Drought Read online

  Martin unwrapped the Colts and checked them over. Their weight and their shape and the smell of them was so familiar that he could have closed his eyes and felt as if he were still in Afghanistan, especially on a hot day like this. He had never handled an RPG but if Charlie said that it was in perfect working order, then he believed him. When he had still had an arm, Charlie had been a sniper, and he could strip and reassemble any weapon, American or foreign, in total darkness.

  ‘That magazine with the red tape on it, be careful with that one, it has tracer rounds in it,’ said Charlie.

  ‘OK. I don’t think I’ll be needing those. I’ll be doing this in daylight.’

  Charlie reached down under the floorboards and came up with two spherical, khaki-colored hand grenades. ‘Want to take these along, too? Don’t know why I kept them, to tell you the truth. Not much you can do with an M67 frag grenade except pull out the pin and blow yourself up with it, if life ever gets too boring.’

  ‘OK, let’s take them anyhow,’ said Martin. He checked his watch. ‘It’s too early to go yet. I don’t want us to be noticed, hanging around the intersection. What are you going to do, take your own truck?’

  ‘Sure. It’ll be easier for both of us. You can make a clean getaway and I can head straight back home. Meanwhile … how about some chow? Rosa! How much longer is that chili going to take? You need to try some of Rosa’s chili. That’s my second reason for staying alive.’

  After they had finished eating, Martin carried the two Colt Commandos out of the house and laid them on the passenger seat of his Eldorado, covering them up with a blue hand towel. He lifted the RPG into Charlie’s dusty black Dodge Ram. The Ram had a knob on the steering wheel which allowed Charlie to steer with one hand, and he could operate the direction indicators and the horn with his left foot.

  Before they set off, Charlie took hold of Martin’s hand and squeezed it and said, ‘If this all goes to shit, Angel, at least we tried. Never stop fighting, that’s what you always used to say, even when there’s nothing left to fight.’

  ‘Did I say that? I think I’ve learned more sense since then.’

  They climbed into their vehicles. It was so hot now that Martin could barely touch his steering wheel. He wished he could put up the top and turn on the air con, but for what he was planning to do he needed the roof down. With Charlie following close behind him he drove northward to join the Foothill Freeway. In fact Charlie was uncomfortably close behind him, what the Marines used to call ‘nuts to butts.’ He waved his hand to indicate that Charlie should back off a few feet, but all Charlie did was let go of his steering wheel and wave back.

  As he crossed over the freeway, Martin saw that the traffic was light to moderate, with most of it heading due westward to Rancho Cucamonga and probably beyond, to Pasadena and LA. It looked as if people were getting out of town, and he could hardly blame them. Looking back toward the city center he could see smoke rising from several different locations, and helicopters glinting as they circled over the downtown area.

  He checked the time again. It was 2.02 p.m. There was no way of knowing if the prison bus taking Tyler to West Valley was going to be dead on time, or if it was going to be delayed by the riots. All he could do was wait for it to appear, and then improvise. He drove down the ramp to join the freeway, but after only two hundred yards he pulled over on to the shoulder and switched on his hazard lights. Charlie steered his Ram in close behind him, with his lights flashing, too.

  Fifteen minutes passed, and there was still no sign of the prison bus; or the police van; or whatever vehicle they were using to transport Tyler to West Valley Detention Center. He saw red, white and blue lights flashing in his rear-view mirror, and started up his engine, ready to set off in pursuit, but then a Highway Patrol car sped past him, its siren wailing, with only two officers in it. He turned off his engine again, and looked around at Charlie, and shook his head.

  It was 2.28 before he peered into his side mirror and saw a likely looking vehicle approaching. It was a dark blue bus, and as it came nearer he could make out the silver letters ESS on the front. He knew that Empire Security Services had a contract to carry inmates from prison to court and back again, and now that the SBPD were having to cope with riots, it was logical that they would call on them to take Tyler to Rancho Cucamonga.

