by TJ Martinell
THE INFORMERS
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, places, incidents, and dialogue are the product of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real, or if real, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by TJ Martinell
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FIRST EDITION
Published in Digital Format in the United States of America.
The Informers
Part 2 Of The Stringers Trilogy
By TJ Martinell
Table Of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
About the Author
Chapter One
I ducked as a bullet passed through the back of the car and exited out the front windshield. The small hole would eventually turn into a spider’s web. I reacted as though the car had just run over a piece of trash on the road, a minor nuisance but nothing to be worried about. I had only lived in Seattle for a year, but it hadn’t taken long to get used to the constant brushes with death to the point where it was as commonplace as morning coffee.
Another bullet embedded itself into the side. I looked down and winced. Hernandez, our newspaper’s mechanic, wasn’t going to be happy. I had spent the whole morning assuring him the refurbished car wouldn’t get a scratch.
Technically, it still hadn’t, but Hernandez didn’t have that sense of humor.
For the time being, I could still see the seemingly endless road running straight and south parallel with the waterline. Keeping my head low, I swerved into the next lane and checked the see if the Seattle Examiner stringer doggedly pursuing us was still on our tail or if he was trying to drive up beside us.
He wasn’t hard to spot in his nondescript gray sedan. He came alongside us, hit the brakes, then pulled into our lane.
“Are you all right, Roy?”
I glanced back at Jean. “I’m fine.”
Jean sat in the back seat pressed into the worn leather lining. Her miniature Tommy gun rested across the flat surface behind the seat. She peered through the gaping hole where the rear window had been only minutes ago. The other stringer’s companion had blown it away with a few heavy rounds.
Jean reloaded, taking out the empty drum magazine and dumping it on the floor next to the two empties and replacing it from her small satchel bag lying on the seat beside her legs. She still had several military-grade magazines, 100 rounds each.
The rear sight inches from her face, she fired in bursts. I took quick glances through the mirror to watch the slugs splash off the road and strike the top of the sedan. Neither she nor her opposite managed to hit their target.
I turned back to the road, then mashed the brakes. But the Shoreline stringer was no rookie. He somehow anticipated the move and slowed just in time. I shifted gears and took advantage of the open road ahead of us. A second attempt had the same result. He was too good for that. He also probably knew I couldn’t get off the old state Route 99 we were on and risk moving through the narrow streets. He had better knowledge of the roads, I presumed, so would be able to navigate around me and ambush us.
Not a good place to be an hour and a half before deadline.
Another gunshot through the car. This one left a hole in the headliner, no more than three inches from my head. I gave it as long of a stare as I could afford as I reached over to the glove compartment for my notebook and placed it on the front passenger seat. I opened it and flipped through the pages until I came to a scribble of words where the ink was still wet and fresh.
“Can you read my handwriting?” I yelled to Jean.
“I can read it. Why do you ask?”
“Because if anything happens to me, I want to know you know what it says.”
“Nothing will happen to you.”
As if to bolster her claim, she aimed longer than usual and took a well-placed shot at the stringer’s companion. Not hit, but close enough to make him clearly squirm in his seat. The dichotomy between the two striking; Jean short and petite and the other man’s girth visible even from a distance in the car. He could barely fit out the side as he leaned through the window to get a shot at us with his semi-automatic rifle.
Jean dropped down below the seat, tugging at her gun to remove a jammed cartridge. She gave me a concerned look. She had a reason to be worried. It wasn’t mere greed that spurred the stringer to kill me and obtain the information in my notepad.
I hadn’t even been looking for the story. I’d been contacted by a disgruntled city worker. The tip had been too good to pass up: details of a proposed city ordinance a Shoreline councilmember had yet to present to the council. The worker offered me a copy of the proposed ordinance and prior drafts, plus an audio recording of conversations he had made of the councilmember in his office. Why me, he wouldn’t say.
All I had to do was get it to Phil Nguyen, one of our writers that had worked Shoreline while at the newspaper there before coming to work for McCullen.
But we were still in Shoreline’s section of the highway. Seattle’s rickety skyline loomed ahead of us beneath the dark rolling clouds like an ominous fortress and the skyscrapers imposing towers during a heavy winter’s storm as they grew larger and larger.
“I knew he would sell you out,” Jean said during a lull in the gunfire.
I looked at her solemnly. The offer had been too good. When we had come to get the information, the Examiner’s stringer had ambushed us. The betrayal was logical. The city worker was protecting himself by turning me in to the Examiner, probably making more money for it.
A mixture of eerie apprehension and relief came over me as we passed by the two neglected cemeteries on our left and right. We had escaped Shoreline entered the outskirts of old Seattle.
