SurviRal (26 page)

Chapter Nineteen

The morning sun hitting the front of the house aggravated Tucker’s hangover. He kept glancing across the porch at Saul, who was bearing a different type of burden. Tucker could tell the woman’s muffled screams bothered him, despite his obvious effort to conceal it. The truth was Tucker wasn’t crazy about them either. But he decided to have some fun with Saul while they waited.

“Your turn will be next, Saul. All right?”

Saul frowned. “What if I don’t want a turn?”

“Dusty won’t like that. You’re the new guy. He’ll expect you to participate in our …doings. That’s partly how we learn to trust you.”

“I didn’t come along on this to fulfil my personal biological urges. I came to score food and merchandise.”

Tucker laughed. “Spoken like a true pirate, matey. Arrr, you’re here for the treasure, aren’t ye? Well, have a little fun with your shipmates first. There’s rum and plump lasses to be had. Then we’ll be dividing up the booty.”

“I might have to decline my ‘turn,’ even if Dusty doesn’t approve. I just …can’t.”

“Not enough time for the Viagra to kick in?”

“Something like that. So you go ahead.”

“Nah. I prefer blondes.”

“Like the gentleman you are,” Saul said.

 “Right.” Tucker furrowed his brow. “What was it you did for a living, again? Before becoming a pirate, I mean.”

Saul flashed a rare smiled. “I’ve always been a pirate.”

“Come on, man. We all know you’re out of your pond. You ever even fired a gun before?”

“Yes.”

“At a person, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“At someone who was shooting back at you?”

“Yes.”

His responses seemed honest. Tucker rubbed his chin and thought for a second before asking the next question.

“Ever shot someone who
wasn’t
shooting back at you?”

“No.”

“Aha! That’s what we need to work on. So what did you do, man?”

“I’m a software pirate.”

“A what?”

“A freelance computer programmer. What some people call a hacker. But I do specialized work.”

“Like hacking into bank accounts and such?”

“No. I crack computer software and resell it. Also, sometimes I collect payments from website owners in exchange for not taking their sites down.”

“You know how to take other peoples’ websites down?”

“Yes. By barraging them, via a large network of virally-linked computers. It’s called a
denial of service
attack.”

“Website owners pay you
not
to do this?”

“Some do. For a while, anyway. They require a demonstration first, of course.”

“So you’re an extortionist.”

“Yes. But that’s only part of it. I make most of my money selling pirated software, like I said. Sometimes the creators pay me to go away. Then I come back disguised as a different hacker and try to repeat. Eventually they pony up to have better security installed, and I move on to a new victim. Doing them a favor, the way I see it. Small-time software creators are easy pickings.”

“How did you learn to do all this?”

“I learned the basics at Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood. The rest I pursued on my own. We used to have a blast cracking software back in my college days.”

Tucker shook his head. “Smart guy—Saul Goldstein the computer pirate. Now becoming a real pirate.”

“Do you hear something?” Saul asked.

Tucker looked across the expansive yard. “Yes. Be quiet.”

There was no motor noise, but the sound of people talking came from the road. It moved rapidly. At least one female voice was among them.

“Could be bicyclists,” Tucker said. “They’ll be passing the clear stretch in a few seconds. We should duck out of sight.”

Tucker and Saul jumped down from the porch and positioned themselves behind the solitary Christmas-tree sized pine in the yard. A moment later, the source of the voices passed the short section of road visible from the house.

A golf cart! Travelling along at a pretty good clip. Two men and a woman—all of whom glanced in the direction of the house as they passed.

“Come on!” Tucker said after the cart vanished behind the tree line again. “We can catch them on the curve!”

“You want to ambush that golf cart?” Saul asked.

“Hell yes! Those are valuable now. And did you see the full packs they had? We might score more there than what’s in this whole house. Plus the chick’s a blonde.”

“Her hair looked brown to me.”

“Close enough. Come on!”

Tucker reached up to grab this shotgun off the porch railing and started running. He glanced behind him after twenty yards to verify that Saul was following. He was, though his gait suggested an uneager compliance.

They made it to the far side of the property before the cart rounded the bend, and jumped over a small ditch to get to the road.

“Let’s cross over.” Tucker pointed to a thick patch of growth on the other side. “We can get a better shot from there.”

“The girl’s on that side,” Saul said.

“I’m only going to blow out one of the tires. To start, anyway. Maybe they’ll run off and leave us the loot.”

“That sounds like a better plan.” Saul followed Tucker across.

The two of them hunched low in the brush a few seconds before the golf cart appeared. It slowed to take the tight curve, but now accelerated again. The driver appeared to be in his mid-thirties. The girl next to him was a real looker, even with her hair in a scrunchie. A middle-aged man sat in the back seat. He seemed to be particularly aware, scrutinizing his surroundings. Tucker knew that one was the most likely to be armed of the three. But he doubted any of them had guns. They looked like typical city people from Denver or Colorado Springs.

Tucker held his shotgun at the ready. An opening low in the brush made the perfect portal for shooting through. The sound of the electric motor whirring came into earshot as it approached. It sounded strained.

At the last second, as the cart came directly in front of them, Tucker shoved the barrel of the gun out through the bush and fired a round of buckshot at the front tire.

The tire blew. The cart skidded to one side. The driver overcompensated, fishtailing it. The woman shrieked.

The cart ended up head-first in the ditch on the opposite side of the road, thirty yards ahead.

“Let’s go!” Tucker nudged Saul.

This time Saul ran out ahead of him. That was good. Dusty would be happy to hear he was pulling his weight.

They came to the cart, sticking bottom-up out of the trench. It was empty. The occupants must be fleeing behind the tree line. Tucker watched as Saul held his pistol out with both arms and advanced through the trees.

