Fail State, page 17
part #2 of End of Days Series
Jonas would have happily stayed at the back of the crowd, ready to dive for cover if and when everything went sideways, but he felt a strong hand gripping his arm, pulling him forward through the loose crush of townspeople. It was Dale Juntii.
“Come on,” he said. “I want to see what’s happening.”
It did not seem to occur to Dale that Jonas had zero interest in joining him up on the platform. But the former Marine, and Leo the walking gun locker virtually carried him forward, assuming that he like they, wanted only to be in the thick of the action.
Fucking idiots.
The thick of the action was where all the bad shit happened. Jonas had a reputation to maintain, however, and any reluctance to face up to danger now would inevitably eat away at his standing later. There was nothing for it. Unless he wanted to end up on the wrong side of the gate, Jonas Murdoch had to play his role. If he was forced to show willing, then, it was best he show himself to be the most willing motherfucker on the mountain.
"Better hurry up before old Howard bores them to death," he said, loud enough to be heard not just by Juntii and Vaulk but everyone around them. A few of them laughed. Someone cheered. Selectwoman Bohenski, protected from the morning sun by an outsized floral bonnet, clapped all three of them up the ladder.
Jonas set his jaw and tried to banish any fear from his face. Armed only with his pistol, he was able to ascend the ladder hand over hand and climb onto the platform before Sheriff Muller could start talking. Juntii followed closely on his heels, his assault rifle secured on his back by the strap. Leo Vaulk, ten or maybe fifteen years older, and at least fifty pounds heavier, was much slower. His face was purple and sweating when he pulled himself up and joined the others at the parapet.
The road outside Silverton was a hell of a sight.
It had been a few days since Jonas had pulled duty on the Seattle Gate. He always seemed to manage an assignment patrolling well inside the town. Since he’d last stood on this platform, the county's engineering crew, under supervision from Dale Juntii, had constructed a herringbone blockade out of salvaged and abandoned motor vehicles, preventing any vehicles or foot traffic from a direct approach to the main gate. Some of the car bodies had been punctured by bullet holes. Most had shattered windows. Two sat on the rims of their tyres, blown out by gunfire to judge from the pock marks in the panels around them. Two signs affixed to steal pickets borrowed from Alex Tewes, Silverton’s long time realtor, warned outsiders to proceed no further. Jonas couldn't see the hand-painted lettering on the outside of the gate, but he knew that it warned "LETHAL FORCE IS AUTHORISED AGAINST INTRUDERS BY PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE ORDER 14101.”
Work crews had felled and cleared trees and bushes on both sides of the road, creating a free-fire zone a hundred yards out from the gate. Nobody in town was keeping count anymore – Howard Wetsman had given up after the raid that killed Brian Chillmaid and wounded Cathy Tranent – but Jonas knew dozens of bodies had been dragged away from that killing field over the past week and a half. Unlike some in town, he had zero problems with that.
Even so, more striking than all of the defensive works, and the damage they had sustained, was the small group of men – they were all men – who now challenged those defences. Jonas counted nine motorcycles, four of them Harley Davidsons. Despite the balls-out craziness and mortal hazard of all this shit, he was quietly pleased that he’d been able to identify the machines simply by their tell-tale double shot report. The engines, all of them, were hugely, powerfully noisy. Even sitting and idling they completely destroyed the stillness of the morning.
Which was the point, he knew.
“Lookit these fucking assholes," a new voice said just off to his left.
Darren O’Shannassy.
Muller turned slightly towards his old rival, clocked his presence, but pivoted back to the men outside the gate.
"I count nine in the open," said Juntii.
"Nine confirmed," Vaulk responded.
Juntii gave Vaulk a sceptical look and took up a firing position on the platform between Dave Muller and Howard Wetsman.