  He fired up his engine, and gave a whirling-finger signal to Charlie to do the same. The old Ram started up with a whistle and a hefty roar, and Charlie revved its engine up again and again, like a dragster driver who couldn’t wait to get off the starting-line.

  The dark blue bus came closer and closer. It was traveling at less than forty miles an hour, at most, so that when it passed him, Martin could see through the horizontal bars that lined the windows. He glimpsed two security guards, both of them wearing peaked caps, two white men with shaved heads, a black man with a woolly cap on, and right at the back of the bus, Tyler’s blond hair, looking even more porcupine-like than usual.

  He stepped on the gas and swerved off the shoulder on to the highway, trying not to drive too dramatically, in case he alerted the bus driver before they reached the North Alder Avenue flyover. Charlie followed, although he kept his distance this time. He knew what Martin was planning to do, and he didn’t want to catch any ricochets.

  Martin pulled out into the center lane, so that he was driving just behind the bus, matching its speed. Charlie stayed where he was, in the right-hand lane, about fifty yards back.

  The bus driver obviously wasn’t aware that Martin was close-tailing him, because he didn’t slow down or increase his speed or try to take any evasive action, and neither of the security guards turned around to look at him. The bus kept going, mile after mile, with Martin keeping pace with it, his speedometer just nudging forty mph, until he could see the North Alder Avenue flyover up ahead.

  This was going to take some calculation. He had attacked Taliban trucks dozens of times before, but in Afghanistan the roads were rough and rocky and the vehicles had usually come bouncing to a halt within only a very short distance – apart from which their drivers had known they were going to be shot at, and had immediately jumped down from their cabs and run away.

  He waited until they were just over half a mile away from the flyover, and then he lifted off the towel that was covering the two Colt Commandos, and hefted one of them up. He leaned across the front seat and rested the barrel on top of the passenger door, lodging it between the side mirror and the windshield to steady it.

  Through the barred window at the side of the bus, he could see the back of one of the guards’ heads; and through the rear window he could just see Tyler’s hair. He still had a choice. He could drive away, and let Tyler be taken to prison. But he still believed that motto he had always used in Afghanistan, about the worst thing that you can possibly imagine, and he knew that he had to act now, or he would regret it for ever.

  He fired two shots in quick succession, and then a five-second burst. The noise of the gun was deafening, because this was one of the old Colt Commandos before they suppressed them. The bullets tore into the rear offside tires, ripping them into blackened shreds, so that they flapped against the road surface like a witch’s cloak.

  The bus slewed to the left, and then to the right, its remaining tires howling. Martin saw the security guard swivel his head around and stare at him through the bars, his mouth wide open in shock; but then he touched his brakes and swung the Eldorado behind the bus, its long hood softly dipping, and then accelerated again, so that he was coming up on its nearside.

  He shifted the sub-machine gun to his left hand, steering with his right. Tucking the butt into his left armpit, he fired another nine or ten ear-splitting rounds into the bus’s back tires. A blizzard of torn black rubber burst all around him, thumping against his windshield, while the bus tilted from one side to the other, its steel hubs screeching on the blacktop and showers of sparks cascading from its wheel arches.

  It seemed to take forever before the bus sto
pped careering from side to side. The driver managed to pull it over on to the shoulder, only about twenty yards shy of the off-ramp that led up to the North Alder Avenue flyover. It came to a grating halt, rocking slightly on its ruined suspension, and a large piece of twisted metal chassis dropped on to the ground with a clatter. Martin overtook the bus, parked his Eldorado on the shoulder in front of it, and climbed out, pointing the Colt Commando at the door.

  Charlie parked behind it, and walked around to join Martin, holding up the RPG. He was grinning.

  ‘That was real fancy shooting, Angel,’ he called out ‘Haven’t had so much goddamned fun in years!’

  Traffic was still streaming past them on the freeway, cars and semis and even a tow truck from the Freeway Service Patrol. Martin could see most of their drivers turning their heads to stare at him, but none of them slowed down He had counted on passers-by not wanting to get involved in any situation that could be dangerous, especially if they saw men with large guns. Maybe some of them might call 911, or a trucker might report it on his CB radio, but by the time the police could respond they would be long gone.

