Badlands (22 page)

Du Pré grabbed Ripper’s arm.

“No dogs,” he said, “so they are there all right.”

“Bastards,” said Ripper.

Benny banged a third time and then walked back to his cruiser and got in and put on all of the lights, and he stepped swiftly out and had a shotgun to his shoulder. He fired twice and the mercury lamp blew up and there were only the lights from the car. Benny ran toward the machine shed, directly back of the cruiser.

Du Pré looked to the south. Running lights. The helicopter was coming on fast, and then it slowed.

“Now,” said Du Pré, and he began to run. He had the MP-40 that Catfoot had smuggled back from Europe in his hands.

A man dressed in black, his face behind a ski mask, ran out the front door of the house, toward the cruiser. He was moving fast, and Du Pré lifted up the machine pistol and fired and the man was knocked off his feet and he sprawled in the dirt.

The helicopter was getting closer. It slowed and a beam of light stabbed down from it. The beam was set on the front door of the house, which was open.

Then it shut.

Du Pré and Ripper got to the house. Du Pré picked up a brick and threw it through the picture window in the back, where the kitchen was. Ripper had two concussion grenades armed and he tossed them in and they crouched below the window.

Crump crump.

Ripper vaulted through the hole where the picture window had been. Du Pré went round to the door in the side of the house and he waited. The door opened and a man stumbled out. He was handcuffed and his mouth was taped. Another man, all in black, came right behind.

Du Pré pressed the trigger and the point-blank burst lifted the man up and shoved him a good ten feet.

Du Pré slammed into Bart and knocked him down behind the pile of stove wood near the garden. Then he pointed the MP-40 at the doorway.

It was an empty black hole.

The helicopter circled. The beam began to come close to Du Pré and Bart. Du Pré turned his back so the pilot could see the silver reflective tape on the jacket. The beam held them for just a second and then it went back to probing the house.

Du Pré pulled off his gloves. He found an end on the duct tape and pulled.

“Thanks,” Bart gasped. “They have something in there. It’s in a small refrigerator. Runs off a battery or a plug.”

“They give you shots?” said Du Pré.

Bart nodded.

“We get you out of here in a hurry,” said Du Pré.

Someone was tumbling out of the door. Du Pré held the machine pistol on him, and then the beam of light from the helicopter shone down and Du Pré saw the tape.

Ripper kept rolling until he was by the woodpile.

“They went out a window,” said Ripper. “Fucking arsenal in there.”

A burst of automatic fire reached up toward the helicopter and the searchlight went out and the big machine sheered off. The sliding doors on the barn opened and a stream of fire chewed out the lights of the police cruiser.

Whines. Small engines.

Two little four-wheel ORVs roared out of the dark. Du Pré raised his MP-40. Ripper shoved the barrel down.

“We need them alive,” said Ripper. “We have no idea yet what goddamn disease they’re giving out. Jesus Christ, you think they’d have the good taste to suck to nerve gas.”

The little ORVs were moving down the road that cut east of the Hulme place.

Headed for the
malpais,
the badlands.

Du Pré stood up.

“Son a bitch,” he said.

“Stay away from Bart,” said Ripper. He took out a foil packet, tore it open, and handed the white folded square to Bart.

“Put it on,” said Ripper. “We’ll get you out of here to a hospital in a few minutes.”

Bart unfolded the mask and put it over his nose and mouth and tied the strings behind his head. The knot wouldn’t hold. Du Pré went to him and fixed it snug but not tight, with a double pull.

There were several helicopters now, and they began to come down in the pastures to the west and north and east. Men in moon suits stepped out of them and began to walk toward the house.

Ripper and Du Pré and Bart waited for them, but they didn’t stop. They switched on flashlights and went in and in a moment lights began to come on in the house.

Du Pré patted Bart on the shoulder. Bart looked at him. He shook his head.

“There are people at the Hulmes?” said Du Pré to Ripper.

Ripper shook his head.

“Not enough men,” he said.

“Jesus!” said Du Pré.

“We got them out,” said Ripper. “I mean, Benny’s deputies were going to. Our guys should get there before those shits do.”

Du Pré relaxed.

Ripper walked to the man Du Pré had killed. He pulled off the ski mask. Du Pré went over. It was the affable bearded man who had claimed to be the White Priest.

