Still running, Vinny passed the Range Rovers. Two of their men were dead, and two more were severely wounded. This was, without a doubt, payback for the last attack on the Vegas . . . unless they somehow knew about Mariana.
As far as Vinny knew, word hadn’t reached the street yet.
Frankie stopped in the middle of the street, and Vinny halted beside him, both of them aiming their pistols at the biker.
“Take ’im out as soon as he gets close enough,” Frankie said.
Vinny nodded back.
But instead of racing toward them, the rider got off his bike and placed something on the concrete median. Then he hopped on and sped away.
Vinny and Frankie sprinted after him, firing as they ran, but within seconds the guy was out of range. The two men slowed, sucking air.
“Careful,” Frankie said as they approached the median. “Could be a bomb.”
Vinny stopped about two hundred feet away from whatever the Vega soldier had left. He could see something rustling in the wind, under a rock the guy had used to pin it down.
“Looks like a piece of paper,” Vinny said. He started off, and Frankie followed. When they got there, Frankie picked up a note.
“Think we should let Don Antonio read it first?” Vinny asked.
Frankie answered by breaking the seal. He read over it quickly, then looked at Vinny.
“What’s it say?” Vinny asked.
“Esteban Vega wants to meet,” Frankie said. “He wants to discuss peace.”
-3-
Ray pulled up to the Los Angeles Police Department’s headquarters, a ten-story building on an acre in the heart of the city. The HQ doubled as the mayor’s office and chambers for the City Council.
To Ray, it looked like a prison, and sometimes it felt like one inside.
Palm trees grew inside the concertina-wire fence protecting the fortress. Guards patrolled the grounds, and snipers in towers watched for threats.
Tommy ducked to look in the open window. “You’re late,” he said in his thick Southern drawl.
“I’m always late, man. Better get used to it.”
Tommy got in. “So where we goin’?” he asked, fishing out a cigarette and lighter.
“The wastes.”
Tommy almost dropped his cigarette, and Ray laughed.
“You fuckin’ with me, man?” Tommy reached up and ran a hand through his hair.
“Nah, I’m taking you on your first pickup,” Ray said, turning back to the view of the road. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch your back.”
He still hadn’t told Tommy what happened to his last partner. Hell, Ray wasn’t even sure. Someone had whacked the guy in his sleep.
They drove in silence for the next half hour. Normally, Ray liked the quiet. It was a nice change of pace from the gunshots, screaming, and sirens he was used to. But he could tell that Tommy was nervous.
“You’ll be fine,” Ray said.
Tommy blew smoke out the window. “Going to be honest. This is my first time.”
“You’re a wasteland virgin?”
Tommy wiped sweat from his pale forehead. “Before I joined up, I thought about trying my luck and crossing the wastes. Got some cousins my age that live in Arkansas, but haven’t seen them since before the war. My mom said they live on a farm that’s pretty nice.”
The headlights finally hit the steel-and-concrete wall, and Tommy gazed at the junked-out cars stacked across the road. Prefab concrete panels made up other stretches of wall.
Crews were rebuilding a section knocked down in the recent dust storm. For now, the weak points were manned by sheriff’s deputies working overtime.
Ray didn’t like leaving the border, especially at night, but this wasn’t his first run.
Tommy tossed his cigarette out the window as they came up on the first of the concrete barriers. Flatbed semis, concrete trucks, and a crane sat idle along the road.
He turned down the old-school gangster rap as they approached the roadblock. Two deputies waited at the gate.
Ray wore a sleeveless black T-shirt and jeans. Add the black bandanna around his neck, shaved head, and diamond studs in his ears, and someone might mistake him for a wannabee gangster. But unlike the wannabees’ bling, his diamonds and gold chain were real.
Ray lowered his window and smiled at the deputy with a submachine gun slung over his armor. A brown duster whipped in the wind as he walked over.
Pulling up his orange goggles, he bent down to look in the car.
