The Stringers, page 18
“Kid, you’ve got a world of hurt coming to your ass with that attitude,” one of guards in the back remarked. “If I were you I’d keep that mouth shut and do what the hell you’re told. But if you didn’t have your head up your ass you probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Do you think I’m guilty?”
“I don’t give a shit. It’s not my job.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Why the hell should it?”
“Because if I’m innocent you’re detaining someone who shouldn’t be. You don’t think that’s important?”
“We don’t give a shit about you or any of that shit!” the guard across from me said. He shifted his body around on the seat and adjusted his rifle so the butt rested on his upper chest. He breathed loudly.
“Now, if you’ll just shut the hell up, we’d like to get some sleep without you yapping.”
I pushed my head out from the holsters and strained my neck as I looked at him, and he didn’t respond at all. His helmet masked his expression and his features and I couldn’t tell if he looked back at me or avoided my gaze. I would have been content with keeping my mouth closed and waiting until we reached our destination, knowing I would be closer to Father and there was a chance we could see each other there.
I somehow realized, however, I couldn’t let that happen. I had no knowledge of their holding facilities. Casey had talked in length about his father’s investigations and the massive raids on gangs and the tactics he had used to track them down, but hadn’t said a word about holding facilities. But I knew that if I didn’t find a way to escape before then, I had no hope of rescuing my father.
No broken promises.
I tried to come up with a plan, but no possibilities came to mind. So I just started to bark at them.
“Let me go!”
Not the most original or brilliant.
“Shut the hell up,” the guard mumbled.
“Get me out of here! Now!”
“Shut the hell up!”
My head slammed against the headrest again. I dropped all pretenses of self-control and started heaving like a savage. I yelled and thrashed around in my seat like a dog confined to a leash, shouting at the top of my lungs. It was not my finest hour. But I was not going to be taken away quietly. If they were going to imprison me, I might as well make it as painful as possible.
“Let me out! Let me out! Let me out now!”
I kept screaming as the guards barked at me to be quiet, and finally the guard across from me stood up, grabbed onto a pole running across the ceiling, and approached me with his rifle in one hand.
“We’re not screwing around here,” he said. “Don’t make a scene, or I swear to God we’ll leave one for the officers to clean up when they come to drag your ass out of here.”
I looked right at him. Having received repeated exposures to threats of violence, I felt immune to it.
“I will not be quiet! You have no right to hold me like this!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You have no right to do this to do me!”
A round of laughter echoed through the van as the guard brought the frame of his helmet close to my face so that I heard his breaths.
“The only rights you have are the ones we give your ass. And we say you only have the right to shut the hell up. So shut the hell up.”
“I’ll speak whenever I want. It’s the one thing you can’t take away from me.”
The guard looked at his comrades as if soliciting their opinion on what to do. He turned around, placed his rifle on the seat, and returned to me taking his right glove off, revealing a large hand with swollen knuckles.
“I can take that shit away from you easily,” he said. “Let’s play a little game. You talk, and I’ll take it away. Ready?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you won’t shut the hell up. Don’t talk, and I’ll leave your ass alone. Get me?”
“I’m a journalist. I’m not supposed to be seen or heard. Just read.”
“Smart ass.”
The other guards cheered him on, jeering at me.
“Beat his ass!”
The guard wound his arm back while the other guards laughed. As he started to throw the punch, the van jerked to the right and he nearly lost his balance. He dropped down to one knee and glanced over at the front of the van as if to yell at the driver. The vehicle suddenly stopped amid the fierce sound of metal creaking. The guard’s voice died as he slammed against the wall, while the other guards fell back in their seats. Fastened to the side of the van, I remained in place, thinking we had just been in an accident.
For a brief moment, nobody moved or spoke.
Then, one of the guards stood on his knees and gasped.
“What the hell is this shit?” one of them said.
An abrupt explosion rocked the van over on its side. A bright, but brief reddish orange flame flashed in the window. My head was thrown back by the force, and I found myself suspended in mid-air along with the guards before they dropped to the wall and smacked their helmets against the surface and against the person on top of them. Even though their body armor and helmets protected them, the violent trauma to their bodies either knocked them out or left them disoriented. They had all dropped their weapons, which were scattered around the wall and the floor. I braced myself but couldn’t stop my head from hitting the wall. A sharp stab of pain seared through my head and I closed my eyes and winced. Outside, men shouted to each other and at one another and then suddenly the distinct crackle of gunshots filled the air, the muzzle flashes lighting up the window as I managed to open my eyes for a few seconds before the pain became too great.
Someone tapped on the door to the back, then whispered to another. More tapping and then rapid footsteps followed. A few seconds later, the door was blown open by bright red explosive charge that destroyed the lock. The intense luminosity from the blast blinded me. I closed my eyes again and lay still, unable to unsecure myself due to the electronic lock on the side that required a ten-digit combination code.
Intruders entered the van, which by now had come to rest on its side. The guards murmured and stirred, still stunned. The intruders chuckled.
