Dawn of the Mad (27 page)

“What the fuck do you two want?” Cyrus asked absentmindedly.

A tall, lanky biker pulled a chair from the kitchen and faced it backwards before sitting down. A rectangular patch on the front of his cut read, “SGT AT ARMS.” The other one took a seat at the end of the couch.

“I will tell you what I want. First off, you can’t admit new members without a club majority vote. This guy could be a Fed, for all we know, and you just let him in.”

“Is that all?” Cyrus responded calmly.

“No, and you letting him onto our score. That was supposed to be kept quiet. Who knows who he might tell?”

Cyrus leaned forward and extinguished his joint into an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied in days. He sat back against the couch, interlocked his fingers behind his head, and let out a large sigh.

“OK, listen, Skinny. I know what you are saying, but I think we have an opportunity here.” Cyrus removed a Marlboro Red from a pack from his shirt pocket and lit it. “This guy ain’t no Fed. He’s fucking insane. He was shot and stabbed, for Christ’s sake, and there’s hardly a mark on him. He can take the heat.” He took a long drag and continued. “This score Dean put me onto is going to set us straight for a long time. But there’s a reason I have only you and Randy on it. I know I can trust you. We were part of the original five. Shit, we did four years together in Huntsville.”

Skinny bowed his head and rubbed the back of it, and Randy nodded solemnly. “Yeah, we have seen some shit,” Randy said.

“Do you trust me?” Cyrus asked.

Skinny raised his head and looked Cyrus directly in his eyes. “You’re my brother, man. I trust you, but—” His voice trailed off slightly. “Sometimes I question the direction you are taking the club in. I mean, we don’t know this guy. He isn’t normal, man.”

Cyrus leaned forward and put his hand on Skinny’s shoulder. “You gotta trust me on this one. This guy is crazy, and if we keep him high and drunk he will take the fall or get wasted. That’s why I originally had those two other prospects in. But damn, why waste two prospects when we have this guy? He’s an animal, and when we get the score, I’ll put a bullet in his head personally.” Cyrus stood up and looked at Randy. “Are we good?”

Randy looked at Skinny nodding in the affirmative. “Yeah, we’re good man, but good luck putting him down with one bullet.” The two bikers stood up and gave each other a quick embrace. Cyrus stood up, and Skinny embraced him as well.

“I’m good,” Skinny said. “The club is going to ask questions, though. We can’t let on he is in the club, prospect or not. You know they will get pissed if we made a decision without a club vote.”

Cyrus lit another cigarette. “I’ll handle the club. As far as he knows, he’s in. He ain’t gonna be around long enough to earn a cut. You guys just get everything prepped. Tell Melvin and Notch they ain’t goin’ on this run with us. Don’t tell them why.”

“I’ll handle the prospects,” Randy said.

“When the time comes, I’ll take care of him. You have my word,” Cyrus said.

Mozart’s Symphony 40 in G Minor filled the interior of the Mercedes. Dr. Keitel took no notice of the flashing red and blue lights behind him until an amplified voice brought him out his trance.

“Black Mercedes, pull over. This is the Highway Patrol, pull over now.”

“Oh my.” Dr. Keitel quickly pressed the brake and eased the Mercedes onto the shoulder of the interstate. He looked out of the rearview mirror and watched a policeman inside a cruiser wearing a curious looking hat talk into a handheld radio. After a few moments, he exited the car. A spotlight was turned on, briefly blinding the doctor. He cursed silently under his breath and quickly palmed a scalpel from a bag of equipment on the seat next to him, concealing it under his right thigh. The trooper approached the Mercedes and tapped on the glass. After a moment of looking for the right button, Dr. Keitel lowered the driver’s side window.

“Texas state trooper, sir. I clocked you doing 89 in a 55. License and registration please.” The state trooper rested his right hand on his holstered pistol, and his left hand skimmed a flashlight over the back seat.

Dr. Keitel made a pretense of looking through Dr. Jewell’s wallet. “I— I’m sorry. I seem to have lost my license. I know I had it yesterday.”

