INHUMANUM: A THRILLER (Law of Retaliation Book 1)

by Bradley Ernst

  The girl.

  Bonn slalomed the chair around the bodies. She was still there. She sat up, crying. Holding the ballistic drape against her, she peered over the edge of it as Bonn approached.

  “El Diablo!”

  She looked to be about eleven. She’d called him the Devil.

  Bonn shook his head. “No,” he replied in Spanish, “I am hunting the Devil.”

  A screen door crashed.

  A matronly Hispanic woman rushed from a nearby building. She picked up the girl and whisked her inside. Curious onlookers began to flock to the scene and Bonn raced away. He zigzagged several blocks and turned onto Pitkin. He paused at a bus stop and backed the chair up against a hedge. A young woman with a baby glanced at him then turned back to the street.

  Just waiting for the bus.

  A tragedy-weathered young woman pulled dentures from her mouth, added some paste to one side, and replaced the ill-fitting teeth with a wince. A man wearing sunglasses and a blue jacket sat on a nearby stoop. A police car pulled into the bus stop. A pudgy cop emerged. He approached the man in sunglasses. They spoke for a moment. The man handed him a fat white envelope and the portly cop left.

  A payoff—no efforts at discretion were made.

  Bonn read the license plate on the cruiser as it pulled away. This was the real problem in Brownsville: the cops paid to protect and serve were either too frightened to patrol or were on the take.

  That was food for thought.

  The bus rolled up. People got on. The man in sunglasses stalked Bonn. He walked in front of him and lit a cigarette. He gave the fake invalid a casual once-over. Bonn crossed his eyes a little. He pushed his tongue out like a newborn baby who’s had enough squash. “You look like you’d smell bad—but you don’t.” Bonn raised his eyebrows and smiled an idiot smile, as if he’d passed gas.

  “Thanks.” The man nodded. He inhaled his cigarette. Bonn smiled even bigger, as if he’d just made a friend.

  Something was off. Did he see the spike?

  Sure enough, the man took off his sunglasses. He bent to inspect the bloody spike jutting from Bonn’s footrest.

  He’s paying the cops off for something. That’s enough to go on.

  Bonn backed the chair up and toggled the switch. The man fell forward. Bonn swiveled the chair to avoid him.

  Sirens.

  Bonn still had a few minutes. With the messes he left behind, legitimate patrols would wait in the periphery until SWAT responded.

  He had time.

  Bonn crossed Pitkin and took the next left.

  This was near where he’d been shot.

  A man in a blue cap rested his elbows on the window frame of a second story window.

  Drug dealers were like shark’s teeth: one got yanked, another fell into his place. Hundreds of thugs awaited their turns on the porch. He had to make something happen.

  Bonn swerved the chair back and forth. He sang at the top of his voice. “Street drugs, neat drugs! Street drugs, neat drugs!” To Bonn’s left, a man stepped from an alcove, laughing. Bonn sped toward him and brought the machine to a stop. “Hi. Do you sell drugs? I wanna buy some.” The man laughed so hard he couldn’t stand straight.

  “Neat drugs, huh? Can you pay?” The man collected himself. He pulled a small baggie from his pocket. He dangled it in front of Bonn shamelessly. Bonn toggled the jet and the man dropped. A woman, naked from the waist down, ran from a doorway with an AK-47. She stood over the dealer, panting. Yells came from another building. He backed the chair up a few yards.

  He’d let this evolve for a moment.

  More people collected around the downed man. Bonn reached beneath the fleece blanket and found the old gas mask. He removed the helmet and pulled the leather and glass mask tight across his face to assure a good seal.

  He was a motorized steampunk. A carnival nightmare.

  The woman gestured with the rifle. A man with a shotgun stood on the porch. He barked orders into the building.

  A call to arms? Every man on deck.

  Bonn flipped a switch to activate the chair’s other weapon. He backed up further. The woman pointed at Bonn. The man raised his shotgun. Bonn held down a button. Balls of powdered death breathed from the shrouded barrel, torquing the chair to the left. Bonn compensated with the joystick. He kept his finger on the button until a fog of powder billowed before him. When he released the button, whistling sounds filled the street.

