Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (62 page)

The lever action gave a double series of metallic
clicks as the big Marlin rifle ejected a spent case and brought another one up
from the tubular magazine—pausing for an infinitesimal moment before driving
the straight-walled .444 cartridge into the chamber. Polished from frequent and
repeated use rather than a gunsmith’s file, the loading mechanism cycled with
the proverbial glass smoothness. The weapon bore little of the original factory
bluing, but should it be examined by someone with a keen eye for such detail,
no rust or pitting would be found either. This was a working man’s rifle, and
the miniature stamped initials of “JM” on the barrel spoke of the time frame it
had been assembled by craftsmen that were seldom found in today’s world. A gout
of fire blasted from the muzzle as the 265 grain bullet crashed into the field
on the other side of the road.

“Every time you pull that trigger, you’re costing me
almost three bucks,” Walter grimaced as Crowbar Mike, a heavy smile evident on
his face, ejected another round.

Andy’s voice came through the headphones.
“OK, it
should be about time . . . send the signal.”

Walter raised the AR-15 in his hands, pointing it at a
random bush across the road as he rapidly jerked the trigger. Twenty-nine
rounds cascaded into the edge of the headlight’s illumination, every third one
an orange tracer. Immediately the crescendo of gunfire ramped upwards, overshadowed
even now by the climactic detonations of the big Marlin.

Easing aside the drooping spruce branch brought the
vivid green panorama into view. Everything from the low horseshoe of scrub
brush to the ghostly lime and white colored figure of the prone sniper. He was lying
fifteen yards away on some type of flat mattress with his eye glued to the
rifle scope as the thunder of distant gunfire increased its tempo. Sam studied
the narrow walkway between the bushes that led to the hide . . . they were
close enough together to provide a mediocre wall of concealment, but not so
close that he couldn’t step between them without contact. He’d already passed a
crudely rigged alarm, nothing more than a long, narrow stick attached to some
empty soda cans—probably filled with a few pebbles to increase their noise
potential. His tours in the Middle East with the Marines had hammered the “look
before you step” discipline repeatedly into his ears, and he carefully stepped
over another of the unsophisticated traps as he approached. Echoing explosions—most
representing the 5.56 rifles that made up the bulk of their ruse—were
intermingled with the occasional crack of rimfire, or the heavy thump of the
larger big game firearms. This deception was costing them a lot of ammo,
relatively speaking, and each second it kept up drained the coffers even
further. Both Walter and Andy had reassured him that it was a well invested
drop in the bucket, but to Sam, each bullet that was fired across the road into
an empty field was one that they might need later. With that thought on his
mind, he stepped around another growth stunted fir and continued weaving his
way toward the sniper—night scope held in his left hand like a mutant unicorn,
and his right hand gripping the SIG .45. Halfway to his target the symphony of
rifle fire peaked, and Sam cautiously wove his way through the remaining low
weeds. His last step before entering the small clearing inside the horseshoe
encountered a brief resistance, and with a
twang
, the little pile of
foil bowls stacked off to the side scattered with a noisy, tinny tumble, and
the sniper, appearing as much startled by the racket as Sam was, dropped off
the rifle and clawed for something on the ground. Sam charged.