“Who is he?” said Du Pré.

Ripper shook his head.

“Milford, maybe,” he said. “Pidgeon could tell you.”

Jet turbines whined.

“Here’s your ride,” said Ripper. He patted Bart on the shoulder.

A black Humvee came roaring up the road and braked to a skidding stop and three men got out.

“Come on,” said Ripper, grabbing Du Pré’s arm, “this is our ride.”

The driver of the Humvee started to say something.

“Indianapolis,” said Ripper.

The man backed away.

Du Pré got in and so did Ripper.

“Like my momma said,” said Ripper, “if you got something on everybody, you got something.” He headed for the
malpais.

The barbed wire fence twanged when he drove through it. “Motherfuckers!” screamed Ripper.

T
HE
H
UMVEE LURCHED DOWN
into a dry wash. The shocks and springs were so good that Du Pré lifted himself clear out of his seat bracing for a hard shock that never came.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger!”
screamed Ripper.
“Arnold drives these suckers!
”

Ripper roared up the wash, the Humvee going impossibly fast on the rough ground.

“It makes me want to invade something,” said Ripper, “Ireland, Iraq, Indiana … some foreign land.”

The two ORVs were a mile or so ahead, bouncing wildly on the rocky flat. Ripper closed the gap. When he was two hundred yards away from the two ORVs the men on them looked back and made a skidding turn and headed for a butte surrounded by slabs of pale ocher rock.

The Humvee could not follow very far. Ripper jumped out after popping open the rear door. He opened a plastic chest and fished out flak jackets and a couple of machine pistols.

“Heckler and Koch,” said Ripper. “Light and vicious. And these are what to feed them.”

He handed Du Pré some clips. Du Pré dropped the flak jacket and put the clips in the pockets of his old buckskin coat.

Ripper nodded. He dropped his flak jacket and unzipped his fly and pissed on it.

“Regulations demand I wear it,” he said. “I must write myself up after all this. Those assholes are going to scramble up there and we will go after them. I am afraid, Du Pré, afraid. Are there rattlesnakes in these rocks?”

“No,” said Du Pré.

“Lying sack of shit,” said Ripper.

Something went
craaack!
and they both hit the ground.

“They have a rifle,” said Ripper.

Two more reports and a hole appeared in the Humvee’s windshield.

“More paperwork!”
screamed Ripper. “
I hate paperwork. You pricks will pay for this!”

Two more shots.

“A .223,” said Ripper. “They couldn’t hit a bull in the ass if they leaned up against him. It is why we lost the last few wars.”

Ripper was in the lee of a slab of rock, and Du Pré behind a giant boulder. Ripper waved his hat. Another shot, ricocheting off the stone.

“Enough,” said Ripper. He wriggled to the rear of the Humvee and fished around and wriggled back with two plastic tubes.

“OK,” said Du Pré, “you think you cannot hit anything, the .223, I shoot a couple of those, they are worse.”

“They have been
improved,”
said Ripper. “The tactics are the usual,”

“Asshole,” said Du Pré.

“You could shoot this,” said Ripper, “or we could draw straws.”

“You call it,” said Du Pré.

“One, two, three,” said Ripper.

Du Pré stood up and fired an entire clip of ammunition at the jumbled rocks above. He ran to the right, keeping his eyes on the slope.

He saw a movement and ducked behind a rock. Ripper fired the plastic bazooka and the rocket screeched toward the slope. It burst and gravel spattered the boulders.

“Go,” said Ripper.

Du Pré dashed from stone to boulder to a knee of rock and peeked through a crack.

Nothing moved.

“Didn’t bite this time,” said Ripper.

“I go round,” said Du Pré. “There is a way up maybe they can’t see.”

Ripper nodded and set down the bazooka and picked up the machine pistol. He popped up and sprayed the slope.

Du Pré ran, hunched over, and he got far enough away from where the two men were so he didn’t have to dodge and stop. He slid behind a ragged ridge that reached up toward the butte’s high walls and then began to move up. Du Pré scrambled for two or three minutes and then paused, listening. Ripper would fire a burst and Du Pré would climb.

A huge raven flew past and gave one croaking
cawwwuwww.

Du Pré stopped when he got to the steep walls that fell away from the flat top of the butte. He edged back and over the spine of rock, rolling behind some rubble.

