The Hostaged Island (7 page)

"Pol, you're wounded." Lyons saw blood on Blancanales.

"My G-3 got customized." The automatic rifle had two bullet holes in the plastic buttstock. "And my leg, too. But..." He pulled a Heckler and Koch box magazine out of his thigh pocket. Bent and twisted, the magazine had a hole through it. Blancanales reached into his pocket again, felt the wound, probed it. "Oww! Here it is, double-ought." He held up the flattened lead ball.

"You okay, Gadgets?" Lyons asked.

"Oh, yeah. I took cover behind Pol!"

The screech of the Outlaws' walkie-talkie interrupted them: "This is Stonewall, come in Horse. We're a couple of blocks up from the pier, and we got ourselves a hero. Alive." Horse's coarse laughter cackled through the walkie-talkie: "Bring him in. We'll make an example of him."

The three fatigued but fit Able Team avengers looked to one another. "Anything we can do?" Lyons asked.

"In Avalon?" Blancanales shook his head, no.

Carl Lyons looked at the ground. "Well, God grant you a quick death, whoever you are."

Minutes before dawn, Glen and Ann Shepard, the Davis cousins, and Jack Webster slipped out of the Davis home. They crossed the street, went through a yard, climbed a fence. Rather than risk crossing the next street, they climbed fence after fence until they came to the end of the block. They broke into the last home in the street, a two-story house with a peaked roof.

Waiting there, they heard shots and yells and roaring motorcycles. As the Outlaws swept the other block, smashing doors and rampaging through homes, Glen examined the home in which they were hiding. As he had thought when he first saw the house, there was a triangular crawl space between the ceiling of the second floor and the peak of the steeply angled roof. He found the access hole in the ceiling of one bedroom's closet. He helped his wife up — her eighth-month belly a tight squeeze — then passed up blankets, water, a transistor radio with an earphone, all the weapons, and a plastic bucket to serve as a toilet.

Glen and the boys carefully searched through the drawers and closets of the house. He told the boys they would be hiding in the attic all day and perhaps the night, however long the siege of the island continued. They should gather anything that would make their wait more pleasant or safer. He also advised them to return everything they touched to where it had been. The house must not appear different than when they entered.

From the vents of the attic, they watched the Outlaws search the nearby homes. The Outlaws did not discover the knifed Acidhead until an hour after dawn. The crackle of the radiophones and walkie-talkies reached a pitch approaching hysteria. The discovery of the corpse, with rifle, pistol, ammunition and radiophone gone, had gotten the Outlaws seriously fired up.

Hearing motorcycles and voices getting really close outside, Roger went to a vent and peeked through the louvers. "They're searching this block now."

"Don't sweat it," Glen spoke calmly. "Roger, stay there, watch the street. Chris, you go to that back vent, watch the back. Both of you take blankets."

"Why?" asked Chris.

"Because if they open up the trapdoor and look in here," Glen explained, "if it's dark, they won't be able to see us. If we hear them in the closet down there, you cover those vents with the blankets. But dig it — once they come in the house, nobody moves! Have those blankets folded up and ready so you can do it silently."

"What if they have flashlights?" Roger asked.

"Then we got a problem."

"And what should I do?" asked Jack.

"Go over there," Glen pointed to a far corner of the attic. "Lie in the corner and be quiet. Ann, you go over there, put that dark blanket over you. I'll try to make myself invisible too."

Glen pressed himself into a small space between a rising vent pipe and the roof joists. He pointed his sawed-off shotgun at the access door.

"I'll shoot when you do," Jack told him. Glen looked over, saw the .45 auto in Jack's hands.

Putting down his shotgun, Glen crouch-walked over to Jack. "Give me the pistol."

"Why? It's mine."

"It isn't yours," Chris called out. "Give it to Mr. Shepard."

For an instant, Glen thought the teenager would shoot him. Then he saw that the hammer was only at half-cock. He grabbed the pistol, twisted it from the boy's hands.

"I'm taking this weapon," Glen told him, "because you having it is a threat to our lives. All you've been talking about is shooting them, and if you did that they'd kill us all."

"You asshole!" Jack shouted. "You're no one to me, you can't play God with me, I'll..."

