The Rackham Files

by Dean Ing

  By great luck they were headed away from it in a declivity of Marsh Creek Valley and felt only a peppering of grit and twigs. But Ern saw the multipaned front window of the gas station disintegrate as if sucked into the little building, a polychrome implosion more deadly than a high-velocity shower of razor blades.

  "You should've seen what it did to Concord," Devon spoke up. "No, I take it back." Shake of the blond tasseled head.

  Everyone likes to think he's seen the worst. "Didn't hurt you any," Lance sniffed.

  "It killed Concord. I was in a downstairs apartment," said Devon, "and don't ask me why all our windows got sucked out, 'stead of blown in. But later I saw what happened to people who got caught in the open." He glanced guiltily at us, cleared his throat, shrugged. "A glove, with a hand still in it. People with branches sticking out of them. Slabs of marble knocked off a building, one with a little kid's legs poking from under it. Like that," he trailed off in embarrassment.

  I think Cammie already had a special soft spot for Devon by this time. To ward off further memories of that sort she said, "I'm convinced, Devon. We were lucky. After that shock wave all we did was go like crazy for Uncle Harve's place."

  "And we were luckier still that we didn't get hit by the cars that passed us," Ern injected. "You could hear an engine winding up from around the bends behind us, and I made Lance ride double with Shar since he couldn't make good time on the shoulder, and those people were driving like maniacs.

  "One guy especially, driving a county jail-farm bus full of inmates. I could see a guard in the rear seat, holding a riot gun and staring back at us, looking scareder than I was. I couldn't decide whether he was more afraid of the bombs or the way his driver was smoking his tires."

  The Contra Costa County jail farm was only a few miles from my place. I had helped put a couple of scufflers on that work farm. Inmates ranged from hapless schlemiels and harmless dopers to hard-eyed repeaters who, in my opinion, should've been across the bay in Quentin. I empathized with the guard on that bus; if that vehicle turned over, he'd have a score of two-legged bombs to worry about.

  "I don't envy him, or the inmates," I said. "The county farm must've taken the same radiation dose we did. But some of the buildings could be pretty good protection. I gather you were pretty near here by then, eh?"

  "Half-hour or so. We got here soon after you left, Harve. Thanks for trying to find us. We owe you a lot."

  "Owe me? Good God, Ern," I fumed, then pointed at the fallout meter. "Think of yourself as an investment that's paid off a thousand percent. Fallout meter, air pump, filters, even a rechargeable light plant! Nobody owes me. You've done too much for me to owe me."

  "We've still got a lot to do for each other," said Kate, perhaps for Devon's benefit. "I can't afford to worry about how much I owe, but I'll pay off as well as I can."

  "Strange you should mention that," I said, grinning at her. "Because we've been wondering when you'd extend us an invitation."

  Blank look from Kate. "For what?"

  Ern, softly: "For the use of your summer place in, uh, where is it again?"

  "Yountville," she replied. "There's always a chance that my folks got there. If they did, I can't swear they'd take me in, much less the rest of us." After a moment's thought: "And if it's all the same with you guys, I'll stick with you regardless."

  Shar smiled indulgently. "We wouldn't hold you to that."

  A snort from Kate: "I'm not saying that to be nice! I just don't think my chances would be as good with anybody else. And by the way, I suspect you've been talking it over when I wasn't listening. Isn't it time you let me in on the plans? After all"—she smiled with disarming shyness—"I might be the landlady."

  The evening passed with argument and explanation. Of our younger members, only Kate had ever missed two meals in a row. The kids couldn't believe they'd begin to weaken after a day or so without food and thought we could just buy whatever we needed. I was adamant; we'd be crazy to set out for Yountville on bellies that had been empty for two days. And I didn't think a twenty-dollar bill would buy a meal anywhere in California.

  Shar's notebook put our exodus on a no-nonsense footing, with figures to support the notion of northerly escape. We knew the fallout extended to Vallejo from radio broadcasts, and the same source said it did not extend as far north as Napa.