Noting his presence in enemy territory, my rival stringer backed off temporarily as though fearful of being ambushed himself. He probably didn’t realize he had shot out our radio, making it impossible for us to call for backup.
The Examiner stringer’s name was Victor Polchinski. He was a mid-level man at his paper; I knew enough about him to recognize him but little else about him as a man or his methods. Sometimes it was better for a stringer to be discreet in his work and avoid the notoriety most of us sought.
Polchinski kept a close but cautious distance, his companion tapering off his gunfire. Either he was short ammunition or he was waiting for the right opportunity. I did not intend to give them one. We made it to Green Lake, where the roads were dotted with cars and the paltry few residents who dared to use the state route. They gave us a wide berth as we moved past them. I steered away as far as I
could, unwilling to use them as shields to protect us from gunshots. We were both in another newspaper’s territory, and I was in enough trouble already. McCullen had not authorized the assignment for any story outside our territory.
We passed by the old Woodland Park, now an untamed field surrounded by sprawling woods that bled into the neighborhood around it and overran the nearby street.
Suddenly, a mechanical roar bellowed, followed by the stench of burnt tires and filthy smoke. I slowed down and looked back.
Polchinski had almost come to a complete stop. Behind them was a long trail of tar black streak marks seared into the cracked pavement. No smoke from his hood, though.
I maintained a moderate speed as I waited for him to make his play. Polchinski’s car was motionless until we were roughly three hundred meters away. Then, he swerved the car to the side and stomped on the brakes. The car buckled and groaned under the intense strain but came to a gradually stop, its front aimed directly at us.
Polchinski’s companion then jumped up out of the side door, leaning on the hood as he rested a high-powered rifle on its bipod and peered through the scope.
I called out to Jean.
The man fired.
The thick slug punched a large hole in our trunk lid but was stopped by the armor plate installed behind the rear seat. I swerved the car, throwing Jean around in the back. He fired two more times. Both shots tore through the sides. Keeping low, Jean moved into the front passenger seat and sent off a few shots to make him duck.
It worked. He paused, but quickly went for another shot.
I winced as a burning pain moved through my right arm. I let go of the steering wheel. The car came to a stop.
I looked down at my hand, now warm and wet. And bloody.
Jean dropped the Thompson on the floor and pulled my hand away and examined the wound. It was superficial, but the pain was excruciating.
“The bullet did not hit you,” she said. “It just cut through the seat. The metal sheet you put in the seat broke and cut you.”
“Can you drive?”
“Yes.”
As we were switching seats, I looked at Polchinski in his car. He was staring down at the dashboard. Now there was smoke seeping out the hood. He struck the steering wheel with his fist and then pounded the dashboard. He and his companion got out of the sedan with dual automatic pistols. At first, they approached us tentatively, but when they realized I was wounded, they charged.
Suppressing the pain in my arm, I shoved Jean’s head underneath the windshield as more bullet holes appeared. One finally shattered the glass.
Jean reached out for her Thompson, frowning as she tapped the magazine.
“This is all I have left,” she said. “I cannot reach for the magazines in the back or they will shoot me.”
“We’ll manage.”
She waited for them to pause, then popped up and fired at them. In the open road, they were conspicuous targets. They dropped and retreated to cover. Eager to take advantage of the brief respite, I threw off my coat and ripped off a piece of my shirt. I wrapped the shirt piece around the wound several times and tied it firmly. A handkerchief from my coat made a suitable second bandage. By the time I was done dressing my wound, Jean had emptied the Thompson. She looked to me for guidance.
Still in the driver’s seat, I turned the wheel slightly to the right, aiming the car at the two attackers and prayed they would not move.
“Hold on!” I screamed.
I clomped both feet on the accelerator. The sudden burst of fuel into the injectors spurred car forward like charging horses.
They stopped running, turned around, and shot back at us. More clanks against the frame.
It was a game of chicken they couldn’t win. Being in the car, when we reached them they leapt to the side and tried to reload. Now able to get to the back, Jean reached back for a full magazine, shoved it into the Tommy gun, cocked it, and rose to shoot at them.
She froze.
“What the hell is the matter─”
My scream died in my throat as I too stared in disbelief.
Both Polchinski and his companion were dead on the road, two streams of blood below each head where the neat, clean entry wounds were found.
“What happened?” Jean asked.
I drove off without a word. No time to investigate.
“What was that?” she asked after a while. “Who killed them?”
At that moment, I didn’t care. Rivals, personal enemies. Who knew? They hadn’t shot at us. Yet.
