Chaingang (34 page)

The moon had come back out, and inside the small, ramshackle smokehouse he watched clouds move across the killer's moon, and remembered the house where Mrs. Irby lived, where he'd filled his tanks and watched dust motes falling like snow imprisoned in an antique paperweight. He was in a fine mood again, and with a massive grunt he lurched to his feet and waddled down toward the nearest concrete, the full weight of his weapons and munitions cases in hand.

There were two guards, and they were both imbeciles. Amateurs. He ignored them and went about his business. Setting timers on HBX haversacks, wiring the satchel charges, moving closer to the guards all the while.

His strange mind computed cone diameters, air cavity physics, jet energy statistics. One of his areas of expertise was improvised shaped charges utilizing high-velocity explosives.

He pulled a ‘nade from his voluminous coat and felt the notched spoon. Good. One of the short-fused jobs. He was just starting to fasten it to one of his bomb devices when the car shot by. An old junker of some kind—looked like a Ranchero—kids hot-rodding, he assumed.

The guard closest to the access road opened up with a machine gun, spraying everything in that general direction as the car sped by, and Chaingang flung himself behind the nearest concrete wall, the grenade falling to the ground—fortunately with the pin in place—and rolling.

Just as he started to peer around to see how near the guard was, here came another car, roaring out of nowhere! More gunfire whocked off the surrounding walls. These intrusions were not to be tolerated. Grimly Chaingang reached for the duffel and his long-range killing tool.

They were going too fast, even on the concrete, blasting through the Ecoworld construction project, every separation between the footings feeling like sledgehammers bouncing off the Ranchero's rusting frame. Happy was right on him.

“Oh, fuck!” A wall. It was ending—the fucking thing was dead-ending!

“Stop!"

“Stay down!” There was no room to maneuver or turn around, and Happy would plow right into them. He reached down and yanked the wire—by luck hit the one to the taillights—then mashed the brake, holding Mary and gritting his teeth for the crash. But Ruiz was damn good. He slammed him, but he was on his own brake, and the cars skidded to a halt.

“Run, Mary! Get behind the wall!” It was their one chance.

“I can't. The door's stuck. Oh God!"

“Come on—” He tried to pull her, got her arm but she was at an angle, and it took an instant longer than it should have to get her out on his side. Happy and Luis were on them. Both held MAC-11s. “Wait! She isn't part of—” He was in the middle of a shouted plea when Ruiz and Londoño were stitched in half, literally.

He and Mary were almost dead. They were greased. And suddenly two dudes with guns turn to bloody dead meat, right before their eyes.

Royce forced himself to move. Made himself kick one of the MAC-11 shooters away from the bodies. Picked it up. That's when he saw the giant. His skin crawled as he looked into the face of “Bigfoot,” the Goliath he'd seen on Willow River Road that day. If he thought the dude was big from across a blacktop, he was breathtaking up close. The largest man he'd ever seen, not just tall but big, a giant of a fat man with a weapon of some kind, looking at him with those same hard eyes; he could see them in a reflection of moonlight, and he'd never forget the look on that face as the huge man calmly began loading a magazine into his empty piece.

Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski never saw the guard. He was too occupied shooting these monkey intruders. But his warning sensors let him know the nearest guard, the one without the dog, was right in back of him, about to squeeze the trigger, when this other monkey man raised a weapon and fired a magazine off in the guard's direction, saving his life.

Chaingang clicked the next mag into his SKS, but by then the first car of monkeys was pulling away and he concentrated on the other guard. He had to get out of there soon. His inner clock was ticking at him. He saw the dog coming first and squatted down and got something, putting his weapon beside him. He took the dog from a balanced position, but it still nearly knocked him over—such was the power of the dog's spring at the moment of attack.

But puppy met with a terrible surprise. This was Chaingang fucking Bunkowski, heart-eater, doggie. And he caught the dog in his left hand, holding her by the throat, trying not to strangle her until he could work the cork off the hypo and tranq the bitch. Within a few seconds the attack dog's long, pink tongue was lolling out like she was dead.

“Ilsa! Where are you? Here, Ilsa!” Her master's voice.

