The Survivalist - 02 (24 page)

Having been raised on a farm in Alabama, Professor Callaway was a man who understood the importance of self-reliance. When he lost his wife to cancer two years earlier, he pledged to take his role as the sole provider to his daughter more seriously. He filled the basement with non-perishable food, installed a large polyethylene water tank, and bought an AR-15 rifle with enough ammunition to deter any who would do his family harm. Never did he suspect that his preparations would prove so useful so quickly.

Callaway had retired to Hendersonville after working for twenty years at the University of North Carolina as a chemistry professor. He confessed to being something of a legend, not because of his teaching prowess, but rather for creating concoctions that required his entire building to be evacuated.

While they spoke, Tanner repeatedly got up and went to the window to look out. He didn’t want anyone showing up unannounced. When it was nearing nine in the evening, he spotted his first sign of trouble. A group of three soldiers stumbled down the street, clearly intoxicated and looking to blow off a little steam. He waved the professor over to the window.

“They’re out looking for women,” said Callaway.

“Will they force their way into homes?”

“Oh, yes.” He instinctively glanced over at his own daughter. “If she were older, I’d probably already be dead.”

“Do you think they’ll come here?”

He shook his head.

“No, they have a few houses that they visit regularly. Sometimes, they’ll drag the women out into the street to humiliate them. It’s a horrible thing to see, but no one can stop it. Those who tried were the first to be killed.”

Tanner nodded, staring out at the three men. He knew what needed to be done. Someone had to make an example out of them. He reminded himself that this wasn’t his fight. If prison had taught him anything, it was to stay out of other people’s troubles. He stood quietly and watched, gritting his teeth.

All three soldiers stopped directly in front of the professor’s house and started urinating on his lawn, crisscrossing streams of piss, like Jedi masters dueling with their lightsabers. Their faces were alive with joyous revelry in anticipation of a night of torture and humiliation. Try as he might, it was not something Tanner could allow to go unpunished.

He turned to Samantha to deliver his usual warning.

“I know, I know,” she said. “You want me to stay here.”

He nodded.

“What are you going to do?”

“Make a point.”

She looked worried but didn’t question him further.

“And I don’t want you to look out the window, either,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just because.”

“Because you’re going to be mean, right?”

He nodded again.

“Okay,” she said. “But don’t get killed. I don’t want to be stuck here.” She looked over at the professor. “No offense.”

Tanner went to the front door and took one last look out the side window. The soldiers were tiddling their names on the professor’s overgrown lawn. Tanner swung the door open and rushed out, the shotgun raised at shoulder level.

“Hands where I can see them!”

All three soldiers panicked, frantically trying to put away their peckers while looking around for the rifles they had haphazardly set aside.

He fired the shotgun into the ground by their feet, quickly chambering another shell.

“Hands!” he yelled.

The three soldiers stumbled back into the street with their hands up. Tanner maintained a safe distance so they wouldn’t be tempted to go for his shotgun.

“Don’t shoot,” one of them slurred. He wore an Atlanta Braves baseball cap in place of his official military fatigue hat.

The second soldier was a big man with a lazy eye. He said nothing, but his face was twisted in anger. The third man was much shorter, and his head was cleanly shaven, reminding Tanner of Telly Savalas in the ’70s TV show,
Kojak
.

He trained the shotgun on the man standing in the center of the group, ready to swivel his point of aim if anyone decided to get frisky. Despite what people thought, the pellets of a triple-aught shell only spread about the span of a hand at twenty feet.

“I hear you boys are out looking for a little fun.”

Lazy Eye slowly brought his hands down and spit off to the side.

“What’s it to you—”

Tanner raised the shotgun and shot him in the face. Lazy Eye’s entire head disintegrated in an explosion of blood and bone.

The other two soldiers jumped back and screamed.

“Shut it,” he said, turning the shotgun their direction.

“We-we’re not even armed,” stammered Braves.

“And the women you rape? Are they armed?”

He didn’t answer.

“What do you want?” asked Kojak.

“I don’t want a damn thing.”

“Listen, mister—” started Braves.

Kojak reached over and put his hand his buddy’s shoulder.

“Save it. It’s not going to make a bit of difference.”

Tanner smiled. “I see you’re the smart one.” He noticed that several people had stepped out on their porches to see what was happening. “You’re absolutely right. There’s going to be no negotiation. No fast talking or promises of payoff.” He tossed the shotgun over by the men’s rifles. “We’re gonna fight.”

Kojak and Braves were both shocked by his decision to give up his weapon.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Kojak said, raising his fists like a classic pugilist. “I was a Golden Gloves champion for two years in a row.”

“Good for you,” said Tanner.

Kojak shuffled forward in a traditional boxer’s stance, jabbing with his left hand as soon as he got to within striking distance. Braves seemed less sure of himself and hung back, eyeing the rifles lying on the ground.

The jab hit Tanner’s nose about the same time that his shin kick slammed into Kojak’s thigh. Of the two, the kick was far more devastating, and the man stumbled back, hopping on his rear leg.

“Sonofabitch!” he cried, leaning back to ease the pain from the huge hematoma now forming on his leg.

Tanner used the back of his hand to wipe the blood that oozed from his nose. He smiled. It wasn’t even broken.

“And you call yourself a boxer?” he scoffed, licking the blood off his hand. “I’ve been hit harder by girlfriends when I reached for their goodies.”

Braves suddenly charged, head down and screaming. Tanner stepped back with one foot and struck out sideways with a hammerfist to the man’s temple. The blow spun him away like a billiard ball. Braves staggered, trying to get his bearings as the world continued to spin. Tanner stepped forward and kicked up into his groin from behind. The instep of Tanner’s foot hit him so hard that it ruptured one of his testicles. Braves’ eyes rolled back, and he fell forward, his scalp gashing open as he smacked headfirst into the curb.

