The Bleeding Edge

by William W. Johnstone

  “Something wrong, Mr. Stark?” one of them asked. “You don’t normally come out here in the evening, do you?”

  “No, I’m just feeling a little antsy today,” Stark replied.

  “You think something’s going to happen?”

  Stark shook his head and said, “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just feeling my age. But I’ve got a hunch you fellas need to keep your eyes and ears open extra wide tonight.”

  “We’d be doing that anyway,” another of the men said. “Hey, I heard that the sheriff came out to talk to you today, Mr. Stark. What did he want?”

  “He was warning us not to do anything illegal,” Stark replied dryly. “And telling us again that we’re on our own.”

  “Those things seem rather self-contradictory.” The man who made the comment had been a philosophy professor in college before he retired, Stark recalled. “Of course, if you subscribe to an existentialist belief system—”

  “What Phil means,” one of the other guards interrupted with a grin, “is that we’re screwed either way.”

  That brought laughter all around.

  The gate guards were connected to the roaming patrol and to all six of the captains by walkie-talkies. While Stark was there they ran a comm check on the units, all of which were working perfectly. Stark said good night to the men.

  “And good luck,” Phil the philosophy professor added. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?

  “We can always use good luck,” Stark said.

  He drove back to his house and found Hallie Duncan sitting on the porch steps. He had seen her car parked at her dad’s earlier, so he’d known she was in the park, but he hadn’t expected her to pay him a visit.

  “Good to see you, Hallie,” he said. “What brings you here tonight?”

  She patted the step beside her and said, “Sit down, John Howard.”

  “Uh-oh. Something about that doesn’t sound good.”

  “What, me asking you to sit with me?”

  “Not that, just your tone of voice,” Stark said as he settled onto the step beside her. “You’ve got some bad news.”

  “I got a call today from my friend who works at the Justice Department.”

  Stark drew in a deep breath.

  “Go ahead,” he told her.

  “He discovered that your name is flagged in Justice’s computers. They monitor just about everything—TV, radio, the Internet—and every mention of you on any news outlet anywhere generates a report that goes straight to the office of the attorney general.”

  “So they’re keeping an eye on me,” Stark said with a shrug. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “No, what they’re doing is waiting for an opportunity to pounce on you, John Howard. They want to come down on you with both feet as hard as they can, and they’ll do it if you give them the least excuse.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But that doesn’t change anything, does it? The folks here are still in danger. They have to be able to protect themselves, and I’m willing to help ’em.”

  “There’s more, but I don’t really understand it. Josh is a pretty good hacker. He’s really risking his neck poking around in computers where he’s not supposed to be, but he found a link from your name to a file called ‘Silence.’ He couldn’t get in there. The encryption was too good. Do you have any idea what that might be about, John Howard?”

  Stark shook his head.

  “Nope. Not a clue.”

  “I think they’ve got your name on a list of people to be silenced.”

  “You mean killed?” Stark asked in surprise.

  “It’s certainly a possibility.”

  Stark frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t know, Hallie, that seems pretty unlikely to me. Sure, there are folks in Washington who wouldn’t mind making my life a living hell, but they’re more likely to set the IRS on me again, or file some civil rights suit against me and try to bankrupt me, or just generally harass me. Seems hard to believe that the attorney general would have his own private assassin working for him, rubbing out anybody who disagrees with the administration.”

  “Is it really that hard to believe, John Howard? Is it really? Think about the things they’ve pulled over the past ten years.”

  “Different president now,” Stark pointed out.

  “Does that matter? He’s just as self-deluded and power-hungry as the rest of them. He and his allies know better than you do when it comes to your money, your health care, your religion, and everything else about you. They want to control everything you do from the moment you’re born until you’re lowered into the ground. But it’s all for your own good, of course, so that justifies any means they want to use to grab more power.”

  Hallie had a bitter edge in her voice as she spoke. A raw, bleeding edge, Stark thought. The whole country was being drained dry by the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, and none of them cared how badly the average Americans were hurting.

  “I didn’t know you were so political, Hallie,” Stark commented. “You’ve never said much about things like that.”

  “I work in the justice system,” she said with a shrug. “It’s full of people who firmly believe in the things the other side is doing, even though the evidence that it doesn’t work is right in front of their eyes every day, over and over again. But I still have to work with them and get along with them, so mostly I just keep my mouth shut.”

  “Just like people who work at universities.”

  “Yeah. Those bastions of diversity and tolerance . . . as long as you agree with them one hundred percent.”

  “None of which means that the attorney general is planning to have me killed.”

  “No, but you’d better be careful anyway.”

  “I always am,” Stark said, smiling.

  “No, I mean it.” She reached over and took hold of his hand, squeezing it warmly. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, John Howard.”

  She didn’t let go of his hand. After a moment Stark said quietly, “Hallie . . .”

  She leaned over and rested her head against his shoulder.

  “Damn it, John Howard,” she said in a voice little more than a whisper, “I know you’ve got it in your head that the two of us have to stay just friends, but there’s no reason it has to be that way.”