The darkness surrounding him was almost complete, with
the exception of a few weak stars that managed to penetrate the scattered cloud
cover overhead, and Thompson watched as the shadowy form of the trooper
disappeared soundlessly into the weeds. The upsurge of gunfire sounded from the
marina, and he mumbled a silent prayer that it wouldn’t attract anything leftover
from the foray into the campground. Seconds ticked by as the staged firefight
ebbed and flowed, and then the brilliant orange-white lines of tracers arced
into the field, triggering the scripted “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” volley of
cover fire. With a surge of rapid fire chattering intermixed with thundering
bass explosions, the noise peaked and then fell away to sporadic doubles and
triples, and in the heartbeat spaces of silence between gunshots at the marina,
a pair of rumbling
PA-BOOMS
detonated from the direction Sam had gone.
Thompson mashed the button on his MagLite and ran toward the noise, crashing
through the weeds in a beeline until he was forced to dodge around a low
evergreen. He shouldered past the tree and flooded the area with light, illuminating
a wrestling, grunting tangle of hands and feet. Sam’s green fleece overcoat
showed him positioned almost ninety degrees perpendicular across the struggling
walrus-sized man in camouflaged coveralls. They were both vying for possession
of a blue steel pistol in the big man’s grasp, and Sam was being shaken like a
rag doll as his opponent rolled back and forth. A hard knee from the state
trooper to the rib cage of the sniper produced a muffled
mmmph
, but no
other obvious result, and Thompson dropped his light and leapt into the fray,
adding his strength to the struggle for the gun.

“Grab my . . . in my . . . front pocket!” Sam grimaced
with effort to control the gun from the thrashing, huffing behemoth, and with
Thompson’s help, they were managing to force the pistol level with the ground.

The rotund sniper kicked up a beefy thigh, narrowly
missing Thompson’s groin, but throwing both of his assailants momentarily off
of him and into the air. Their grip on the gun hand didn’t break though, and
their return impact seemed to momentarily stun the big man.

Sam crashed his muscular shoulder into the chin of his
opponent as he twisted the man’s wrists, forcing the gun further into the
ground. “Thompson . . . grab it and use it now!”

Keeping one hand in the fight for the gun, Thompson’s
other hand reached into the state trooper’s jacket pocket, drawing out the
rectangular block inside. His thumb lined up automatically on the side toggle
switch, and he jammed the box forward and toward the bare flesh of the sniper,
just below the man’s ear. Brilliant lines of crackling electricity arced
between the silver probe points of the stun gun before being smothered by the
fleshy folds on the man’s neck. The man spasmed and shook, and then went stiff
with clenched muscles as Thompson drove the box hard into the side of his neck.
In the glow from his dropped flashlight, Thompson watched as Sam pried the
pistol out of the snipers grasp, and then after a moment’s hesitation, careened
a hard elbow against the obese man’s triple chin. Easing up on the trigger of
the stun gun, Thompson helped Sam roll the big man onto his stomach to cuff him,
the motion encouraged by several well placed knees to the man’s ample gut. When
they wrestled his arms as far back as they would go, they attached a double
pair of the nylon riot handcuffs.

“What’s . . . . . . . . . ‘amatter . . . . Sam,”
Thompson gasped out, sucking in lung full’s of air in an effort to recover from
the short but exhausting battle. “I thought . . . . . . . . you said . . . . .
. you . . . . . . . got this.”

Sam was still half leaning against the fat man in
handcuffs, and at Thompson’s comment, he flipped him the bird—double barrel—for
a long five count. After holstering his fingers, he pushed himself upright and turned
on his radio.

“Ceasefire-ceasefire-ceasefire. Marina, do you copy?”

Andy’s voice came back immediately.
“Ceasefire
acknowledged, what’s your status?”

The gunfire trickled out and then faded entirely as
Sam looked back and forth between the enormous handcuffed man and Thompson’s
still gasping form.
“Mission accomplished, and this one is a keeper. Hell,
he might even be a state record,”
he prodded the giant prisoner with his
boot, eliciting a soft groan,
“but we’re going to need something bigger than
our canoe to bring him home.”

“Roger that, we’ll send a taxi for ya.’”

Amy stood in the doorway and looked at the giant of a
man roped in a sitting position at the picnic table. He was huge—not immensely
tall, but covered in layers of fat. If she had to guess his weight, it would
have been in the 370 pound range. The heavy canvas bag was still over his head,
and one of his meaty hands was splayed on the table top. She had watched with
morbid curiosity as Walter and Andy had drilled dozens of holes in a two foot
square section of thick plywood. The man’s hand had then been spread wide like
a child’s Thanksgiving turkey stencil, and attached to the plywood with
multiple zip ties around his wrist and chubby fingers. The plywood was then screwed
to the tabletop. His other hand was secured behind his back to his own thick
leather belt through a hole that someone had cut in his camouflage coveralls. A
battery powered radio had been brought into the room, and was playing a CD that
held a mix of one hit wonders from the 1970’s. Andy tapped her shoulder and
curled his finger, and she followed him back down the hall.