  Yet we couldn't figure a way to get us from my place to the Napa County line in less than five hours without taking indefensible chances. I meant "indefensible" in more ways than one. We didn't want to make more than one trip in the Lotus, because I'd already seen how readily some folks would knock you over for the shoes on your feet. Leaving two or three of us near the bridge and retracing nearly thirty miles to my place was a clear case of dividing forces. Like Custer. No thanks. I couldn't defend an arrangement that left any of us more vulnerable than necessary.

  It was possible that I was exaggerating the lawlessness we'd be dealing with. But whatever the state of the union, it didn't seem healthy enough in our locale for us to count on anything like business as usual. If we found a place to buy fuel and food, fine. I had a stock of pennies—coppers, at that—and quarters for just such a contingency. But another contingency forced itself on us, heralded as Ern outlined some of the preparations we would have to make. He stopped in midsentence to listen.

  In the distance we heard a car pass, the unmistakable thrumm of a husky V-eight prowling the creek road. The event took twelve seconds or so, and we strained at the echoes like music lovers catching the faint final overtones of a lute. Such a familiar, homey racket; and now such an anomaly that we fantasized about it. We agreed at last that it must've been some official vehicle checking the road, its driver marvelously tricked out in some kind of space suit, invulnerable to the silent, invisible hail of gamma rays that sought his soft tissues.

  A half-hour later Devon interrupted Shar to comment on the backfires he heard far away. Even government cars, he joked, got out of tune.

  I laughed because I didn't want to break his mood. I'd heard that brief rattle too. From such a distance, muffled by earth, I might've chosen to think of it as backfires. But it had been a sudden, steady series of sharp reports; perhaps on one of the dairy farms nearby. I hoped it was a farmer killing moribund livestock. Sure as hell it was no backfire.

  Shar must have caught the pensive look on my face and she continued outlining the proposed trip with a brief aside. We would have to travel at the pace of the slowest, all together, and we mustn't expect any help—in fact, must be ready for trouble without asking for it, she said.

  She figured the bike group could get to the bridge in three hours, Kate and Devon riding with me, and Spot (she sighed) loping alongside the bikes. Then we'd need a half-hour to cross the bridge, strapping the bikes on my Lotus so I could ferry them across the water if necessary. Another hour or two getting around the mess we expected in Vallejo. The best we could hope for was a full five hours in gamma country.

  Kate saw the crucial variable immediately. "What does that amount to in rems?"

  "If we go tomorrow morning, about sixty. If we spend tomorrow in the tunnel and go the next day, maybe fifty. The day after that, forty-two or so. Of course we absorb a few rems daily in the tunnel. There's a point of diminishing returns, but it's after we run out of food and water."

  "I just want to do the safest thing," Cammie wailed. She had taken her lumps with few complaints, but my niece was distraught to find her decision makers unsure on a vital decision.

  "I say we eat our last meal three mornings from now and run for it on full stomachs," Kate said. I agreed with her.

  Ern wanted to go in two days, taking our last tins of juice and beef.

  Lance wanted to go now, now, now. He was fed up with toeing a tight line in a hole with no chewing gum.

  Shar sided with Ern; Cammie didn't know what she wanted; and Devon just looked at us, blinking, fighting a resurgence of stomach cramps. Of course we ended by taking another secret ballot. I figured Cammie
would do what she thought her parents wanted.

  We counted one vote for leaving the next day, two for leaving in three days, and four for leaving in two days. So it was settled: we'd spend the following day getting the bikes fixed up with their generators and any other maintenance they needed, and I would replace the battery in the Lotus, taking a half-dozen rems while getting it fueled and ready.

  We would be all set to run for the border, so to speak, on the morning of D + 9.

  And we would have been, if the decision hadn't been snatched from our hands.

  VI. Doomsday Plus Eight

  I waited until after brunch—Lord God, how I learned to loathe noodles and tomato paste!—to dress for my trip to the garage to prepare the Lotus. Ern knew I would be packing heavy heat, the twelve-gauge, when I drove away as their escort. To conserve fuel I intended to drive behind them, catching up and then coasting until they were well ahead before I eased ahead again. But none of them left the tunnel to watch me collect my hardware and spare ammo. I made a second trip for the battery and the jerrycan with the remainder of my fuel.

