“I’ll handle the prospects,” Randy said.
“When the time comes, I’ll take care of him. You have my word,” Cyrus said.
Mozart’s Symphony 40 in G Minor filled the interior of the Mercedes. Dr. Keitel took no notice of the flashing red and blue lights behind him until an amplified voice brought him out his trance.
“Black Mercedes, pull over. This is the Highway Patrol, pull over now.”
“Oh my.” Dr. Keitel quickly pressed the brake and eased the Mercedes onto the shoulder of the interstate. He looked out of the rearview mirror and watched a policeman inside a cruiser wearing a curious looking hat talk into a handheld radio. After a few moments, he exited the car. A spotlight was turned on, briefly blinding the doctor. He cursed silently under his breath and quickly palmed a scalpel from a bag of equipment on the seat next to him, concealing it under his right thigh. The trooper approached the Mercedes and tapped on the glass. After a moment of looking for the right button, Dr. Keitel lowered the driver’s side window.
“Texas state trooper, sir. I clocked you doing 89 in a 55. License and registration please.” The state trooper rested his right hand on his holstered pistol, and his left hand skimmed a flashlight over the back seat.
Dr. Keitel made a pretense of looking through Dr. Jewell’s wallet. “I— I’m sorry. I seem to have lost my license. I know I had it yesterday.”
“How about the registration, sir?” The State Trooper asked.
Registration. Dr. Keitel considered this. He had Dr. Jewell’s wallet, but his identity card had his picture on it. That wouldn’t work. He thought about the glove box. The gate opener for the apartment was in there, and he had seen a bunch of papers. He reached forward and opened the glove box, retrieving a black folder. He opened it and showed it to the trooper.
“OK, that’s your insurance, and that is your registration. Are you James Jewell?”
“Yes, I am,” Dr. Keitel replied nervously.
“OK. Sit tight. I’ll be right back.” The trooper turned off his flashlight and began to walk back to his car. His head was down as he checked the registration. Probably just some rich old fart out for a joy ride. He didn’t hear Dr. Keitel quietly open the driver’s side door and step out. Passing traffic, coupled with his dispatcher talking to other troopers in the area, provided enough background noise that he didn’t hear the approach of the man behind him. Dr. Keitel pressed the scalpel into the palm of his hand and moved quickly. In one quick motion, he reached around the trooper’s neck and sliced from ear to ear. The sharp blade cut easily through the carotid artery and into the trachea. The trooper dropped the papers and fell to his knees, choking on his own blood. Dr. Keitel watched him struggle, holding his neck with both hands as his blood poured out. Within seconds he ceased his struggle and fell face forward on the asphalt. Dr. Keitel quickly dragged the trooper’s body off the shoulder of the interstate. Fortunately, no passing vehicles had slowed down or stopped, and he figured he had not been observed. He removed the trooper’s pistol from its holster and quickly climbed back into Mercedes. The trooper’s dash-mounted camera recorded the black Mercedes spinning its tires and merging back onto the interstate.
CHAPTER 24
Roman sat at the weathered dining room table, eating a peanut butter sandwich while holding a half-quart carton of milk. “You guys picking anything up?”
Corporal Scotts looked up from his terminal and removed the headphones from his head. “Nothing. It’s been two days, and the activity has been minimal. Matthias and the captain have been unsuccessful as well. The junkyard has been sealed off. It’s as if our target has vanished.”
Roman finished his sandwich and took a pull from the milk carton. “A guy like that doesn’t stay quiet for long.”
From downstairs, the colonel yelled, “I’m going back to the shuttle to report. I might be a while. Raus was letting me have it last time telling me it was taking too long. I fear that if we don’t find our alien, we will be forced to leave. He is taking a tremendous risk staying in his position. It’s a matter of time before he is discovered.”
Scotts got up from his chair. “I’ll prep the trans-mat,” he replied.
“No, I can get it. Just find our target,” the colonel said as he headed up the stairs.
