The Storm Maker (20 page)

       She
nodded, fighting away her tears.

       Sayett
crawled to the front of their car and fired a few shots over the front bumper
at the car to their left. Those two gunmen ducked down. Sayett saw the opportunity
and made a mad dash to the front car. He reached the car, got inside and
luckily the car engine was still running.

       Then
looking out of the broken glass of the windshield he saw last of the SPASI
guards  suddenly get shot and fall back. He had to save Slyntya now. Sayett
changed the gear to drive, slammed the accelerator, but the next second slammed
his brakes.

       A
man with a rifle had walked up to Slyntya from the car in the back. Sayett
reached for his pistol as the man grabbed Slyntya’s arm and effortlessly pulled
her to her feet.

       Sayett
could not fire now. He could not be sure of hitting his target, not from an
awkward sitting position and not when his mind and body were simultaneously in
a state of panic and excitement as he felt the juices race up and down his
body.

       That
man, however, had no such obstacle and he lowered his rifle, aimed it at
Sayett’s car and let loose a barrage. Sayett ducked under the dashboard and
most of the bullets hit the top of the car or the seats. Sayett had his right
hand on the steering wheel and a bullet nicked him on his wrist, but he did not
even notice. He turned the steering wheel while still down, hit the gas pedal
and put the car into the grass off the side of the road. He looked up and saw
the man standing there, his rifle in one hand while still holding onto Slyntya
with his other. The other gunmen rushed to join him.

       “Don’t
tell them about the colonel!” Sayett yelled at Slyntya in Karaln language, her
mother tongue that he had picked up bits and pieces of when dealing with their
spy department. He wasn’t sure she had heard him, but there was no time. The
rest of the gunmen had opened fire and bullets were hitting the back of his
car. He hit the accelerator; he had to reach the trees before they shot out his
tires. He drove the car towards the woods at full speed.

       Sayett
braked hard and narrowly avoided hitting a tree, but the right side mirror—or
whatever had remained of it after taking bullets—smashed against the side of
the tree and shattered into tens of pieces. Sayett had been watching his back
through half the rear view mirror that was still left, and now realized that he
had made it to the woods. The trees here were widely separated and there was
room enough to maneuver a car through, but not at high speeds. Sayett drove
through the forest as far as he could, but the tree density kept increasing and
he soon had to ditch the car. He looked around to see if any of the gunmen’s’
rifles had fallen in the car, but he was not so lucky. All he had now was half
a magazine in his pistol and one to spare.

       When
he had looked back earlier the gunmen had not chased him. They had gathered
around the ambush site and stood there watching. Perhaps they were afraid of a
police patrol car showing up and radioing in the sight and were preparing to
cut out of there as soon as possible. But he could not be sure and he had to reach
a phone. He began walking through the dense forest, trying to figure out where
he was. After walking for some time he stumbled out of the woods into an
opening. There was a house in front of him at some distance . The house was
surrounded by brush, but cleared of any trees. He could smell the stench of a
pig sty and looked around and sure enough, there were a large number of hogs
running around in a fenced compound some distance to the right of the house.
Sayett chuckled and felt relieved for doing so. Raising hogs was once one of
the most common occupations of Starfirians, now it had been taken over by the
big companies, but a few independent hog ranchers remained.

       Sayett
walked towards the one-floor house. He could see the house had two large rectangular
rooms in the front that with two windows each, but with only one large wooden
door just after the partition of the rooms, located in the right side room. Its
walls were made of cement and painted gray; it had a rectangular roof head made
of dark brown bricks and around two feet in height surrounding its top. The
house itself rested on a foundation that was around three feet tall and Sayett
walked up the wooden stairs to the front door. He put his pistol away and took
out his SPASI badge, looked for the doorbell that was missing and then knocked
on the door a couple of times.

       A
few moments later a young man in his late twenties, with long, oblong
clean-shaven face opened the door.        “Howdy stranger?” The young man
smiled.

       “I
need your help, fellow,” Sayett said and showed him his badge. “I am from SPASI
and my team was ambushed by foreign saboteurs on the national road.”

       “C’mon
in fast,” he said and as Sayett walked in, he closed the door.

       “I
just need to make a phone call, I don’t mean to get you involved in some
trouble,” Sayett said.

       “No
trouble, SPASI man,” the young man said, “I am in the local warrior class.
Reserve Army. There is the phone over there, you make your call. I will be
right back.”

       Sayett
looked around the house. On his right was a regular living room with sofa,
desks, antiques, tools and objects, to his left was a small bed leading to the
wall, a phone on a small round table to its left and a chair on its right.
Sayett sat down on the bed and leaned backward to reach for the phone.

       “Father,
bring up both of my ATRs,” he heard the young man speak at the door presumably
leading to the basement.

       “What’s
going on up there?” an old gruffy voice replied from down below.

       “Just
do it,” the young man said, “will tell when you come up.”

       Sayett
was grateful he had received help and at the willingness of the young man to
fight, but he wasn’t sure what the two of them could do if the remaining Ranx
gunmen did show up.

       He
heard slow footsteps coming up from the basement as he dialed the phone. As the
phone rang on the other end, Sayett saw an old man with beard, wearing blue
shirt and pants, slightly bent with wide eyes bring two ATR rifles, one of
which his son took from him.

       “SPASI
office,” a voice said on the phone.

       “This
is Chief Detective Sayett,” he said. “Connect me to Chief Yucker right away.”

       “Sure,
Detective Sayett,” the voice answered.

