the Devil's Workshop (1999)

by Stephen Cannell

  "It's a movie about armed hobos?" the Public Affairs Officer said, still completely missing the point.

  "Look, asshole, it's not a movie. Okay? This is real life. I have people on the ground right now, trying to contain the situation. We need police back-up."

  Suddenly there was the sound of machine-gun fire and ricocheting bullets. The fusillade brought Buddy's heart up into his throat.

  "What the fuck... ! Did you hear that?" he shrieked at the Public Affairs Officer.

  "No, sir... what?" the man said.

  Then there was more machine-gun fire. Through the front window of the motor home, Buddy could see Rayce Walker running for his life, alongside a string of flatcars. As Buddy watched, more automatic weapons barked out and Rayce went down, spinning wildly, hit and bloodied on his right side.

  "Shit! They got Rayce," Buddy mumbled, dropping the phone by mistake, disconnecting it.

  "Buddy, you've gotta get out there! They're killing Rayce!" Alicia screamed.

  "Huh?" Buddy said.

  There was more machine-gun fire, followed by the high-pitched scream of bullets ricocheting off metal.

  "They're dying out there! You've gotta help 'em!" Alicia said, as she ran to the gun cabinet and started fumbling with the weapons, obviously about to go herself.

  Buddy felt like a complete asshole. As she turned toward the door, he grabbed her, spun her around, and took the Browning automatic pistol with a twenty-shot clip out of her hand.

  "Get the cops back on the phone!" he said. "Get 'em out here!" Then, without really knowing why or what he hoped to accomplish, he moved out of the motor home and onto the field of battle. "Shit, this is fucking nuts," he said to himself as he hit the ground at the foot of the motor home steps. He cowered next to the rear wheel.

  "Go find out about Rayce!" Alicia shouted, leaning out of the door and glowering at him.

  "Right, right," Buddy said, powered by her disdainful look and obvious disappointment in him. He moved across the tracks toward Rayce Walker, and finally found the stuntman lying in a pool of his own blood, struggling to get to his feet but too weak to pull it off.

  "Stay where you are," Buddy ordered. He looked at Rayce's wound; the whole right side of his body was soaked in blood. "Shit, man, this looks awful," Buddy said, with no discernible bedside manner.

  Rayce spoke in painful gasps. "They're two lines of cars over, 'bout a hundred and fifty yards up. John is moving in on the gully side. I don't know what happened to Billy. Kincaid's men are up on top of three tanker cars, trying to get 'em open."

  "Get 'em open? Get what open?"

  "The tanker cars. I think it's milk. The cars're refrigerated. Have that red cow symbol on 'em," Rayce said through gritted teeth. "Y'gotta get help. There's too many, an' that Indian's got no fucking reverse gear. He'll charge 'em and get killed."

  "Gotta get you out of danger first," Buddy said. Then he took Rayce's weapon, and using the barrel, pried open the door of the boxcar they were next to. Inside were wooden crates. Buddy lifted Rayce over his shoulder and dropped the wounded stuntman into the car. He took the walkie-talkie off Rayce's head and put it on. "Stay here," Buddy ordered stupidly, because Rayce wasn't going anywhere. Then Buddy picked up Rayce's automatic weapon and moved off in the direction of the tanker cars.

  "Little Bear, it's Buddy... talk to me," he whispered into the wire-mike, but got nothing back. The damn units, which had cost Buddy a fortune at the Malibu Ranger Store, were now broadcasting nothing but static.

  Then Buddy heard a blast of machine-gun fire, followed by four sharp pistol retorts.

  "John, it's Buddy. Billy, come in," he said, trying to contact his two stuntmen, pulling the wire-mike closer to his mouth. Again, all he heard was static. He dialed the volume way down to cut the static so he could concentrate on the sounds of the switching yard.

  Buddy didn't know what to do. His instinct was to just hide, to simply crawl under a car and wait until it was over. But a force he didn't understand, and couldn't control, now seemed to have hold of him. It willed him to stand, to start walking in the direction of the gunfire. Why am I doing this? some part of him kept asking, but still he moved on.