“Evenin’,” he said, his voice muffled by a breathing apparatus.
Ray showed his badge. “ ’Sup, Deputy?”
The man shined a flashlight on it, then turned the beam to Ray and Tommy. “You guys must be headed out to the scene of that attack.”
“Yeah,” Ray lied. He prayed that Tommy follow his lead and was relieved when the kid kept quiet.
The deputy looked at the barred gate as if trying to see something beyond the wall and road. On the right side of the car, a second deputy, wearing brown body armor and full face mask, moved to the passenger door.
“Couple of our guys went that way earlier today,” the second guy said. “Raiders hit a group of civvies on their way east. Sheriff Benson sent out a team of scouts to track ’em down.”
“Pyros,” said the man standing next to Ray.
Tommy glanced over with his ginger eyebrows arched.
“Damn, that’s some crazy shit,” Ray said.
“Sure is. You guys be safe out there.”
The deputy tapped the car roof, then moved his finger in a circle. The gate began to open.
Ray and Tommy pulled up their face masks. Even with the windows up, toxic dust could get through the vents.
A whistle sounded from the guard tower, where a sentry waved his hand, indicating they were clear to go.
“Didn’t you just hear what he said about the Pyros?” Tommy asked.
Ray ignored his partner and drove through the gap in the rusted steel doors. He looked in the rearview mirror as the doors shut behind them, blocking their view of the City of Angels. On both sides, signs marked the minefields scattered along the barrier.
A drone zipped overhead. It followed them for a quarter mile before flying off eastward.
“Those pyro freaks aren’t like the other psychos,” Tommy continued, talking faster. “They kill cops and deputies. And they eat—”
“We’re only going fifteen miles outside the city limits, bro. Relax.”
He turned on the brights, illuminating the cracked pavement ahead.
“Just as well turn on the siren too,” Tommy said. “These lights are going to draw those Pyros to us like bugs to a flame.”
“I said relax. I didn’t survive this long by being a fool.”
Tommy didn’t look convinced as they sped away from the safety of the walls.
The moon climbed above the dusty hills, spreading its pale glow over the dry terrain and a decaying civilization.
The lights hit the smoldering wreckage that the deputies at the gates had mentioned. Two burned-out pickup trucks had been pushed off to the shoulder. They slowed as he approached just close enough to see the corpses still in their seats, burned to a crisp.
“Jesus,” Tommy said.
Ray gunned it all the way to their turn-off five miles east of the wall. The dirt road led to the compound where he had been picking up Moretti packages for Lieutenant Best over the past two years.
But tonight, no one stood guard at the steel gate.
Ray parked the Audi on the shoulder and popped the trunk. He met Tommy at the back, where they grabbed their ballistic vests and submachine guns. Before he closed the trunk, Ray grabbed the duffel bag.
“Don’t get stupid,” he reminded Tommy.
They set off down the dirt road, toward the compound. Four buildings with green metal roofs rose above the fenced-off property.
A mounted video camera rotated toward them. Ray held up the duffel bag and smiled. The gate clicked.
Ray pushed open the gate and walked into a yard littered with stacks of tires, junked vehicles, and scrap metal.
Shadows darted away from a tower of tires. A gun hammer clicked. Someone racked a shotgun shell.
Ray saw only one guy, but there had to be four more.
“Easy!” Ray called out. “It’s your favorite neighborhood cops, and we come bearing gifts.”
A guy wearing a cloak stepped out, and the open sores on his forehead showed in the moonlight.
“ ’Sup, Snake?” Ray said as if speaking to one of his homies.
“You’re late,” Snake replied in a crackly voice.
“Got hung up earlier.”
Ray tossed the bag into the dirt halfway between himself and Snake.
“Check it, Ian,” Snake said.
The guy holding a shotgun moved out from the shadows, and again they could see the open sores on his face.
“Six-months’ supply of RX-Four for four people, just like we promised,” Ray said.