       “This
man here is from SPASI,” the young man was telling his father. “His team was
attacked by foreign troops.”

       “Foreign
troops here?” the old man said in puzzlement. “Better call the Colonel then.”

       “Him
and the police chief as soon as he is done.” the young man said.

       The
SPASI phone operator had connected Sayett’s call to Chief Yucker’s office and
Yucker answered.

       “What
goes, Sayett?” Yucker said.

       “Everything
has gone to dogs,” Sayett blurted out in frustration. “Attacked by Ranx gunmen
on the national road...four SPASI guards are dead...Slyntya has been
kidnapped.”

       “What!”
Yucker almost shouted, “Slyntya? You took her on the raid?”

       “She
insisted,” Sayett said. “I was adamantly against it, but she has Constellar
authority to order herself into the raid and she did. I was going to keep her
at the town police station and not take her on the raid, but the raid came to
us.”

       “Where
are you calling from now? Are you safe?” Yucker asked.

       “Taken
shelter with a brave, young man,” Sayett said and looked at the young man who
smiled at him. He had taken up a position at the door hoisting his ATR rifle
through a small window near the top of the door.

       “Do
you want me to fly guards down to you?” Yucker asked.

       “Yeah,
but to Southstar, not here,” Sayett said. “We are going to call the town
police”.

       “You
better do that first,” Yucker said.

       “Right,
right,” Sayett replied and realized that was more important to get some armed
backup first. He could talk to Yucker afterwards. “Call you in a few, chief,”
Sayett said and hung up the phone.

       “Father,
watch the front door.” the young man said and walked over to the side of the
bed and Sayett handed him the phone.

       “What
is the commotion?” An older woman walked out from the back room of the house.
She would have been in her late fifties, dressed in faded clothes, with her
hair tied back neatly.

       “We
have a guest in need,” the father said.

       Sayett
smiled at her but did not speak because the young man was talking on the phone.

       “Oh
my…You are bleeding mister.” she said.

       Sayett
looked at his right hand that it was drenched in blood. His shirt and suit
sleeves were completely wet, the blood had even fallen on his pants as well as
the bed and a few blood splotches had followed him from the door. That was the
first Sayett realized he had taken a hit. His right wrist had been hurting, but
he had not paid much attention to it—he had bigger matters to worry about.

       “Son,
better call the doctor, too,” the father said.

       “No,
no,” Sayett said. “It’s just a nick.”

       “I
will get some bandages,” the mother said and went back into the backroom and
soon came back with bandages and a couple of rags. First she cleaned away the
blood with the rags then wrapped the bandages around his wrist.

       “Grateful,”
Sayett said.

       The
son had finished both of his phone calls now, but Sayett was thinking about his
injury and didn’t pay attention to the conversation.

       “Father
go watch the back door,” the son said, “I will watch the front.”

       “If
they show up, call me, boy,” the father said and walked to the backroom with
his ATR. Meanwhile the mother went to the fireplace and took a shotgun from the
wall mount. She opened a drawer for a box of shells.

       “What
are you doing, Mother?” the son was incredulous.

       Sayett
had picked up the phone to call chief Yucker, but he stopped when he saw her,
“Madam,” Sayett said, “that is not necessary.”

       “I
know how to use this,” she said loading two shells into the shotgun, “My father
was in the warrior class, so is my son, only his father is just a hog herder.”
She laughed.

       “I
heard that, woman,” the father said from the backroom.

       “Mother,
put that down,” the son said. “You are worrying me.”

       “Hold
on,” the mother said. “I am not taking up watch, but getting ready just in
case.” She put the shotgun on the center table and sat down on the sofa in
front of it.

       “Police
will be here soon,” Sayett told her. He didn’t know if that was true or not,
but he did not want her to put herself in danger. But even then, now there were
four guns in the house and two of them were automatic ATR rifles. Sayett gave a
sigh of relief. They were well entrenched and fortified, and the help was on
the way.

       Sayett
dialed again and connected to Yucker’s office.

       “Yucker,
you didn’t tell what happened to anyone yet, did you?” Sayett asked.

       “Not
yet,” Yucker said. “I was asking you if you needed guards.”

       “Yeah,
but wait, there is a bigger problem,” Sayett said.

       “I
know...we had a Constellar kidnapped,” Yucker said. “And as if that wasn’t
enough, she is the wife of our national hero.”

       “I
will get her back,” Sayett said with a firm determination.

       “Constellation
will blow a gasket when they hear of this,” Yucker said.

       “Chief
Yucker, please do not tell them just yet,” Sayett said. “I don’t know if the
Ranxian gunmen think I made it out alive or not, but we could panic them and
make them go deep underground if the Constellation issues a national search
order.”

       “I
can’t keep it from them for long,” Yucker said, “and we have to tell Colonel
Sthykar.”

       “Slyntya
said he was out on a hunting vacation, strangely somewhere here in the
southwest as well. I would love to have him on the raid, but we are not going
to get hold of him.”

       “What
do you want me to do?” Yucker asked.

       “Just
give me two days. And those SPASI Guards...get me one hundred of them; fly them
on our own planes to our Southstar office. I will pick them up there.”

       “I
will give you one hundred and right away,” Yucker said.

       “However,
this wasn’t the big problem I was referring to,” Sayett said.

       “What
do you mean?” Yucker asked.

       “I
believe we have an infiltrator...a spy inside our own ranks,” Sayett said.

       “A
spy of this syndicate?” Yucker asked.