These nine men were trouble. Jonas recognised them. Not as individuals, but as a type. He’d pleaded out a couple of low-level soldiers for the Pagans motorcycle gang in Florida, and appeared for members of a rival club, the Outlaws in Tampa. It was all petty bullshit. A domestic assault, some street violence, a minor dope charge for the guy in Tampa. Jonas never did graduate to Hondo’s A-list clientele.
But because of that, he knew these rimjobs like they were brothers.
The nine stood about a hundred yards away, all of them armed with military grade weapons and all but one shrewdly placed where they could best take advantage of the protection afforded by the herringbone blockade. The one man who wasn't ready to dive into tactical cover was striding forward, weaving his way through the blockade, the ghost of a smile on his face. Jonas didn't recognise his colours or patches. He wasn't close enough yet to read the insignia sewn into his leathers.
Didn't matter.
He could tell they were from a couple of different outfits. And that was the worst news of all. These motherfuckers would’ve been murdering each other for market share and criminal bushido just a fortnight ago. Now they had banded together.
Jonas drew his side arm, carefully, keeping it below the line of the parapet as he squeezed in next to Juntii.
"You recognise any of the colours?" he asked.
The ex-marine shook his head and squinted.
"The guys on overwatch? Nope, too far away. This asshole coming at us looks like Hells Angels. He’s got the wings patch I think."
"Told you," said Leo.
"Nah, you just guessed good is all, " Juntii smiled. In a louder voice, he went on, "Anybody got a pair of binoculars? Or a working phone with good zoom? Be good to get a look at these assholes. Figure out who they are."
"Their order of battle," Leo added, raising his own voice too.
Juntii shook his head and sighed to himself, "Save me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope."
"The spokesman is a full member of the Hells Angels. He’s got the four piece crest and Dequiallo patch," Sherriff Muller said, not loudly, but with enough projection to be heard over the engines.
Jonas didn't know what the fuck a Dequiallo patch was, but he supposed it made sense that Muller would.
The man approaching them through the last couple of cars in the barricade was not physically imposing. If anything he seemed wiry, and his face was a little hollow and drawn. Most of the bikers he'd represented had been fat, bearded fuckwits. A sense of genuine menace came off them in radioactive waves, but mostly because of what they were plugged into, not who they were as individuals. The biker who had now cleared the barricade somehow managed to transmit a visceral threat on a very personal wavelength, as well as carrying with him the promise of something worse because of what, not who, he was.
He didn't even bother coming armed. Although that hardly mattered. His backup had enough firepower between them to kill everybody on the Gate, before starting in on the crowd behind it.
"That'll be close enough, I reckon," Sheriff Muller called out. His voice was steady and commanding. The man took a few more steps anyway before coming to a halt about thirty yards out.
He stood with his hands at his side, his knees slightly bent, his back straight.
He called up, “You in charge around here?"
Muller waited before replying. Waited long enough for it to become uncomfortable.
Finally he spoke up.
"Sorry. Didn't catch that, son. Kinda noisy because of all those garbage wagons."
He said nothing more.
The scout or the sergeant at arms or whatever the hell he was actually smiled. He made a small gesture with one hand and one of the other riders, but only one of them, stepped away from cover and wandered back to turn off the motorcycles. He did not hurry. The two sides were at least two minutes waiting for the last engine to go quiet. The silence that suddenly flooded in from the mountain forests was an almost physical presence. The man standing in front of them smiled again.
"You good now, Sheriff? You need a hearing aid or something?"
"Just a name," Muller lobbed back.
"My name is Renken," the biker answered. "And you never did tell me if you’re in charge here?"
"I keep the peace. That's all."
The man's grin grew wider.
"Well that's excellent," he said. "Because we would never seek to disturb the peace of your fine town. We are just looking for passage through to better days."
"Then you're out of luck, asshole," Leo Vaulk yelled out. "Because you won't be coming in here, or through here, or nothing."
"Put a sock in it, Leo," Muller hissed.
Jonas had to agree with the cop, even if he did so silently.
Read the fucking room, Leo, he thought.
"Yeah, shut the fuck up, man," Dale Juntii muttered.
