Bad Penny (17 page)
Authors: John D. Brown
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Kidnapping, #Organized Crime, #Vigilante Justice, #Military, #Spies & Politics, #Conspiracies, #Thrillers
Two of the snow machines were red; one was blue. The red ones looked like aggressive insects. Their seats were short, just enough for one person; however, the flat aluminum chassis the seat rested on stretched out behind another couple of feet. It was long to make it easier to climb steep inclines. But it was also good for loading gear when going on a mountain tour. Perfect for loading a bundle of kids. The blue snowmobile was a two-seater, complete with heated passenger grips that rose up on either side of the back seat. Three helmets with face shields hung on the wall.
The Gorozas obviously liked their snow. Or maybe they’d stolen the machines and were storing them here until they could find a fence. Frank hopped onto one of the red insectile machines and unscrewed the gas cap. He rocked the snowmobile a bit. The dark contents sloshed and blinked in the wan light.
On the wall just inside the side-entry door hung a key ring with four small keys of the type used for padlocks. Someone had slipped colored rubber covers over the round key heads. Two were black and two were green. Frank took the keys outside to the front of the trailer and tried them on the padlocks holding the front door. The green ones opened the locks. He tossed the padlocks to the ground, unlatched the bars, and swung them out of the way. The door was fairly heavy, but it would have to be somewhat sturdy to bear the weight of a snowmobile and its passenger. He guided the door partway down, then let the top edge drop with a thump and crunch onto the gravel floor. It made a nice ramp, built out of wood with five long, black traction blocks running across the length at spaced intervals to keep the snow machine from just sliding down.
Tony called in from outside. “I see a dust trail! It’s coming our way. Can’t tell if it’s a car or truck.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know,” Tony said. “It’s a ways out there. The dust trail is two or three miles out. Could be going anywhere.”
“Keep an eye on it,” Frank called back.
These were higher-end models that didn’t have a pull cord start like a lawn mower. These had keys, which were in the keyholes. Frank pulled up the red kill switch knob on the right grip and turned the key. The snowmobile coughed a few times, then started right up, spitting out exhaust. He softly pressed the accelerator lever on the right grip with his thumb, and the snowmobile moved forward. He drove it down the ramp, across the garage floor, then out into the yard. He left it idling and went back for the second. It too started up after a few coughs, and he drove it down the ramp and out onto the sunlit gravel.
The dust trail in the distance was closer now. It was made by two vehicles. The one in the lead was a pickup he didn’t recognize. The other, eating the pickup’s dust, was a white panel van, just like the one that had brought him here. Frank figured they were two, maybe three minutes out. He yelled for Tony and Carmen to come over, then ran back for the third machine.
The blue two-passenger took a little longer to start than the others. When he finally got it going, he gave it a bit too much gas and almost careened off the ramp, but he righted it, made his way down the ramp, through the barn, and out into the yard.
The three machines idled, rumbling with the pitch of dirt bikes. Frank spoke to the oldest girl. “Three of you behind Tony; the other two behind Carmen.” He didn’t want anyone behind him because he might have to run some interference.
Carmen looked down at the snowmobile with a bit of apprehension.
Frank pointed at the speedometer. “Keep it under forty miles per hour.”
“I’ve never driven one,” Carmen said.
Frank feathered the accelerator and the snowmobile moved forward a couple of feet. “Just push this lever to make it go.” He gripped the brake on the left handle bar. “This is your brake.” He shoved the kill switch down, and the engine cut out. “Pull the knob up, then turn the key to start it. You’re going out into the field. Right through that gate at the back of the property. You keep going until you get to that house way out there. The one with the trees all around it. We’ll go from there.” The house looked small in the distance. At least five miles away.
He glanced back toward the vehicles. The truck and van were coming fast. “Get going,” he said. “And tell the girls to keep their feet on the running board well away from the track.”
Tony moved to his machine and helped two of the kids up onto the chassis behind the seat.
Frank picked up the P90. He had the Glock in his pants. They weren’t nearly enough for a shootout. So he walked back to the house. By the time he reached the back door, Tony and Carmen were loaded.
The oldest girl sat behind Tony. The two youngest sat behind her on the flat aluminum chassis. The little one in the pink pajamas was the caboose. She was clutching the girl in front of her, arms wrapped around her torso, feet in her lap. Tears still stained their faces; one looked back at the oncoming vehicles, probably thinking this very act would kill her parents.