Scotts nodded and sat back down.
Roman set his milk down on the table and picked up the headphones, putting them on his head. Familiar police and fire traffic could be heard. He took keen interest in a series of police transmissions involving multiple codes; a robbery in progress, shots fired, and an officer down flooded the net. Roman recognized the locations as not too far away. He got up and looked at the voice communicator that Corporal Scotts used to talk with Sergeant Matthias or whoever else was in the Ford doing scanner sweeps for the alien. He spoke into the transmitter.
“Hey, does anybody read me on this?”
“This is Cruwell. Is that you, Johnny?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“You may want to check your position. There is some heavy activity up your way. Sounds like a bank robbery or something. Our guy might be involved. It seems like his style, a lot of shooting that seems excessive for a typical bank robbery in this area.”
The voice transmission replied, “OK. Do you have an exact location?”
“Stand by; I’ll try to get a location for you.”
Roman put the headset on and listened for a moment. He picked up the voice communicator again. “It’s a bank at the intersection of Anderson Road and Marsh Lane.
“Yeah, OK, I got it. I see it on the holomap. We aren’t too far away. Ask Scotts to patch the radio traffic through to us.”
Scotts begin to type feverishly on his portable computer terminal, patching into the computer on their orbiting ship which was in a sense acting like a satellite. He immediately brought up a live 3-D schematic of the bank, outlined in green against the black screen. Red squares representing cars drove up and down the street. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Scotts pointed to a larger red square, possible representing a small van or truck parked directly outside the front door of the bank. Now Roman could see orange and yellow heat signatures of three people running to the van from the bank. More red green shapes started to pull into the bank parking lot. Now Roman could see orange flashes pulsing intermittently towards the direction of the smaller shapes.
“Gunfire?” Roman asked.
“A lot of it from what I’m seeing,” replied Scotts. “You receiving this Matthias?” he asked through the headset.
“That’s a good copy,” Matthias replied. “Enlarge your image and look at the back of the larger vehicle. That may be our alien.”
Roman and Scotts looked closer to the back of the larger vehicle and saw pulsing red flashes, with much faster frequency than the others. “Definitely a larger caliber weapon,” said Scotts. He typed a command into the terminal keyboard, enlarging the image. Roman immediately knew what he was looking at.
“He has no heat signature, just a black outline.” Roman sat back in his chair and let a deep breath. That guy is not right.”
By now the image began to show the vehicle moving in the parking lot, the volume of fire increasing. Within seconds it broke through the perimeter the other smaller vehicles had attempted to set up.
“Matthias you better hold back. There is too much firepower out there.”
“Copy that, get some heavier weapons and meet us. We will take him out together.”
Roman was already loading shells into his shotgun. “Let’s get this asshole,” he said grimly.
CHAPTER 25
The white van was filled with cigarette smoke as it circled the block for the third time. Skinny was keeping an eye out for the cops and the armored car in case it was early for the pickup. Randy, Cyrus, and Reaper were in the back loading bullets into magazines and checking the actions on their rifles.
“Skinny,” Cyrus said, “idle the van out front. If you see any heat befo
re three minutes, hit the horn.” Cyrus fastened his bullet proof vest and put a plain black leather jacket on over it.
Skinny nodded as he parked the windowless cargo van outside the bank. The bank had just opened, but it already had a lot of customers inside.
“Lock and load,” Cyrus said. “Try not to shoot any civilians if you can avoid it. Dean said there are always two security guards on site when they have drops. Take those fuckers out first, they will be armed. I’ll get the key from the manager. Reaper is going to stay by the door with the machine gun. He will keep the cops off of us if they get too close. Randy, you watch my back and sack up the cash. The insider is a woman, and she is supposed to have a tattoo on her right arm of a dragon. Skinny, keep an eye out for the armored cars; they should be here soon for the pickup. We should be long gone before they get here. Everyone clear?”