Ian bent down but kept the shotgun muzzle on Tommy.
“Come on, guys, is this really necessary?” Ray asked.
“You know it is,” Snake growled. “Besides, you guys came packin’.”
“There was an attack on the highway earlier today,” Tommy said. “Some Pyros killed a family heading east.”
Snake didn’t reply, which made Ray suspicious.
These guys were modern-day lepers, cast out of the city into the wastes, to live out what time they had left. But at least they still had their minds. The Pyros, by contrast, were true psychopaths, prowling the deserts and attacking settlements, sometimes just for the thrill.
“You know, my daughter is on RX-Four now too,” Ray said.
Snake grunted. “What’s your point?”
“That I can relate to your suffering.”
“Trust me, you don’t have a clue,” Snake said. “With the bacon you bring home, your kid’ll never miss a treatment.”
Ray was no doctor, but Snake was right. His daughter had never missed a treatment of the genetically engineered virus. It had saved her from the radiation poisoning by scavenging free radicals and preventing her DNA from mutating, or some shit.
All he really knew was that the antiviral agent suppressed the side effects as long as she kept taking it.
But if she did stop, God forbid, she would look like these men, with sores, life-threatening autoimmune disorders, and thickened nerves. And if she stopped taking it altogether, she would go crazy.
“It’s all here,” Ian said.
“Like I said. Now, where’s our shit?” Ray stepped forward, and another gun pointed his way. “It’s all good, guys. All good.”
Snake gestured to his left, and a third man walked into the moonlight. Wispy hair fluttered in the wind. Not a man.
The woman pushed her mask up, revealing a bulbous nose covered in warty growths. She sniffed the air.
Ah, Snake’s lovely wife, Caitlyn.
“Follow me,” she said.
They crossed bare dirt to a row of metal sheds. Ray had a feeling some of these sheds housed people, but he didn’t see anyone behind the filthy windows.
Snake and his crew had to make a living somehow, and human trafficking was one of the few enterprises available to them.
Caitlyn unlocked the door to the second shed. Ray turned on the tactical flashlight mounted to his submachine gun and shined it inside.
Four open crates held the newest Beretta rifles. Ray held back a grin.
The weapons were a favorite of the Moretti family, and he was going to get one hell of a tip for this.
“Fourteen ARX160s and three GLX160s, plus ten thousand rounds of ammunition,” Snake rasped.
“Nice,” Ray whispered. “Very fucking nice.”
“I got something else you might be interested in too.”
Ray caught a waft of rancid breath but didn’t turn around. “Oh yeah?”
“I heard there’s a big shipment from Eduardo Nina coming into the port a week from tonight. There might be some RX-Four coming in too. I may or may not know the pier and the boat, but it’s going to cost you.”
This time, Ray did turn. “I’m listening.”
“Make me an offer for the info.”
Ray thought on it for a moment. “How about three more shipments of RX-Four, on the house?”
“Six.”
“Four.”
“Six.”
Ray shrugged. “A’ight, boss.”
“The Goomah, midnight, pier nine,” Snake said. “Week from tonight.”
“Good shit,” Ray said. He walked into the shack while Tommy waited outside.
Turning his back to Caitlyn and Snake, he pulled out his cell phone and pretended to take pictures while sending a pretyped text message. After examining the weapons, he slipped the phone away and walked back outside.
“Good stuff, Snake man,” Ray said, flashing another grin. He reached out with a gloved hand. Snake always seemed to appreciate a handshake.
“How do you expect to get these back to the city?” Caitlyn asked.
She tilted her head slightly, then turned to sniff the air again. Her bulging lips began to move, but before she could say a word, the top of her skull exploded. A second later, the shot rang out.
Ray brought his submachine gun up and fired a three-round burst into Snake’s chest. Then he raked the gun toward Ian, who raised his sawed-off at Tommy.
A deafening boom sounded.
The blast hit Tommy in the side, sending him sprawling across the ground.