One-handed, Glen grabbed the teenager by the throat and started to choke him. "Be quiet!" he hissed. "You'll get us killed."

Roger whispered from the far end of the attic. "Do what he tells you, jerk-off! You should be thanking him. He risked his life to help us."

"Shut the fuck up, nigger!" Jack screamed at Roger.

"Ohhhhhh... " Glen just laughed. "Is this guy your friend?"

"Will you shut up?" Chris hissed. "They're out there!"

Crouch-walking again, Glen went to the vent viewing the street. "Where?"

"Coming around the corner. He isn't really a friend of ours, by the way," Chris explained quietly to Glen. "We sorta know him. He was hanging around, when all this started."

"When it's over, why don't you and your cousin kick that punk's ass? Until then, we'd better watch him carefully. Here they come."

"They're in the neighbor's backyard!" Roger gulped.

Glen and Chris watched the Outlaws search the houses.

They kicked down doors, broke windows. Dogs barked. Shots silenced them.

A new group of bikers roared up on their Harleys, Kawasakis, Hondas, led by the barrel-chested Outlaw in the Confederate Army cap. He wore a shotgun slung over his shoulder. A long bayonet flashed in the morning light. The group continued to the house where Acidhead had died; they parked their bikes there, and went in.

A pistol popped in the house next to where they hid. Three bikers dragged an elderly man and woman from the house. Outlaws converged on the scene. The elderly man — white-haired and stick thin — comforted his wife as bikers crowded around them, taunting the old man.

The biker in the Rebel cap swaggered up and glared at the old man. One of the bikers who had dragged out the couple showed the Rebel-capped biker a small pistol, then pointed to a rip in his jacket sleeve. The Confederate biker unslung his shotgun.

"Oh, God," Chris gasped, turning away from the vent. "I can't watch this."

"Watch it," Glen told him. "It's what'll happen to you, to all of us if we get caught."

"Run, you old geezer!" the Outlaw suddenly boomed. "You want to escape. Here's your chance!"

Glen looked outside. The bikers cleared a path for the couple. A biker shoved them. The Confederate Outlaw stood with the shotgun at his hip, pointing at the old couple only six feet away.

The white-haired old man shook his head. He refused to run. He held his wife, pressing her face to his chest. He kissed her forehead.

A single blast threw them to the asphalt. They sprawled together, a huge blood pool spreading around them.

"Now they're coming to search this house," Glen told the others.

"Hey, Stonewall!" a biker on the street called out. "You are one cold mother." Several bikers laughed.

Glen peeked out, saw the Rebel-capped biker loading shells into his shotgun. Now Glen knew the biker's name: Stonewall.

"Think that's cold?" the biker shouted. "I'm looking for the hero that killed one of ours. When I find him... You all see this cap? When I'm done with that hero, I'm going to wear his hide for a hat — right up here, nose and eyes and lips and all, just like a coonskin cap."

More laughter. Boots kicked down the door. Shotgun blasts inside the house shattered windows, sent furniture crashing. They must have been doing this to every house on the island. Bikers shouted: "Where are you? Get out of this house! All we want's your money and valuables. And we want you down at the Casino. Anybody in here, come out. We want you with the other people."

Laughter. Rifle shots ripped through the house. A shotgun blast smashed a wall beneath them; a single pellet popped through the rafters, then bounced off the roof joists.

"Glen," his wife whispered, "come be here with me..."

"I can't!" he hissed.

Boots stormed up the stairs. Doors slammed open, furniture fell. A voice shouted: "Check every closet!"

The blast of a shotgun. Plaster exploding upward. "That closet's checked!" Laughter.

"Rings! Diamonds. Hey, asshole. Split it with me."

"They're mine. Find your own."

"Both of you!" Stonewall's voice boomed. "Stick that trash in your pockets. Search this house. You got two dead buddies and you're fighting over some phony rings? Search that closet, under the bed, up in the attic, everywhere!"

"Psst!" Glen hissed to Roger. Then he and Chris blocked the vent near them. The attic went pitch dark.

Furniture crashed down. The closet door leading to the attic access creaked open. Shoes and suitcases fell from the shelves.

