Deathlands 117: Desolation Angels (23 page)

“You must be Ryan Cawdor. And you would be J. B. Dix.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. The Armorer tipped his hat.

“A special pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dix. I understand you’re a wep smith?”

J.B. nodded.

The man’s brown, deep-seamed face beamed. “Ace,” he said. “You might say I’m your opposite. I’m Dominguez, chief armorer for the Detroit Police Department. And this is my assistant, Bartoli.”

“Hi,” the black kid in the apron said.

“Yeah,” Ryan replied.

He gestured at the tables of blasters and a few other weapons—machetes, swords and even a couple of battle axes—that formed three sides of a square around the two smiths in a field a couple hundred yards behind the DPD lines. The table they stood by had one end cleared for a work space. Ryan smelled blaster oil and the traces of burned powder.

“Are these what I think they are?” Ryan asked.

“I imagine so,” Dominguez said. “If you mean weps recovered from the battlefield.”

He gestured around at them with a broad, strong-looking brown hand.

“So many, as you can see.” He sounded sad. From the southeast came a clatter of small-arms fire. The battle was still going on, though not at the intensity it had been. “We’re inspecting their condition, to ascertain which are still functional, which need to be repaired and which can be parted out.”

“Should you be telling them this, sir?” Bartoli asked.

“Why not? They already figured it out. So what can I do for you gentlemen?”

“It’s not just us,” Ryan said. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. It was for effect, of course. His friends were lurking out of the light in some brush not far off. They couldn’t be seen outside the lamp light, not that Dominguez and his apprentice had been looking anywhere but at their work. But the other could see Ryan and the others well enough.

They came forward.

“All of you?” Dominguez asked. He picked up a rag and wiped his hands. It seemed to just redistribute the grease on them.

Ryan introduced the others quickly. Dominguez nodded knowingly, as if he’d heard of all of them by name, which he might have. Bartoli just stood looking nervous and confused, his prominent Adam’s apple riding incessantly up and down.

“So again I must ask,” Dominguez said when Ryan had finished. “To what do we owe the honor?”

“We need to ask a favor of you, Armorer Dominguez,” Ryan said. “We need to borrow some of your weps.”

“You mean requisition?”

J.B. shrugged and smiled.

“‘Borrow’ sounds nicer,” he said.

The two nodded to each other. If they’d been any more on the same wavelength, they would’ve started talking in unison.

“But where are your weps?” Bartoli asked.

“We ran into a rad-dust hotspot,” Ryan said. “Had to leave them at headquarters for decontamination, along with the clothes we were wearing. They lent us a couple blasters, then told us to come out here and hit you up.”

Of course, no one had told Ryan any such thing. J.B. had suggested they’d find just such an operation going on behind the battle lines. And naturally, he was right.

Dominguez gestured at one table. “Those blasters there are all serviceable. Far as we can tell. Obviously we’re not in a position to test fire them. Take your pick.”

“Armorer,” Bartoli said in alarm, “are you sure—”

“It’s not as if the original owners have any need for them anymore. And they technically shouldn’t have been allowed to possess them in the first place, if you go by what they call the law these days.”

Mildred was already at the table, inspecting a Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver she’d picked up.

“For a police armorer, you seem a bit skeptical about the law.”

“I believe in justice,” Dominguez said. “And peace and order. On the whole, my department has brought those things to the Detroit rubble and promises to expand their scope in the future. But laws—” he shrugged “—can be surprisingly flexible, when they are made by decree.”

“What about regulations?” Bartoli asked.

“Much the same,” his boss said calmly. “And in case I need to remind you, when it comes to the regulations concerning the maintenance, handling and issuing of weps,
I
decreed them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dominguez reached out and tousled his assistant’s short hair fondly. “My apprentice takes things much too earnestly. It is the way of the young. Relax, son. The armories back at HQ are packed with far more weps in mint condition than we have officers to shoot them. No one is going to go without.”

He frowned. “Unless the war drags on. Then, who knows?”

“Ammo?” Jak asked. Oddly enough, he had found a Ruger Super Redhawk revolver, double action and chambered in .44 Magnum in good condition, which meant it would also fire the same .44 Special rounds as Doc’s currently confiscated LeMat. He preferred knives to blasters, but he appreciated the need for them.

