Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (16 page)

Old Boston, late evening (March 15)

       
Helen and Chaos' company found a place to sleep the next night in a large abandoned church tucked among rundown townhouses.  Narrow streets laced the area.  Beside the church's double doors, the engraved
A.D. 1887
announced the building's permanence despite the decay around it.  The chapel's gray stone construction, now colored black from years of pollution, was stacked four stories high and spanned nearly a quarter block.  It still served as a refuge for those in need.  Inside, laminated arches spanned the sixty-foot ceiling--the stale aroma of old.  Ornate carvings of Angels watched from above, as did a house sparrow, nestled in a grassy pocket on the ceiling.  The broken panel at the top of a leaded glass window was the sparrow's only escape.

      
Four model planes, wingspans each stretching eight feet, loaded with explosives had been brought from the trucks and hung on the walls.  All were named after inconsequential birds: a smaller aircraft called the Starling, a black-capped plane called Chickadee, the bicolor gray and white Junco, and then the Sparrow.  The technology came from Snake's element of the Triad in Vermont.  They flew the models visually using infrared transmitters. 

      
At 5:00 a.m. the next morning Helen attended a meeting with Chaos and his attack pack leaders.  She listened to him lay out a tentative plan:  The first day, they would purchase electronic parts for laser senders and receivers to maintain secure communications in the city; then locate for purchase motor-guns from a cooperative gang; and rescue Max from the Federal Building the second day and go.

      
It was an ambitious first day but they didn't know if the Feds knew they were actually in Boston, or realized the sheer size of their expedition--about three hundred in Chaos' group alone.  Chaos wanted to complete his business and get out quickly, knowing that the Feds would eventually decipher their coded radio signals.  For all they knew, the Feds could be preparing to blockade the city.

      
Helen rode the streets of the Back Bay section of Boston in a semi-truck filled with three attack packs.  The New Hampshire Covenant maintained control of the money through Helen.  Wolfenstein was in charge of tactical decisions. 

      
Wolf rode in the cab with Helen.  Any conversation Helen initiated with the man ended in "yep," or "nope," or other short responses.  Helen thought it might have been because she was the only woman on an excursion of all men, but Wolfenstein was that way with everyone.

      
The driver of the rig, Crucible, was sociable.  The awkward, freckled-faced young man was more inclined to talk about himself and the events at hand, foregoing the quiet, macho routine Helen saw in the pack leaders.  "This is the first time I've ever been in a big city.  I'd hate to get lost here," stated Crucible.

      
"It's not so bad once you learn a few of the major arteries."  Helen navigated the group using a detailed, city map on a pocket computer.  Every street was marked.

      
Crucible chattered about the Tobacco War, his home in South Carolina; a friendly, gullible young man, he hadn't stopped talking since Helen had initiated the conversation.  Helen asked him if he really might settle in Colebrook.

      
"I found my home," Crucible replied soundly.  "My home is the Pack.  And of course, the Pack is stationed in Colebrook.  We share a common cause."

      
Wolfenstein pulled his gaze from the passing buildings and looked across the cab at the young man.

      
Crucible clarified his statement.  "Well, it is."  Wolf turned his gaze back to the window.

      
One thing was for sure: Wolfenstein was no dolt.  He watched everything.  When they passed a metal fabrication shop, he stopped and took Helen inside and purchased 2' x 8' sheets of plate steel to line the inside of the truck.  Helen paid while Wolfenstein directed a welder to cut anchor holes in the iron for mounting.  In forty minutes they were off again, heading to an electronic wholesale house The Wizard had indicated.

      
Problems arose on their return to the church.  The Wizard's directions seemed to take them out of their way; from the map, Helen could see a much shorter way back to the church.  She convinced Wolfenstein to take the shorter route through the heart of town.

      
The ambush happened on Washington Avenue, southwest of Old Boston.  Members of Tar's gang saw white guys in the truck cruising the strip and phoned ahead with cellulars.  A motor-gun pummeled the driver's side blowing apart Crucible instantly.  Wolfenstein took a hit to the forearm and dropped to the floor, pulling Helen down with him.  Wolf pushed the brake pedal by hand; the truck skidded to a stop.

      
Steam oozed out of the front of the truck.  The mist hissed, and meandered upward from an apparently lifeless hulk.  Six lanky gang members dressed in spandex with turned up baseball hats approached the rig cautiously.  An alien silence reigned, but not for long.  The gang members flinched as they heard the accordion door roll open at the back of the truck.  They all aimed that direction while glancing skittishly at the cab windows.  The man with the motor-gun in the gang revved the Husqvarna two-cycle engine and grinned.

      
At a dead run, three Mountain Boys leaped like gazelles out the back of the truck and shot in mid-air, taking out two and wounding two more before even setting foot on pavement.  They continued sprinting for cover behind vehicles fifteen meters down the street.  Four more Mountain Boys followed, but this time they dropped straight down and shot from behind the rear wheels of the truck.  As the man with the motor-gun tried to follow the sprinters down the street, a myriad of bullets from the second team of gunners vented him, leaving him dead where he stood.  At least one motor-gun was now in their possession.  One gang member escaped up an alley.  It all happened in two seconds--choreographed death as an art form.

      
Wolfenstein whistled for someone to come to the cab.  A young, long-legged rebel named Bird Dog opened the door.  "What's the status?" asked Wolf.

      
"One of them went up an alley."

      
"Get 'em, Bird Dog."

      
Bird Dog flipped a lever ejecting the 33-round clip from the bottom of his Glock 24 and shoved a fresh one in the handle as he rounded the front of the truck in an accelerating sprint down the alley.  Helen began crawling out the door of the cab.  Wolf grabbed her belt and kept her in.  "You keep your ass on the floor."