  “Yeah, there is,” Stark said. He tried not to sound harsh as the words came out, but he was afraid he did anyway.

  “Why? Because you were married? I never knew your wife, John Howard, but if she loved you, and I’m sure she did, she would have wanted you to move on and have some warmth, some happiness, in your life.”

  “I reckon that’s true,” Stark said, remembering what he’d had with Elaine. What Hallie had just said was right, there was no doubt about that.

  “Then why are you being so blasted stubborn? Tell me one good reason why the two of us shouldn’t go inside your mobile home right now and give each other some happiness.”

  Stark could tell her one good reason, all right, and he was about to when the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt crackled into life. A voice he recognized as Phil the professor’s said urgently, “Mr. Stark! Everybody! Come in, come in! Vehicles headed for the gate, and they’re coming fast!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Stark lunged to his feet and grabbed the walkie-talkie from his belt. As he started toward his pickup, he keyed the unit and said, “Stark here, Phil. On my way. How many incoming?”

  “How many?” Phil asked someone else, then told Stark, “Four sets of headlights!”

  “Four—”

  Stark came to a sudden stop before he reached his truck. Something wasn’t right. He turned and called to Hallie, who was on her feet as well, “Get in your dad’s house! Stay there!”

  “I can fight—” she began.

  “No, just get inside!”

  He didn’t look back to see if she followed his orders or not. He hoped she would, but there wasn’t time to make sure. Instead he ran around the front of
his pickup, threw himself behind the wheel, and cranked the engine. When it caught he threw the truck into gear, tromped the gas, and sent it screeching into motion as he called into the walkie-talkie, “Red alert! Red alert!”

  He didn’t speed toward the gate, though. Instead he careened around a corner and headed for the rear of the park.

  The cartel wouldn’t attack the retirement park with only four vehicles. Stark was sure of that. Which meant what was happening at the front gate was only a feint. The real strike would be somewhere else, and the most likely place was along the chain-link fence that ran across the back of the property.

  The window of Stark’s pickup was down. Even over the roar of the truck’s engine he could hear the sound of air horns going off all over the park as word of the potential attack spread. Every house had one of the horns. The residents had pitched in to buy them, and if anybody couldn’t afford one, the others picked up the slack.

  That was the way things were supposed to work, with people helping out not because government forced them to but because it was the right thing to do. As soon as the captains started blowing their air horns, everybody else picked up on the signal and started spreading it as well. Nobody in Shady Hills was going to be taken by surprise tonight.

  Or maybe they would be, Stark thought as he accelerated around another corner, if the real attack came from a direction they weren’t looking.

  He steered with one hand and brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth with the other. His thumb pushed the talk button.

  “Nick! Doug! Bring your crews to the back of the park, repeat, the back of the park!”

  “John Howard, is that you?” Nick Medford’s voice crackled back at him.

  “Yeah! Did you get my orders? Head for the rear fence!”

  “But they’re attacking the gate!” Nick protested.

  “It’s a trick! The rest of them are coming in the back!”

  Stark hoped his hunch was right. If it wasn’t, then he was splitting his forces for no good reason and the guards at the gate might be overwhelmed. Stark didn’t really expect them to hold off the attack and prevent the cartel thugs from getting into the park, but he wanted them to slow down the assault long enough for everyone else to get ready for it. That shouldn’t take long. They had been running drills for days now.

  Stark turned another corner into a cul-de-sac that ended at the rear property line, and as he did the pickup’s headlights washed over the chain-link fence. He was just in time to see a pickup running without lights crash through that fence, sending the tautly strung links snapping back crazily.

  Stark slammed on the brakes and spun his truck’s wheel. It turned and went into a slide that left him sitting broadside to the pickup that rumbled toward him. His shotgun was on the seat beside him. He picked it up, thrust the barrel through the open passenger-side window, and fired a load of buckshot at the onrushing vehicle. The windshield exploded into a million razor-sharp shards.

  But the pickup kept coming, and Stark had no choice but to bail out. He threw his door open, dived from the pickup, and scrambled to his feet with the shotgun in both hands.

  Behind him, the invaders’ pickup T-boned his truck and knocked it over on its side. Gasoline splattered and burst into flame, and an instant later a fireball blossomed and engulfed both vehicles. The concussive force of the blast struck Stark in the back and made him stagger.

  He caught his balance and whirled around, wincing slightly at the terrific heat that came off the flames. More engines roared. A couple of low-riders swerved around the inferno in the middle of the street, one to the right and the other to the left. Muzzle flashes stabbed from the windows of both cars.

  Stark ran across the corner of a yard and dived behind a row of trash cans as bullets slammed into them, causing a lot of racket. He looked toward the fence and saw more cars and pickups coming through the gap the first pickup had rammed in it.

  The attack wasn’t proceeding without resistance, though. Windows from which the screens had been removed flew up in mobile homes on both sides of the street. Stark knew that inside those windows were homemade barricades that would protect the residents as they fought. More shots blasted as the defenders opened fire on the raiders with shotguns, deer rifles, .22s, and an assortment of handguns. The cartel’s thugs suddenly found themselves in a cross fire.

