Deathlands 117: Desolation Angels (27 page)

“No,” Ryan said. “What I am sure of is this gives us our best shot.”

“Even after we didn’t persuade a single gang to join us?”

Ryan showed him a smile and a nod. “Oh, yeah.”

Though you may not be pleasantly surprised at how things shake out from that, he thought. But though he liked and respected the young man he and his friends had helped become the new Angel Maximum Leader—well, that was personal. And not personal enough to get in the way of survival.

And things would fall into place better for the Desolation Angels, more likely than not. If the plan worked.

If it didn’t, none of them would be around to sweat it.

“Not much activity,” Mildred commented.

“Got enough guards,” J.B. said. “At least twenty out in the yard now, just this section. Guarding the gate and the perimeter emplacements, watching the front door, hanging out in that tent.”

“Jak says those’re most of the sec men he can see outside,” Ricky offered, “which means it’s most of them.”

“Real action’s a few hundred yards south, anyway,” Leto said grimly.

“If they’re getting ready for a big push against us,” asked Mikhail, a slim young Angel with a long brown braid down the back of his vest, “why don’t they have their heavy hitter down at their staging area just this side of the Seven-Five, instead of parked on their front porch?”

The V-100 Commando sat parked not far from the corner of the temple end of the grandiose DPD headquarters compound. The block-long bulk of the old Masonic Temple and its annex had been surrounded by a barbed-wire perimeter fence. It enclosed a large space on the southeastern side, the one they were looking at. The wire ran down the far side of the street beyond, which Ryan had learned was 2nd Street. It took a bite out of the square cropland southwest of the headquarters, the whole of which had been scraped clean clear to topsoil to deny concealment to an enemy. It then cut across to Cass Avenue, which ran along the side of headquarters nearest the hidden watchers, enclosing what had already been the DPD mustering yard and the busted-up remnants of some flattened buildings to the southeast.

The fortification was still obviously a work in progress. Only a few coils of razor wire were in place, and only the biggest chunks of smashed-up concrete and stone had been removed from the southeast sector. But it was still an impressive job, Ryan had to admit. They had firing pits dug, a big tent set up for a sec squad ready room and actual watchtowers at the southwest and southeast corners of the compound, standing a dozen or so feet in the air on legs bolted or welded together from various lengths of metal rods, beams and trusses. A pair of cargo wags, already loaded with supplies under tarps, sat parked between the tent and the building.

They’d even erected a gate across the main street that led to the battle zone, which was the southern continuation of 2nd Street where it took a dogleg along Temple, the cross street running along the HQ building’s southeast side. The gate had the beginnings of a watch shack and was blocked by the flat bed of an old truck, piled with big hunks of busted building. “They got nervous about somebody making a play for their HQ,” Leto answered his man. “That’s why they fortified the place. They’ve been sucking in patrolmen from all over their little empire to try to knock us out on the next hit. Even if it means letting some of the gangs around them to the north, like the Jokers or the Brush Park Rangers, tear off chunks of the territory they’ve conquered recently.”

“Could they do that?” Mildred asked. “Take you out with one blow?”

Leto grunted. “That’s why I’m along on this crazy train in the first place. We don’t know. But given that the allies who helped us against their first push across the expressway have all got cold feet and are holding back, it’s not a chance I’m ready to take.”

“And it is a chance Hizzoner’s all primed and ready to,” J.B. said.

“Why d’you reckon your buddies decided to back off from you?” Ryan asked. He had what he thought was a pretty good notion or two, but he wanted a line on how much insight the new Angel lord had.

He felt urgency crawling in his belly like soldier ants. He stamped on it hard. They had hours to go before the time came to make their move.

“You mean, aside from the jack Michaud’s been willing to spread around to buy ’em off?” Leto asked. “Or the fact that he’s also been bold about sending Bone’s SWAT death squads to lay hurt on the lesser players who won’t fall into line?

“They—I mean, everybody else in the Rubble—feared my father. He always was a true stoneheart. That worked ace for him, I have to admit—even if it’s not my style. But where once they were mainly afraid to fuck with him because they knew what kind of a hammer he had for a hand—and he was always willing to remind you—for the past few years it got to be more and more about his crazy rages. And just general craziness.