“Doggie's asleep,” a deep basso profundo rumbled from out of the darkness as Chaingang blew the guard's head off his neck. “And so are you."

He grabbed the hundred-pound puppy in a fireman's carry, slinging her over one shoulder as if she were a sack of onions, and waddled off to his wheels.

Up on the service road he heard the monkey man shout something to him as he waved.

“Thanks, pardner!” it sounded like.

Chaingang, had Ilsa safely down the road when the south edge of Ecoworld blew into the cosmos.

Royce braked the second he saw the olive drab sphere at the edge of the concrete drive. He was frightened of it, but he was desperate for a weapon, and the MAC-11 was useless to him without a magazine full of cartridges. No amount of money in Christendom would have sent him back into that exploding hell for ammo. He chucked the thing into the backseat and stopped.

He prayed it wasn't a booby trap. It didn't explode when he picked it up, but he didn't start breathing again until he had it resting on the pile of blankets from the old musket. He made a nest for it, tossing the MAC-11 into the road ditch.

“Is that a hand grenade?” Mary asked quietly. She was afraid of very little now. The worst was behind them.

“Yeah,” he told her in a quivering voice. “It's a hand grenade. And I'm scared to death of the damn things."

“Well then...” she wanted to know, the way women so often do ... “why did you pick it up?"

It was a perfectly logical question. It made him lick his lips. He tasted salt.

“What are you going to do with it?"

“God knows,” he said.

WHITETAIL POND

T
here was a three-man team in the car. There were four cars full of agents on the case, one on his cabin, one on Mary's house, one cruising, and this one at the pond. They'd been parked there since four in the afternoon, and everybody was bored, restless, and coffeed out. The replacement car would be a couple of hours more.

“I gotta take a piss,” the man on the passenger side in the front seat said, and cracked the door, walked over to the road ditch, and urinated noisily into the weeds. They were parked on the road overlooking the Perkins cabin.

“Any more jelly doughnuts?” the one in the backseat asked.

“Nope,” the driver said, yawning. “Wish these fuckers would show. I'd like to whack
some
body."

“I can dig it,” the one in the backseat said, stretching.

The man who'd had to pee got back in the car, and it was then that Royce came around the bend in the road and saw the flash of light when the car door opened.

“Somebody's up there,” he said.

“Where?"

“Above the cabin.” He pointed. “I saw a light flash. We've probably got company. They're probably in the cabin, too.” He was so calm-sounding, he surprised himself.

“Who do you think it is?"

“The Avon lady?” he said, trying to make a joke and succeeding beyond his wildest dreams. Both of them giggled like schoolkids.

“You're such a zany guy,” she said.

“I really am.” There were limits to how scared you could get. Apparently they had found theirs, because he drove back around the pond and parked about 150 yards from the top of the hill.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“Probably get my ass killed.” Mary just looked at him as he took the wire and the pliers and the grenade and quietly closed the car door. “Stay here. I'll be back."

She didn't say anything.
Be careful
stuck in her throat. He was gone.

Royce came up out of the bushes as silently as he could, very worried about his breath. It was so loud. His breathing sounded like an antique bellows. Thankful that the woods came nearly flush with the edge of the road ditch, he came out of the woods slow and low, trying to keep the left rear corner post of the car between himself and where the driver was sitting. It was pretty dark, and he was counting on luck.

If one of them in the car turned or if the driver looked in one of his mirrors at the wrong moment ... well, what was the point in worrying? He had to force himself out of the safety of the ditch, hurting his hands and knees on the rocks and finally making it to the car. It occurred to him it would be just about his luck to have them start the engine about that time. He could hear small talk through the open windows of their vehicle.

He got the grenade wedged between the underside of the bumper and the gas tank, feeling his hands sweat as he attached the wire to the ring that pulled the cotter pin out. He'd already put a twist in the thin wire at the other end. Now was the tough part.

He tried to slowly peel some of the duct tape from his arm, where he had the little Legionnaire Boot Knife taped in place. It made way too much noise and he took what he had and secured the wire and the grenade as best he could.