"Hey, there's a trapdoor going up," a biker said.

"You going up there?"

"Going up. First, some reconnaissance by fire!"

An explosion of plaster, insulation, and splintered wood filled the attic. Sudden light flashed as the debris flew. Dim light glowed through the several holes in the access panel and closet ceiling.

As the biker pushed up the splintered access panel, Glen could hear Roger's breathing shudder slightly. But he could do nothing. He could not encourage or comfort the teenager. A word or a sound would betray them all.

The biker's head appeared above the rafters, swivelling in all directions. "Hey, you! You! I see you..."

"You got one?" a biker called from below.

Glen heard Chris stop breathing. Slowly, very slowly, Glen grasped the butt of the Magnum in his belt. Outside, bikers laughed and shouted. A motorcycle raced down the street.

The head dropped down. "Nah, nothing up there."

Stonewall shouted again. "Move it! We got this whole block to search. Find anything?"

"Nah," the biker answered, the last to leave the house.

"Then move it! Find that hero! Horse is going to waste my ass if I don't come up with that bastard."

Glen glanced out front, saw the last biker leave the house and start down the block. Stonewall came out of the house, shotgun ready, its long bayonet flashing. He turned, stared at the house. He saw the attic vent, stared at it. From the hip, he pointed the shotgun, fired.

Glen jerked Chris away as the louvers exploded. Light streamed into the attic. For a half minute, Glen and Chris lay without moving on the rafters.

"Glen!" his wife whispered.

"I'm all right," he gasped. He went back to the shattered louvers and snuck a peek. The front lawn was deserted.

They listened. In the house, there was only silence. But in the house next door, there were shouts and shots and crashing.

"Mr. Shepard," Roger whispered from the far end. "Can I let down the blanket now? I'm shot."

"What?" Glen crept over the rafters, crab-style, moving slowly and silently. As he passed his wife, he hugged her, gave her a quick kiss. Continuing, when he passed Jack Webster, he smelled fecal matter, heard the boy's teeth chattering with fear. Glen said nothing.

A single double-zero ball had punched through Roger's right forearm. There was a hole in the blanket that he had held over the vent, then a hole in the wall stud. Roger had obviously held the blanket over the vent for minutes after taking the through-and-through wound in his arm.

"Oh, god, it hurts," Roger sobbed.

Glen put his arm around the teenager's shoulders. "That's all right. You saved us. You're the hero of this battle. That Aryan punk over there talks tough, but when the going gets rough, he shits his pants."

"You fucker!" Jack shrieked. He lunged across the narrow attic, snatching the .45 auto from where Glen had left it. Glen pulled the Magnum from his belt. But the boy didn't turn the weapon on Glen. Instead, he grabbed the M-14 too, and the ammo bandolier, and disappeared down the access hatch.

"Jack! I'm sorry! Don't go out there." Glen stumbled to the hatch, but Jack Webster was gone. Glen grasped his belt of bullets and started after the boy.

"Glen, don't!" his wife called.

"Let him go, Mr. Shepard," Chris pleaded.

"It was my big mouth," Glen called back. "They'll take him if I don't get to him first. I don't want it on my conscience."

Glen Shepard dropped through the blast-splintered hatch.

Crying with shame and rage, Jack Webster ran from the back of the savaged house. He heard shots and voices in the houses down the block, motorcycles on the streets. Not wanting to chance going over the back fence, he slipped into the decorative hedges screening one yard from the other. For a minute or two, he lay there on his stomach, his face pressed into the rotting leaves, and cried.

But the rifle in his grip reassured him. "I'll show them. I'll kill some of them."

Hidden by the hedge, he crawled along the fence, searching for a hole. The rotting wood slats crumbled when he touched them, but the neighbor's chain link prevented him from crawling through. He continued to the corner of the yard.

In the corner, dogs had burrowed under the fences. The dog holes had been blocked with bricks. Jack pulled out the bricks, crawled under the fence, coming out in the backyard of the house diagonally behind the house where the others still hid.

The shooting continued as the Outlaws searched. Jack crawled through the untrimmed bushes of the backyard until he came to the back door. The door hung open, a ragged hole where the knob and lock had been. Crouching there for minutes, he listened for voices or steps inside the house. He heard nothing. Struggling to work the rifle's action, he jerked back the cocking lever. A cartridge flew out.