  Holding Rayce's H&K Close Assault, he ran in a crouch, between cars. He heard muffled talking a short distance in front of him and slowed. Edging around a parked boxcar, he leaned out for a careful look. Directly in front of him was a line of refrigerated metal tanker cars, and as Rayce had said, each had a little red cow insignia indicating that they were milk cars. Then, while he was searching the area looking for the rest of the Choir, he felt the ground around him begin to shake. It took him a moment to realize that bullets hitting around him were causing the ground-shaking vibrations; the slower sound of gunfire came a heartbeat later.

  "Shit!" Buddy screamed. "I'm being shot at!" He dove sideways, rolled up, and started blindly shooting the H&K. He wasn't even sure what he was aiming at. He was firing by instinct, aiming at something he saw moving on top of one of the cars. Then two bodies slid off the top of the tanker car. Hobos with tattoos on their biceps fell hard to the ground, ten feet in front of him. Milk started pouring out of a few holes he'd punched in the tanker.

  "I got 'em! I got 'em!" Buddy yelled gleefully, then spun as he heard more gunfire slamming into the car he was standing by. He bolted, and without even thinking, was running low. He dove under a tanker car and came out the other side, then saw three more men on top of another milk car. They had the top off, and one of them was pouring something into the open hatch. Buddy raked the top of that car with the assault weapon until the bolt locked open, indicating that the smoking gun was empty. He didn't have a second magazine, so he dropped the H&K and pulled the Browning automatic pistol out of his belt.

  When Buddy turned and aimed, he saw that the men on top of the car he had just fired at were already sliding off, leaving red streaks of blood on the polished aluminum.

  "I got 'em," he said with real surprise. "I got the fuckers." He kept moving, this time crouching even lower as he ran, looking for cover.

  He wasn't sure how long it took him to get to the northeast end of the yard. Time had become elastic. He was lost in the moment; his senses of sight, smell, touch, and intuition were all straining, adrenaline blotting out all notion of time.

  Then Buddy saw Fannon Kincaid. He was standing at the bottom of the third milk car, looking up. Buddy took aim with the automatic pistol and fired at the crazy Reverend. The bullets missed, chinking into the tanker car behindFannon spun and fired at Buddy. The first bullet hit him in the stomach and threw him back, blowing Buddy's intestines and stomach lining out through his spinal column. The second shot hit his right thigh. Buddy's legs collapsed; he went down and rolled. Then he saw that up on the top of the car where Fannon had been looking were three more men also pouring a vial into the open hatch.

  Buddy was hit, but strangely he felt nothing. Although he knew that he was mortally wounded, he was determined to complete his mission. He raised his right arm weakly and fired at the men on top of the milk car, missing badly. He was way low, blowing several huge holes in the bottom of the tanker. Milk started to flow out of the ruptured hopper. Fannon aimed his nine-millimeter, then fired directly at Buddy, who was now watching his own death play out like a bad killing on TV. He saw flame shoot out of Fannon's weapon and felt a round hit his shoulder. It rolled him over, then he was riddled with several more shots. They punched deadly holes in his kidneys, lungs, and liver.

  Buddy was back in the house suspended over the mile-high canyon. He and Mike were walking across the grids, and just like before, they were not falling through.

  "Now we can finally do all the things we've always wanted to, Dad," Mike told his father. "We'll have long talks and share our feelings. We'll be father and son, but we'll also be best friends."

  "I'd like that, son, I really would," Buddy said to his dead boy. "I've been longing for it. I always wanted to love you, but I didn't know how." And then, just like the charac
ter in his unshot movie The Prospector, he said, "I finally found myself. I think I finally know who I am."

  The two of them walked out onto the pool deck, suspended thousands of feet above the fertile valley floor. They stood on the grates and looked out at the breathtaking view.

  "Come on, Dad, I'll show you the way." Then Mike took Buddy's hand and led him off the deck. They floated there like angels, above the rich green valley, bathed in a soft white light.

  Chapter 50

  ROD OF IRON

  Fannon had been preaching from Revelation. They were under a bridge abutment near the rail track, about fifteen miles south of the Harrisburg switching yard, where they had left four men dead, including Randall Rader, the Angel in the Church of Per-ga-mos. Now, Dexter sat licking an open cut on his hand that he'd received from a flying piece of shrapnel.

