Hardcase jk-1

by Dan Simmons

  It had not been random. It had amused the gang bull to line up five dim-witted brothers for the shot, the five overweight young men all serving three years for a completely botched Wal-Mart robbery in Dothan during which thirty-five legally armed Wal-Mart shoppers—the majority of them senior citizens—and the seventy-four-year-old "Wal-Mart Greeter," who had been carrying a.357 Magnum, all had drawn down on the boys, putting four of them in the hospital for gunshot wounds and sending all of them to the Babbie State Prison just outside of Opp. The five were known then just as the Beugel brothers—Warren, Darren, Douglas, Andrew, and Oliver—but a combination of a Dothan Journal misprint that went out to UPI and the comic image of the five in their striped coveralls changed their name forever to the Alabama Beagle Boys.

  Six months after the photograph was taken, four of them escaped—Oliver, the youngest, had crawled back through the wire to rescue his pet crayfish and had been shot twenty-four times by guards. The first thing the Beagle Boys did after eluding the "Largest Manhunt in Southern Alabama History" was to visit the Department of Corrections' Chiefs farm outside of Montgomery, where they killed the man, burned down his house, raped his wife into a coma, and nailed the family's dog to the barn door (although those still in prison in the South maintain that it was the dog who was raped and the wife who was nailed to the barn door).

  Warren, Darren, Douglas, and Andrew then headed for Canada but, stymied by the difficulty of crossing the border under the delusion that they needed passports, went to ground in Buffalo, where they became lay ministers and soldiers in the White Aryan Army of the Lord, headquartered in the suburb of West Seneca.

  This night, at a warehouse near the State University of New York campus, they were shopping.

  "Full auto with laser shit is what we want," said Warren, the oldest.

  "Of course, of course," said Malcolm Kibunte, bowing the huge rednecks into the rear room of the cinder-block warehouse. "Full auto with laser shit it will be, then."

  The Boys had been carefully and repeatedly frisked before being driven, blindfolded, to the warehouse site, where Doo-Rag and a dozen of his men watched carefully and a bit reproachfully. The Alabama Beagle Boys ignored the gangbangers.

  "Holy shit," breathed Douglas, who, after Oliver, had always been the least brilliant of the five, "lookit here. Woowhee! Everythang we wanted, rat heah."

  "Shut up, Douglas," Andrew said automatically.

  Douglas was right, however. The long warehouse room was stacked with boxes of weapons and ammo. Laid out for inspection were AR-15s, M590A1 Pistol Grip mil-spec combat shotguns, Colt M4 full-auto carbines, combat-ready M-16s, compact machine guns such as HK UMP 45s and Israeli Bullpups, and sniper rifles such as Remington's model 700 Police DM Light Tactical.

  All four of the Boys wanted to drool. Three of them resisted the impulse, but their small eyes were all alight. If the Boys saw any irony in buying weapons for the coming Race War Heralding Armageddon from black gang members, they did not show it. Of course, the Boys were not deeply into irony.

  Darren was ogling a table filled with detachable sights: Aimpoint Red Dots, Bausch & Lomb 10 X 42 Police Tactical Scopes, U.S. Optics SN4 Specops Battle Sights, Comp ML red dots, and others.

  "Careful, Darren, my man," said Malcolm. "Your hard-on showing. Weaken your bargaining position, you cum on the hardware." Malcolm grinned broadly to show that it was all good humor between guys.

  Darren blushed and turned his back.

  Warren was mixing and matching elements into a perfect weapon: the Colt M4 carbine with a compact laser sight, topped off with a Suppressed Tactical Weapons suppressor made out of gold-colored titanium.

  "Good choice," said Malcolm. "A handsome combination to take to Armageddon, that be God's truth."

  Warren glared but said only, "How much?"

  "For how many of which?" said Malcolm.

  The Boys licked their lips, looking around in a palpable heat wave of greed, while Warren took a wrinkled sheet of yellow legal-pad paper from his hip pocket—the Boys were all wearing old army fatigue jackets, jump boots, and jeans now rather than their trademark stripes—and consulted his shopping list. He read from the list slowly, obviously adding a few things from the displays.