Tony gave his machine some gas, the pitch in the motor changed, and he rolled out, the two steering skis slipping over the gravel. Carmen gave hers a bit too much gas. The snowmobile shot forward. She and the children behind her all jerked back. She braked and they jerked forward. She tried again. It still wasn’t smooth, but it was better this time, and she followed Tony to the fence and gate at the far side of the yard.
Beyond the house, the trucks were coming fast. Frank turned around and opened the back door.
15
Rusty Shooter
THE OLD STOVE in the kitchen was a gas stove, preferred by chefs everywhere. Much better control for cooking. Much better for other things as well. The candles to Santa Muerte burned in the next room and would have provided an ironic ignition, but propane was denser than air, which meant the gas would spread out like water until it found the stairway leading into the basement. Then it would flow down and pool there.
Frank wanted a big pool of gas. He figured the propane would have to rise about six inches before it reached the level of the furnace pilot light. He figured a six inch pool that was about 900 square feet would do. He turned the knobs on all four burners to full. The gas hissed loudly, a nice heavy flow. The stinking odorant filled his nostrils.
He remembered the extra magazine for the P90 that Stumpy had dropped in the living room. He retrieved it, then walked back through the kitchen and the stinking propane to the back door. He secured it and walked down the steps, the screen door banging behind him.
The trucks were still coming, sending up huge trails of dust.
If things worked out, Frank would send up his own smoke signal for help. If not, he’d just have to trust his guns out there in the fields where he’d be a sitting duck.
Frank walked over to his snowmobile, which was still obediently idling. He made sure the Glock was secured in the back of his waistband. He wedged the submachine gun between his legs, placed the extra empty magazine in the small storage compartment, then pressed the throttle with his thumb. The motor revved up, the track studs bit in, crunching the gravel, and the snowmobile moved forward.
A lot of places held annual snowmobile drag races on short grass. He didn’t know how these machines would run out in the tall grass of the field, but it seemed Tony and Carmen were doing fine. They had already opened the gate and were out in the field, cutting a path through the grass. The whine of their motors carried across the flat field as clear as a bell.
Frank drove across the yard and through the gate at the back of the property, then stopped. The two trucks on the dirt road made their last turn to the house and accelerated hard down the dirt road, the dust billowing up behind. They were a couple hundred yards away. The land was too flat for them not to have spotted the two snowmobiles trekking away from the house. Not unless they were stoned out of their minds.
Frank got off his machine, walked out to the end of the open gate, then walked the gate back to the fence and latched it closed. Forcing Ed to open the gate would add precious seconds onto their lead, and he wanted Tony and Carmen as far ahead as possible. They were already more than a hundred yards ahead of him. He straddled his seat, secured the P90 again, and pressed the accelerator hard with his thumb.
The engine whined, the studs bit in, and the snowmobile jumped forward into the thigh-high grass that slid by on either side with a hiss. Pale butterflies danced about the meadow along with bees and other bugs. The machine accelerated. The ride on the grass and hard ground was bumpy, but he pressed the accelerator down a little more. The snowmobile lunged forward, picking up speed. He hit some random grasshopper with the front of his machine, and it bounced up over the small windshield and smacked into his cheek. One of its hard spiny legs poked him, leaving a sting behind.
The field was huge, at least a mile deep, maybe more. A field made for the capacity of modern machinery. Next to it, separated by a barbed-wire fence, was another deep field. Frank looked back. The big yellow pickup rolled into the driveway and sped past the house and barn to the gate. The van emerged from the dust on the road a few seconds later and pulled in behind.
The snowmobile was doing just fine in this grass. But he suspected the yellow pickup would do better. Tony and Carmen were probably going thirty. Fast enough, but not so fast the children would bounce off. However, thirty would be nothing for the pickup. Its big wheels and suspension were made to go off-road, and the terrain here was fairly smooth, all the hard edges leveled from years of plowing and harrowing. The pickup would easily catch up.
Frank turned his snowmobile in a wide arc until he was crossways to the house. The big yellow pickup stopped at the gate. Ed got out.
Frank got off the Polaris and left it idling. He knelt behind it, alongside the track. He fetched the second ear plug out of his pocket and stuffed it in his ear. Then he snugged the P90 into his shoulder and rested his elbow on the seat to stabilize his aim.