  44 4He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces,' " Fannon recited from Revelation 2:27. He had been ranting against the U. S. Government for almost an hour.

  The members of the Choir sat in the dirt under the railroad bridge and listened quietly, lost in their own thoughts.

  Dexter had begun to accept his own death as inevitable. He was seeing the end of his life in vivid images. With this acceptance came a rush of pent-up anger and resentment; he was sucking on his wounded knuckle and seething.

  Finally, Fannon closed the Bible and put it back in his pack. He removed the rimless glasses, then stowed them carefully in his breast pocket. He looked up at his battered Choir.

  "We have failed to poison the Niggers and Jews, but we are not without options. We have one final act of war to commit. We must now attack the Great Satan in Washington."

  "I'm sorry ... what?" Dexter asked, looking up from the open wound on his hand.

  "You heard me, sinner," Fannon said sharply.

  "Attack Washington, D. C.? Is that what you just said?" Dexter couldn't believe his ears.

  "That's right, bub," Fannon said. "You have been my greatest instrument of failure, but our course is written down. We need only follow the map drawn by the Lord." Then, from Revelation: " 'And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations.' "

  "I hate to bring up relevant information, but there are more police officers and armed military personnel in Washington, D. C., than in any other city in the world. I think, at last count, there were over nineteen police and military agencies, ranging from the U. S. Army and the FBI to the Park Police and everything in between."

  "This victory has been promised to me in Revelation," Fannon ranted on.

  "Revelation? That's the only chapter assholes like you and David Koresh ever read." Dexter was going over the edge now. His voice was shrill. He was losing it. "This whole plan to poison Jews and Blacks was insane. That guy with the machine gun back there in Harrisburg ruined it, thank God. All the Prions are either on the ground or leaking out of bullet holes from those milk cars. The cops and Admiral Zoll will surely figure out what you were up to. That guy, whoever he was, ended your revolution, Mr. Kincaid!"

  "Reverend Kincaid!" Fannon shouted. He seemed very different, flapping badly, like the tattered remnants of a torn flag.

  "If I'm not a doctor, you're not a reverend. I don't see any Certificate of Ordination."

  It was as if they had both snapped. All consequences forgotten, insanity shone from both sets of eyes.

  Now Fannon stood slowly and pulled out his gun, pointing it at Dexter.

  "That's your answer to everything, isn't it?" Dexter raged. "Shoot, kill, destroy anything or anyone who disagrees with you." The members of the Choir watched in awestruck silence. "Revelation! Did you know that book was written three hundred years after the death of Christ? Did you know that?" Dexter was too far gone to stop. "Most theologians can't stand that book. It's insanity!"

  Fannon was looking at Dexter with a pinpoint stare. His maniacal gray eyes contained the frightening madness of evil and intellectual corruption.

  "Revelation isn't even part of the Bible. It's madness, written by madmen," Dexter screamed.

  Fannon pulled back the hammer.

  "Go ahead, do it!" Dexter dared. "Anything is better than this."

  " 'And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according to his work.' " Fannon's eyes were burning. " 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.' "

  Then, without another word, he pulled the trigger and the nine-millimeter Beretta in his hand kicked, throwing Fannon's fist up over his head.

  Dexter flew backward, off the rock he was sitting on, and landed on his back in the dust, a huge hole in his right cheek where the bullet had hit him. The left side of his head appeared to be missing.

  " 'And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life.' Revelation Twenty-two, Nineteen." Fannon turned and faced the children of the Choir, violent men who were stunned by the violence they had just witnessed. Nobody moved or looked at the body of Dexter DeMille. "Pack up," Fannon said. "We're moving out. We have God's work to do."

  Chapter 51

  SPILT MILK

  The motel was called the Blue Frog. It was on the outskirts of Frederick, Maryland, and was a bungalow-type motor lodge run by a middle-aged couple. Cris and Stacy were in a one-bedroom unit at the end of the paved area next to a dry riverbed. The room was clean, but small. They had taken turns in the shower. Both had washed their clothes in the tub, with soap and water, and they were now in wet underwear, waiting for the rest of their things to dry under the heat lamps in the bathroom.