The crew nodded, save for Reaper. He was busy loading an ammunition belt into his M-249. His hands worked expertly, even though he could not recall ever having working with this kind of weaponry.
“All right, let’s get it on!” Cyrus shouted.
Each of the men but one pulled a black ski mask over his face. With the exception of Cyrus and Reaper, they each wore a Vietnam-era military flak jacket, covered with extra ammunition magazines they had duct taped on. The crew burst out of the back of the van, straight into the bank. Once through the front door, Randy leveled his AK-47 and immediately shot the first security guard point blank with a three-round burst. The other guard drew his revolver and fired, missing the robbers and striking the front door glass, which spiderwebbed but did not shatter.
“Get him!” Randy yelled.
Cyrus opened up with his AK-47 and dropped the guard with one shot to the head causing the busy bank to erupt into screams and frantic yelling from the customers and employees. Most of the people inside were on the ground for safety. Randy jumped on top of the teller counter, firing two rounds into the ceiling.
“Nobody moves!” yelled Randy. “We don’t want to kill anybody else. We’re just here for the money. Cooperate and you’ll live to see your families and all that bullshit!” After completing his announcement, Randy jumped behind the teller counter. A pale-skinned woman with black lipstick and black eyeliner was sitting down in a desk chair, apparently not too frightened. She deftly moved the sleeve of her blouse just a bit for Randy to see the dragon tattoo hidden underneath her sleeve.
“Empty the drawers, sweetheart,” Randy told her, the ski mask covering his face concealing his grin. This is too damn easy.
The teller got up and began to empty the cash drawers from the teller lines into a large canvas sack. Across the counter, Cyrus had quickly identified the manager, who had been sitting behind his desk.
“Give me the vault key,” he told the man.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the manager replied. “The vault is on a time lock. I cannot open it.”
Cyrus punched the manager square in his beaky nose, knocking his wire- framed glasses onto the floor. The manager’s nose began to bleed profusely down his face and onto his shirt. Cyrus leveled his AK at the man.
“I won’t ask again. I don’t give a rat fuck if you live or die. The key, if you please.”
The manager promptly removed a chain from around his neck, with a cylindrical key dangling from it.
“Thank you,” Cyrus said sarcastically, hitting the manager with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the floor, unconscious.
Holding the key in the air, Cyrus yelled, “Got it! Randy with me, Reaper watch these fuckers.”
Reaper made no move to disguise himself with a ski mask. He was also shirtless, his upper body displaying two fresh tattoos in addition to his original Viking Club insignia. Two large syringes filled with a bright pink substance were duct taped to his right arm. He surveyed the panic-stricken people in the lobby. He held his M-249 machine gun at eye level, scanning for targets. He maintained his position by the front door. In a matter of minutes, Randy and Cyrus were at the vault. Cyrus inserted the key into the lock, and the vault slowly swung open on its own power. Both men quickly entered the vault and saw four large five foot tall metal racks, loaded with several trays of banded cash.
“Fuck me!” Cyrus exclaimed.
Skinny frantically began to sound the horn outside.
“Cops, we gotta hurry,” said Cyrus.
Randy opened a duffle bag he was carrying and pulled out two more. Cyrus took one and opened it. He dumped money laden trays in it and closed the bag. Randy did the same with the other two bags.
“What about the rest?”
“No time! Let’s go!” Cyrus yelled.
Both robbers ran to the front door and looked outside. A Metro police car was pulling into the lot lights flashing and siren blaring.
“Cops!” Cyrus yelled.
Skinny and Randy jumped into the back of the van. Reaper exited the bank last and fixated on the police car. He had a wide grin on his face as he opened up with his machine gun. The front of the squad car was peppered with bullet holes as the officer tried to jump out through the passenger door. Reaper got into the van, closing the side door behind him. Skinny gunned the engine, but slammed on the brakes when another police car arrived from the opposite direction and attempted to block the van’s progress.
“Reaper, clear us a path!” Cyrus shouted.