  The last stridulous breaths of the dying.

  The woman, the man with the shotgun, all the others who had spilled into the street to attack him were down. Bonn turned the chair and rolled away quickly.

  If he could avoid it, he wouldn’t use that one again.

  Bonn’s ears rang. The breeze had dissipated the powder, so he pulled off the gas mask and performed Toynbee’s maneuver to relieve the pressure in his ears.

  Time to go home.

  Bonn weaved through the projects for a few blocks then paused behind a dumpster to replace the helmet and regroup.

  Back in character.

  He used the joystick to move the chair along the sidewalk at a believable speed. He checked his watch. It had been only twenty-seven minutes since he rolled the chair out of the rented van. The sidewalk ended at a construction site. The curb was sharp and Bonn got off of the chair to ease the machine into the street. Police lights pounded at the dark. A cruiser squealed around a corner, but didn’t slow down when they saw him. He re-mounted the chair quickly and pulled the tiger blanket back over his lap. Bonn brought the power chair up to speed and approached his turn. “Hey!” Several figures hopped the construction fence.

  They might have seen him get out of the chair.

  “Hey.” Bonn returned. One kid bent over and pinched his nose. He pulled a leg to his chest, as though stretching to prepare for a race, then laughed.

  “Let’s tip him over.” There were several kids. Some looked frightened, some looked amused, but all of them were children—some not yet ten. Bonn straightened his head.

  “All of you go home.” The young ringleader pulled a pistol from his pocket. Reflexively, Bonn threw back the blankets and rushed him. A shot rang out. It was a wild shot. Bonn took the pistol away from the boy and slammed him to the ground. He estimated how much pressure he could apply to his throat without killing the boy.

  He needed for the boy to listen.

  “All of you, listen—things are different now. After tonight the streets will be filled with people like me. You won’t know we are there until we spank your bare bottoms in front of your friends for nonsense just like this. Bonn yanked down the shooter’s pants and spanked him. The boy began to cry. “That’s if you’re lucky—guns and knives won’t run us off. Go home. Drink less soda and more milk. Don’t smoke. Read books. Work on your grades, whether your parents care about you or not. Make something of yourselves. The guys selling drugs on your block will be dead in a year. You can all do better than that.” Bonn yanked the boy’s pants back up and hoisted him to his feet, then spun him, their faces less than an inch apart. He opened his eyes wide so the boy could see his scars.

  “Even you.”

  Bonn got in the chair and sped for the step-van. He rolled the chair up the ramp, slid the ramp into its pocket, then swung the doors closed from inside. He’d rigged up a shower in case he had to use the powder. Bonn stripped and washed his body twice, then toweled off quickly and donned a sweatshirt, paint spattered jeans, running shoes.

  Helicopters.

  Bonn started the van. He pulled slowly from the parking space. He avoided Pitkin.

  It probably looked like the New Year’s Day Parade.

  Bonn pulled over as a string of Lenco Bearcats thrummed by. The turrets were manned. Each vehicle bristled with uniformed men wearing SWAT vests.

  That went better.

  ~Tiger Man

  The wheels of the van shrieked as Bonn sped into the garage. He made for the lab. Since the Germans spent most of their time there, the lab had bec
ome the unspoken meeting place. Bonn suspected they slept in the lab, although he’d given each of them a beautiful living space. The news was on—the Germans watched with interest.

  Brownsville was rioting.

  Ryker and Rickard shared a tube of aquarium food as the scene unfolded. Bonn pulled up a chair. Ryker offered him the container of tubifex worms, but Bonn declined. A news team reported from the road closure on Pitkin. Gunfire could be heard. When the reporter ran out of salient things to say, she cut to the crew filming from an overhead helicopter. Some of the gunfire sounded automatic. The earth-bound newswoman was back. She cast nervous glances toward Pitkin and repeated herself often. She pushed a device hard into her ear and grimaced as she struggled to repeat the information she was fed.