Howard Wetsman stepped up to the parapet. His voice shook a little when he started to speak, but he increased his volume until it wiped out the slight tremor.
"I am the senior administrative officer for Snohomish County,” he called down. “The Mayor and Deputy Mayor were in Seattle on business the day of the attack. They haven't come back yet. I am County Comptroller Wetsman. I have authority for the duration of the crisis."
The smile on the man called Renken became positively vulpine.
"That's awesome, man. Good for you. So you can tell the Sheriff here to open the gates and let me and my friends pass through. We'll be no trouble. We just headed on down the road."
"I wouldn't open those gates, Howard,” Jonas found himself saying.
"Never gonna happen," Sheriff Muller said quietly. In a louder voice he went on to Renken. "Comptroller Wetsman chairs the committee in charge of things around here for now. But I'm in charge of security. It's my say so whether you come through or not. And I say no. You can all just back up a ways and take the Skagit Dam access road. It’s well signed. It forks north to Skagit County and west to Chelan. Happy trails, Mister Renken.”
"Sheriff please," Renken pleaded, or more accurately played at pleading. "You can see our vehicles. Damn fine pieces of American industrial design for the most part." He threw a look back over his shoulder. "Except for the rice burners. But they are not designed for off road travel, and that dirt track is in even worse shape than normal. I know because we tried it. I'm afraid we're going to have to insist on our right to pass through."
“Insist all you want,” Muller replied. “But only residents of the town are allowed within the town limits for the duration of the Emergency. We have the legal authority to deny you passage.”
"Wasn't aware I woke up in Russia this morning," Renken smiled.
"Wasn't aware they still existed," Muller said.
Renken laughed. It seemed a genuine, good natured whoop of amusement.
"Oh you are the witty one, Sheriff. But seriously now, we need the road."
Darren O'Shannassy’s voice boomed out.
"Then you are shit out of luck, scumbag!”
"Yeah, fuck off!" Leo Vaulk added helpfully.
It was all Jonas could do not to face palm.
Muller did not turn toward either man, but he addressed them both out of the side of his mouth.
"If you two do not get off this platform right now I will have my deputies arrest you, and you can spend the next week in the cells."
"You can't negotiate with these people, Sheriff,” O'Shannassy said, loading up the last word with a sneer.
"I'm not negotiating," Muller said. “I’m trying to avoid a bloodbath."
Down on the tarmac, standing among the leaf litter and brass casings of expended rounds, the biker looked bemused.
"Mr Comptroller, it looks like you have a plurality of views as regards how best to handle this. Perhaps we could come through and discuss it. Just a small number of us."
Howard Wetsman didn't even bother replying. He just waved his good hand as if dismissing the biker.
Jonas wondered where the hell this Renken guy had been to know how to use shiny five-dollar word like 'plurality'.
Down behind them, people were growing restive. The buzz of conversation and the sharp discord of emerging arguments drew Jonas's attention back there.
Jesus fucking Christ. Was everybody in town all jammed up behind the gates now? He could see Rausch and Chad down there on the edge of the crowd. Natalie Bochenski’s stupid floral bonnet stood out among the baseball caps and a couple of bicycle helmets.
"Sheriff," Renken called out, looking bemused that everybody's attention had somehow slipped away from him. "Scouts honour, we’ll be less trouble than those two gentlemen currently aggravating your ulcers.”
"That's right, you’ll be not trouble at all, Mr Renken,” Muller replied, “because you will not be coming through this town. Not you, or any of the men behind you, or any of the two hundred more you got parked around the bend in the road back down the mountain a ways.”
For the first time Renken’s smile faltered. He glared momentarily at Muller, before rearranging his features back into the placid mask he had worn up until now. Standing next to Jonas, his weapon pointed directly at Renken, Dale Juntii smiled.
He leaned across to Jonas and said quietly, "That'll be Wolfenden. He’s out there somewhere doing recon."