Dominguez pointed to a number of metal ammunition boxes and buckets set beneath one of the tables.

“Our men recovered lots of that, too. Along with a number of magazines, obviously also for a variety of blasters. Bartoli, here, spent much of the afternoon supervising several walking wounded in sorting and labeling them.”

He shrugged. “I can’t promise that we have abundant ammo for every blaster. You’d be surprised what’s floating around out there, including personal arms carried by our officers. But as long as you can satisfy yourselves with the more conventional and common calibers and models, we can probably help you out.”

That made Bartoli shift his weight from foot to moccasined foot and eye the strangers uneasily. He obviously was not happy in being included in that “we.”

“Fortunately,” Dominguez said with genuine pleasure, “we have turned up eighty or a hundred .44 Magnum cartridges. So you can make use of that handblaster if you wish, Mr. Lauren.”

Jak looked at him as if unsure who “Mr. Lauren” was. In fact, Ryan wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Jak called that before. But he smiled, nodded and went over to the ammo bins.

They all got down to rummaging through the available armament. J.B., content to let his friends pick first, stood by talking shop in low tones with the DPD weaponsmith. Bartoli got so fascinated by their discussion he gave up watching the others as if certain they were all stickies in human-skin suits. He even quit ogling Krysty and Mildred.

“Look what I found!” Ricky exclaimed. He lifted a Husqvarna, a bolt-action blaster whose wood stock went all the way to the muzzle. It had a low-power scope mounted. “It’s even .308. Or, uh, 7.62 mm.”

The latter was a mil-spec variant of the former, its load optimized for the working of semi-and full-auto actions. A bolt-action blaster like this one would never notice a difference.

“So how does a sniper rifle wind up, uh, here?” he asked.

“We lost a couple of department snipers when the Angels blew up the armored wag and overran our position temporarily,” Dominguez said. “We do have plenty of 7.62 mm and a couple other .308 loads. Of course, that particular longblaster lacks a detachable box magazine.”

Ricky turned the blaster over in his hands almost lovingly. Then his shoulders moved in a sigh. He turned and held it out to Ryan.

“Here. You should carry this.”

Ryan shook his head. “Thanks, kid. But I’m taking this.”

He held up an M4 carbine. “Reckon this is best suited for the work we got ahead of us. You’ll be our sniper for now.”

Ricky stared at him, then smiled as if his face would split. He got down on his knees and started scooping up .308 cartridges from a tin bucket.

Though there were a number of shotguns available, Mildred wound up handing over her 870 riot shotgun to J.B. in exchange for an M16. He liked it because it had a pistol grip and synthetic furniture like his M4000. She also kept the .38 caliber Smith revolver, which, though no match for her target-model ZKR 551, was close enough for comfort. Krysty hung on to the machine pistol she’d taken from the dead SWAT cop.

Doc selected a Smith & Wesson M29 with a four-inch barrel. He managed to find a couple dozen .44 Special cartridges, which he promptly loaded into the blaster. He also took some longer Magnum cartridges, just in case. Ryan got a Beretta M9 and J.B. a Glock 17, both common designs, both in the ubiquitous 9 mm. There were more magazines available for both than either could comfortably carry.

Finally the group picked up a few odds and ends of cutlery to round things out. As Doc pointed out, a good blade never ran out of ammunition.

“I suppose the assignment you’re on is strictly need to know,” Dominguez said when they were done.

“We were never here,” Ryan assured him.

“Armorer,” Bartoli said, eyes wide. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”

“Absolutely,” Dominguez said.

“We’ll be taking our leave now, Chief Armorer, Armorer Bartoli,” J.B. said, tipping his hat. “Much obliged to you both.”

As they started off into the night, Ryan paused and turned back.

“Thanks,” he said. “In return, let me suggest you and your assistant watch your backs extraclose the next few days. In fact, mebbe take a little bit of a furlough when you get a chance.”

For the first time Dominguez frowned.

“I tell you this as a man you helped out in a major way,” Ryan said. “And a man who pays his debts. And I can tell you one thing—you may not care much for some things that’re about to happen. But if this plays out, you may like the way things shake overall. No guarantees.”

“I can’t ask for any more than that,” the chief armorer said. “Go safely, my friends.”

