The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination (3 page)

Max threw the foreclosure notice a big kiss and jumped back inside, where four mostly German Shepherd dogs eagerly waited. Max ignored them so flagrantly that they shied away as he launched into a spastic fashion show before the floor-length mirror in the formal entry. He danced through a series of exaggerated modeling moves ending in a lame clown-face while whooping and hollering, “Ya like it? Haaa haaaa. Like it! Yeah! Yeah!” He doned his huge fur hat and twisted left and right, trying to determine his good side. The hat still worked! “What’d ya think? Waddaya think? Ha, Haaa.”

The dogs, tails slapping the hardwood floor, didn’t know what to think.

* * *

R
epresentative Thomka’s
shiny leather heel tapped the sacred Council Chamber’s polished terrazzo floor. Murthy squirmed in his seat and nudged him. “Who?”

Thomka swallowed his impatience. “That guy — Tuke.”

“He’s a damn Quaker,” whispered Murthy.

“My eggheads tell me to worry.”

“Advice you’re all too eager to take.”

On stage, Arch Bishop Hendrix stood radiantly in her warm-pink spotlight as the organ music rose for her finale. “The corporate state, in concert with The Church, is returning prosperity to all who have earned God’s blessing. All who tithe at the altar of faith.”

More applause.

Thomka shifted uneasily in his seat. “It’s growing. Some kind of game. A damn game these Quaker geeks have been developing for decades. Getting bigger and bigger. And it’s political.”

Murthy hadn’t heard a word he’d said. He was looking at a girl near the side of the stage.

Thomka whispered pointedly, “This Tuke thing is serious.”

“You only think it’s serious. There’s no conspiracy, no one to oppose us. It’s just a game.”

“It’s not a game. It’s hundreds of unaccountable coincidences. All pulling in different directions — independently. You don’t have all the information I do.”

Murthy mumbled in a bored voice, “If they can’t get together, they’re not a threat. If they can’t communicate, they can’t get together.”

“They are communicating. Their game platform has evolved into a communications network. The biggest network on the planet, and they’re weaponizing it.”

Murthy glowered in frustration.

“And these social games, what ever the hell they are, have captured everyone living outside the walled cities.”

“How? They’re primitives living off the residue of the past.”

Thomka grinned darkly. “Like I said, you don’t know everything. I’m telling you, it’s growing . . .”

Murthy cut him short. “I put a guy on it weeks ago.”

“Who?”

“An old gun dealer turned private security.”

“I hate clichés.”

“He’s a pro. From New Jersey. Not prone to optimism.”

Thomka shrugged his shoulders. “And?”

“And nothing. He left a message on my cell. He’s onto something somewhere in Pennsylvania. In the mountains. The Alleghenies.”

Thomka stared at the side of Murthy’s head as though it was a tumerous growth.

Murthy, oblivious to all but a potential conquest, nodded in the direction of the curtains. The pretty young aide with the water pitcher peeked out and rotated her thumb and little finger by her ear.
Call me.

Murthy turned to Thomka with a self-satisfied smirk. “The lovely miss wants to graduate from girl who keeps the water glasses full, to girl waiting in a limo.”

“I admire her ambition,” mocked Thomka. “You got this Tuke thing under control? Or don’t you?”

Murthy squared his shoulders, thrust out his chest, and crossed his heart. “Hope to die.”

Thomka shook his head doubtfully, and answered, “Live in hope . . . die in despair.”

F
red reached
The Church still reveling in Max’s joy, which made him feel young. He was only fifty-six and remembered a time when entering a church with a gun slung over your shoulder would have been unthinkable. How silly that seemed now. He went around to the side door, down three worn, flagstone steps, and let himself into the basement.

There in the Sunday school, bingo hall and emergency services center, sat Pastor Scott Stephens at a dented metal desk. He looked up from a computer screen through foggy horn-rimmed glasses that enlarged his eyes and caused him to squint in a not very flattering way, but he always wore an irrepressible smile, like a schoolgirl’s charm bracelet. A wispy shock of gray hair stood out electrically all over his head, around and through his ears and down into a shaggy beard. He wrinkled his nose and yelled, “Fred! I got it. I got it. I got it! A whole two-kilo barrel of black powder. One of the guys from the Chinese factory gets it smuggled in.” He made a droopy-eyed face to show that he was trying to be funny, and said in his best imitation Chinese, “Tawoo Keeewoozzz.”

Fred, who kept the village well fed in winter on deer and small game, was happy to hear about the gunpowder, but that could wait. “We found a dead body up by the cliffs,” he said without a hint of drama.

“Where?” asked Pastor Scott, turning down his TV monitor and the ranting Arch Bishop Hendrix.

“Where the rocks go straight up. Below the Twin Spires.”

“I know right where you mean,” said the Pastor. “Do you know who it is?”

“No. He’s not from around here. Dressed to the nines. He’s connected. An upright citizen. Froze solid. From Pittsburgh, maybe even New York, by the looks of him.”

Fred could see that Pastor Scott was intrigued, but fearful. In these times, a frivolous involvement in the death of a person from the protected class was not without consequence.