  Martin walked up to the bus and banged on the door with his fist. ‘Open the door, now, or you’re going to get blown to kingdom come!’

  Charlie was standing right behind him with the RPG launcher resting on his shoulder, still grinning. One of the security guards said something in a muffled voice, and then the door opened up with a sharp pneumatic hiss.

  ‘OK, out of there, all of you!’ said Martin. ‘And you two guards – if either of you goes for a weapon, believe me, it’ll be the last thing you do!’

  The bus driver stepped down first, and put his hands on top of his head. He was followed by the two security guards, and then the two white prisoners, and the black prisoner in the woolly hat, and finally by Tyler.

  Tyler was wide-eyed and obviously shaken, but at least he had the good sense not to shout out ‘Dad!’

  Martin stepped forward, popped the studs on the security guards’ holsters, hooked out their pistols with his forefinger and then slung them left-handed into the dry brown scrub at the side of the shoulder. Then he said, ‘Cellphones, too.’

  They took out their cells and threw them after their guns. Neither of them spoke, not even to ask him why he had shot out their tires, or what he wanted. One was middle-aged, with a broken nose like a boxer, and no front teeth. The other was much younger, Hispanic, with a shadow of a black moustache and a large mole on his chin. The older one, oddly, looked almost bored, as if he just wanted to get this over with.

  ‘Tyler,’ said Martin, ‘go sit in the car. The rest of you guys, get back in the bus. Stay there, because my friend here is going to keep you covered until I’m gone, and my friend’s RPG could punch a hole through an armored personnel carrier, leave alone a bus.’

  ‘Whatever you say, buddy,’ said the older security guard. ‘I’m not risking my neck for some punk kid, believe me.’

  The three inmates climbed back on to the bus, followed by the driver and the younger security guard, with the older security guard taking up the rear, his hands still held on top of his head. Martin backed toward his car, keeping his sub-machine gun lifted, but when he reached it and opened up the driver’s door, he tossed the gun on to the back seat.

  He climbed in and started up the engine, turning around to wave goodbye to Charlie. Charlie was still keeping the bus covered, the RPG mounted on his right shoulder, his left hand holding the pistol grip. The older security guard was now mounting the steps into the bus, taking both hands off the top of his head so that he could grasp the rails. Charlie turned to Martin and called out, ‘Mission accomplished, Angel! Yee-ha! You did it again, man! Just like the old days!’

  Suddenly, though, the older security guard used his grip on the rails to push himself backward, and jump down on to the tarmac. He rolled over, underneath the bus, so that he was out of Charlie’s line of sight. Charlie stepped to the left, ducking down to see where the security guard was hiding himself. Martin shouted out, ‘Charlie! Watch out!’ and immediately reached down for the second Colt Commando, which Tyler had taken off the passenger seat and laid in the footwell.

  He lifted up the Colt and opened his door, but even before he could climb back out of the driver’s seat the older security guard appeared from underneath the front bumper of the bus. He was lying on his side, grimacing, and he was holding a small-caliber pistol in both hands. Martin thought: hideaway gun, shit, why didn’t I think of checking his ankles?

  He raised the sub-machine gun but everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Charlie must have seen the security guard’s pistol because he teetered sideways and backward and with that forty-pound rocket launcher on his shoulder, he began to lose his balance, especially since he only had one arm. As he did so, the security guard fired three shots at him, and then another two shots in Martin’s direction. With a hollow bang, one of them hit the trunk of Martin’s car, but the other missed, even though Martin heard it whizz past his ear.

  Charlie, however, was staggering further and further backward, with the rocket launcher tilting upward, and then downward.

  Martin fired two loud shots at the security guard under the bus, but the security guard had disappeared again, like a rat disappearing under a baseboard, and he wasn’t at all sure that he had hit him.

  ‘Charlie!’ he yelled, and started to run toward him.