  Fully dressed in my Halloween outfit, I hauled the second load across my lawn in bright sunshine, through an ankle-deep layer of dead leaves, to the garage. Here and there I saw the fresh green of tender young weeds, prodded into unseasonal growth by irradiation. The twelve-gauge wouldn't fit under the Lotus's dash so I stashed it more or less out of sight in the foot well, where my left thigh would keep it company.

  The fuel went in quickly; the battery, not so quickly. My damned rubber gloves and the fogging of my goggles made me a prize klutz.

  I was afraid I'd have to push-start my little bolide, but eventually it coughed, cleared its throat in a healthy rasp, then began to purr. I let it idle and knelt with my tire gauge to see if pressures were okay. I'd been outside about ten minutes, two rems' worth, and figured on running back in another minute or so if the right rear tire was as healthy as the others. Kneeling with my head near the exhaust pipe, I heard muffled staccato reports and simultaneous metallic clangs, and I fell back on my keester. With the scarf over my ears I didn't interpret the sounds correctly; I thought the engine had munched a valve.

  But my Lotus continued its quiet purr. I scrambled up, leaned over the doorsill, shut off the ignition. That's when I heard the throb of a big V-eight heading toward the house.

  For the space of a heartbeat I felt the joy of unexpected good fortune; and then remembered that my gate had been locked, and reassessed the sounds I'd thought were engine trouble. Someone had used an automatic weapon on my gate.

  I stepped near the window, I let my goggles hang at my throat, and picked up the mattock Devon had shouldered a week before. A mattock handle fits loosely into the steel head, unlike an ax. I slipped the hickory shaft from the head, watching through a crack in the old garage door while the pickup followed my gravel drive and stopped near the garage. The pickup had a Contra Costa County logo on the driver's door, but it also had several indented holes through the side panels. They were just about the size of rifle slugs. One headlight had been shattered.

  Four men were crammed in the cab. The first to get out was obviously the man in charge, a big sturdy loafer wearing khakis that were too small for him and a shiny badge that looked wrong on him. He carried a pump shotgun in one hand and a long-barreled police .38 in a holster.

  The man who emerged after him wore khakis and badge too; a tall, slow-moving fellow without a sidearm. The leader commanded, "Move it, Ellis, and this time remember not to point this thing until you're ready to use it." With that he handed the shotgun to Ellis. Both men swept my acreage with their eyes as the third man scrambled out. The driver stayed put. Someone had taped around the windows, and the three dudes who got out all wore gloves and sunglasses. No respirators or masks of any kind; if these guys were sheriff's deputies, I was a teenage werewolf.

  The third man out wore slacks and pullover and carried one of the little vintage Air Force carbines. Not much of a threat at two hundred yards, but closer in on auto fire it could rattle you full of thirty-caliber holes. He glanced toward the Lotus, then said, "You want me for backup, Dennison?"

  Dennison, the leader, waved an arm in my general direction. "Look for fuel, whatever you can boost in there. Then come to the door and give us a roust. Hell, you know the procedure, Riley; the smoke from the standpipe says there's somebody in the house. If we can make this sweep without wasting any ammo, that's ammo we won't have to replace later."

  "Got it," said Riley, the carbine toter. He moved in my direction. In the cab the fourth man was rolling himself a cigarette. Not many jail-farm employees rolled their own—maybe because so many inmates did.

  I knew my clownish garb made a lot of noise when I moved, and there was no place to hide and no time to reach into the car for my artillery because I would have to do it in full view of the approaching Riley. I did the only thing I could, an ancient time-honored ploy: I stepped as quietly as possible to the near wall next to the open door and raised my hunk of hickory on high. If he glanced my way, it could be all over for ol' Uncle Harve.

  Then a soft pop, no louder than the snap of a fingernail, spanged from the cooling guts of the Lotus. I saw the man's shadow jerk and shorten as he crouched, intent on my car, peering hard into the gloom of my garage.

