chased by wolves and African warriors. When they found him, it was only because they finally allowed him to escape after two full days of being hunted through the woods. The guy looked like he’d been through hell. Not good.”
“Sounds like the sheriff thinks he’s a vigilante, or Buford T Justice. We’re still not sure how the van blew up, but I can tell you the higher ups are wild about it,” Doc answered.
“What about me?” moaned Henr
y.
“You disappear,” Doc said.
“Shit!”
“Not like that, you get your ass on the Dog and get gone.”
“The dog?”
“The Greyhound Bus.”
“Can I get up? He’s shitting on my head.”
“Billy has the worst ass gas going. Must be all the fast food and sugary junk he eats, when he eats. Now get going. And Henry.”
“Yes?”
“You remember, like me and the other Hippies said in the old days, meth is death.”
Henry was gone like a shot.
“Patron, we think the vehicle was blown up by a rocket,” Carlos said simply. He’d been in a few serious gang clashes. They escalated all the time.
Jose was pacing around the room, gun in hand, gesticulating wildly. Spit was flying out of his mouth, and his eyes were like bright red saucers.
“They will all drown in pools of blood! This is war! They have blown up my loyal warriors.”
Carlos knew it was more about the $100,000.00 in cash and meth that had been blown to smithereens, but he played along.
“They must be well armed. We are finding out who it was right now. It could be another gang, or dirty cops. I highly doubt they’re regular law enforcement. They just don’t go around blowing cars up.”
“Cops can be bought.”
“Not like at home, Patron.”
“Well, somebody got away with blowing up a minivan with three men, money, and drugs inside, and it’s not in any paper. I want those men dead. I will send my best men to quietly kill him. I think a drug overdose would be appropriate, and sufficiently embarrassing.”
Carlos nodded. Miraculously, Jose was enjoying a moment of lucidity and actually making good sense.
“We should wait until Doc reports, and then you can decide what is best, Patron.”
Carlos was already formulating his distancing plan regarding this situation. He thought it was best to cut their losses and move on. There was plenty of rural America to exploit. Criminals just don’t get RPGed in what was supposed to be Mayberry USA, and Ol’ Andy Griffin didn’t run around with giant deputies who flipped over perfectly good cars. He was going to keep his opinions to himself, but he was going to let Manny the Farmer know what was going on. That was his real job. Just as he’d made up his mind on that score, his cell phone rang.
“It’s me.” Doc’s voice came over the line.
“What do you know?”
“We’ve got info pointing to the Sheriff from Patience County and if it’s to be believed, a giant black dude was with him and apparently picked up our mule’s car and flipped it onto its roof. That of course was before the van blew,” Doc said into his cell phone. He hated giving bad news to potentially hostile employers.
“I’ve heard some of the details. You think a rocket launcher was used?” Carlos questioned.
“I gotta say, I’ve messed around with a little ordinance myself. That van had some serious help blowing up. There ain’t shit left.”
“We need to do our own investigation. I think you need to cut your baggage loose.”
“He knows nothing. I’ll give him a “forget-me” cocktail and let him go.”
“Any chance of using him later?”
“Anything is possible.”
“Fine, then.”
Carlos always kept his cell calls to seconds. He knew technology was the second best weapon law enforcement had against drug dealers. The first was getting people to not purchase the product. As far as he could tell, there had been little effort to educate people. Hell, meth had been around a long time, and had been a serious problem for years. It was only just now getting any kind of serious coverage. Funny how the media portrayed it as if it was a sudden and new threat that had just recently been discovered. Typical, the cops, the prosecutors, and the public defenders had known for years, but for most people that was a different world, the real one.
It’s better to keep a low profile, Sam thought as he drove one of the county sedans down to the regional Highway Patrol Station to touch base with an old friend. He felt anxious about the lack of any immediate reaction to the incident at the Fish n’ Feet. He wanted to discreetly get the word out and the best way to do that was in person.
Time for a pit stop, Sam thought as he pulled off the road at a convenience store to gas up and hit the restroom. He put the gas nozzle into the tank and, while it was pumping, walked over to the restroom on the side of the building and entered. He was washing his hands when he noticed another man walk in and enter a stall. Sam was wiping his hands just as another man came in and immediately tried to hit him with a hand held Taser unit. The man’s movement was too abrupt. Seeing it, Sam rushed at him and slammed him into the wall. Just as he did, the first man exploded out of the stall and stabbed at him with a hypodermic needle.
“No you don’t,” Sam yelled as he moved slightly to his left to avoid the needle. With his free hand he grabbed the man’s wrist, plucked the needle from his grasp, and drove it into the man’s leg.