Pastor Scott snapped his fingers. “Let’s call the cops,” he said, then dove into a pile of papers on his desk and quickly produced a plastic-laminated list of important phone numbers. “Just got this a month or so ago. Has all the new changes. Latest consolidations. Don’t know how they do it, but they do.”

Fred waited with an uneasy smile. He loved Pastor Scott, but it took a moment to acclimate to his overflowing conviviality.

“We have to call the National Police Force now. Short and sweet. The ninth consolidation. Got it right here. No more local cops at all. One force. New numbers. In fact,” he said, pointing an instructive finger at Fred, “that’s the whole point. There’s only one number now. Much cheaper. More efficient.” He snatched up the phone like a mighty sword.

A door slammed back near the furnace, announcing the entrance of Gina, Mrs. Pastor Scott, carrying today’s collection: nine jars of various jams and preserves and a freshly deceased wild turkey. She was much thinner than her husband, and refused to trim her jumble of gray dreads, claiming they kept her head quite warm. “What’s going on?” she asked, tuning in to the commotion.

“Ah, well . . . ah. Fred and Max found a frozen body up at the Twin Spires,” Pastor Scott mumbled, praying to every saint in heaven she was not going to poke her nose into this.

Fred slid his hat off, nodded his hello, braced himself for the impending squabble and tried not to smile, but his smiling eyes gave him away — Gina always smelled of the Lilac Vegetal she brewed in her kitchen.

Pastor Scott raised an old military satellite phone—there were millions of them left over from the war— and dialed. He did not want to get this wrong, which would invite his wife to take over. Pastor Scott was sort of in charge in Lily, but Gina was far better suited to running things. He’d been given The Church franchise during the Conversion and Privatization Phase. No one else wanted it. Only a few of Lily’s residents attended The Church, and only to watch TV, but Pastor Scott was pragmatic enough to see the perks of owning the franchise, since the price was right. No one had agreed to give him authority, but no one had disagreed upon the many occasions he had taken charge.

His eyes rolled around their huge cavities as he spoke. “Hello? Hello. This is the Pastor of The Church in Lily, Pennsylvania. We’ve just found a dead body.”

He waited for a response, staring vacantly, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. “On hold. See, just one number. Efficient. Very efficient.”

Fred watched as Pastor Scott muttered, “A huh, a hum,” before ripping his hand from the mouthpiece. “What?” He waved to Fred for help. “What’s my longitude and latitude?”

Gina looked to Fred with a limp-lip, and folded her arms across her ample chest.

“OK. I’ll call back when I have that.” Pastor Scott hung up.

“Get outta there!” Gina shooed him from his seat. “That’s how they handle every call. They ask stupid questions so you’ll hang up. You just got played.” She plopped down at the computer and began poking at the keyboard.

Pastor Scott stumbled out of her way, looking like a man who just got off at the wrong bus stop.

“Well, well, well, looky here. When I search PA maps for Lily, I see we’re at 40° 25' 33" latitude and 78° 37' 12" longitude. But even better, I see that the old Pennsylvania State Trooper barracks is still down in Bedford, and the number’s right here. The local number!” She savored a self-congratulatory snigger while glaring at the two hapless old men paralyzed by her derision.

“You’re not supposed to call them directly,” said Pastor Scott. “There’s just one number. One number. You’re supposed to call the National office in, in, wherever it is. D.C.?”

Gina did not look up. “D.C.’s a ghost town.”

Pastor Scott bristled and grabbed the phone away from her. “Be my guest,” she sang coolly.

Fred stayed busy keeping his mouth shut.

Pastor Scott ran through the same phone tree he’d just completed, and, with great pride, gave the coordinates to someone who sounded sort of like the person who had just hung up on him, and was put on hold. “That’s how it’s done,” he said. “The right way! I have to follow procedure, just like everyone el—” He was interrupted by a voice and his head began to bob. “OK. OK. Really? Well, OK.” He pulled the phone away from his ear too late to avoid the loud click! His missing goodbye hung in the air like rotting gas.

“Ah. What’d they say?” asked Gina. “Hmmm?”

“They’ll call me back.”

“When?”

His mouth filled with sawdust. “Thirty days.”

Gina’s patience ruptured into a howl. “The right way my ass!” She shoved him off to the side, took the phone and dialed the Pennsylvania State Trooper barracks in Bedford, twenty-eight miles down the hill.

Fred always claimed neutrality with these two, but it was a diplomatic minefield.

“Hello!?” said Gina, while shooting dirty looks at her husband without really looking at him.

“This is Gina at The Church up in Lily . . . Hello?”

“Oh, I know Lily,” said a woman with the same locally clipped consonants. “We went through Lily on our way to the mountains . . . jeeeeez — how many years ago?”

“That’s us,” said Gina. “We found a dead body. An upright citizen.”

“How dead is he?”

“Dead as the one-dollar bill,” said Gina, and they both had a quick chuckle. “Can you send someone?”

“We have a new guy, Trooper Ian something or other, Ian Mac something, I think. Military type. Good looker. What is his name? Ian Something? Could be there in a few hours. That work for you?”