“How about the registration, sir?” The State Trooper asked.

Registration. Dr. Keitel considered this. He had Dr. Jewell’s wallet, but his identity card had his picture on it. That wouldn’t work. He thought about the glove box. The gate opener for the apartment was in there, and he had seen a bunch of papers. He reached forward and opened the glove box, retrieving a black folder. He opened it and showed it to the trooper.

“OK, that’s your insurance, and that is your registration. Are you James Jewell?”

“Yes, I am,” Dr. Keitel replied nervously.

“OK. Sit tight. I’ll be right back.” The trooper turned off his flashlight and began to walk back to his car. His head was down as he checked the registration.
Probably just some rich old fart out for a joy ride
. He didn’t hear Dr. Keitel quietly open the driver’s side door and step out. Passing traffic, coupled with his dispatcher talking to other troopers in the area, provided enough background noise that he didn’t hear the approach of the man behind him. Dr. Keitel pressed the scalpel into the palm of his hand and moved quickly. In one quick motion, he reached around the trooper’s neck and sliced from ear to ear. The sharp blade cut easily through the carotid artery and into the trachea. The trooper dropped the papers and fell to his knees, choking on his own blood. Dr. Keitel watched him struggle, holding his neck with both hands as his blood poured out. Within seconds he ceased his struggle and fell face forward on the asphalt. Dr. Keitel quickly dragged the trooper’s body off the shoulder of the interstate. Fortunately, no passing vehicles had slowed down or stopped, and he figured he had not been observed. He removed the trooper’s pistol from its holster and quickly climbed back into Mercedes. The trooper’s dash-mounted camera recorded the black Mercedes spinning its tires and merging back onto the interstate.

CHAPTER 24

Roman sat at the weathered dining room table, eating a peanut butter sandwich while holding a half-quart carton of milk. “You guys picking anything up?”

Corporal Scotts looked up from his terminal and removed the headphones from his head. “Nothing. It’s been two days, and the activity has been minimal. Matthias and the captain have been unsuccessful as well. The junkyard has been sealed off. It’s as if our target has vanished.”

Roman finished his sandwich and took a pull from the milk carton. “A guy like that doesn’t stay quiet for long.”

From downstairs, the colonel yelled, “I’m going back to the shuttle to report. I might be a while. Raus was letting me have it last time telling me it was taking too long. I fear that if we don’t find our alien, we will be forced to leave. He is taking a tremendous risk staying in his position. It’s a matter of time before he is discovered.”

Scotts got up from his chair. “I’ll prep the trans-mat,” he replied.

“No, I can get it. Just find our target,” the colonel said as he headed up the stairs.

Scotts nodded and sat back down.

Roman set his milk down on the table and picked up the headphones, putting them on his head. Familiar police and fire traffic could be heard. He took keen interest in a series of police transmissions involving multiple codes; a robbery in progress, shots fired, and an officer down flooded the net. Roman recognized the locations as not too far away. He got up and looked at the voice communicator that Corporal Scotts used to talk with Sergeant Matthias or whoever else was in the Ford doing scanner sweeps for the alien. He spoke into the transmitter.

“Hey, does anybody read me on this?”

“This is Cruwell. Is that you, Johnny?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“You may want to check your position. There is some heavy activity up your way. Sounds like a bank robbery or something. Our guy might be involved. It seems like his style, a lot of shooting that seems excessive for a typical bank robbery in this area.”

The voice transmission replied, “OK. Do you have an exact location?”

“Stand by; I’ll try to get a location for you.”

Roman put the headset on and listened for a moment. He picked up the voice communicator again. “It’s a bank at the intersection of Anderson Road and Marsh Lane.

“Yeah, OK, I got it. I see it on the holomap. We aren’t too far away. Ask Scotts to patch the radio traffic through to us.”