The back doors to the van opened and Reaper hit the ground. He fired at the police car as the first obvious enemy and prepared to shoot anything that moved.
Destroy, he thought. Kill and destroy. He had no idea where those thoughts came from.
“What do you think?” Matthias asked his partner, in the passenger seat of the Mustang.
“There is definitely a lot of firing going on, let’s get a closer look.” Cruwell looked at his map, which had multiple heat sources indicated on it. Matthias pulled into a parking lot across the street from the bank. Several police cars were arriving on the scene and had blocked off the street. A helicopter also flew overhead. A white cargo van drove slowly around the bank’s parking lot, its rear doors open. A heavily armed figure walked next to it, firing indiscriminately. Two police cars already had been disabled. A few officers tried to return fire with their handguns, but it was no use. The other occupants of the van were also firing automatic rifles, out of the front windows and open side door. As the van slowly circled the parking lot, the figure on foot began to walk toward the hastily set up police perimeter, holding his large machine gun in one hand. The figure paused and aimed up at the helicopter, causing it to fly out of the area. The words “Channel 5 News” could be seen on the side of the helicopter.
“I would definitely say that is our guy,” Cruwell stated as he looked through his monocular out of the passenger window. Cruwell watched the figure walk straight up to two of the disabled police cars. Two officers rose up from behind the rear of the car and opened fire with semi-automatic pistols. The figure jerked left and right under the bullet impacts, his upper chest peppered with dark spots. Both officers ran out of ammunition at the same time and were in shock the figure was still moving towards him. Cruwell looked away with disgust as the figure opened up with the machine gun dropping both officers to the ground into a mess of blood and body parts. He picked up his voice communicator and relayed the unfolding scenario to Corporal Scotts via his wrist communicator.
“The colonel is on board the shuttle,” Scotts replied. “I can send him a message, but it takes a few minutes to get up there.”
“We might not have a few minutes,” Cruwell replied. “The police are outgunned, and their numbers are dwindling. They only have small arms. You and Johnny try to meet us and bring all the weapons you can. This might be our only chance to get him.”
“What do you want me to tell the colonel?”
“Tell him to load the equipment and prep the shuttle for departure.”
“Understood. Watch your back; you don’t want to die on this planet.”
; The transmission ended. Sergeant Matthias drew his pistol and checked the magazine. “I hope they don’t go far. This is drawing entirely too much attention from the police.”
The white van finally drove out of the bank parking lot, albeit very slowly. A lone, shirtless figure continued to let loose automatic fire peppering the already disabled police cars with more holes. The pinned down officers has no choice but to seek cover. The police were hopelessly outgunned. As the van quickly accelerated and left the bank, several bullet- riddled police cars and civilian cars now littered the roadway. Sirens could be heard in the distance, but it was simply too little, too late. Several bodies lay in the street and in the parking lot. Panic-stricken motorists had abandoned their cars, leaving a surreal sight for the evening news.
“Damn! That was intense!” Cyrus said. The bikers took off their ski masks and began to remove their body armor. Reaper sat in the back seat, reloading his M-249 with another belt of ammunition. Randy opened up a large black duffle bag and smiled.
“How much we get, Cyrus? This is insane.”
Cyrus turned around from the front passenger seat as he inserted a fresh magazine into his AK-47. “At least half a mil. The rest of the money would have made it a million easy. Dean was right on, this time.”
Cyrus looked at Reaper, who was staring out of the back window. “You kicked major ass, Reaper. Major ass!” Reaper said nothing. He looked down and saw where several bullets had penetrated his body. He noticed that he wasn’t healing like he had from previous injuries. He started to feel very hot, and the machine gun started to feel very heavy. He fumbled with one of the syringes duct taped to himself, and after freeing it, he plunged it into his thigh. He didn’t get the immediate sense of vitality he usually felt.
“I—I need to cool down,” Reaper stuttered. He was having an increasingly difficult time focusing, and his head felt like it was on fire.
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