“They don’t know yet whether to fear me. To get them to accept what a good friend I can be, I need to show the Rubble how much worse I am as an enemy.”

“Pulling this off would certainly show them that,” Mildred said.

Leto showed his easy rogue’s grin. “That’s also why I’m here.”

“They’re also prolly afraid we got more wag-chiller missiles,” said Donut, a roly-poly Angel with a shaved head and a perpetual twinkle in his blue eyes.

He took a bite from one of his namesake pastries. The Angels made them in their bakery, using grain grown in the Rubble, and traded for items not grown in the Cobo or one of their outside garden plots. Ryan had no idea where they got their hands on sugar, but the things were tasty.

“Too bad we don’t,” Donut added. He was one of the Angels’ top weaponsmiths, which was why he was along on a job that called for stealth and agility—or one of his pet creations was, anyway. Though Ryan had to admit that when they’d made their way here he’d done just fine in the sneaking department and kept up without showing signs of effort.

“Be core of a good mobile reserve for them,” Ryan said. “The Commando. If they can bust a hole in your lines, Bone can exploit it by sending in the big war wag with some cavalry and a phalanx of the SWAT armored boys. Smash right through and drive deep into the heart of your turf, leaving patrol division to roll up your lines.”

Then he offered Leto a half smile. “Sorry.”

Leto shook his shaggy head. “Nothing shaken. It’s not like you can make it any more obvious than the facts do.”

“They have been shifting lots of men to their staging area the past couple days,” Donut said. “How many you reckon are left inside?”

J.B. took off his glasses and polished them thoughtfully. “Couple hundred blasters at least. Plus the usual array of clerks and jerks, some of whom may know which end the bullet comes out of.”

“So enough to leave us all a greasy red smear on the pavement,” Mikhail said.

“’Bout the size of it, yeah.”

“Right,” Ryan said, eyeing the sun as it neared the trees and low, blocky ruins to the west. “Time to shift out of here. Find a place to grab some shut-eye where DPD patrols are less likely to run across us. We’ve got hours yet before it’s time to make our move.”

He rose from his crouch.

“Why are we out here so early, then?” the lithe black woman with the katana strapped over the back of her colors asked.

“We wanted to scope out their defenses.”

“But weren’t you here often enough when you worked for them?”

“Easy, Raven,” Leto said in smiling warning.

“Yeah,” Ryan said.

Her show of hostility didn’t faze him. Leto relied on her and thought her skills would be useful in what they had to do. Liking Ryan and the rest wasn’t optional so much as irrelevant.

“But I reckoned they might make a few changes after we split,” he said. “And they have. Like this wire perimeter, the gates and all.”

“And you’re sure you can get us inside?” asked Bronk, a medium-high cinder block of a woman with the pistol grip of a cut-down Mossberg 500 20-gauge pump shotgun protruding over her left shoulder. She had a blunt, frank, freckled face and blond braids hanging over shoulders that would’ve done credit to a man her size.

“Yeah,” Ryan said.

He turned to go. The others looked at Leto.

The Angel boss stood up and went to follow Ryan.

“Still wish we had another wag chiller,” Mikhail said as he rose from where he’d been lying in an empty doorway.

“We don’t need wag chillers,” J.B. said cheerfully. “We’re going to raise an ample amount of mischief.”

“What kind of mischief?” Raven asked.

J.B. actually grinned at her.

“Malicious.”

* * *

H
ERE
I
AM
again, Ricky thought. Getting ready to chill another sentry.

Once again, without making any noise. We all hope.

He lay on his belly in grass moist and fragrant from a rain shower that had passed and left the sky clear before midnight. It had rapidly soaked through his shirt to dampen his belly. He was just fewer than a hundred yards from the northwest side of the Detroit City headquarters. He was surprised even the rank grass, which didn’t grow higher than a foot or so most places, hadn’t been cleared away.

He had the Husqvarna pointed at Hizzoner’s HQ. He just hoped he didn’t have to use it. If he did, it meant the plan had blown up and likely had knocked them all into a world of hurt.