He marvelled at the size of the cartridge. He had only fired .22 rifles before. The bullet was huge. He put the .308 NATO round in his pocket. Holding the rifle at his hip and his finger on the trigger like he'd seen in the movies, he crept into the house.

Broken dishes littered the kitchen floor. He slid his feet over the linoleum, gingerly pushing the fragments of glass and china away rather than step on them. Once onto the dining room and living room rugs, he walked quickly to the front windows.

Down the street a few addresses, he saw the Davis house. The front door hung by one hinge. Looking up and down the other side of the street, he saw all the front doors had been kicked in or shot open.

Creeping to the blasted front door of the house, Jack eased it closed, then carefully blocked the door with a heavy cabinet. He went to the back door, blocked it also.

Sure he couldn't be surprised, he searched the house. In one of the bedrooms, he found clothes almost his size. He changed his stinking pants. The evidence of his fear and shame gone, he felt bolder.

He found jewelry, wristwatches, and money. He wore the man's wristwatch, pocketed the other loot. In the children's room, he found a knapsack. He filled the pack with food, soda pop, and a bottle of vodka from the kitchen. Then he had a breakfast of white bread and sandwich meats.

"This ain't a bad time at all," he laughed. After breakfast, when there was no further sight and sound of bikers, he looted all the other houses on the street.

Glen Shepard couldn't find the boy. He searched all the rooms of the house, the garage, then the backyard. He didn't risk the street or the other houses on the block. He couldn't believe Jack would have been so stupid as to go into the street. Finally, Glen returned to the others.

"Anything on the walkie-talkie?" he asked, clambering into the attic.

"Glen," Ann seethed, "you talk about responsibility? What about me? What about these kids? One minute you're ready to kill that jerk, the next you're out trying to save him. Why don't you worry about your own child? You're so dumb — you think just because you're right, just because you're the true believer... " Her anger became sobbing.

"Okay, okay," he whispered, "you're right. Forget that punk. If they haven't got him yet, he can take care of himself. Because I tell you, just walking down there scares the shit out of me!"

He tried to make his voice sound patient, if not serene. "Roger, how's your arm?"

"It hurts."

"A month from now you'll have a scar to show your girl friends. Chris, what did you see?"

"Bikers. What's going on down below?"

"I think the radio will tell us more than anything we can see. What did you hear?"

"Something happened on the other side of the island. They said they caught a commando. They sent a bunch of bikers to bring him back to town, but they disappeared."

"The commandos?"

"No, the bikers!"

"All right! Help is on its way. This'll all be over soon. Oh, God. I want it over right now. Will you two keep watch for a while, listen to the walkie-talkie?"

"You're not going anywhere!" Ann told him. "You promised."

"Going to sleep! Only to sleep." He lay down beside his very pregnant wife and held her, one arm across her belly. "And you too, mother-to-be. Last night wasn't too restful for us. For the three of us."

Sunbathing on the flat roof of a two-story house, Jack smoked dope, drank vodka. He was rich. He had found jewelry, gold coins, rolls of ten-dollar bills, platinum wristwatches. After the island returned to normal, Jack would shuttle back and forth to the mainland, selling a few things at a time. Theft was not new to him. That was how he paid for his Hawaiian grass and his new surfboards. When he stole from tourists and burglarized homes, he disposed of the articles through connections in Los Angeles. He hoped his connection could raise the thousands of dollars the loot was worth.

Motorcycles passed. The Outlaws! Wow, if he were an Outlaw, he'd have it made. They got the best stuff. He got what was left. If he were an Outlaw, he'd play it smart. Take the island, get his share, then before the SWAT teams and Marines showed up, he'd steal a boat and sail away with the loot.

The sun warming his face, Jack worked it out. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry. Gold and diamonds. Sailing the Pacific, selling the booty when he needed money. Living like a pirate. Wow, what a life.

Another long hit of Hawaiian brought the dream to life in color. Girls' brown bodies stretched out on the deck of the pirate's yacht. Riding the winds and waves forever.