“You like that?” Sam taunted.
The man screamed and tried to go for his gun. Sam managed to punch him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the man with the tazer open his eyes and reach into his waistband for a gun.
Two guns against one, time to go, Sam thought as he shoved into the killer coming out of the stall, momentarily affecting his aim. The gun went off and Sam bolted out the door. Sprinting for his car, he saw his assailants’ backup waiting in a van. A door slid open and a gunman with a machine pistol jumped out of the van training his weapon on Sam.
“What the hell,” Sam yelled as he shot in the direction of the shooter, making him duck back inside the van and out of the line of fire. I am out gunned, Sam thought as he saw people were now reacting to the gunfire inside the store.
“Shit!” He swore shooting out the driver’s side window of his car and diving through the opening. As soon as he was inside an Uzi fired again. Sam turned the key and slammed the car into drive and immediately floored the accelerator with his hand. The car shot forward and Sam squirreled himself upright in the seat, just as the gas nozzle ripped out of the pump and was dragged down the street. Uzi jumped back into the van and took off after him. Almost immediately the men in the van began to shoot wildly at the fleeing vehicle. Both vehicles shot out onto the highway careening down the road.
I’ve got to get away from these civilians, Sam thought deciding not to return fire until it was safe to do so. He reached for the radio and saw that the microphone had been cut from the unit. His cell was in his front pocket, and he couldn’t yet get to it and drive at the same time. If he only had the squad, he thought. The one time I didn’t think I needed it, I need it, he thought. He could see himself doing a bootleggers turn and ramming the bastard head on. The sedan had a six cylinder engine, but the van had clearly been modified. He just couldn’t get ahead of it. Another burst took out the back window and two bullets hit the dash on the passenger side.
Sam swerved and miraculously was able to get his shoulder harness on and buckled.
“Let’s see if you bastards like it off road,” Sam muttered jamming the wheel to the right off the highway and plummeting down a short ditch and into a corn field. The van followed immediately and stopped about fifty feet from where Sam had barreled in. Sam leapt from the car and scrambled toward some brush and woods. Uzi seemed to have an endless supply of bullets, but Sam managed to keep the car between him and the woods. Chewing dirt the whole way, he made it into the trees and started to zigzag and take cover. Whoever was following sprayed down a barrage as they stumbled into just about every tree and rock. Sam gained some distance and took cover behind a large rock. My turn, he thought peering around the side of the rock. He saw a muzzle flash and squeezed a shot dead center. He heard a scream and more cursing.
“Come on!” Sam yelled willing them forward despite his dwindling ammunition.
Sam heard sirens wailing off in the distance. He saw the men fro
m the van run back to it. The Van careened across the highway, straightened out and then proceeded to follow the speed limit in the direction of the sirens. Sam saw two state troopers speed past the van and come to a screeching halt on the side of the road up the embankment from where he stood. Troopers piled out of their vehicles, guns drawn.
“Freeze,” the young highway patrol man said to Sam as he walked out from the cornfield into the beam of the Trooper’s take down light.
“Take it easy. I’m frozen,” Sam said in reply.
“On the ground!”
Just as Sam was getting to the ground, he said “I’m a cop, hold your fire.”
Another voice said, “A cop maybe, a menace for sure!”
“That you, Don?” Sam said from the dirt.
“Now why am I not surprised it’s you, Sam? Come on up. Trooper, lower your weapon before it accidentally goes off and we have the whole Masai nation down on us!” a bemused trooper called out as he got out of his vehicle.
Bewildered, the trooper followed his superior’s order and holstered his sidearm.
Sam limped a little up the hill and walked over to Lt. Donald Brown and shook his hand.
“What the hell happened? Automatic gunfire on my stretch of highway?”
“What can I say, Don? Somebody doesn’t like me.”
“Lots of people don’t like you. Fortunately, they’re mostly bad guys.”
Brown’s shoulder mike squawked and a voice reported that a dead body had been found at the convenience store.
“Buddy of yours?” Brown quipped.
“Tried to play Doctor with me and didn’t want to play nice.”
Sam caught a ride back with Brown as his car was towed to the nearest impound lot. It was evidence after all, and Sam didn’t care too much. He wouldn’t be driving that vehicle again anyway. Brown dropped him off at a rental agency where he rented a new Corvette.
Walker had given him permission to see what the Vette ‘could do’. He alerted the troopers on the way back to Patience to let Sam pass, no matter how fast he was going. Walker owed Sam more than he could ever repay, he thought as he idly touched the place on his arm where the small Special Forces tattoo was.