  “Gang violence is at an all-time high tonight in Brownsville, emergency crews struggle to access unsafe areas. People in need are suffering for help they might not get. No body counts are available as yet. It’s easy for some to dismiss these neighborhoods—violent crime is much too common for the impoverished, however tonight we see how organized lawbreakers can be. These are no simple turf skirmishes playing out behind me. It appears the gangs of Brownsville are at full-blown war. Droves of ambulances are staged in safe zones established by SWAT personnel—here on Pitkin Avenue, even as I look at a river of emergency lights, I hear active gunfire and until that gunfire stops, the emergency crews will not be allowed in. As I said before, this is, I think, a war zone.”

  Video footage from the helicopter showed people swarming the streets with guns. People who didn’t hold guns bashed each other with various other items. Businesses were looted. Riot police were on scene. Crowds gathered to hurl anything not bolted down at the police.

  Police.

  Bonn sat at a computer. He quickly found the officer that the man with sunglasses handed the envelope to. Ryker glanced over his shoulder and sat at his own computer. He tapped at the keyboard and spun the monitor toward Bonn then turned back to the TV.

  Ryker used a much better database.

  No surprise: the man was a dirty cop. Not just a “protection” racket either—he was connected to the sex trade. If he wasn’t a pedophile, he enabled them.

  The Latino girl was on TV.

  The cameraman tried to keep her off camera, but she wouldn’t be denied. She jumped. She yelled. A skinny guy wearing a headset attempted to usher the girl out of the frame, but a blocky woman with a mustache bowled him over and charged the camera. The newswoman seemed to try to make the best of it. She knelt and held the microphone for the girl. She wasn’t one to thwart a human-interest moment. The girl babbled in Spanish, but the microphone didn’t pick it up. The reporter didn’t speak Spanish and tried to cut the girl off. Exasperated, the blocky woman wrenched the microphone from the woman’s hand and handed it to the girl.

  “Thank God for you, Tiger Man!” the girl shouted in Spanish. The Germans looked at each other. Ryker turned to a monitor to look up the translation, but Bonn understood. “Good hunting!” the girl added.

  The blocky woman passed the microphone back to the reporter and blew kisses at the camera. A Hispanic man hugged the girl, crossed his heart, and kissed a rosary. The reporter stood, adjusted her skirt, and brushed at her hair.

  “Back to you, Dean—anything new from our eye in the sky?” Dean didn’t have much—they played a loop. The same rioters threw the same projectiles.

  It was still a riot.

  Rickard found more information on the dirty cop. He was known to associate with many convicted felons who’d served time for crimes against children, but not for legitimate reasons. He was no parole officer. The Germans took a moment to read the Spanish translations on Ryker’s monitor. Ryker pantomimed a cat scratching at the air. Rickard nodded. They each regarded Bonn with a respectful reptilian gaze.

  Tiger Man.

  ~Rabbis’ Anonymous

  Henna dialed Stephan’s number from her new phone.

  No answer.

  She straightened herself in the vinyl chair and stretched her legs. People flowed by in the concourse. She wondered which one of them would recognize her.

  It would only take one.

  The passport Rickard forged was amazing. It didn’t look like her exactly, but with her hair dyed red, she didn’t look like herself either. Henna turned back to the newspaper. Her new phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out to look at the screen—

  Stephan!

  She pushed a button to pick up the call. His voice sounded strong. “Rabbis’ Anonymous—we’re taking pledges. Is this area code 917?”

  “How are you?”

  “Blind in one eye, but walking. I always wanted an eye patch. It should cut my makeup costs roughly in half.” Henna clenched her teeth.

  Stay positive.

  “That’s the optimism I expected.”

  “Detective Forsythe visited me. He asked about someone I used to know, but my memory’s not very good. I guess there was a big to-do in Ingliston. Did you hear? A bunch of skinheads bit it in an alleged chemical attack. You should look it up.”

  “I think I heard about that.” The loudspeaker announced Henna’s flight. “I’m off to see the wizard, Rabbi. I hear he’s got a fish I need for my collection. Will you be ready to travel in two weeks? I know a place you’d like—there is world-class healthcare and the best gelato this side of Bergamo.”

  “I’ll keep my phone on. I’m glad you’re OK—so much of this seems imagined. It feels good to do something normal, like dial a phone.”