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows and named a price.

  The Boys looked at each other in near despair. With the money the White Aryan Army of the Lord had raised so far, they could not quite afford Warren's single carbine-scope-suppressor combination.

  "Let us go outsad an' fahr a few of these-here guns," Andrew said craftily.

  Malcolm just grinned while Doo-Rag clicked his Tek-9 to full-auto. "Not quite time for test fahring yet, my man," said Malcolm.

  "Maybe it'd be time for the police to hear that some Buffalo niggers were the ones who knocked over the Dunkirk army arsenal this past August," said Warren.

  "Maybe," Malcolm agreed with a grin. "But if there come even a rumor like that—and we'd hear it because the police wouldn't know where to find these niggers or their guns—then the poor old Chapel of the Good Ol' Boy Aryan Nation Crackers for Jesus gets itself visited by fifty-sixty of Doo-Rag's friends, and the Aryan Nation faithful get themselves shot into little greasy mini-Aryan chickenbits."

  "White Aryan Army of the Lord," corrected Douglas.

  "Shut up, Douglas," said Andrew.

  There were a few moments of silence.

  "There is a way that you can get a thirty percent discount on some of the things you want here," Malcolm said at last.

  "How?" said Warren.

  Malcolm wandered over, picked up a Carbon AR-15.223, sighted through the Colt C-More red-dot sight, dry-fired the black weapon, and set it back. "There a dude that's going to die," he said. "He hiding out in a warehouse in the city. Not armed with nothing more than a pistol. Maybe not that. You take care of it for us, thirty percent off on whatever you carry in to do the job."

  Warren squinted at Malcolm. "That don't make no sense." He looked around at the boxes upon boxes of weapons and then at Doo-Rag and his heavily armed friends.

  Malcolm shrugged. "This dude a white boy. You know how sensitive we are these days about offing white boys."

  "Bullshit," said Andrew.

  "Shut up, Andrew," said Warren. To Malcolm, he said, "You want this guy wasted, why don't you just take him out on the street with one of those?" He nodded toward one of the scoped sniper rifles on display.

  Malcolm made a gesture with his hands. "Agreed, be easy to do," he said. "But sometimes the Buffalo police take notice when you gun down citizens on their streets—you understand what I'm saying? Better let this white boy die and rot away in this old abandoned warehouse."

  "Then why don't you go in after him yourselves?" said Warren.

  Malcolm shrugged. "Doo-Rag and the others want to, but there always a chance that something might go wrong—we drop a weapon or something—and then the federal 'thorities got an idea who borrowed their army toys."

  Warren grinned, showing southern Alabama's Department of Corrections' lack of investment in dental care. "But if we leave prints behind… or one of us left behind… it don't bother you-all."

  "Not so much," Malcolm agreed.

  "When do you want this done?" Darren asked.

  "Real soon would be fine," said Malcolm. "You choose the pieces you want with the toys to go with them, we take you to where this dude is sleeping. Thirty percent off, you each get a piece for the price of that one you wanted. Plus all the laser shit you want. Plus some other good stuff…" Malcolm held up a heavy double-optic apparatus with nylon straps.

  "What the shit is that?" said Darren.

  "Shut up, Darren," said Warren. "What the shit is it?" he asked Malcolm.

  Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "Ain't you never seen one of those movies where the terrorists or Navy SEALS or such wear this night-vision shit?"

  "Oh, yeah," said Darren. "They just look different when they're not on someone's head is all."

  "Shut up, Darren," said Warren. "
Night-vision goggles?" he said to Malcolm.

  "Correct, my man," said Malcolm. "These take the tiniest little bit of light—not even to notice, dark as a cave to the naked eyeball—and let you see like it was high noon. These goggles here probably led to a shitload of Iraqis going to Allah early."

  Douglas whistled.

  "Shut up, Douglas," Andrew said automatically.

  "You said do this real soon," said Warren. "How soon is real soon?"

  Malcolm checked his watch. It was almost 1:00 a.m. "Now be good," he said.