The gadget-looking P90 was an animal between a handgun and a rifle. An average hand gun had a barrel that was around four inches in length. The M16, the standard Army issue rifle, had a barrel length of twenty inches. The P90 Frank held in his hand had a barrel just over ten inches, but it was pulled back in a bullpup configuration, which brought the action and magazine behind the trigger and alongside the shooter’s face, putting part of the gun in the stock. This meant the P90 was only twenty inches long, about the length from the end of a man’s middle finger to his elbow—a compact and deadly little thing, designed for tight spaces, designed to be easy to stash and operate in the cab of a car, a cockpit, or in a hallway. It was also designed to be shot from the left or right side without any adjustment; all the spent casings were ejected downward, not to the side.
The maximum effective range of a hand gun on a point target—the range where an average shooter could hit a human-sized target 50% of the time and cause a casualty—depended a lot on the ammo, the gun, the weather conditions, and the shooter. But on average, it was around fifty meters. The maximum effective range of the M16 was about 550 meters. The P90 Frank held had an effective range of 200 meters, about the length of two football fields.
The gate was a ways back, closer to the two footballs fields away, but Frank wasn’t an average shooter. At least, he hadn’t been in the years before his time living in concrete. He was looking at maybe a tenth of a mile, 170 yards. Maybe less. And while skills degraded without use, the pickup was a large target.
Ed opened the gate and swung it wide.
Frank couldn’t let them in. There was just too much room in this field. He took a breath, let it out, used the red dot of the reflex sights to acquire his target. Then he squeezed the trigger. There was a bang and the gun kicked. A moment later the bullet thwacked against wood. He thought he saw it hit the ancient chicken coop, which meant these sights were way off or prison had indeed put some rust on his skills. Or maybe this particular gun just wasn’t reliable at this range.
Ed spun around at the noise and drew his handgun. At 170 yards, he was as likely to hit a stray cow as he was to hit what he could see of Frank sticking above the grass.
Frank adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger again. Another bang and kick. This time the bullet smacked through the windshield, not of the truck, but of the van about five feet on the other side. Half the windshield turned white, then disappeared.
Ed yelled and waved his arms at the men with him. The driver of the pickup put his vehicle in reverse and punched it hard. The tires spun gravel all over, and he shot back past the van. The side door of the van rolled open and three guys piled out. Two of them had handguns, but the third had something much larger. The two with handguns ran behind one of the old weathered coops. One of the guys was wearing a gray and white baseball cap. The other had big hair. The third had an assault rifle and took cover behind the old rusting tractor. The driver of the van got out holding the side of his face. Ed barked at him, and the man climbed back in and backed up the van in a big J to move it out of the way.
Frank adjusted his aim, put Ed right in his sights, and squeezed again. Ed jumped, but where that third shot had gone, Frank had no idea. It probably buzzed right by Ed and continued on past the barn and house and was right now sailing over the fields. He was shooting like some friggin’ Gomer in his first day of boot camp. Back in the day, Ed would be on his back by now. Frank sighed. He wasn’t going to nail anything with this current setup unless he got closer.
Ed popped back up and ran to the pickup.
The guys behind the coops opened up. Their muzzles flashed. The guns banged. The bullets zinged past Frank, yards off target, but still close enough they might get lucky if they put enough lead into the air. The third man behind the big back wheel of the rusted tractor took his shot. The muzzle of his rifle flashed with a smart crack. The bullet whistled past Frank, maybe only a foot or so away, and sent a surge of adrenaline that made the hair on the back of Frank’s whole body stand up and dance.
The Gorozas weren’t employing a gang of idiot punks who were still in puberty; it appeared Tractor Man had received some training.
Tractor Man’s muzzle flashed again and the snowmobile’s windshield shattered. Frank flinched. His heart stopped a beat.
Tractor Man definitely had some training.
Frank swung his aim away from Ed.
Tractor Man stood behind the wheel of the tractor, using the top to brace his arm, exhibiting a great deal of shooting sense.
Frank abandoned the red dot of the reflex sight and lined up the backup iron sights on the hollow of Tractor Man’s neck, which was the center of the portion of Tractor Man that was visible, and squeezed the trigger. A moment later the bullet made a metallic smack into the big steel disc of the tractor tire very close to the target. Tractor Man flinched, but he did not duck down.