  The TV was an old Yamaha with a sensitive vertical hold, which needed constant tuning. They were watching the news to get updates on the situation at Fort Detrick when another breaking story interrupted the network anchor:

  "We're switching you to our affiliate station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania," the anchor said, and then they were suddenly looking at a tall man with gray hair and a bloodhound's sagging expression. The name on the screen identified him as Harrisburg Police Chief Wilton Pierce. He cleared his throat, then started reading from a typed sheet: "Hollywood producer Buddy Brazil has been shot to death in a gunfight that took place an hour ago at the Harrisburg switching yard. Apparently, he had traveled here with members of his production company in a reported attempt to stop a bio-weapons attack. Mr. Brazil died on the scene along with three unidentified men, who appear to be members of a vicious rail-riding cult known as 'Freight Train Riders of America.' A fourth member of the cult was pronounced dead at the Harrisburg County Hospital shortly thereafter. An associate of Mr. Brazil's, Rayce Walker, a movie stuntman, was badly wounded in the gun-fight, and was also taken to the Harrisburg Hospital. According to members of his staff, Mr. Brazil came here after the bizarre kidnapping of his dead son's body from the morgue in Santa Monica, California. The body was stolen during an autopsy to determine if Michael Brazil had been exposed to a deadly toxic bio-agent. It appears that Mr. Brazil was attempting to stop the F. T. R. A. S from putting this infectious bio-agent into milk container cars headed to Detroit and New York. Until members of the C. D. C. and the U. S. bio-weapons defense team from Fort Detrick, Maryland, can fully analyze the milk, it will not be known exactly what the toxic agent was. Before he died, the fourth member of the F. T. R. A. told police they were about to attack the Great Satan. From this point the FBI will be spearheading the investigation, and further questions should be directed to them. That's it," he said, and turned away.

  Cris turned down the volume and stood there looking at the screen as the vertical hold began to roll. "Jesus," he finally said. "Poor Buddy. How did he even find out where they were?"

  Stacy said nothing. They sat there in silence for a long time.

  "I wonder if Kincaid was one of the dead," Cris said.

  Stacy still didn't speak.

  "Or Dexter. Where's Dexter DeMille?"

  Still silent, Stacy had her head dow
n looking at a spot on the floor a few feet in front of the TV.

  "I can't believe Buddy actually shot it out with those guys. If he did, he saved a lot of people's lives. He died a hero," Cris said.

  Suddenly, Stacy got up and moved to the phone on the cigarette-burned bedside table. She picked it up and dialed a number.

  "Who're you calling?" Cris asked, but she wouldn't look at him.

  Wendell Kinney answered the ringing phone in Los Angeles. "Yes," the old walrus of the Microbiology Department said softly. He was in his small apartment on the edge of the University grounds, half a block from the Science Building. He had also been watching the news report.

  "Wendell, did you see the news?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you do a test on the canisters I sent you?" Her voice was clipped. She was holding herself in tight control.

  "Yes ... The foam rubber had some ink transfer. From what we could read, the canisters contained Prions, but they were not genetically targeted. They--"

  "You still have them? You didn't turn the canisters over to the C. D. C.?" Stacy asked.

  "I still have them," the old scientist said softly. "Stacy, where are you? I'm worried. You don't sound right."

  Cris had moved closer. He was looking at her profile from over her shoulder, watching her strained expression, lit by dim light coming through the faded yellow lampshade.

  "Was Max involved in this?" she asked bitterly.

  When she said it, Wendell flinched, then took a deep breath, and waited too long to answer.

  "So he was," she concluded. "He was helping Dr. DeMille design this stuff." Her voice was so tortured that Cris couldn't bear the sound of it, as if pieces of her were being torn away.

  "Stacy, it's not an easy equation. You don't want to make judgments; it's way too complex."

  "It's fucking genocide, Wendell! Genocide! These assholes at Fort Detrick were arming Prions to attack genetic groups of people. Max was working at the Devil's Workshop! His handwriting was on the acid-base vials that altered the pH to arm the weapon. He was working down there with DeMille, targeting this stuff." Her voice was shaking.