* * *

“
Y
OU REALLY THINK
there’s the slightest chance that poor old Mr. Dominguez is gonna like what you have in mind?” Mildred asked Ryan as they made their way through the bizarre, colossal, derelict industrial buildings and swinging west around the reestablished flank of the DPD lines. They relied even more heavily on Jak than usual, trying to avoid lethal pitfalls and other hazards lurking in the dark, including the ever-present possibility of ambush—by humans and creatures perhaps even more unkind.

The fact that Ryan felt an indefinable need gnawing at his gut like a trapped rat to keep moving as fast as possible made the journey even more hazardous.

“Like I told him,” Ryan said, “he won’t like what happens next if we pull it off. But what happens after that might suit him better if he’s sharp enough to follow my advice.”

“You mind sharing what that might be?”

Ryan shrugged. “End the war. At least the current big one between DPD and the Angels. Same thing I told Leto.”

“You still think it’s possible after all that’s happened?” Krysty asked.

Ryan laughed softly. “Mebbe easier now than before. Of course, the
how
is the part Dominguez is probably not going to like.”

“We’re going to bring down DPD?” Ricky asked eagerly from near the rear. J.B. was pulling drag, walking behind him at the very end of the line. Ryan, of course, had the front, with Jak ranging invisibly ahead and only reappearing when he needed to impart warnings and information.

“No,” Ryan said. “Don’t count that possible, given the resources we got available.”

“What, then, lover?” Krysty asked.

“I reckon it’s time the so-called City of Detroit and its police force had a change of management at the highest levels.”

Krysty laughed a little ruefully. “I can’t argue with that. But why us? Why are we bringing it about? I gather that’s your plan.”

“It’s not just to get our stuff back, is it?” Mildred asked.

Ryan laughed as loudly as he dared let himself. “Not hardly. Though I intend to do that, too.”

“You’re not developing a social conscience at this late date, are you?” Mildred said. “You’re going all soft and gooey and humanitarian on us.”

“No call to be insulting, Millie,” J.B. said.

“I can never tell if he’s joking when he says something like that,” she complained. “You’ve known him since Christ was a lance corporal, Ryan. Is he joking?”

“Beats me,” Ryan said. “You’ll have to take it up with him. And—not exactly. I’m not doing this to get anyone out from under Michaud’s yoke. Although it also doesn’t exactly break my heart that that is a predictable consequence of what I got in mind. I told you before that I’m not a monster.”

“What, then, my dear Ryan?” Doc asked. “You may rest assured that we shall follow you, whatever your design. Yet I believe we deserve to know.”

“Simple,” Ryan said. “It’s like I told Dominguez—I pay my debts. Everything follows from that.”

Krysty came up beside him and clasped his hand. They traveled for a time through the hot and restless night and the ruined monuments of a long-dead civilization.

And so they made their way to the Joe Louis Arena, palace and stronghold of the Angel overlord Red Wings, where they found his son, Leto, standing trial for his life.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“It doesn’t look good,” J.B. said as he peered out over the auditorium.

The terraced seats were packed with sweaty, shouting Angels. Giant bonfires danced on the former hockey rink floor, throwing a shifting demonic light up their faces. Highlights danced in the golden hair of the bound and kneeling captive and glittered in the brooding eyes of the giant who presided over the hellish scene like a drunken Greek god.

“Mebbe we got here too late.”

“No,” Ryan said.

The two men plus Doc, Krysty and Mildred stood just inside the main entrance to the cavernous, echoing space, off to one side where they weren’t silhouetted against the lantern glow from outside.

Not that anybody was looking that way.

“Leto’s still alive.”

* * *

A
SKEIN OF
highways had led under the Cobo Center, as the Desolation Angels’ main residential area was called. Although the lowest floor of the building had somehow survived, the roadway was littered with a nightmare tangled jumble of fallen elevated pathways, including at least one highway bridge.

Ironically, it made it easier for the companions to infiltrate through the Angels’ perimeter defenses, which seemed curiously depleted, even given the fact that at least some of their forces were tied down fighting with the DPD to the north. With Jak to scout the way, they picked their way through razor-wire tangles and past a handful of drowsy sentries who seemed, Ryan thought, to be far more concerned with a full-on DPD attack force rolling down on them than the possibility of infiltration by a small, careful group.