Frank used the iron sights again, raised his aim a bit more, and squeezed the trigger. Another bang, another metallic clang.
Tractor Man fired again, but he was off. Those last two shots had probably gotten the man’s heart pounding, and he was now finding it a bit more difficult to aim.
Frank let loose another round. Didn’t hit, but it was close enough that Tractor Man ducked down. Frank lined himself up and waited for the man to show himself again. The other two men by the coops were still cracking the air with their pistols, the bullets singing all about him.
Frank risked a glance back at Tony and Carmen. They should have been a mile away by now, but they weren’t. They were stopped in the field. Tony and the girls with him were off his snow machine. Carmen was sitting on hers, waiting for the little boy to shoehorn himself on. There was a girl in front of Carmen on the seat. Two behind, one on either side, looking like they were standing with one foot on the running board and the other on the flat chassis that extended behind. The little boy was struggling, then Tony helped him get his leg up into the lap of the girl in front of him, then Carmen gave her snowmobile some gas and moved forward. The kids lurched a bit, but stayed on.
What where they doing?
Frank turned around, saw Tractor Man slowly rising up and positioning his gun.
Frank fired at him. There was another thwank of metal on metal, which irritated Frank to no end. He should have had that shot. Frank adjusted his aim up just a bit and squeezed the trigger again. The compact P90 banged and kicked. A moment later a piece of the rubber close to Tractor Man flew up. He stumbled back a few steps like maybe he’d been struck by something and fell to the ground.
Frank glanced back at Tony and Carmen. Carmen was now moving east, across the field toward the fence, not south as they’d been traveling at first. Tony was still back with the other snowmobile. It was obviously having some kind of engine trouble, which illustrated the problem with stolen goods—you never knew what you were going to get.
Frank turned back to the house. Ed and his driver were in the pickup, pedal to the metal, backing out. The driver cranked the wheel and spun the front end around. Then he put it in drive and floored it. The wheels spun, kicking up dust and gravel, and they fish-tailed out the driveway.
Tractor Man had moved from his last position out of sight. The two by the coops were slowing down, taking their time. One bullet hissed through the tall grass only a few feet away.
Then the pickup exited onto the dirt road and accelerated past the house. Ed didn’t scare that easily. Where were they going?
Another gun cracked, and the bullet sang right above his head. Frank needed to even up the odds of this fight. He needed to get in the game. No more pot shots. He slid back onto his snowmobile all hunched over, then pressed the throttle lever. The engine revved up to a whine and he shot forward through the tall grass. The guys by the coop started shooting wildly again, crack, crack, crack, probably thinking this was their last chance. Then they emptied their magazines and the guns fell silent.
Frank made a wide arc toward the shooters, kind of like a fat C, then quickly slid off and positioned himself behind the Polaris. He was now about seventy yards out, positioned so any overshot would fly away from the direction Carmen and Tony were traveling.
The driver of the van had been hunkered down this whole time. Now he ran to the back door of the house, all bent over to make himself a small target. He was probably going for ammo. Probably wondering where Jesus and the others were.
Frank raised the P90, looked for Tractor Man, but couldn’t see him. So he aimed at the coop, waiting for the two guys to show themselves.
There was a loud crack and a bullet struck the passenger’s seat. Another crack, and another bullet slammed into the chassis a little closer.
Tractor Man had taken up a new position between the seat of the tractor and engine. The tractor seat and engine blocked him in. It was like he was shooting from a bunker.
Frank swiveled his gun, took aim, his elbow on the seat again. His heart was racing, his breath coming quicker, his arms itching to move with adrenaline. Frank exhaled, tried to relax, squeezed the trigger. There was a bang and kick, then a metallic clang from the tractor. He took in a breath, exhaled again.
Then Big Hair and Baseball Cap by the coop opened up. The guns cracked, the bullets whistled by much too closely. One hissed into the grass to his left. Another thudded into the seat.
Frank ducked down. Holy hell, maybe seventy yards was too close. The guys by the coop rushed the fence, taking up position behind some old metal barrels. Past the house, the big yellow pickup suddenly appeared in the field adjacent to this one. A flanking maneuver? Trying to get behind him?