  "And we just get to walk away from this place with the guns?" Warren asked.

  Malcolm nodded.

  "And you gonna give us bullets?" Darren asked.

  Warren glared at his brother, but said nothing.

  "Yes, Darren, my man, bullets thrown in for free before you go into the warehouse. We got clips of.223s, 45s, subsonic 5.56 millimeters for the Bullpup, 22s, 9 millimeters for some of the carbines, banana clips, 12-gauge shells for the shotguns, even some.308 Match for the sniper shit."

  Malcolm lifted some brightly colored hand radios, gesturing like a salesman ready to close a deal. "And we even throw in these personal, multi-frequency portable radios with a two-mile range for free."

  "Shit," said Darren. "Those are just kiddie toys."

  Malcolm smiled and shrugged. "True, my man. But you understand why once we drop you off—with ammo clips and Kevlar vests as well as the guns—we don't want to wait around."

  Warren screwed up his face, thinking about this. His silence suggested that he could find no fault in the logic.

  "You can use the radios to talk to each other going in," said Malcolm. "Then call us when it all over."

  Warren grunted. "How do we know when it's the right dude?"

  Malcolm grinned. "Well, since this white boy the only person in the warehouse, just kill everybody in there, you probably be safe to assume," he said. "But this might help." He tossed Kurtz's mug shot onto the table covered with laser sights and night-vision goggles.

  The Alabama Beagle Boys huddled around the table, staring down at the photograph, none of men touching it.

  "Shall we do it?" said Malcolm, gesturing to the displays of weapons.

  "We didn't bring cash," said Warren.

  Malcolm smiled. "Your credit good with us. Besides, we know where your church is."

  CHAPTER 25

  The stupid shits came in the front door and now they're using the elevator. Probably trying to flush me—scare me into running downstairs.

  Kurtz did not know who the stupid shits were, but he had rigged the front and rear doors of the warehouse with monofilament thread that ran up to his sixth-floor sleeping cubby, each thread ending in a soup can full of rocks, and his front-door can had rattled. Kurtz had been out of his sleeping bag in two seconds, had slipped into his shoes and leather gloves, had pulled his.45 and the short-barreled.38 from his duffel, and was out into the pitch-black hallway in ten seconds, crouching and waiting. The terrible noise of the freight elevator spoke for itself.

  Kurtz had no night-vision goggles, but his eyes had long since adapted to the tiny bit of cloud-reflected city light filtering down through holes in the ceiling and down the elevator shaft itself. Moving carefully around heaps of junk and puddles of water, he moved quickly to the open elevator shaft.

  Usually, he knew, elevator doors were designed not to open if the elevator was not stopped on that level, but the construction boys had ripped off the wide doors to the freight elevator for reasons known only to God and themselves, marking the elevator shaft with only a ribbon of orange plastic tape stretched across the dark opening. Kurtz crouched by the tape and waited. The elevator could be a diversion. They could be coming up the stairways. From where he crouched, Kurtz could see the opening to the north stairwell.

  Someone was talking in loud whispers in the elevator.

  As the top of the freight elevator reached the level of his floor, Kurtz stepped out onto its roof and went to one knee, a pistol in each hand. He made no noise, but the grinding and growl of cables and the ancient motor would have shielded the sound of his move even if he had been wearing metal boots.

  The elevator did not stop on his floor, but ground its way up to the top floor, seven. The huge elevator door cranked open and three men inside stepped out, still whispering to one another.

  Kurtz had ridden on the elevator roof before and knew there was a hole in the plaster through which he could look out onto the seventh-floor mezzanine. He knew where it was because he had made the hole himself some days ago, using a crowbar to tear through the plaster. To his right was a piece of cardboard nailed over another hole he had made, this one in the west wall of the elevator shaft; he knew from practice that he could crawl out that hole and roll onto some repositioned construction scaffolding in five seconds.

  The seventh floor received more light than the lower six floors: as dirty as the ancient skylight above was, it still allowed some starlight and city light in. The walls here had been removed to make this a mezzanine-apartment level. The interior opening to the atrium seven floors below was sealed off only by stapled floor-to-ceiling construction plastic. Kurtz could easily see the three men, even while it was obvious that they were having problems seeing anything.

