Authors: Stephen Coonts
To his credit, Orrin Jonat knew when he was beaten. He spoke loudly: “Hold your fire, men. No shooting. Now back UP-WAS
The spokesman led the way through the door. He paused inside and looked at the bodies arranged in rows on the floor as people swarmed in behind him. Then he looked at the prisoners shackled to the wall. He motioned to his companions and they started forward.
Toad Tarkington was making a list of the dead from the information on their dogtags when the civilians came through the door, and now he positioned himself between the obvious leader and the prisoners. “Stop right there,” he shouted. “Not another fucking step, buddy.”
“Get out of the way.” The man spoke calmly but with an air of authority. The crowd surged past the man who faced Toad. Men, women, old people, they just kept coming.
Toad reached inside his coat and drew a pistol. He pointed it at the man in front of him and cocked the hammer.
“I can’t shoot everybody, Jack, but I can sure as hell shoot you. Now stop these people or I blow your head clean off.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something coming. He pulled the trigger just as the lights went out.
Jake Grafton stood in the third-level concourse listening. He was in total darkness, a spot so black he couldn’t even see his hands. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he could hear.
Some background noise from over toward the armory, but in here, nothing. Quiet as King Tuts tomb. He opened his eyes and felt his way along the wall. Ahead he could see the glow where a ramp along the exterior wall
came up. He paused. He would be an excellent target when he entered that faint glow. If there were anyone around.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, then moved forward.
Up a level. He would climb up a level.
Five minutes had passed since that second shot had spanged into the seat beside him as he scurried up the stairs for the safety of the tunnel. Too long. He should have moved more than the hundred yards he had come.
He should have set up an ambush. As long as this guy doesn’t know where I am, Jake told himself, I’ve got the Advantage.
But there was the ramp. Should he go for it or stay here?
His mouth was dry. He licked his lips and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Okay. To do it or not? The entrance to the ramp was only fifteen yards or so away.
He went for it as fast as he could. He rounded the corner
and halted with his back against the wall, breathing hard. w Then he heard it. A faint laugh. v Someone laughing!
“This is really too easy. You’re not using your head, mister.”
Jake ran up the ramp. As hard and fast as he could go. He came out on the top level and trotted along the concourse. After about a minute had passed he found a real dark spot and came to a halt. He stood there gripping the rifle tightly with both hands and listening.
Ambush. He needed to find a spot. Needed to sit and let this psycho come to him. Needed to wait if it took all night. But where?
He kept going. Fifty yards further along he came to 4mother place where two ramps came up from below. There seemed to be more light than usual. Aha, the armory was down there and the emergency lights in the parking area conWere reflecting up here. Jake looked around. If he went along this corridor to the north, he could look back this way. If and whenbang.
His mind made up, he went down the corridor seventy 513
five feet or so and lay down against the exterior concourse wall, facing back toward the ramp area.
Of course his back was vulnerable, but if the sniper came that way, he would hear him coming. Maybe. The main thing was to stay put and stay quiet.
Who was this sniper, anyway? Could he be Charon? Naw, Charon was an assassin, out to shoot the big trophy cats. He wouldn’t waste a bullet on a mouse.
Toad Tarkington was spinning. He was sitting in a cockpit of a violently spinning airplane and the Gs were pushing him forward out of the seat. The altimeter was unwinding at a sickening rate. He couldn’t raise his arms or move. His eyes were redding out and he could feel the pain of the blood pooling in his head. Spinning viciously, violently, dying …
He opened his eyes. He was looking into the face of Jack Yocke.
Yocke pried open an eyelid and looked with interest. “You’re going to be okay, I think. Your head’s as hard as a brick. If I were you I wouldn’t try to sit up yet though.”
“What happened?”
“Well, a man hit you on the head with an ax handle. And you shot a man, fellow named Tom Shannon.”
“He dead?”
“No. You got him in the shoulder. He’s sitting right here beside you. If you turn your head you can visit with him.”
Toad tried. The pain shot through his head so badly he felt himself going out again. He lay absolutely still and the feeling passed.