When I opened my eyes briefly, I saw a thin outline of a man approaching me with a device in his hand. He bent down next to me and placed the device against the combination lock, pressed several buttons, and then waited until the light turned green and the holsters fell off my body. I dropped down and fell on the side of the wall of the flipped van.
On all fours, I coughed and thought I would puke, but the man didn’t give me any time to recover as he grabbed me and pulled me out of the van.
“How much time do we have?” someone asked.
“Two minutes. Make it quick.”
“Gotcha. Let’s finish up here!”
I dropped to the ground and wiped my wet hand against my trousers. I brought my head up and looked at the surreal scene in front of me, assured it was not real.
The van had smashed head-first into the side of a semi-truck. The front had folded like an accordion and lay on its side like a fallen cow. Smoke rose from beneath it, but there were no flames. The ISA driver was lying on the side of the road with two men standing above him with submachine guns. He had one hand held up in front of him, but it fell as they discharged their guns into his chest.
I gaped at the man as he lay there motionless. It was the first time I had ever seen the body of someone killed by another person. He couldn’t be dead. Death wasn’t supposed to come like this. I told myself it was fake.
But the shattered skull and blood around the corpse was impossible to dismiss.
The man who had pulled me out of the van stepped closer to me. He looked like something out of a wax museum. He stood just outside the streetlight’s reach, his face and features veiled in the blackness. He wore a brown suit and overcoat and one of those old fedora hats pushed low so it covered his forehead and most of his face. He held a pistol in one hand, though it wasn’t pointed at me, and held out his other hand towards me.
“Need some help, kid?” he asked.
I took his hand and he pulled me up on my feet and escorted me across the road. The heavy rain made it hard to discern the vehicle as I neared it, but when I did I stopped and stared at it in disbelief. It was a Coupe of some kind. The model was at least a hundred years old, yet it looked as if it had just come off the assembly line. Its pearl black veneer sparkled under the streetlights and the combustion engine purred as the driver revved it up.
I turned around and watched as more men in suits and with fedoras and submachine guns in their hands exited the van, pulling a guard out with them. They formed the ISA officers into a line on their knees and then promptly and without hesitation executed them with a shot to the back of the head. The blood shot out into the sky and fell back down with the raindrops. The men gave a short glance to the bodies, one of them firing another shot to confirm his victim was dead, and then ran to another large Coupe behind ours.
“One minute!” someone called.
“Copy. We’re outta here! Let’s go!”
The man grabbed my arm again and led me to the car. I scooted in the back and sat in the corner while the man sat in the shotgun seat holding his pistol with both hands as he peered out the window.
“What’s the setup?” he asked the driver. “Tell ’em we got the package and we’re ready to roll.”
The driver snatched a radio from underneath the dashboard and held it close to his mouth as he pulled the car off the sidewalk and drove down the road, the rain blackening the windshield.
“Base, this is Bravo. We have the package. Heading back to base. What’s the status on the ravens, over?”
“Roger, Bravo, this is Base. Be warned; three ravens approaching from the northwest. I repeat: three ravens approaching from the southwest.”
“Copy that.”
The man tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Get word out to our man. Find out which ravens they have on the prowl and have their wings clipped.”
The driver got back on the radio again and gave instructions to someone on the other side and received a muffled response. As they conversed the man looked over his seat and grinned at me.
“How ya doin’ kid?”
I held my head and stared at his thick whiskers and the self-rolled cigarette in his mouth. A thin line of smoke trailed out of the end as he puffed on it, smiling with yellowed teeth.
“All right, I guess,” I said.
“Don’t hold ya breath. Ya ain’t out of it, yet. This is where it gets fun.”
“Ha!” the driver laughed. “Ya try drivin’ through this shit weather!”
“Spare me,” the man told the driver. “Ya live in freakin’ Seattle ya whole life and ya want sympathy from me when it rains a little? It’s like a sailor moanin’ about not being able to swim while he’s on a boat the size of Kansas. Try joinin’ the army, dipshit!”
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What is that noise?”
“That’s the engine,” the driver said.
“What engine?”
The driver looked back at me. “The internal combustion engine.”
“It’s not electric?”
“No. It’s not. Is that a crime?”
His harsh voice left me timorous.
“No,” I said quietly. “I’ve just never heard one. I’ve never been in one.”
“Well, here it is,” the driver replied.
I breathed in deeply. “What is happening?”
The man next to the driver looked at me as he took the cigarette out from between his lips and blew a cloud of whitish smoke into the air out of the corner of his mouth. “Well, we’re drivin’ in a car and we’re tryin’ not to get nailed in the ass by the ISA or the Bellevue police or the King County hit squad known as deputies or the three ravens that are comin’ after us. That’s what’s goin’ on. Ya follow?”
“Ravens?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ain’t ya ever seen ’em in the sky?”
“I suppose, but not often. Mostly seagulls.”
The man smacked his hand against his head. “No, not those ravens. Ravens, ya know? Drones.”
“Oh.”