  The rocket launcher was pointing down toward the ground now, and it looked as if Charlie was trying to disentangle himself from the shoulder strap. But his index finger must have been caught in the trigger guard, because he was tugging at it furiously, and as he did so one of the grenades went off. Within a split second of each other, there was a sharp whoosh as the projectile ignited, and then a devastating explosion as it hit the ground.

  The world was turned inside-out. Martin heard nothing at all, and saw nothing but blinding white light. He was hurled backward against his car, jarring his shoulder against the trunk and knocking his forehead against the sharply angled tail lights.

  He lay on the ground, staring at the tarmac in close-up, and the inside of his head was singing and singing and wouldn’t stop. Very faintly, he heard Tyler’s voice saying ‘Dad! Dad, are you OK? Dad! Can you hear me? Dad!’

  He raised his head a little and saw the scuffed-up toes of Tyler’s blue-and-white sneakers. Then he managed to raise it a little more, to see that Tyler was crouching down next to him, his eyes wide with worry.

  Gradually, he managed to drag himself into a sitting position. There was a crater in the tarmac where Charlie’s grenade had exploded, with smoke still rising from it. The force of the explosion had blown the windshield and all of the windows out of the bus and forced the whole vehicle sideways, so that its front wheels were up on the scrubby embankment and its rear end was sticking out into the right-hand lane of the freeway. Martin couldn’t see any of its passengers.

  He couldn’t see Charlie, either. He looked around, his head still singing and bright green after images still swimming in front of his eyes, but there was no sign of Charlie anywhere. It was only when he looked down at his own clothes, and at the back of his car, that he began to realize what had happened. His khaki chinos and his white shirt were finely sprayed with blood, and so was his car. The blast from the grenade had been so powerful that Charlie had been vaporized.

  Several cars had stopped on the freeway now, and more of them had slowed right down to a crawl. A large Peterbilt semi had pulled up behind Charlie’s truck and the driver was climbing down from his cab.

  Tyler said, ‘Dad – I think the police are coming!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can hear sirens. I think they’re getting closer!’

  Martin listened intently, cupping his hand to his ear, but all he could hear was that persistent singing. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I think we need to get ourselves out of here, and fast. Come on.’

  ‘Dad – we can’t!’

  ‘No “can’t”
about it, Tyler. We have to. This whole country is going to hell in a handcart and we’ll be going with it unless we go now.’

  ‘Dad—!’

  Martin bent down and picked up his Colt Commando. He threw it back into his car with a clatter and then opened the passenger door and pushed Tyler inside.

  The truck driver was approaching them now, and he called out, ‘Hey! What happened here, fella? What’s going on? Hey, there’s blood all over!’

  Martin didn’t answer him, but climbed behind the wheel, started the engine, and accelerated up the off-ramp with rubber smoke billowing behind him. Once he reached the top of the ramp, he turned left with a screaming chorus of tires, crossed the flyover and headed south.

  Tyler was looking at him, white-faced and bewildered. ‘Why did you do that, Dad? That man was blown up! Who was he? Was he with you?’

  Martin kept his foot flat on the floor and blasted his horn as a panel van tried to pull out in front of him.

  ‘That man was Charlie Bonaduce. He and I served in the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Afghanistan together. He lost an arm to a roadside bomb.’

  He swerved in and out of a slow-crawling line of cars, and then he said, ‘Charlie said that his life wasn’t worth living any more and he wanted to blow his brains out, but he didn’t because it would make a mess, and his maid would have to clear it up.’

  He slewed left into Baseline Avenue, running a red light and provoking a furious fusillade of horn-blowing from other drivers.

  ‘Asshole!’ screamed one of them.

  Martin ignored him. He turned to Tyler and said, ‘Seems like Charlie found a way round that particular problem.’

  THIRTEEN

  He kept his foot down and didn’t stop for anything – not red lights nor yield signs nor traffic snarl-ups. At the intersection with Mount Vernon Avenue he avoided a long line of cars waiting to turn left by swerving into the exit of Walgreens parking lot and careering out again through the entrance.