Another rocket hissed and crackled through the air and the warhead burst on a boulder and more bits of rock flew through the air.

Du Pré carefully slid flat stones on top of each other, very slowly, and then peered through the openings.

He waited.

Nothing.

Then there was a small flicker of movement. A man’s head began to rise up from behind a rock. He was looking over toward Du Pré. Du Pré slid the barrel of the machine pistol into a big opening in the rocks he had piled.

The man ducked back down.

Ripper fired another burst. Du Pré sighted the machine pistol on the place he had seen the man’s head.

He heard a shot.

The man stood up then, trembling violently, his arms jumping around.

“Shit!” said Du Pré. He dashed along the slope toward the shaking man, who then went boneless and fell.

Another shot.

“Fuck me runnin’
,” yelled Ripper. “They did it again, God damn it.”

Du Pré edged up to the fallen man. He was lying on his back. His crotch was soiled. There was a little blood at the corner of his mouth. And a lot more on the rocks beneath his head.

Du Pré sighed. He looked down the slope to see Ripper hopping from boulder to boulder. Then he stopped.

“Yours dead?” yelled Ripper.

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

“Mine, too,” said Ripper. “These assholes don’t play fair.”

Du Pré slung the machine pistol around his neck and hauled the dead man up by his shirt.

“Leave him,” said Ripper. “The evidence techs need work, too.”

Du Pré slid and scrambled down the slope.

Ripper looked gray. “These people,” he said, “are truly scary.”

Du Pré nodded.

“And I am scared,” Ripper added.

They walked to the Humvee. Ripper drove Du Pré to Bart’s. They got out.

“Wanna couple plastic bazookas?” said Ripper.

Du Pré snorted.

“Well,” said Ripper, “I had to ask.”

T
HEY WALKED AWAY FROM
the little cemetery and went to Du Pré’s old cruiser.

It was raining, cold and gray, and the wind pushed the water hard. Du Pré started the engine and turned on the blower so the windshield would dry off.

Pidgeon was crying. Ripper patted her on the shoulder.

“God damn them, god damn them,” said Pidgeon. “She was a brave woman.”

Officer Parker had died of the strange virus. Bart had pulled through, but he was still in the hospital. They had him isolated and they were taking no chances.

“We’ve figured for years that this would happen,” said Pidgeon, “but it seemed likely that it would be Iraq or some other psycho country. But it was right here. Homegrown American stuff.”

Du Pré pressed the accelerator a little and the volume of hot air strengthened. He put the cruiser in reverse and backed and turned and he headed north.

Officer Parker had grown up on a ranch south of Miles City. She now slept with her people, under some Siberian elms near a little spring. 1972–2000 it said on the stone under her name.

They didn’t speak for a while.

“Those bastards,” said Pidgeon again, “you damn near get them and they eat their guns. They are
nuts.”

The mysterious refrigerator held nothing at all.

The virus that had destroyed Parker’s brain was new. It had never been seen before. It resembled other viruses but it wasn’t one of the ones catalogued.

“I wonder if the bones they found were Gary Carl Smith’s?” said Pidgeon. “I wonder if the three men dead that night were really the ones who ran this thing.”

“We busted them all,” said Ripper, “every damn one of them, and we are going to keep them and talk to them until somebody cracks.”

Pidgeon looked at him.

“What if none of them knows anything?” she said. “What if this was so well done nobody knows anything?”

“Somebody has to know something,” said Ripper.

“They don’t have to,” said Pidgeon.

“I was just trying to be cheerful,” said Ripper.

Du Pré got to the Interstate and headed west. The rain was lifting.

“Bart is going to be OK,” said Madelaine. “That is something. So now you don’t know much. But that virus had to come from someplace. They bought it. You said they did anyway.”

“Goddamn Russians,” said Pidgeon. “Place falls apart and all that biological weaponry is for sale. Shit, if you wanted to do America in, all you have to do is install smallpox.”

Madelaine looked at her.

“That is gone, I thought,” she said.

“No,” said Pidgeon, “it was wiped out in the population. But we kept some of the virus and the Russians kept some of it. Nobody has been vaccinated for it in twenty-five years. The vaccine wears off in ten. Smallpox starts someplace, way it works it could kill a third of the people in America in maybe two months. There wouldn’t be a whole lot we could do. Antibiotics won’t touch it.”