Taking a deep breath and clenching his jaws, he crawled back into the ditch, found a root that he trusted, and fastened the wire around it. Would this work? He had no idea. Maybe he should just throw the thing in the car. Too late for that now.

The hairiest part of all was the four or five feet from the ditch back into the woods. It seemed to take about half an hour, and the whole time he felt the gunshot—imagining what his scream would sound like when the first bullet hit his back.

He made it, though, and he and Mary were going to come out of the thing okay—one way or the other. He promised her that, starting the old Ranchero and heading back toward Maysburg. He didn't want to be around when they decided to move that car up on the hill. He didn't even want to know about it. He'd also found the limits of his curiosity.

MAYSBURG

"
Y
ellow Cab?"

“Hi. This is Mr. Conway over at the Tennessee Motor Courts on Central. Would you send a taxi over please?"

“Okay. What's your room number?"

“Have the driver come to the office please."

“Okay. Will do. Be about ten minutes."

“Fine. Thank you.” He put another quarter in and redialed...

“Tennessee Motor Courts, good morning."

“Morning! This is Conway with General Discount Stores—I'm going to be checkin’ in this afternoon. Say, listen, I've got an envelope there with some cash in it, don't I?"

“One moment, sir."

“Sure."

“Yes, sir. There's an envelope for you."

“Does it have fifty dollars cash in it?"

“I don't know sir. We haven't opened it."

“Do me a favor please. I have a cab driver on his way over there. Would you open that? I'll take the responsibility."

“All right ... Yes, there's money in here."

"Fine. Would you please give the driver—no, I'll tell you what—ask him to pick up a package for me in Waterton. It's addressed to me in care of general delivery. Tell him there'll be a nice tip in it for him if he'll come back to the office with my package—save me a lot of driving around. Okay?"

The clerk agreed. But by the time the cab made it back to the motel with the large box full of clothing and accessories, Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski, née Conway, was back on the phone, this time wanting to speak to the driver. By coincidence he'd timed the call just as the man was coming in the office—but it helped that he was dialing from across the road.

This time he wanted the driver to bring the box to him and leave it at Discount Thrift on Central—just down the road from the motel. He instructed the office clerk to give the driver forty dollars “and keep a ten” for a gratuity.

He asked the driver if he knew where Discount Thrift was.

“Sure—couple blocks from here."

“That's it. You know the stone wall to the left of the front door?"

“Yeah?"

“Just toss the box up on the bank there. Okay?"

“If you say so, but don't blame me if it gets ripped off. Don't you want it left inside the door?"

“No. Not necessary. Just throw the box up on the bank to the left of the front door. Keep the forty for your trouble. Fair enough?"

“You got it.” People never failed to amaze him, and they kept getting loonier by the day.

The watchers with eyeball surveillance on Chaingang saw him park his car, the same car they'd watched all along, on the gravel service road that ran in back of the busy Maysburg Shopping Center.

As always, the surveillance team leader kept a running account of movements on the battery-powered recorder all the agents carried:

“Blue Tracker Six: subject getting out of vehicle again ... going over the fence between Taylor Chemical and the shopping center ... moving on into the wooded area there.” The two men in the front seat of the unmarked government car saw the huge man appear to unzip his pants, glance around, and then move behind some trees.

“Looks like he's going to urinate.” They joked with each other about him going in the woods for a quick piece of fist. When he hadn't materialized in a couple of minutes, they looked at each other.

“What dya’ think?"

“I'll go circle around by the center. You watch the woods on the side by the plant there. Stay with the car. If he comes back and leaves before I get back, I'll catch up with you tonight. ‘Kay?"

“Go.” The second man opened the door and jogged off around the woods. But Chaingang was long gone. That would be the penultimate observation they would make of him. Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski went into the woods, and something went wrong with the monitors—"a bobble in the power,” the rural power company told them, apologetically. By the time a salesman by the name of Mr. Conway, resplendent in three-piece vested suit, tie, and wig, came out the other side, melting into the shopping center crowd, “technical difficulties” had developed. It seemed that the battery could die, after all ... in a manner of speaking.