After a moment he opened his eyes and swiveled his head a millimeter, then another. Yocke was applying a bandage to a man who was naked from the waist up. They were on the floor of the armory bay.
Toad held his head and turned it. All the prisoners were gone. The three of them were the only ones in the whole room. “How long I been out?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes. Something like that.”
n you, Yocke.”
“Hey, Toad.” The reporter came over and stared down at biin. “You could have killed Shannon.”
“If he was the asshole in front, I was trying to. I’m damn I d sorry
Yocke looked tired. “I didn’t know you were carrying a pistol under that coat.” ‘I told you, being around Grafton, you gotta . “Lie still. You probably have a concussion.” .ea.gj-every rk Reporter jerk. Spectator. was Toad tried to sit. The effort nauseated him and made him so dizzy he had to steady himself with his hands on the floor.
When he opened his eyes he was looking straight at Shannon. “So you took ‘em, huh? We’ll get ‘em back. Those fucking dirtballs won’t get away with killing soldiers and all that shit just because a damn mob turns ‘em loose.”
Shannon just stared at him.
Yocke came over and used his fingers to part the hair on the back of Toad’s head. He looked carefully. “You got a real bad goose egg, Toad.”
“We’ll find those assholes, Shannon, even if we have to flood this damn town and comb all the rats with a wire brush.”
“Toad,” Yocke said gently. “They didn’t let those people go- $1
Toad Tarkington gaped. It didn’t compute. He looked again at the maintenance bays where the prisoners had been held. It was empty. “What d’ya mean?”
“They didn’t turn them loose, Toad. They’re hanging them. All of them.”
By some ironic quirk of fate, they brought Sweet Cherry Lane to the same light pole where they were hanging T. Jefferson Brody.
“Bitch, cunt, nigger slut! I hope we end up in the same furnace in hell so I can kick the shit out of you for a million years!”
The man in front of him put the noose around his neck
while two women and two men held his arms. He struggled. They couldn’t do this to him! He was a remember of the bar!
“I got money. I’ll pay you to let me go. Please! For God’s sake.”
He could feel the noose tightening as eight people in front of him pulled the rope. Holy shit! It was going to happen! They were really going to do it.
T. Jefferson Brody peed his pants.
Sweet Cherry Lane was standing there silently, watching him, as two men held her arms immobile and a third draped a noose around her neck.
“Why?” he croaked at her. “Why did Freeman Mcationally protect you?”
“I’m his half-sister,” she said.
Before he could reply the people holding his arms let go and the rope around his neck lifted him clear of the ground He grabbed the rope and held on with both hands as it elevated him higher and higher and the merciless pressure on his neck began to strangle him. He was kicking wildly which caused him to spin slowly, first one way, then the other. His vision faded. Can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t …
He heard a step. Lying there against the curved wall, he could hear a soft sound, followed by another. The sounds weren’t like leather heels clicking on a wooden floor, but like something soft brushing against something that … The sound carried well against the wall. They were footsteps. That was all they could be.
Jake Grafton tightened his grip on the rifle and thumbed the safety off. He had it pointed at the ramp opening. As soon as this dude stepped into that square of faint light …
Another step. He was coming slowly, methodically, step by step. But how far away was he? How far would sounds carry around this curved concrete wall? Maybe a hundred yards, he speculated. Maybe twice that. Naw. Fifty was more like it. The steps paused, then resumed. He’s coming.
Sweat dripped into Jake’s eyes but he didn’t move. He merely blinked and tried to ignore the stinging. . I Suddenly he realized what a damn poor position he had chosen. He should have picked the doorway to a rest room to lie in, something that would have allowed him to look both ways. For the thought came in all its horror that the man he sought was probably behind him in the darkness. Jake started to turn around.
“No, friend,” the voice said softly. “Just hold it right there.
Jake froze.
“Well, we had ourselves a nice little hunt, didn’t we? We stalked and stalked and now we are at the end.”
“You’ll never get away, Charon.” The man laughed. “I’ll outlive you by quite a while.”
He was behind Jake. But which side of the concourse? Probably near the exterior wall or his footsteps wouldn’t have carried so well.