Ian fell backward from a burst, sprawling against a stack of tires, dead by the time he slumped to the dirt.
Ray left Tommy moaning on the ground, to hunt the fourth soldier on Snake’s payroll. He raked his light over the junkyard, searching for movement.
Come on, ya freak. Where are you?
A shadow moved in his peripheral vision, and he swung the barrel toward a figure running across the dirt. He almost pulled the trigger, then saw that it was just a kid.
The child bent down to Caitlyn’s body, sobbing.
Ray moved over to make sure he wasn’t armed. The kid looked up, baring his teeth. Tears streaked down the open lesions on his cheeks.
“Ray!” shouted a voice.
The boy took off running, and Ray let him go, whispering, “Sorry, kid.”
“Over here!” Ray yelled back.
He moved over to Tommy, still groaning on the ground.
“Let me look,” Ray said. “Move your damn hand.”
Tommy bled from the vest’s side closures, which had let a couple of pellets through. A third cop walked over. He wore black fatigues with a face mask and carried a sniper rifle.
“Nice shootin’, Nicky,” Ray said.
“It hurts,” Tommy said.
“Hold on, bro, we’re getting you to a hospital,” Ray said. “Nicky, go get your truck and load this shit up, and watch out for a kid. About seven or eight. I’ll go grab the car and take Tommy in.”
Nicky took off after a nod.
“I can . . . hardly breathe,” Tommy gasped.
“Long as you can feel your nuts, you’ll be fine,” Ray said.
Tommy broke into a coughing fit.
Ray had a morbid thought. This was going to look really bad if they lost Tommy. Hell, even bringing him into a hospital would raise red flags.
But he couldn’t leave him here. Ray wasn’t a monster.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
“Wait,” Tommy groaned.
“Chill, bro.”
Ray went to grab the bag of RX-4. The shit was nearly worth its weight in gold. On the way back to his car, he called the one man who could help him with the Tommy situation.
“God damn it, Ray,” said Lieutenant Best. But his tone changed when he heard about the port.
“You’ll see a nice cut from this,” Best said.
Ray grinned as he clicked off the phone. He was going to make out wel
l tonight, maybe even bring home enough to buy his wife the ring she wanted.
The grin vanished when a gunshot shattered the silence of the night.
Ray ducked.
A figure staggered through the open gate of the compound, gripping its stomach before dropping to the ground.
“Got the kid!” Nicky yelled, sounding like a hunter who just brought down a buck.
Ray got up and slowly approached the boy in the dirt. Typically, the job didn’t get to him. But something felt different. Something had changed.
He had always been a dirty cop, working with the mobsters, narcos, and gangsters. Evil deeds had hardened his heart, but not enough for him to shrug this off.
They had crossed a line out here. And there was no coming back from it.
* * *
Dom stood on the rooftop of the safe house in the City of Industry. He had found this place years ago, and it had been their base ever since. There were other safe houses across the city too, but this place was their headquarters.
Camilla stepped up beside him.
“Want some company?” she asked.
“Was about to go back downstairs.”
“Namid and Pork Chop aren’t back yet,” she said. “We got a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Dom turned to enjoy the sunset. A magenta streak cleft the orange sky as purple faded to black on the horizon. Bare, skeletal trees dotted the hills.
A section of wall was visible in the distance—shipping containers and crushed auto bodies piled to block entry to the city.
The fading logos of billion-dollar companies from the past marked the derelict warehouses surrounding him. Most were faded and missing letters, but he remembered them from his childhood.
“You okay?” Dom asked Camilla when she didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, I just miss Joaquín,” she said. “Been thinking about him a lot lately.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know you understand.”
Dom more than understood. The Vegas had killed his dad in the desert and killed her brother years ago by throwing him off the roof of a building. Both men got closed-casket funerals, but they had that much, at least.
That was some closure. Dom still had zero for his sister.
“We’ll bury the animals,” he said.
Sons of War 3: Sinners Page 5