Jean started to clean herself up. She wiped the grime off her face before suddenly focusing on my wound. She touched it gently, concerned when I clenched my teeth as another surge of pain ran through my arm.
“You need help,” she said.
“I need to get this story in on time,” I groaned as I inspected my watch. “Forty minutes.”
***
I pulled off the highway and onto a side street as we entered Fremont. I slowed the car down, trying to hide my wound and admonishing Jean to put away her gun as we drove past a corner street restaurant with clientele. Several of them were standing outside the large thick oak doors taking long drags on their cigarettes. The car’s shattered windshield and bullet holes didn’t draw stares. It was too familiar a sight.
We were on the Fremont Bridge when the engine coughed several times. I cursed and kicked at the pedal as the car stalled and paused, then moved forward for a while before it coughed again and slowed down and shook as though holding back a sneeze. The rumbling grew intense.
Then the engine died.
I kicked at the dashboard and muttered curses. I was half-tempted to get out and make a run for Pike Place. But at three miles away, even in peak condition it would take roughly at least an hour, more with my arm bleeding.
Jean was uncannily calm.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
I got out of the car and approached the hood. Footsteps heralded the arrival of a small group of Fremonties. They walked up to me, tossing their cigarettes stubs away as they studied me, then Jean.
“What’s the matter?” one of them asked. “Ya car not likin’ ya?”
“I guess,” I said, sounding polite, but not too friendly.
The Fremonty looked at his friends. They shrugged. He pointed at my arm.
“Ya girl over there bite ya, or what?”
His friends laughed.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s about it.”
He kept looking at me as if to say something but didn’t. He peered at the car, then at Jean, his eyes lowering. He was clearly amused.
“So ya want help with the car? We can fix it.”
“I can handle the problems with the car,” I said. “Can you help us move across the bridge?”
“Why there?” the Fremonty asked. “Ain’t it good enough here to work on?”
“We’ll pay you,” I said.
“Well, no shit! We ain’t doin it for charity, that’s for sure.”
I looked at the time. Fifteen minutes.
“Get us across the bridge,” I said. “That’s it. How much?”
The Fremonty privately conversed with his colleagues. When they broke out of their huddle he clapped his hands together and rubbed them.
“Five copper rounds,” he said.
“Fine.”
“Per person.”
“Alright.”
The Fremonty grinned. Hell, ya sure as shit are in a hurry, ain’t ya?”
“I’ll pay you six rounds if you can get it across the bridge in the next two minutes.”
“Hell! We can do that! Come on, boys!”
The Fremonties swarmed around the car as I got inside and set the car to neutral. I gave them the signal and they pushed the car with ease, moving it to the end of the darkened bridge within the two minutes. We entered Queen Anne and the Fremonties cheered and applauded themselves at their work. They surrounde
d me as I got out. With great pain, I opened my wallet and took out their payment.
The Fremonty who had negotiated with me had a devious smile on his face as he accepted his, turning around for a second before he pivoted on his heel and grabbed my arm, pressing his fingers into my wound.
I cried out and tried to push him off, but his grip intensified. He was stronger, bigger. Jean observed, eying her Thompson, but she didn’t reach for it, knowing the other Fremonties were no doubt armed.
With yellow stained teeth and a strong smell of liquor on his breath, the Fremonty smiled, his eyes discolored and red.
“And another three ounces for driving through our territory without permission,” he said.
“I’m not stealing one of your stories.”
“I know. But we might as well make a little loose change on the side, right?”
No time to debate. I took out the rounds and gave it to him. He let go of my arm and I gasped and heaved in relief. He had caused it to bleed again, leaving my hand wet with fresh blood.
“Next time, show some respect,” he said.
I was silent. He suspected a weakness that wasn’t there.
“I could kill ya right now, ya know,” he said.
“But you won’t,” I said, grinning laboriously. “We made a deal. I kept my end. You keep yours.”
The stringer stared into my eyes and I did not blink once. He then studied Jean with a lustful glaze. She was all but glancing down at her seat where the Tommy gun had been hidden. He looked back at me and smiled as he laughed and patted me on my left arm.
“Ya too young for this racket,” he said as he walked away. “Too young.” He joined his friends and led them back across the bridge, celebrating their newly found wealth.
Jean watched until they had gone back to the steps outside the restaurant before she pulled the Tommy gun from underneath the seat and slid it against her hip. I went over to the hood and opened it up. I had limited mechanical knowledge, but even to the most ignorant person it was obvious the damage was severe if for no other reason than the oil dripping down the sides. I could make some minor repairs. Enough to get us back in time.