  Windows shattered in the vehicles. Some of them shuddered to a halt with steam and smoke pouring from under their hoods. Tires exploded as bullets pierced them, and sparks flew up from the asphalt as some of the cars were suddenly running on their rims.

  Stark reached to the holster at the small of his back and pulled out his .45. He came up on one knee and drew a bead on a man who burst from one of the stopped vehicles with a chattering machine pistol in his hand. Stark fired a couple of well-aimed rounds and saw the gunner’s head explode from the impact of the two heavy slugs. The machine pistol fell silent abruptly as its owner flopped to the ground.

  Stark turned a little and fired again. This time his bullet cored through the chest of a thug yelling incoherent curses and firing a pistol. The invader stumbled, fell to his knees, and then pitched forward on his face to lie motionless.

  Tires screeched as reinforcements for the defenders arrived. Cars and SUVs crowded into the far end of the cul-de-sac, and the volunteers led by Nick Medford and Doug Jacobs poured out of them. The men spread out across the yards of the homes along the short street, taking cover behind trees, garbage cans, and vehicles as they opened fire on the intruders.

  Stark stayed where he was and continued lining up shots. So many bullets were flying around in the air that it would be dangerous to try to change position unless he had to. He squeezed off a shot and was rewarded by the sight of a cartel thug’s arm jerking and then flopping loosely with a shattered elbow. The thug reeled behind a pickup, screaming in pain.

  When Stark’s .45 was empty, he ejected the clip and reached into his pocket for a fully loaded one he had stuck there earlier, before he knew there would be an attack tonight. As he slid the new clip into place, he glanced toward the front of the retirement park. He could hear shots from up there too and knew the battle was going on in both places.

  A trio of thugs, each wielding a pump shotgun, burst from the cover of a low-rider and charged the volunteers blocking the street. Load after load of buckshot erupted from the shotguns, but the raiders made it only about ten yards before they were scythed off their feet by the deadly return fire from the defenders.

  A second later, Stark realized that the foolhardy charge had been a diversion when he saw one of the cartel men kneeling next to a pickup with something balanced on his shoulder. Stark’s eyes widened in shock. He had been joking when he’d mentioned a bazooka to Sheriff Lozano, but he saw now that the invaders were armed with something more up-to-date but equally dangerous.

  The thug was aiming a grenade launcher at the defenders’ vehicles blocking the entrance to the cul-de-sac!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Stark fired, the bullets from his automatic hammering into the man and knocking him to the side just as the rocket-propelled grenade erupted from the launcher, spewing a brilliant trail of fire behind it.

  The launcher had been jolted into an upward angle as the man fell, however, so the grenade rose steadily as it flew through the air. It detonated high in the limbs of a cottonwood tree across the street, sending splinters flying everywhere.

  Another man darted out from behind a car, making a try for the fallen grenade launcher. Stark was ready for him and drove him back with a couple of rounds. The man staggered back into cover, clutching a broken shoulder.

  The nerve of the invaders was broken as well. Thanks to Stark’s quick action and the timely arrival of the volunteers, the cartel thugs had been bottled up here in the cul-de-sac and were unable to spread their terror attack through the rest of the retirement park. Their attempt to break out using the grenade launcher had failed.

  Now it was time to cut their
losses and run.

  That was what they did, falling back toward the fence as they kept up a heavy covering fire. Their vehicles were disabled with bullet-shredded tires and blown engines, so they fled on foot. Stark and his fellow defenders hurried them on their way with buckshot and bullets. The cartel’s retreat, orderly at first, quickly turned into a full-blown, panic-stricken rout as the invaders abandoned the attack and ran for their lives.

  The shooting gradually died away. Stark stood up from his crouch and surveyed the scene. Every porch light on the block was on, except the ones that had been shot out, and a number of floodlights mounted on the mobile homes blazed as well, casting plenty of illumination over the carnage in the street.

  More than half a dozen bodies lay sprawled and motionless around the cartel’s pickups and low-riders. Stark’s own pickup, along with the vehicle that had slammed into it, were charred husks. He was sure there would be more bodies in the cartel pickup, too. He estimated the invaders’ losses at ten or twelve dead, along with at least three times that many wounded. No telling what the toll had been at the gate, but the shooting from there had stopped, too, Stark noted.

  Sheriff Lozano had warned him about causing a bloodbath. This came pretty close to fitting that description. But he and his friends hadn’t caused it, Stark thought. All they had done was defend themselves from vicious, well-armed, ruthless invaders. No doubt they had paid a price to do that.

  And no doubt they would continue to pay a price, Stark mused grimly. The battle was over . . . but not the war.

  The first order of business was to check on the fallen invaders and make sure they were either dead or injured badly enough not to put up any more fight. Some of the volunteers helped Stark with that while others went door-to-door to check on the defenders and summon medical help for those who needed it. Several doctors and a number of nurses, all retired, lived in the park, and they had offered their services as medics until ambulances could get here from Devil’s Pass.