It seemed that, as Jak reported—and as a quick circuit through cover at a safe distance by the others confirmed before they bedded down for a few hours—the defenses, as beefed up as they were, were concentrated almost exclusively on the side facing their rival power players, the Desolation Angels.

He understood why that might be a priority. Even resources as comparatively great as those Hizzoner and Bone commanded had resources, and hours in a day weren’t anything the richest baron could bank. Still. He could see too clearly how it could turn around to bite Michaud in his broad ass.

Several lanterns hung from poles set next to the yellowish stone wall. They burned with a low, flickering light so dim its orange was almost brown. Ricky wondered if they were running low on fuel, with most of the night gone and dawn not much more than an hour away.

Two sentries with slung longblasters had appeared around the Cass Avenue end of the annex and walked at an angle toward the corner of the main structure. Ricky tracked them with his longblaster. Almost at once a figure began walking toward them.

Ricky held aim on the nearer of the sentries. He had his finger on the trigger. Just in case.

The newcomer was large and portly, additionally bulky in the black body armor and visored helmet of Hizzoner’s SWAT. He swaggered up to the two sentries and said something too low for Ricky to hear. The sentries abruptly braced as if coming to attention.

The SWAT sec man casually raised his right hand. Even in the dim glow of the nearest lanterns it was possible to make out that it was a large handblaster with what looked like a big can on the end of it. The farther guard’s head suddenly jerked back.

But the second guard just gaped, not even grasping what had just happened right next to him. With quick efficiency the phony sec man turned the fat sound suppresser to almost touch the other sec man’s left eye and blew out the right rear curve of his skull.

The clack of a 1911-model .45 action cycling reached Ricky’s ears. A second grotesque mound of darkness joined the first on the bare soil at the “SWAT” man’s booted feet.

He turned and walked briskly back around the corner of the main HQ. More figures slipped around the corner ahead of him, ran silently past him and quickly dragged the two chilled guards into the deepest shadows in the angle of the two structures. The meaty man in SWAT gear turned and walked back to where he’d come from.

“That was cold,” Ricky murmured.

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Ace in the line.”

He rose from the grass a few yards to Ricky’s right. He had his own weapon ready. He’d been both guarding Ricky and keeping watch lest anything go wrong.

“You ready?” he asked the youth. He was wearing SWAT blacks and visored helmet, too.

“Yes, sir!” Ricky said. Ryan didn’t like to be called “sir,” but sometimes the kid just forgot himself.

He got away with it this time. Ryan simply turned and took off hunched over for the gap they’d cut in the wire. The rest had already gone through.

Ricky jumped up and ran to follow.

* * *

L
ETO LOOKED UP
from beside the half-sunken door. Ryan saw his teeth flash beneath the open visor of his helmet. He wore the third set of SWAT kit they’d found. It fit him like several sacks, but they weren’t in a position to be too picky.

Several of the other figures wore patrol uniforms. DPD weren’t the only ones who could salvage items from the persistent battlefield. Ryan reckoned it was a good thing the black sec-men suits hid bloodstains so well. Then again, he reckoned a lot of them got blood on them on a pretty regular basis.

“Doesn’t it seem stupe to the point of arrogance that they’re not really bothering to guard any direction except south?” Raven asked as Ryan joined the rest with Ricky trotting at his heels.

“They likely are relying on distance to act as a buffer and their roving patrols to catch anybody trying to infiltrate from another direction. And yeah. Stupe arrogance sounds about right.”

J.B. gestured at Ricky to follow him. He set off along the wall to the southwest. Mikhail and another Angel, a wiry black man named Keiser, went with the pair.

Ryan stepped up to the door. “You up to jimmying the lock?” Leto asked. “I can get more light here if you need it.”

“I think I got it,” Ryan said.

He walked down the short flight of steps, took hold of the door handle and pulled the heavy sec door open.

Jak immediately slipped inside to secure the dungeon hallway. Raven followed a beat later.

“See, when we checked out of the place,” Ryan told the astonished Angel boss, “we sort of fixed it so the door wouldn’t lock.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

J.B. ambled casually around the southwest corner of the tall churchlike tower into the part of the compound Bone’s sec men
did
bother to defend.