“Right,” Pook said.
“And we cleaned up the door and the entryway here, and halfway up the block on the sidewalk and street out there. There was blood everywhere, man. You need to be more careful about cleanup, Pook. Someone might’ve called Transport if they’d seen it.”
“That was my fault,” Pook said. “We had a situation and we needed to move fast on getting these guns made.”
“Do I even want to ask?” Ducky said.
“It was Donavan, one of our inside men in Transport. They got onto him and shot him. He made his way here to report before he died. Guy was a champion. We’ll need to put up a statue for that man when we win this war.”
“He marked?”
“He cut it out himself before he came here.”
“Seriously?” Ducky said, screwing up his face.
“Seriously. I have it in my pack.”
“Wouldn’t that emit a signal that could be tracked here?” Jed asked.
“Nope. BICE units run on the electricity produced in the human brain,” Pook pointed to his head and winked at Jed, “and the human brain produces a shocking amount of electricity!” He laughed at his own play on words, but Jed didn’t really get it, so Pook continued. “Outside the brain, the BICE doesn’t have a power source so it doesn’t transmit. When they first came out with these, they installed them with built-in backup power supplies like in a LoJack or the older implanted ID chips that went in your hand or arm, but over time those things tended to leak—causing brain damage or worse—and when they failed that meant further surgeries. Before the BICE was rolled out for widespread use, Transport found a way to run them off of the electrical current that the brain naturally produces, so if you cut one out, it’s a dead unit, unless you hook it up to an outside power source.”
“Well, props to that dude, for sure—cutting out his own BICE! Where is he now?” Ducky asked. Jed noticed that the short soldier was all business.
“Back in the back room, wrapped in a tarp.”
Ducky turned to a couple of his men and pointed with his thumb back towards the rear of the shop. “You two get rid of that body back there. Do it respectfully and properly because he was one of us. Don’t leave any evidence. If we’re gone when you get back, meet us on the other side of the river. Camp Echo. Now git!”
The two men nodded and walked toward the back of the building.
“What do we have outside?” Pook asked.
Ducky jerked his head toward the door while simultaneously indicating to Pook that he wanted a cigarette. “I’ve got two men watchin’ this place, lookin’ for eyes and tails, anyone gettin’ too curious, you know? No one will ever see them. Invisible, they are. Like the wind.”
Pook pulled out a pack, popped out a cigarette, and offered it to Ducky, who took it and nodded his thanks.
“I’ve got two more soldiers watchin’ the bridge, makin’ sure everstuff is copacetic, you know?” Ducky puffed on the cigarette and blew the smoke straight up into the air.
“What else?”
“It’s a mess out there, Pook. Our own ordnance nearly took out a few of our safe houses. Whoever is callin’ the shots on this offensive is makin’ it look all too real, know what I’m sayin’?”
“That’s what Billy said, and that was the plan,” Pook said, “and the closer our offensive fire gets to our own safe houses, the less suspicious are those houses, right? I mean, who would fire on their own hideouts?”
“Only crazy people, I ’spect. Well, I hope we don’t have any friendly-fire deaths before this thing is over.”
“Everything that can be done to minimize our losses is being done, Ducky.”
“You sound like one of them.”
“The curse of management,” Pook said and punched Ducky hard in the arm.
As the two men continued their conversation, Jed noticed the knob on the front door twist and the door crack open slowly. What happened next occurred very quickly. Like a cool, rainy evening interrupted by a sudden strike of lightning, the familial atmosphere changed in an instant. Jed was one of the last to react. Everyone else had been intensively trained on how to deal with threats.
The door swung open and Jed instantly recognized the two men who pushed their way into the room. It was the two policemen who had arrested him during his trip: Hugh Conrad of the Transport Authority and Officer Rheems of the Transport Police. The two men strained their eyes to see through the relative darkness and smiled when they saw Jed’s face among those of the other rebels in the room.
Before the two men had even stepped fully inside, guns were snap-drawn throughout the shop, including the one wielded by Jerry Rios, who also recognized the two cops—who were now smiling at him too. Everyone moved into position wordlessly—even Dawn—as if they were practiced at dealing with just such an eventuality, and the tension in the room reached a new high as eyes peered down gun barrels and fingers tensed on triggers.
“Look, Rheems, it’s Jerry Rios!” Hugh Conrad said with a laugh. Rheems nodded and smiled. There was a twinkle in his eye. “And there’s the Amish kid!”
Most of the guns—the ones held by Pook’s men—came down, but Jerry didn’t lower his gun at all. He kept it pointed at Conrad’s face.
“Drop the gun, Jerry,” Pook said. “They’re with us.”
“They’re with you?” Jerry said. There was incredulity in his voice. “How can they be with you? They arrested Jed and me during transport and almost kept us from making the trip! They wanted to send me to Oklahoma.”
Ducky raised his pistol silently, but this time it was pointed at Jerry Rios.
“I told you, they’re with us, Jerry,” Pook said calmly. “So lower your weapon.”
“Yeah,” Conrad said. “We’re with him.”
Jerry moved the gun so that it was pointing at Rheems. He wasn’t talking now. The wheels were turning in his mind, but he didn’t have an answer. He moved the gun back toward Conrad.
“Easy, tiger…” Pook said with a smile on his face.
“I don’t understand,” Jerry said. The tension in his voice was mirrored by a very slight tremor in his pistol hand. “If they’re double agents working inside Transport, then why did they arrest us in West Texas? Why the charade? And why are they exposing themselves now?”
“You’re new here, Jerry,” Pook said calmly, “and I really don’t have to answer your questions.” Pook exhaled deeply, and Jed could see that the rebel leader was considering his options. “I’ll tell you what I can. But in the future, if I—or any one of my men—tells you to drop your weapon, you will drop your weapon. There won’t be a second request.”
Everyone remained frozen as Jerry considered what Pook had said.
“So this is it, Jerry. Drop the weapon and I’ll tell you what I can. Or don’t drop it and we’re going to smoke you and get on with our day.”
Jerry slowly lowered the pistol and pointed it toward the floor.
“Good thinking,” Pook said.
“So what’s this all about?” Jerry said tersely.
“This is all about him,” Pook said, pointing toward Jed. “We’re doing whatever we have to do—putting everything and everyone at risk—to get him where he needs to be. Rheems and Conrad are here because we need their help if we’re to get Jed out of the City and into the Amish Zone. That’s our only mission right now.”
“Got it,” Jerry said.
“And going forward, I don’t have time to brief every newbie and wannabe that hitches on to my mission, you understand?” Pook said.
“I said I got it,” Jerry snapped.
Just then, one of Ducky’s men burst through the door with a shout. “TRACER incoming!”