“Sure does. Thanks, dear. You stop and say hello next time you come through, OK? We’re right past the bridge, on Route Fifty-Three. You hear?”

“I’ll do that, Gina. You have any trouble, you call me. I’m Cassandra. He’ll be there ’round five o’clock. Stay warm.”

“You too, Sweetie.”

Gina hung up and began to stir a few envelopes and papers on the desk, moving on to the next thing without comment. This was a familiar act, one that required Pastor Scott to — ask. “Well?”

“Well what?”

Fred slid his hat back on. This was moving in a very unpleasant direction.

The Pastor’s scraggly white beard and all three chins seemed to have gotten struck by lightning. “What!? Is somebody coming?”

“Yep,” she said, but not to anyone in particular.

“When?”

“’Five o’clock,” she snapped, rising from the desk and sauntering up to her husband of forty-four years. She puffed out her lower lip, and headed for the door.

Pastor Scott turned to Fred. “Five o’clock? Come back then and we’ll see where this goes.”

Fred nodded and made for the side door.

Pastor Scott nodded, too, as if okaying the plan. He slid into his chair and stared at the darkened computer screen. It seemed eerily quiet and the face looking back at him was a sagging mask of the younger man he imagined himself to be. He could see in this reflection that his once stiff white collar was now limp and yellow, and he quickly stepped back to take a full view of himself. His frock coat, once black with austere authority, was now a silvery gray and shiny as sharkskin.

“Oh boy . . . five o’clock.”

* * *

A
t five o’clock
, all eighty-one of Lily’s citizens, including their twenty-eight adopted veterans, stood in the village square as something whizzed through the low-hanging clouds. A contagious grin broke out. This could mean only one thing; the mysterious National Police Force’s Trooper Ian Mac something was not only coming, he was coming in a Peregrine.

Whoooooosh!

The Peregrine shot out of the clouds thirty feet over the Little Conemaugh, tilting and yawing, then banked across the road and flew over the Lilian delegation. The fearsome craft came to a hover far enough from the crowd that they barely felt the turbulence as it drifted closer, very slowly. Its movements were sharp yet liquid. The sense of menace and grace — delectable. It could have been designed by Bugati or Pinnifarena, if they’d had all the money in the world and a mandate to build a death-cruiser deluxe.

The matte grey carbon fiber body was long and low, with smooth contours and transitions. A clear, Lexan clamshell wind-dome protected the cockpit. The Lilians stood gazing as it drifted closer, so quiet, so powerful. It slowed to a hover a few feet off the ground, then four wheels folded out and telescoped down. The ship dropped the last inch, immense tires cushioning its fall. Lock-bolts gushed open and the dome lifted off, hinging forward — shielding its occupant in this open-forward position.

The pilot swung his legs out and jumped from the ship in one smooth move. He was around six foot five, medium build but dense and wiry with that impossible-to-define quality men fear most in other men. He wore the famed navy blue flight-suit of the U.S. Navy’s Peregrine Fleet, close-fitting and woven from a mix of Kevlar and a genetically modified type of dragline silk favored by mountain climbers for its ability to preserve heat while wicking away moisture and saving it in an onboard system of water veins. Handy in the desert. Stitched above every vital organ was a patch of nano-tube mesh capable of absorbing small-arms fire and blows from a fist, club or knife. It had several pockets, straps and epaulettes that could be seen and probably other features that couldn’t.

The pilot kept an eye on the crowd as he wrestled on an extremely old-fashioned, double-breasted wool topcoat, in the pale grey-blue and unembellished style of the old Pennsylvania State Police. He shivered and pulled its huge collar up over his ears, the lapels flopping across his chest. Only his root-beer brown eyes and a shock of auburn hair could be seen of him. The Peregrine fell silent, but the menace remained.

He looked uneasy as he approached. The town was divided into two obvious groups. One was mostly women and a few old men, likely natives. The other was all men, with the look of veterans.

The veterans watched the flint-hard yet broken man in unspoken recognition. Broken as any of the soft-hearted men standing here, but with something different about him. He still had his dignity.

Pastor Scott stepped into the street with his hand out. “Welcome to Lily. I’m Pastor Scott Stephens.”

The pilot smiled, to everyone’s relief. “Trooper MacIan,” he said pleasantly.

“Fred, here . . .” Fred emerged, Max at his heels. “They found a dead man up on the mountain. An upright citizen, by the looks of him.”

“This is my son, Max,” said Fred.

Max shook MacIan’s hand clumsily, a guilty smile wavering across his face. He was glad he was not wearing his new red coat, but instead his father’s tattered navy pea-coat, which caught MacIan’s eye. This unnerved Max right down to the holes in his shoes.

“Let’s have a look,” said MacIan, heading toward the Peregrine.

The three civilians stood paralyzed — did he mean for them to come along? Max grabbed his father’s elbow and steered him toward the Peregrine. Pastor Scott watched them moving away, glued to the spot.

“For Christ’s sake,” Gina’s harsh voice bellowed from the spectators. “What’re you waiting for, you old fart?”

Pastor Scott shuffled after them as best as his overburdened legs allowed, tossing a befuddled look over his shoulder.

No one in Lily had ever seen a bigger grin.