Tumultus (42 page)

“So, do you know who I am?”

The three Muslims silently stared back at the godfather. 

“This is my home.  I built this place, and I loved it enough to destroy much of it today because it meant destroying you.  That’s how much I hate everything about you Muslim fanatic bastards.  Ever since you were brought here, you’ve done nothing but inflict pain and violence on everyone else.  You’ve raped and murdered, and you do it according to your twisted up hateful interpretation of religion. You do it all in the name of your god.  And don’t tell me you’re one of the innocents, because I know better.  YOU, the one in the middle, do you know how I know better?”

The Muslim who the godfather addressed shook his head.

“No, I am simply following orders, from Vancouver.  You would do well to let us go.  I have powerful friends.  They will avenge me.”

The godfather tilted his head to the left and smiled back at the bandit.

“You hear that, Marcini?  He comes here to kill us all, and now he threatens us to let him go.  He has
powerful friends
huh?  Is that right?  I tell you what, how about I let the two others here go while you remain here with me?  You wanna talk about avenging?  How about we deal with you and what you did to some friends of ours.  A certain family…a wife and husband, and their kids.  How about we do
that
?”

The taller bandit glanced down briefly before quickly shaking his head from side to side.

“No, you are confused.  I am not who you think I am.  I don’t know what you are speaking of.  I did nothing to such people.  I would not harm children.  I did not harm those three children.”

The godfather lifted the shotgun and placed it directly in front of the Muslim bandit’s face, his voice responding to the bandit in a low, almost whispered tone.

“How’d you know it was three children?”

The godfather then glanced at the remaining two men who stood on either side of the bandit who was filmed killing the Wilkinson family.

“You two – get going.  Go back to whatever hole it is you crawled from and tell them what you saw here today.  You mess with me, I am gonna do the same a thousand times over back on you.  You tell them to leave us the hell alone.  And leave Alaska alone while you’re at it, capisce?”

The two bandits who were given permission to leave, turned and ran without looking back, leaving the godfather looking at the last one, the one with the scar on his face.  The one who had personally cut off the heads of Gerald and Kate Wilkinson.

“That leaves you.  Killer of innocent families.  Rapist.  All around piece of shit animal.  So what to do with you huh?  I tell you what – I got three rounds in this shotgun here.  I’m gonna kill you slow, but not as slow as you killed that family in that cabin.”

The bandit’s eyes noticeably widened.

“Oh yeah, you remember now, don’t you?  You taped it.  You wanted us to see it, right?  Made threats against all of us. That was you alright.  Got that ugly scar there, kind of your calling card, huh?  So like I was saying - got three rounds.  Gonna pump all three into you, but it’s gonna be slow.  I’m going to think on it a bit.  I want you to think on it too.  I want you to think on what you’ve done.  The innocent people you’ve killed, all the shit that has been your miserable existence for so long now.  And then I’m sending you to hell.  You see, I believe in God too.  The real deal God, the one who judges scum like you.  The one that don’t much care for religions that twist up His words, or go out and purposely kill others for not believing that twisted shit you call your religion.  In my religion, we got Old Testament and New Testament.  Today…well today you’re getting the Old Testament version.”

The godfather fired the first round at close range into the lower portion of the Muslim bandit’s groin, ripping through the area and leaving it a tattered, bleeding mess.  The man was thrown backwards into the dirt, his hands reaching down for something no longer there, his screams echoing across the broken streets and bombed buildings of Wilfrid.

“Stand him back up.”

Marcini and two others grabbed the bandit by the arms and pulled him back to his feet.  The Muslim was whimpering, begging for his life to be spared.  The godfather looked back at him with cold disdain, the corners of his mouth turning downward.

“Oh, now you ain’t so tough, huh?  Where are the threats, the promises of being avenged?  And look at you!  There’s nothing left of you down there!  Just a bloody hole!  Guess you won’t be raping any more children now, will you?  I got two more rounds though…this journey of yours ain’t done just yet.”

The second shotgun blast was aimed at the bandit’s right shoulder.  The impact of the shot tore through muscle and bone, causing the man’s arm to fall off and hit the ground.  The Muslim looked down at his appendage in shock, his mind grappling to reason what his eyes were telling him had just happened.  The hand spasmed several times, its fingers opening and closing before it finally ceased moving.

“Well look at that!  What an amazing thing the human body is.  Looked to me like that hand was damn happy to no longer be a part of the rest of you!  Guess that’s easy enough to understand, considering all the sick shit you’ve done.”

The bandit had fallen to his knees, his one remaining hand propping himself up from falling completely over.

“That leaves one more round.  One more time for you.  Can you hear the seconds just ticking away now?  I wonder if that’s what the father whose head you cut off with that dirty little knife felt?  You took your time cutting him up, didn’t you?  More time than I’ve taken here.  I’ve given you more mercy today than you deserve, much-much more.  God ain’t gonna be so merciful.  There’s not gonna be a hundred virgins waiting for you in some after-life, or whatever other bullshit you pigs tell yourself to justify the shit you do.  No, you’re gonna meet up with some real judgment very soon now.  Tick-tock-tick-tock, your time here is all up.”