  “Don’t get used to normal, Rabbi…” Henna scanned the crowd nervously “…normal doesn’t exist anymore.”

  ~Free Wi-Fi

  The Germans observed the watchers as Bonn looked on. They’d set up a car detailing service. It was a huge operation—forty-one shops in the greater metro area. Bonn mailed stacks of coupons to each of the seventy-six police precincts as a promotion. Black and white police cars detailed free for a full year, unmarked vehicles free with accompanying official ID. The city’s Chief Financial Officer called to assure it wasn’t a scam. Ryker answered the phone on the first ring. He laid his ears back along his skull and, oddly, a booming Southern accent with softened edges cast forth.

  “So good to hear we may be embraced by the city’s finest, ma’am. Let me tell you more about our service—we’re an international company. Our cash crop is coffee and coffee roasting. We use ancillary businesses such as Trojan Wash to market our brand. We grow our brand not only by providing superior product, we aim to build a reputation for excellent service. We’ve other promotions, but I’m certain you’re most interested in the money we can save the city—”

  The silver-tongued German made it happen.

  A union contract was cancelled. Over the course of mere weeks, Trojan Wash, LLC, washed, polished, and detailed thousands of official and unmarked police cars while the city’s finest drank good coffee, dropped off their dry-cleaning, and enjoyed free Wi-Fi from rows of luxury massage chairs. Unbeknownst to the pampered cops, extras were provided, too—GPS tracking devices, fish-eye cameras, microphones, and more. All installed in their rearview mirrors. The Germans grew their database. There were some straight shooters out there, but many of those who appeared to walk the straight and narrow were just good at hiding their secrets.

  Just not good enough.

  ~Behest

  A nurse wheeled Stephan to the hospital entrance. He could walk but didn’t feel like arguing hospital policy with the nurses to be allowed to do so.

  How strange—

  He couldn’t remember what his apartment looked like—he remembered the address—but couldn’t remember his furniture.

  Did he have furniture?

  He sat on a bench outside to wait for the cab. A white Audi wagon pulled into the patient-loading zone. Two pale, thin men emerged from the car. They walked to his bench and sat down. One of them pointed to the plastic bag that contained his few things. He spoke in a monotone German accent. “Is there anyt
hing remaining at your apartment that would enrich your life if we were to retrieve it?” Stephan shook his head.

  “I don’t understand. You must think I’m someone else.”

  “Perhaps.” An awkward silence followed. The men didn’t look for someone else. They seemed to orient their faces to the sun to recharge their ability to speak.

  Odd thin men with facial solar-powered batteries?

  Then the other man spoke—to Stephan their voices sounded identical. “Is there anything at Ms. Maxwell’s apartment you suspect may enrich her life if we were to retrieve it?” Stephan strained to focus his good eye on the man, but his remaining eye was his bad eye before the attack. Without stereovision, the man looked like a creepy paper doll. His features were too thin—his ears looked translucent. They seemed to pivot like a bat’s ears. The condition didn’t help. Since his brain injury, Stephan couldn’t see things directly in front of him unless he looked back and forth quickly. The doctors said he’d learn to tolerate the disability.

  It hadn’t happened yet.

  “Is Henna here?” He knew better, but what do you say when mysterious Teutons materialize unexpectedly and engage you as though you’re a Cold War operative ready for relocation? It felt much like the set of a noir-film. He considered the men closely. He jittered his eye back and forth. He could imagine them in black and white, chain smoking—adjusting the brims of their felt hats to broadcast a certain mood.

  “No. We came at her behest.”

  “Oh. OK—”

  He could just go with them. What did he really have to lose?

  His other friends were gone. Edinburgh seemed sour. Maybe it was time for a new city. And Henna sent them—he loved her. Henna wouldn’t send anyone to hurt him, but the invitation was abrupt. “She does have a gargoyle she’s quite fond of and obviously some particular animals from her lab.” Stephan remembered Henna’s apartment better than his own. “It probably weighs two hundred kilos—the gargoyle that is. It’s a part of a building the police likely have under surveillance.” The nearest man shrugged. The odd men stood. They made for the wagon. “So I’m not being abducted?”