  What the hell? thought Kurtz. He had expected Malcolm and his men. He had no idea who these clumsy-looking white idiots were. Kurtz knew at once that these weren't Don Farino's bodyguards: the old don would never hire help with such bad haircuts and six-day beards. And, despite their arsenal, they didn't look like cops.

  The three men were all large and overweight, their bulk increased by what looked to be Kevlar vests under army jackets. They were heavily armed with automatic weapons, all three of which were sighted with projecting lasers, the beams quite visible in the dripping water and floating plaster dust. All three men were wearing bulky night-vision goggles.

  A radio squawked. The tallest of the three answered it while the other two kept sweeping the mezzanine with their laser beams. Within seconds, Kurtz had to wonder whether he was being attacked by the Confederate Army.

  "Warren?"

  "Yeah, Andrew, what is it? I told you not to radio unless it was important." Ah tole you nat to radio 'less it was imporant.

  "You all okay up there, Warren?" Y'all okay…

  "Goddamn it, Andrew, we just got here. Now shut the hell up unless we call you or unless you see him. We're going to chase him your way."

  Kurtz slid his.45 into his back holster and took the heavy sap out of his pocket.

  The tallest of the three men clicked off the hand radio and gestured for the other two to split up, one going around the west mezzanine and the other around the east side. Kurtz watched them go, the big men moving in what looked like a parody of military efficiency, stumbling over heaps of construction debris, cursing when they stepped in puddles, all the time fiddling with their night-vision apparatuses.

  Warren stayed behind, head moving, aiming a Colt M4 carbine burdened with a huge suppressor. The big man swiveled constantly, the laser beam flickering left, right, up, down. Warren glanced behind him, made sure that no one was between him and the wall near the elevator, and backed up cautiously.

  The radio squawked again.

  "What?" Warren said angrily.

  "Nothing up here. Me and Douglas are at the stairway at the other end."

  "You look in all the goddamn rooms?"

  "Yeah. They ain't got doors on this level."

  "Okay," said Warren. "Start on down. Sweep the sixth floor."

  "You comin' down, Warren?"

  "I'm staying right here until you got the sixth floor swept. We don't wanna be comin' at each other in the dark, now, do we?"

  "No."

  "So call me when you got the whole floor searched, then I'll come down, then you do the next one down, until we find the sonofabitch or flush him down to where Andrew is waiting. Y'all understand, Darren?"

  "Yeah."

  Another voic
e. "Darren, Douglas, Warren? Y'all all right?"

  Three voices at once. "Shut up, Andrew."

  While all this chatting was going on, Warren had been backing up until he was almost to the scaffolding. Kurtz silently lifted the cardboard panel and moved out of the elevator shaft.

  The wooden plank creaked under him. Warren started to turn. Kurtz leaned forward and sapped him with the two-pound blackjack.

  CHAPTER 26

  Andrew didn't like being alone on the first floor. It was dark and dank and creepy down here. Looking through his night-vision goggles made everything go all greenish white, so that every doorway or heap of sand looked like a ghost. But when he took the goggles off—which Warren had told him not to do—he couldn't see anything at all. The Israeli Bullpup full-auto assault rifle that he'd chosen was cool, slick, and black and curved as a snake, but he couldn't really see it in the dark. At least it wasn't heavy. Even the laser-sight's red beam, which had seemed so cool at the niggers' warehouse, was just a greenish beam of light through his goggles. Andrew amused himself by playing Star Wars with it, making light-saber noises as he swung the Bullpup and swooshed the beam back and forth down the long hallway.

  Suddenly the radio crackled again. It was Darren.

  "Warren? Warren? We found this Kurtz's guy's hidey-hole on six! He ain't here, but we found a cot and sleeping bag and shit. Warren?"

  Warren did not answer.

  "Warren?" came Douglas's voice.

  "Warren?" said Andrew from his place near the front hall on the first floor.