“Good job on the explaining there,” the driver laughed. “Ever thought of bein’ a teacha?”
“Shut it and drive!” the man yelled back.
Red and blue lights flashed behind us. I turned and saw a long column of police cars. The leader of the pack pulled up to the Coupe next to us and tried to strike it in the rear wheel and send it off the road, but the men inside it stuck out the long barrel of their submachine guns and blew out the engine. The police car slowly came to a halt as oily smoke poured out from it and eventually burst into flames.
“What are those guns?” I asked. “I’ve never seen them before.”
“You like Tommy?” the man asked.
“Who?”
“Tommy, ya know, the gun?”
“He means Tommy guns,” the driver explained to me.
“I don’t understand,” I said as I looked back. “How come the police aren’t disabling them?”
“Huh?” the man said to me as if I was speaking in a foreign language.
“They have disablers that can shut down any gun.”
“Yeah, but that only work for the manufactured guns. These Tommys don’t have no electronic parts, just good old .45 bullets and gunpowder. The only thing that will disable them is shooting off the trigger finger of the fella holdin’ it, right?”
“What?”
“Hold on a second,” the man said.
He rolled down his window and then stuck his head out and aimed with his pistol. The rainfall muffled the sound of his gunshots as he fired, but the sound was still deafening. I covered my ears and watched sparks fly off from one of the police cars before it backed off like a wounded dog in a fight.
“Heads up!” the driver yelled. “They’re right on us!”
We looked up ahead and there was a large EXO Tomcat, a military-grade armored vehicle the size of a World War II panzer, sitting on the side of the road waiting to crush the Coupe with its sheer girth.
The man took a brief look at it and turned back to me, smiling.
“They just don’t learn, do they?” he said.
I did nothing except shrug nervously as we drove closer and closer to the Tomcat without slowing down. I expected the Tomcat to fire at us with its massive EMP cannon, but its turret remained still. We jumped up a few inches as the car’s tires struck steel spikes placed across on the road, but rather than blow out, the tires remained intact and the car continued forward and the driver warned the other car about it on the radio.
The Tomcat remained motionless as we passed it, while the car following us evaded the spikes by driving up alongside the sidewalk. The police cars following closely were unable to react and drove straight across it and their tires shattered as a thunderous boom thundered through the air.
The man looked at me again and saw my puzzled expression.
“Why didn’t the Tomcat fire at us?” I asked.
“It did,” he said. “It don’t work on us.”
“And why haven’t they accessed the car’s navigation system and shut it down?”
“How they gonna do that?”
“Every car is required to have a wireless kill switch, aren’t they?”
The man chuckled. “Only navigation system in this baby is the steering wheel, kid. Only kill switch is the ignition.”
When I didn’t say anything back he tapped the side of the car and laughed, adding, “We don’t have to worry about that none. This baby is mechanical. Engine runs on good ol’ fossil fuel. No computer, no wireless, no nothing. Sure, we got the battery, but the EMP pulse was aimed at where they think the battery cells are normally located in the back.”
I folded my arms and huddled in the back of the seat. The sight of the ISA guards dead on the street was still fresh in my mind, a vivid impression of their blood flowing down from their gaping wounds and trickling down into the gutter to mix with the rainwater.
“Who…who are you?” I asked. “What…what do you want…with me?”
The man was about to answer when the driver yelled at him, albeit not in anger but frantically. He turned around and faced the windshield.
“In a minute, kid,” he said. “We ain’t out of their neck of the woods yet.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Just sit back and don’t worry. We’re all gonna be all right.”
“That’s not what it seemed last time,” the driver said.
The man reloaded his pistol and cocked it with a grunt. “Danny boy, when are ya gonna have a little faith in me?”
“Or, so you’re a saint now, Marko? Ya want me to say a prayer?”
“I pray. I make an appeal to a higher power—it’s called a bullet.”
The man, whose name apparently was Marko, told me to get down and stay down because things might get messy. I lowered myself onto the floor and kept my head high enough so I could see where we were going.
Out the windows, the skyscrapers fell behind us while the downtown Bellevue skyline loomed in the distance north of us. I looked at the road sign and it said we were on I-405 North, and I wondered why they were taking us back toward the ISA office, where more reinforcements were sure to appear.
A minute or so later, I glimpsed the dim silhouette of the Meydenbauer Tower near the waterline and the crisscross of the old I-90 highway and I-405. As we came to the center, the driver jerked the wheel and we turned to the left, heading down I-90. My mouth opened slightly as I peered down the old highway, a long trail of potholes and deep cracks and depressions in the surface. Bumps from years of wild foliage rose up like tiny mountain peaks.
Danny the driver navigated around them with smooth and controlled handling of the wheel. He seemed almost nonchalant about it.
“Bravo, this is base,” the radio blared. “We have sighted the ravens near your position. Repeat, ravens have been spotted near your position.”
“Roger, base. Get our man on it and get those wings clipped. We’ll regroup at rendezvous point coordinates Oscar Sierra Zulu Tango.”