A single shot fired. Did Saul just shoot at one of them?

Saul reappeared—but only the top half of his body as it fell backward. His forehead was sporting a new accessory: a bullet hole.

Tucker quickly raised the shotgun. But not quick enough. They say you never hear the one that gets you. It’s not true. Tucker heard all three shots fire as the slugs impacted on his chest. What he didn’t notice was the fall. His next conscious moment was that of lying on the roadside next to his beloved shotgun. He couldn’t breathe, and his arms wouldn’t obey the command to reach for the gun. Something fuzzy was in front of him. He tried to focus.

The last thing Tucker saw on Earth was a maroon bumper sticker. Save the Ales. Save the Ales…

* * *

“Where are those dumbshits?” Dusty tightened his belt without setting down his .357 magnum. “They were supposed to stay on the porch until I told them it was their turn.”

Coop followed him outside. “I heard shots out on the road. That way.”

Dusty shook his head. “Those fools probably chased a deer into the woods. They don’t know you found a freezer full of venison. Well, I’m only giving then a few minutes to come back before I shoot the bitch. And I’m sure as hell not helping them lug a deer carcass.”

“It’d make me feel better to know Saul shot something,” Coop said. “Even if it’s only an animal.”

“You don’t think his heart is in this, do you?”

“Frankly, no.”

Dusty laughed. “He’s not the most hardened crook I ever met, but he has some drive. Don’t worry. He’ll be all right.”

“Wish I shared your confidence. Shouldn’t there be some kind of initiation for him—out here on a job, I mean?”

“Like what?”

“Have him shoot the bitch.”

“No.” Dusty shook his head. “That’s not his thing. Making your partners do stuff they aren’t comfortable with doesn’t help the operation.”

“He just doesn’t fit in,” Coop said. “If we really needed a fourth, I could have gotten us another guy for these home jobs. Someone experienced.”

“I could have, too. Look. I’m the one in charge for now, right?”

“No argument.”

“Good. Then you have to trust my judgment. I kind of like Saul. Brings the outfit some class. So stop ragging on him, okay? And for the record, I need your recruiting advice like I need a hole in the head.”

Coop nodded and continued looking around the yard.

“Hey, what’s that?” He pointed off to the side.

“Where?”

“Up by the road, in the trees. It’s white. See it? Looks like something in the ditch. Maybe a small car crashed there.”

Dusty frowned when he saw what Coop was pointing at. “That’s where you heard the shots come from?”

“Yeah. I think.”

“We better check it out.”

The two of them began walking in that direction, scouting the area as they did. But they didn’t make it to the trench. The sound of loud engines coming south on the road drew them back to the house.

They didn’t make it back to the house, either. An SUV suddenly turned up the long gravel driveway, followed by a group of motorcycles. Their arrival was sudden. They must have been speeding. Dusty and Coop were caught in the open. They both instinctively held their pistols behind them.

When the dust cloud cleared, a green Ford Explorer faced them, surrounded by four street bikes. The doors of the SUV opened and five guys who looked like they would be more at home on motorcycles got out. One of them held a shotgun. Two had pistols drawn. Dusty saw handguns tucked in the pants of the others, including the driver. The motorcyclists dismounted and came to their side. They were similarly armed.

“Friends of yours?” Coop asked.

Dusty laughed nervously. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? At least it’s a safe bet they didn’t come to help the homeowner.”

The nine new arrivals took slow, deliberate steps towards Dusty and Coop. Dusty let his .357 swing around in front of him, but kept it lowered. The strangers didn’t react. Dusty didn’t know if that was good or bad. When the group was within ten yards, they stopped. The SUV driver then spoke.

“Who’s all inside?” He motioned towards the open front door of the house with his head.

Dusty studied the man before answering. Skinny as his waist was, he did have an impressive upper build, like the body of a gym trainer. His short black hair was combed, almost too dapper to be travelling with the rest of this bunch—except for his overgrown goatee.

Dusty finally shrugged and answered. “No one, really. What can we do for you boys?”

“Mind if we take a look?” the driver asked.

Dusty glanced at the front door before responding.

“Inside the house, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Um …no. Knock yourself out.”

The driver, who was obviously in charge, then sent two of his gang in the house. They returned in less than three minutes.

“What’s it look like, Tommy?”

“Naked woman cowering in the bedroom. A little beat up. Dead husband in the hallway.”

“Shot?”

“Yeah.”

“Food?” the driver asked. “Ammo? Anything interesting?”

“Some food. Didn’t see any ammo, or a safe. Oh, and one more thing, Zane. Someone wrote
savages
on the wall with a magic marker. We’ll check the back.” Tommy and his companion walked behind the house.

Dusty tightened his pistol grip when he heard the driver’s name was Zane.

“Are you …Zane Savage?” he asked.

Zane squinted. “Do I know you?”

“No. We’ve never met. I’ve heard of you, that’s all.”

Zane shook his head. “You know you posers are making things tougher for us. Leaving signs behind, pinning jobs on us that we had nothing to do with—and where we didn’t even get a cut. Worse, this kind of thing gets noticed more, and feeds the gung-ho newspaper writers. So the jobs are tougher, because more people are staring out their windows all night instead of sleeping.”

“I never thought of that. Sorry. Just so you know, I’m not the one who wrote that—”

“I don’t give a shit which one of you wrote it,” Zane said. “It’s stupid.”

“Point taken.” Dusty tried to concede without sounding weak.

Tommy and the other one came back from behind the house.

“Four bikes,” Tommy said. He then motioned towards Dusty and Coop. “But only two riders. We got math problems here.”

Zane took a step towards Dusty and frowned. “Where’s your other two friends?”