Asshole Outlaws. What would they do with their money? Buy motorcycles. Live in Beverley Hills and strip their Harleys on the carpet.

What if he could take it away from them? What if he could shoot an Outlaw, take the dead biker's loot? What if he could shoot Outlaw after Outlaw? Then he could buy the yacht. And he could leave the island a hero, the kid who wiped out the Outlaws. He'd stash the loot, then claim the glory. Sail away.

He sucked down a last hit and gulped some vodka. He staggered with the M-14 to the edge of the roof. The frame of the boxy house continued eighteen inches above the asphalt of the roof, like a very low railing. He saw a drain hole through the wall. Laying down on the asphalt, he peered through the four inch by four inch hole. It viewed the far end of the block. If he shot through the hole, he could kill any biker at the other end of the block, and they couldn't even see him! The shots would come from nowhere. When he killed two or three, he'd sneak down there, take whatever cash and jewelry they had, then come up here and repeat it. He would have his yacht!

Still on his belly, he tried to put the barrel of the M-14 through the hole. The front sight caught on the stucco. Jack twisted the rifle to force it through the hole. His fingers touched the trigger.

A burst ripped the quiet neighborhood, the rifle jumping in his hand, slamming back against his bicep. He tried to jerk his hand away, another wild burst sent slugs punching into houses and parked cars.

Motorcycles raced down the block. They jumped the curb. Boots kicked down the front door.

Chris woke Glen. "Mr. Shepard, there was some shooting. And then the Outlaws talked on the radios. They said, 'Some young kid with Acidhead's M-14.' Then that Stonewall said, 'We got a hero, alive.' Then Horse says, 'Bring him in. We'll make an example of him.' I think it was Jack they got."

"Me too," Glen agreed. "What do you think they'll do to him?" Glen slipped on the belt of shotgun cartridges. "That's not what I'm worrying about."

Horse put his .45 to Jack's blond hair. "I didn't — I didn't shoot at your guys," Jack pleaded. "I dropped it and it went off. I was up there hiding out and I dropped it."

Keeping the muzzle of the automatic against the boy's head, Horse glanced to Stonewall. The barrel-chested biker stood behind the teenager, holding the knapsack full of money and jewelry they'd found on the roof with Jack. Stonewall shrugged.

"Then how come you had the rifle?" Horse continued, "if you weren't going to shoot my men."

"I took it from a house. I wanted it."

"What house?" Jack told them.

Stonewall searched the attic himself. He found the blankets, the soda pop cans, the bloodstains where one of the people hiding up there had been wounded. He reported to Horse: "They're gone. We must have just missed them. These blankets are still warm. Man, just by two or three minutes."

"Search the neighborhood again," Horse ordered.

"They couldn't have gotten off the block." Stonewall turned and shouted to his men. "Burn it! Burn it all!"

"Okay, kid," Horse said to Jack. "You helped us. We missed them by just a couple of minutes. Now..."

"I told you. I didn't..."

"Punk! You want to live?"

Jack nodded.

"Now, punk, what I want you to do is help us some more. I'm going to take you to the Casino and put you in there with the rest of your people. We've been seeing some funny stuff going on in there. And I want you to tell me all about it. You're my Private Eye."

"What if..."

"What if what?"

"Nothing's going on."

"I told you, something's going on." Horse pulled out his knife. "Charlie, this kid don't learn. He's useless. Pull down his pants and hold him. I'm going to fix him."

Thrashing in Charlie's grip, Jack screamed and pleaded. Horse held the eight-inch blade of the Bowie near the boy's naked crotch. "Now, I told you something's going on. You're going to find out what it is. We'll give you an hour. You don't have something to tell us, we'll stand you up on the ballroom bandstand and cut that little thing off of you. Do you understand now?"

Jack nodded, pulled up his pants.

With tears streaming down their faces, Jack's mother and father hugged him. It was the first time in his life he could remember emotion from them. "We thought you were dead."

"So did I. They're killing people out there."

The residents crowding around Jack questioned him:

"Did you see the Davis boys?"

"Did you see any police?"

Max Stevens pushed in front of the others. "We want you to tell us everything you saw and heard. It's very important to us."

"Why?" Jack asked. "What's going on?"