Scotts begin to type feverishly on his portable computer terminal, patching into the computer on their orbiting ship which was in a sense acting like a satellite. He immediately brought up a live 3-D schematic of the bank, outlined in green against the black screen. Red squares representing cars drove up and down the street. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Scotts pointed to a larger red square, possible representing a small van or truck parked directly outside the front door of the bank. Now Roman could see orange and yellow heat signatures of three people running to the van from the bank. More red green shapes started to pull into the bank parking lot. Now Roman could see orange flashes pulsing intermittently towards the direction of the smaller shapes.

“Gunfire?” Roman asked.

“A lot of it from what I’m seeing,” replied Scotts. “You receiving this Matthias?” he asked through the headset.

“That’s a good copy,” Matthias replied. “Enlarge your image and look at the back of the larger vehicle. That may be our alien.”

Roman and Scotts looked closer to the back of the larger vehicle and saw pulsing red flashes, with much faster frequency than the others. “Definitely a larger caliber weapon,” said Scotts. He typed a command into the terminal keyboard, enlarging the image. Roman immediately knew what he was looking at.

“He has no heat signature, just a black outline.” Roman sat back in his chair and let a deep breath. That guy is not right.”

By now the image began to show the vehicle moving in the parking lot, the volume of fire increasing. Within seconds it broke through the perimeter the other smaller vehicles had attempted to set up.

“Matthias you better hold back. There is too much firepower out there.”

“Copy that, get some heavier weapons and meet us. We will take him out together.”

Roman was already loading shells into his shotgun. “Let’s get this asshole,” he said grimly.

CHAPTER 25

The white van was filled with cigarette smoke as it circled the block for the third time. Skinny was keeping an eye out for the cops and the armored car in case it was early for the pickup. Randy, Cyrus, and Reaper were in the back loading bullets into magazines and checking the actions on their rifles.

“Skinny,” Cyrus said, “idle the van out front. If you see any heat before three minutes, hit the horn.” Cyrus fastened his bullet proof vest and put a plain black leather jacket on over it.

Skinny nodded as he parked the windowless cargo van outside the bank. The bank had just opened, but it already had a lot of customers inside.

“Lock and load,” Cyrus said. “Try not to shoot any civilians if you can avoid it. Dean said there are always two security guards on site when they have drops. Take those fuckers out first, they will be armed. I’ll get the key from the manager. Reaper is going to stay by the door with the machine gun. He will keep the cops off of us if they get too close. Randy, you watch my back and sack up the cash. The insider is a woman, and she is supposed to have a tattoo on her right arm of a dragon. Skinny, keep an eye out for the armored cars; they should be here soon for the pickup. We should be long gone before they get here. Everyone clear?”

The crew nodded, save for Reaper. He was busy loading an ammunition belt into his M-249. His hands worked expertly, even though he could not recall ever having working with this kind of weaponry.

“All right, let’s get it on!” Cyrus shouted.

Each of the men but one pulled a black ski mask over his face. With the exception of Cyrus and Reaper, they each wore a Vietnam-era military flak jacket, covered with extra ammunition magazines they had duct taped on. The crew burst out of the back of the van, straight into the bank. Once through the front door, Randy leveled his AK-47 and immediately shot the first security guard point blank with a three-round burst. The other guard drew his revolver and fired, missing the robbers and striking the front door glass, which spiderwebbed but did not shatter.

“Get him!” Randy yelled.

Cyrus opened up with his AK-47 and dropped the guard with one shot to the head causing the busy bank to erupt into screams and frantic yelling from the customers and employees. Most of the people inside were on the ground for safety. Randy jumped on top of the teller counter, firing two rounds into the ceiling.

“Nobody moves!” yelled Randy. “We don’t want to kill anybody else. We’re just here for the money. Cooperate and you’ll live to see your families and all that bullshit!” After completing his announcement, Randy jumped behind the teller counter. A pale-skinned woman with black lipstick and black eyeliner was sitting down in a desk chair, apparently not too frightened. She deftly moved the sleeve of her blouse just a bit for Randy to see the dragon tattoo hidden underneath her sleeve.