Howard Wetsman conferred with Muller, asking, “How do we get them to move on, Sheriff? If there are that many of them?"
"As long as nobody starts shooting," Muller said, "I'm pretty sure I can talk them around. They can tell we won't be easy to push over."
"Maybe they really do just want to pass through?" Wetsman said.
Both Jonas and Muller replied to that together.
"No," they said in unison.
Muller glanced over at Jonas, as if seeing him for the first time. He nodded and then went on, "I don't know what they want, Howard. But I don't want to find out by letting two hundred of them through the gate. Once they're inside, even if we have guns on them the whole time, they could take this place apart. They’re not like the others we’ve had to see off. They were just desperate people. These men are killers. There’s a couple of hundred more of them out there, where we can't see them, and they are very heavily armed. They're not coming in. Under any circumstances."
"Finally," O'Shannassy said. "You’re talking sense."
"I say we send a message," said Leo Vaulk. "Put a few of them down and…"
Sheriff Muller jabbed a finger into Leo’s chest.
"You pull a trigger and you better be pointing that gun at me because otherwise I will kill you. Understood?”
The threat fell into a moment of quiet.
Leo glared at Muller. Darren O'Shannassy squared his shoulders and jutted out his jaw, but said nothing more. The whole thing reminded Jonas of the first day confrontation between O’Shannassy and Joe Wolfenden. He’d secured his place in town by mediating that showdown. He saw his chance to do the same again.
"Listen," he said. "Sheriff Muller is right. You can't have these shitheads coming through, not in a group that’s, what, two hundred strong? But I don't think they're gonna back down. Guys like this, they can’t. They’d get eaten alive by their own. Maybe we could trickle them through, three or four at a time? Keep them under armed escort the whole way. Posts sentries and snipers on the roof line along Main Street."
Muller at least seemed to briefly consider the option, but then he shook his head.
"Nope," he said. "Too dangerous."
Darren O’Shannassy butted in.
"They wouldn't have got this far if you'd listened to me about pushing our defences further out and down the mountain," he said.
"I think we’ll table that agenda item for discussion at a later time," Muller said testily.
"Yo! Still waiting down here, gentlemen," Renken called up. "Not going anywhere. That's a promise."
"Fine by me," shouted Darren O'Shannassy. "You can curl up and die out there like the rest of them."
"Jesus Christ," Muller said quietly.
Renken’s posture and attitude changed. It was as though somebody had tightened a crank somewhere inside him, pulling taut a bunch of wires.
"Pretty fucking sure we could force our way in if we wanted," he said.
Jonas saw Dale Juntii crouch a little lower over the iron sights of his weapon. But Dave Muller seemed to stretch himself up, standing about two inches taller.
"And I'm pretty sure you couldn't," he said. "I do not advise you to try, sir. Nobody needs to get hurt today."
Renken was moving now, but slowly. Withdrawing towards his comrades.
"No they don’t. All we want to do is pass through, Sheriff," he shouted, raising his voice as if to project the message over Muller, to the hundreds of people gathered behind the gate. “Why don’t you talk it out among yourselves. Take as long as you want. Canvass all the issues. And then if you're smart you’ll open the gates and let us through. Before we just come through anyway."
It was Leo Vaulk, naturally, who said exactly the wrong thing.
"Why don’t you try then, you fucking faggot? Cos you’re scared that’s why."
The bikers’ guns came up with unexpectedly tight discipline.
Jonas never did figure out which of the men out there shot first, but he did know who opened up from the defender’s firing platform. He was standing right next to him.
Dale Juntii had done two tours of Afghanistan and one in the sandbox. He had not survived the experience by being slow to recognise a threat and pour fire on it. His gun barked three times. A discrete burst of fire that chewed through one of the bikers packing a fat barrelled combat shotgun of some sort. Everything slowed down to a strangely serene, almost abstracted timelessness, and Jonas found he was lost within a vast and terrible whirlpool of everything and nothing all at once.