      
"What!"

       
"
I
handle the skirmishes."  Wolf moaned as he crawled over her, oblivious to the blood streaming down his arm.  "If you have a problem with that, take it up with the boss when we get back."

      
Wolf looked around Helen at Crucible and saw the slumped body over the steering wheel with multiple holes through his face and head.  Wolf's face muscles went limp.  He sighed, "Get into Crucible's side pack there and pull out the red disk case."  Helen timidly unzipped and dug through the side pack, eventually finding the red case and handing it to the pack leader.  Wolfenstein then pulled out a sterilized wrap from his side pack and bound his arm, tying it with his teeth and remaining hand.  "Much obliged," he mumbled as he walked to the back of the truck.  He left Helen alone in the cab with the bloody corpse.

      
Still in shock, Helen reached up to feel Crucible's carotid for any sign of life.  After actually looking at the young man's head, she realized how stupid it was to check for a pulse; his head was nearly fragmented by motor-gun balls.  She slumped back to the floor, "Oh, God," she muttered, wondering about the significance of the memory disk.

      
Bird Dog sprinted down the alley.  As leg-man of an attack pack, his job was to sprint ahead of the group to capture and hold a tactical position, or to run down strays like this.  Leg-men were lean and in good aerobic condition.

      
Bird Dog spotted a blood trail halfway down the alley and stopped abruptly at a dumpster.  He held his breath a second and listened--and heard a voice.

      
A black face popped out from the edge of the doorway with a cellular in one hand.  He spotted Bird Dog and shot four rounds in his direction, pinging the dumpster with each round.

      
Bird Dog stuck his gun out shooting five rounds back, followed by gunning-to-the-source, the technique of walking toward the target using constant gun fire to keep them at bay--shooting at any head or hand poking out of cover.  Bird Dog chipped away at the brick's edge en route, finally closing in and shooting the victim with three rounds at point-blank range.  Black Rhino bullets shredded on impact, tearing large portions of bone from the victim's skull.  Blood and human tissue plastered the cove where the gang member lay.

      
The African-American sat slumped in the entrance clutching a Mexican version of a Beretta in one hand and a cellular phone in the other.  A balky voice squawked from the telephone.  Bird Dog picked it up.  "Hello."

      
"Who the hell is this?"  an authoritative voice asked from the other end.

      
"This is Bird Dog, sir.  Who is this?"

      
"What kind of stupid name is that?"

      
"Ah, well--"

      
"Did you kill my boy?"

      
"I'm sorry, I had to, sir.  I was taking fire and my orders were to stop his escape."

      
"What gang are you?"

      
Bird Dog paused a second and looked at the scar on his right thumb.  "Ghost Pack 220, sir."

      
"You son-of-a-bitch!  You're outa town.  You wait right there, I'm going to come over and shoot your ass myself."  The line went dead.

      
In the main chapel of the church, Helen and Wolf sat to the side; others went about their own business.  The hum of varied noises squelched private conversations.  "I'm so sorry this happened," Helen said as she bound up Wolf's arm; she had no idea changing the route would cause such a catastrophe.  The motor-gun ball had gone in just below Wolf's elbow and came out near his wrist.

      
Wolfenstein held his arm suspended in mid-air; he hadn't flinched through the cleaning or wrap-up but now his pain showed.  Speckles of sprayed blood from balls whipping into Crucibles' head spattered Wolfenstein's face and beard.  "They just started shootin'," he said.

      
Helen sighed with a crack in her voice as she spoke, " . . . and that poor boy."

      
"Name was Crucible."

      
"What?"

      
"We called him Crucible because he went into the fire and came out unscathed.  He was right beside me when we escaped the Feds by goin' through the Oke swamps.  Some of them got alligatored or just plain lost from the group, but Crucible stayed right by me.  Did exactly as I told him.  He was a good fighter, Ma'am.  You could always trust Crucible to hold up his end.  He wouldn't back off for nothin'.  It wasn't right that those Afros just shot him like that.  I'm pissed off.  I'm sorry, I usually don't talk that way in front of a lady but he was a good boy.  He shouldn't have been gunned down like that.  Is that the way these Afros fight down here, just haul off and shoot somebody for just driving down the street?  They don't know us from Adam."

      
"Well, I don't--"

      
"I mean, even if they were out to hijack the truck, they didn't have to shoot the driver.  You think they just shot him 'cause he was a white boy?  There were other trucks on that road."

      
"Probably not.  Maybe it was the out-of-state plates."

      
"He must have had six holes in his head before you could even blink.  I'm not pleased about this.  Not pleased at all."

      
Helen gave up trying to join his soliloquy conversation.  He hadn't heard her.  This was the most she had ever heard Wolfenstein speak.  Helen saw the sentimental side of the gruff, bearded man, but the vengeful rhetoric that followed, frightened her.  She attempted to change topics.  "How did you get this scar?"  Helen referred to the one on his thumb pad she found while cleaning him up.

      
Wolfenstein looked at her strangely.  "We get cuts all the time, ma'am."

      
Chaos walked by, "Wolf, I need to talk to you a minute."  The two of them walked to the back of the chapel, and ascended a flight of stairs to the second level, and stood at the top of the landing.  "I'd like to find out why you came back a different route from the electronics supply outlet.  The route through Old Boston was out of your way, you know.  You had no trouble getting there."

      
Wolf blinked several times.  The blood loss, along with the walk upstairs, made him woozy.  He hesitated, and looked down on Chaos saying, "I'm sorry, sir.  I screwed up."