The third round was pointed directly under the bandit’s jaw.  The shotgun blast tore through the neck, ripping the head with almost surgical precision from the body.

“Take this thing out miles from here and dump it.  Let some wolf or bear come across it and eat it up and shit it out.  At least then it can serve some kind of purpose.”

The godfather looked back to survey the remnants of Wilfrid, the town he had built up over the years that now lay in near ruin, destroyed so that it may survive.

“Contact the new government in Alaska.  Tell them they don’t have a Muslim invasion problem to worry about anymore, at least not any time soon.  And tell the others to come back to town.  We got work to do.  We start rebuilding today.”

XL.

Dublin had lost track of how long they had been on the train.  It had to have been at least ten hours, possibly longer.  The route had taken them high up into a mountain pass, where the limbs of massive trees reached out like arms that gently brushed the sides of the train as it sped past them.  There were dilapidated tunnels, several bridges, and a number of hairpin turns that left Dublin’s stomach momentarily shifting uncomfortably inside of her.

And still the train sped down the tracks, hour after hour after hour.

Mac woke but once during that time.  He raised himself up from his seat and smiled warmly back at Dublin while running a hand along Brando’s neck.  The Doberman had not left his place at Mac’s feet since the trip had resumed following the conflict with the Muslim bandits. 

Cooper Wyse also spent several hours sleeping away, the brim of his cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes in the manner the rest of the group had become so accustomed to seeing him do.  He did take a moment to look outside from time to time in an attempt to estimate both the train’s speed and their current location. 

“Managing to run at about thirty miles an hour going through the pass.  Not bad.  I would guess we’re about two hours from Dawson Creek, assuming that’s where the Russian is heading.”

Reese sat next to Dublin holding her hand as both of them glanced several times back at the sleeping figure of Mac Walker.  Without speaking of it, they both sensed how concerned the other was for Mac’s condition.  While his breathing seemed to have smoothed out some, his skin had an odd, whitish pallor to it that they had never seen, and his eyes seemed to have retreated further into his skull.  It was Mac’s eyes that bothered Dublin the most, for they were now communicating something back to her that she had never seen from Mac Walker – fear.

As the train reached the apex of the mountain pass and began to make its way downhill, its speed increased considerably, so much so that it awoke Cooper who again looked out a window to estimate their speed.

“Maybe fifty, even sixty miles an hour.  Be to Dawson in no time now.”

The rancher stood up and placed his hands against the small of his back and stretched to the left and then to the right.  He walked over to Brando and leaned down to scratch behind the dog’s ears before standing back up and looking over at Dublin and Reese.

‘Mind if I sit a spell with you two?”

Reese was the first to answer.

“Sure, Coop – c’mon over.”

The rancher took the seat next to Reese and stretched out his legs in front of him, taking a brief moment to gather his thoughts before he spoke.

“So what do you think the weapon is this priest is supposed to have all the way up there in Churchill?”

Reese crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back slightly.

“Not sure.  Maybe some new kind of gun that that can be quickly replicated to shoot the drones down?”

Dublin shook her head as her eyes continued to watch the trees speed past the windows of the passenger car.

“No…I think it’s something more than that.  Bigger.”

Cooper Wyse glanced over at Dublin, his eyebrows raising slightly.

“Nuclear?”

It was Reese who shook his head.

“No way. No way the New United Nations lets a nuke sit out there somewhere without going after it.  Can’t be that.  A nuclear weapon would give off a signature, the surveillance drones would pick it up.  They couldn’t hide something like that.”

“There’s no drones in Canada.  Not many anyway.  And probably not any all the way up in Churchill.  Might be why that’s the location we are heading.”

Dublin made a good point, causing Reese to reconsider his just spoken position on the subject of hiding a nuclear weapon from the authorities.

“It ain’t a nuke.  Whatever it is – it ain’t that.”

Mac raised himself into a sitting position and looked back at Dublin, Reese, and Cooper.

“The globalists despise nuclear weapons.  Nuclear power.  Always have.  From day one, they’ve worked to eliminate them.  Not because it was the right thing to do, but separate nations with their own nuclear arsenals would prevent the move toward globalization.  It’s why back in 2009, 2010, there was such a mad push for disarmament.  It’s why the globalists despised and feared Reagan so much – his whole “peace through strength” position was the antithesis of the one government for all concept the globalists clung so strongly to.

“Sure, they used those little dirty bombs taken from Libya to create panic and disorder, make almost everyone hope for some kind of central authority to make it all better…but after that, the New United Nations spent all kinds of resources shutting down every nuclear program in the world.  The Saudis had been pushing for that for decades, and they finally had their way.  I’m with Reese – whatever is waiting for us up in Churchill, it isn’t some kind of nuclear weapon.”

Cooper Wyse grinned back at Mac.

“For a man who just woke up, you sure have a lot to say.”

The train’s speed began to slow down again as the screeching of the locomotive’s brakes were being applied.  Cooper stood up and walked toward a window, peering out into the late afternoon landscape outside.  At the same time he was doing that, Bear’s legs could be seen passing by that same window as he made his way to the back of the passenger car.