  Another snap of cooling metal. He kept the carbine aimed into the shadow one-handed and knelt to feel my exhaust pipe, and he must have heard the rustle of my clothes because he began to swing the little carbine toward me as I connected with the mattock handle against his receiver mechanism with an impact that bashed the weapon completely from his grasp and knocked it clattering against a wall.

  I took three fast steps. The first brought my right foot into range of his belly; the second was a kick just under his sternum to paralyze his hollering apparatus; and the third was a hop to regain my balance as I crossed the doorway in full view of anyone who might be looking toward the garage. He had time to declaim one wordless syllable, ending in a plosive grunt.

  Riley, knees drawn up, clutched his belly and rolled to face me, mouth gaping like a carp. I squatted low and menaced him with the mattock handle while risking a peek outside. Dennison and Ellis were approaching my seldom-used front door as coolly and confidently as if on official business. The driver addressed a paperback, still in the pickup. I grabbed the hapless Riley by one ankle and jerked him into shadow so hard his head bumped concrete.

  A solid kick to the solar plexus can render a professional athlete helpless for a half-minute. While Riley groveled and gasped, I circled around the front of the Lotus, keeping in shadow, and slung my twelve-gauge on my back by its sling before returning to stand over the man who now lay on his back, eyes rolling at me.

  I gave him a quick pat-down and found the five-inch switchblade thrust down the inside of his high-top boot. I let the blade flick open. "Nice and quiet," I growled, placing the flat of the blade under his jaw. "I won't even have to pull a trigger if you try anything louder than a whisper, Master Riley. Now: down on your face if you want to live. Arms and legs spread."

  He needed help to roll over, uttering croupy wheezes as his diaphragm muscles began to unkink. Ever since the ice-pick routine years ago, I've had a loathing for knives. I wasn't about to let Riley know that because then he might make me shoot him. And my twelve-gauge announces itself like a multiple boiler explosion, and I didn't want to alert those two on my front porch. Now, I wish I had.

  Spread-eagled on his face, he couldn't help but feel the prick of his own stiletto near his carotid artery. I asked it softly: "What is Dennison after?"

  "Food. Guns. Booze. Jewelry," he wheezed. Then, "Broads. He's a deputy sheriff. If you're smart you'll let me—"

  I raised his head by the hair and whacked it lightly against concrete. "Try again, Riley. He's a scuffler from the rock-hockey farm. If I'm really smart, I'll just slit your throat and take out your buddy in the pickup and drive away whistling. Or just wait for your pals. Each lie earn
s you a fresh headache. Now: what's Dennison's procedure here? Quickly," I added, grasping him by his hair again.

  A long breath, a short curse. "Dennison and Ellis go in—very polite, asking—who needs help. Then they say—they're searching for escapees—from the county farm. Sorry, citizen, but that's—how it is, and—whoever looks like trouble—gets asked to lead the way—to search the rest of the house. And then down comes the sap—on the back of his head, and strapping tape—to hogtie him while we—shake the place down. Anybody gets antsy, we—mention we've got a hostage."

  Slick; too slick by a damned sight. But he'd left a loose end, and it dangled in the back of my mind. "Why did he want you to give him a roust?"

  Pause; sigh. "So I can call him Deputy Dennison. It's supposed to make everybody—sure we're legit."

  I took a chance. "Didn't work too well last night, did it?"

  Riley stiffened, then shrugged. "Not very. Are you The Man?" If he thought I was a cop, he probably figured I knew something about what his bunch had already done. Which, I suspected, included homicide within a half-mile of my place.

  I said I was The Man, all right. "Sit up, facing away from me, and strip out your bootlaces. If I have to speed you up, I'll brain you and do it myself." Still working just to breathe, he tugged the heavy laces from his boots. I leaned the mattock handle against the wall without taking my gaze from Riley.

  "Your driver's name," I prompted when I had the laces.

  "Oliver."

  I could see the two men on my front porch, and at that point I probably could still have averted a tragedy. Then I saw Shar inviting them in, and the moment passed into the oblivion reserved for wasted chances. I wondered how long it would be before Shar called to me, canceling my hope of surprise.