Before Tanner could turn back, Kojak came in fast, leaping off his good leg and swinging a powerful superman punch. Tanner shuffled in close, bringing up an arm up to block the strike and a knee to the man’s gut. Kojak doubled over, grabbing his stomach as he fought for air. Tanner snaked an arm around the man’s neck and hoisted upward, like he was heaving a giant catfish out of the water. The man’s cervical vertebrae separated and then snapped. Tanner jerked violently to one side, breaking Kojak’s neck. He held him for a few seconds while the body twitched and spasmed. Then he dropped the lifeless hunk of meat to the ground.

He walked back over and retrieved his shotgun. Several people who had witnessed the violence shouted cheers of support from their porches. Most stopped cheering, however, when Tanner walked back over to Braves’ limp form and repeatedly smashed his head with the butt of the shotgun.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Professor Callaway, wringing his hands. “They’ll come looking for them. Even if we hide the bodies, someone will tell them what happened here. You’ve put us all in danger.” The more he spoke, the more his voice trembled.

“Don’t worry. They won’t miss a few drunken soldiers.”

“Maybe not now, but they will by morning.”

“Then we’ll have to give them something bigger to worry about.”

The professor furrowed his brows.

“Like what?”

“We need to bring the fight to them.”

“We don’t have the manpower to fight twenty or more professional soldiers.”

“Listen, Professor, you and your daughter are living on borrowed time. Men who can do whatever they want only grow more violent. We are all wolves. Fight or be eaten. There is no other way.”

Callaway sat back in his chair.

“It’s not that I disagree,” he said in a defeated voice. “I just don’t see how you expect us to fight a small army. I’d be lucky to find three people who would stand and fight.”

“Three would be enough for what I have in mind.”

Samantha had been listening intently.

“You have a plan?” she asked.

“When don’t I have a plan?”

“Are you kidding?” she scoffed. “What about when—”

He held up his hand and turned back to face Callaway.

“I’ll need your help with this, Professor. In fact, everything depends on you.”

“I’m not a great shot. I haven’t been to the range in more than a year.”

“That’s not the kind of help I’m talking about.”

“What, then?”

Tanner hesitated, searching for the right delivery. When he couldn’t find one, he just blurted it out.

“I want you to make a bomb.”

“
What?
” The professor jumped to his feet. “Why?”

“Why do you think? To blow them to hell and back.”

“But—”

“But, nothing. Can you make a bomb or not?”

Callaway hesitated. “We’d only have one chance at this. If we didn’t kill them all, they’d slaughter the entire town, my daughter, Rachel, included.”

“So, we kill every last one of them.”

“Are you going to build an atom bomb?” asked Samantha.

“That’s a little bigger than I had in mind,” said Tanner.

“You’re thinking of a fertilizer bomb,” said Callaway.

He nodded. “What would we need?”

The professor rubbed his chin.

“Not much really. Fertilizer, a fuel, and a simple detonator.”

“That sounds easy enough.”

 “Hardly. The fertilizer has to be pure, no additives, and the detonator must be powerful enough to generate sufficient energy to start vaporizing the ammonium nitrate.”

“And can we get those?”

“I know we can get the fertilizer from the old agricultural plant across town. As for the fuel, we have our choice. We could use gasoline, jet fuel, or fuel oil.” He chuckled nervously. “For that matter, we could even use sugar.”

“Sugar?” Samantha stared at him.

“Sugar can be used to create dimethylfuran.” When he saw the blank look, he added, “It’s similar to ethanol, like you get at the pump. But it would take a lot of work, and we don’t really have time. We’ll be better off with traditional fuels.” He turned to Tanner. “You know, I had a friend who lived over on Gypsum Street who used to race cars. I’d bet you anything that he still has a tank of high-octane fuel in his garage.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Once we have the fertilizer and fuel, the trick will be to mix it in the right ratio.”

“And what about the detonator?” asked Tanner. “Where would we get that?”

“The best way to do that is with a piece of detonating cord.”

“Detcord? Like the stuff that the military uses to blast through doors?”

“Exactly.”

“Any chance that you have some of that lying around?”

The professor shook his head.

“Of course not. But . . .”

“Yes?”

“I might be able to make some. Detcord is nothing more than a thin plastic tube filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate. I think I can improvise something with the supplies I have in my lab.”

“Am I hearing you right, Professor? Are you telling me that you can build us a bomb?”

The professor nodded. “I suppose I am.”

“And will you?” asked Tanner.

“You haven’t really given me any choice now, have you?”

CHAPTER

23

Mason figured that a man with a knife at his throat would say absolutely anything to get it removed. Before the knife’s impression had even faded from the skin, however, rational thought would begin to take over. If he hadn’t already, Jimmy would soon realize that tossing his lot in with a single outlaw was a surefire way to find himself dangling from Alex’s rope. And, once he came to that obvious conclusion, he would rat Mason out faster than wiseguy Joe “The Ear” Massino.

That didn’t mean that Jimmy couldn’t be useful, however. On the contrary, he would almost certainly draw Alex’s forces to the bridge, hopefully giving Mason time to get in and out before they realized that they had been played.

He sprinted southeast, paralleling Liberty Street. Most of the area was heavily wooded and undeveloped, and he saw only the occasional small house. He ran for about a third of a mile before coming to a large thoroughfare. He couldn’t remember the name of the road but knew that if he turned north, he would run directly into the courthouse. The cemetery was only a couple of blocks from there.