When they were in Walter’s office, Mike handed her the
partially finished bottle of water that she had left in his care moments before.
She brought it to her lips and drained the contents.

“Are you happy?” Walters’s whimsical question was
directed straight towards her.

“I don’t know. Tell me more about this ‘interrogation
procedure’ that you’re planning.”

Andy took a sip of coffee and nodded his head towards
her. “Amy, I’ll be happy to tell you, but do me a favor and answer a few questions
first.”

She looked up expectantly and waited.

“Would your opinion about how we treat this fellow be
different if he had already shot and wounded—or killed—somebody here at the
marina?”

“I don’t know . . . maybe . . . probably . . .”

“Well what if you knew for certain that he was
planning on shooting us? Would you feel any different about his treatment
then?”

She stood and searched the faces around the room,
noting a mix of displayed emotions. “Andy, Walter . . . everybody. . . I
honestly don’t know what to feel right now. Part of me wants to go in there and
punch him in the face myself. Another part of me is so steamed at the thought,
the very
thought
that a human being—no, check that—that the human
race
could have sunk so far, so fast. I don’t know what’s happening in the world,
but when I think of all that we’ve just been through, of all the people that
have sacrificed their lives, or put their own life on the line to save somebody
else, well, I just can’t believe that instead of working together to fight
against those
things
, we’ve already devolved into preying on each other.
Does that make sense?”

“Perfect,” Walter replied.

“I’m kind of mixed on this whole situation as well,”
Callie said as she stood and stretched. “I mean, I understand that this guy
hasn’t actually shot at us yet, but on the other hand, I wonder what would have
happened if Leah hadn’t seen the flash from his scope this morning. He’d still
be up there, right?”

“Most probably,” Sam said.

“And that brings us back to now,” Walter focused on
Amy as he replied. “Make no mistake everybody, he was up there for a reason. I
strongly suspect that our friend in Richland is somehow tied to all of this,
but the fact of the matter is that we won’t know anything unless we ask him.”

“That’s my problem,” Amy jumped in, “and it should be
everybody’s problem. The way you said ‘ask’ him implies to me that we’re . . .
all of us, I mean . . . condoning torture, and I won’t stand for that, no
matter what he’s done, or might do.”

“Define torture.”

“What?”

Andy rubbed his eyes and looked at Amy. “Well, what
are you thinking about when you picture us ‘asking’ Captain Buffet a few
questions?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, “I guess like the things
you hear about that are only supposed to happen in other countries.”

“What if I told you—promised you—that I wouldn’t even
break his skin. As a matter of fact, when we’re done with him and he’s telling
us everything—which he will—he’ll have no more than a few tiny bruises. Would
you be OK with that?”

“No broken bones?”

“Nope.”

“No electric shocks or severed tendons?”

Andy chuckled and shook his head. “Old school methods,
and not very reliable.”

“Then tell me what you’re going to do to him.”

“We’re going to
do
very little. But we’re going
to make him
think
about what we might do . . . a lot. And when it comes
to the actual physical contact, I’m only going to use four things, all of which
are right there on Walter’s desk.” He walked over to the desk, rummaged around
the mess on top for a few seconds, and then slid the items to the edge.

Her eyebrows rose, and then reversed course as her
brow furrowed in confusion. The seconds ticked by as she tried to mentally
construct some form of horrendous interrogation device, but she came up empty.
Her eyes met with Andy, and then shifted over to Walter. “OK, but I’m going to
be in there.”

Ten minutes later, the big man wasn’t talking. He was
singing. And his song brought tears of rage and disgust to Amy’s eyes.