Jake tried to decide what to do. He knew to the depths of his soul that anything he tried would be futile. But he couldn’t let this guy just shoot him like a dog! If he spun, he would have to rise to his knees and swing the rifle.
Jake thumbed the selector to full automatic fire. He turned his head, looking.
“You’re thinking about turning and trying a shot, aren’t you? Go ahead. I’ll put the first one up your ass.”
“Who hired you?”
Another soft laugh. “Would you believe I never asked? I don’t know.” “How much did they pay you?”
“A lot of money. And you know something funny? I do believe I would have done it for nothing.” Another chuckle.
The next time the guy spoke. While he was speaking Jake would spin and let this guy have a magazine-full of hot lead. “You really don’t have to kill me, do you? You’ve had your fun. “That’s an interesting-was A burst of gunfire strobed the corridor. Jake had just
rted to spin. He completed the maneuver and flopped with the rifle aimed into the darkness in front of him. n the silence that followed he heard something soft and h fall to the concrete. And he heard a sigh. “Captain, don’t shoot! It’s me.” Rita! He got up slowly, almost falling. Then a light came on. She had a small flashlight and she was shining it down on Henry Charon. He lay on his back, the rifle just out of reach of his right hand.
Jake walked up and stood looking down. He kept his rifle pointed at Charon and his finger on the trigger. “How … ?” Charon said. He had been hit in the chest by at least three bullets. The red stain was spreading rapidly.
Rita seemed to understand. She flashed the light on her feel. They were bare. “I took my shoes off.”
When she put the light back on Charon’s face he was grinning. Then he died. The smile faded as the muscles went slack.
Jake bent down and felt for Charon’s pulse. He straightened slowly. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.
Rita extinguished the penlight. Together they walked along the concourse toward the light.
The bodies hung from every pole. Jake Grafton stared trying to comprehend. Some poles had one, some had two” But they all hung lifelessly, stirring only as the cold night breeze moved them.
Inside the armory he found the soldiers gathered around Toad Tarkington, who was sitting on the concrete floor nursing his head. Jack Yocke was beside him talking to a civilian.
diseaally want anything in the paper about why you did it, Tom? You know they’ll try you for a dozen felonies, perhaps even a dozen murders?”
The middleaged, balding black man sitting on the floor was being worked on by a medic.
The man on the floor ignored the audience. He stared blankly. “Will you write it true? Write it the way I say?”
“You know I will. You’ve read my stuff.”
“The Jefferson projects. You remember Yocke nodded. Oh yes, he remembered. The murder of Jane Wilkens by a crack dealer running from the cops. Another life lost to the crack business. “Jane,” he said.
“Yeah. Jane.” Shannon took a deep breath and grimaced at the pain. “It was my idea. We’re all victims. We all lost wmbody-a son, daughter, wife, maybe even our own souls. We lost because we expected someone to fight the evil for us and we waited and waited and they never did. Oh, they talked, but…”
He lifted his good hand and pleaded, “Don’t you see, if we don’t fight evil, we become evil. If you ain’t part of the solution you’re part of the problem-it’s that simple. So we decided to take a stand, all of us victims.
“Then this terrorist stuff started. And the dopers started looting and shooting and trying to wipe out their competition so they could have a competitive advantage when it was all over.
“Now I tell you this, Jack Yocke, and you gotta write it just like this: I hope the talkers try me. I hope I get prosecuted. The people who don’t want to be victims anymore will see how it has to be. We can’t wait for George Bush or Dan Quayle or the hot-air artists. We can’t wait for the police. We have to take our stand.
“I’ve taken mine. You kill my woman, you kill my kids, don’t hide behind the law “cause it ain’t big enough. Justice will be done! Right will be done. There are just enough people like me. Just enough. You’ll see.” The medic finished and spread a blanket on a stretcher. Four men lifted the wounded man onto it.
“I’m not good with words,” the man told Yocke. “I never had much education. But I know right from wrong and
I know which side I’m on. I’ve planted my feet. am.
“What can one man do?” Jack Yocke asked.
,.lead an army, part the Red Sea, convert the world. Maybe not me. But here I stand until the world takes its place beside me.” The medics carried him away.