The Vengeance of the Tau (34 page)

“Always figured that’s why No Town never had one.” Tyrell Loon looked the three of them over again. “We best go inside my office ’fore the town stands totally still a lookin’.”

He took the Old One’s hand and guided her toward the building with two stars marked
SHERIFF
. She stepped up onto the curb ahead of him. Johnny and Heydan walked behind them. Loon swung the door open, and bells affixed to the other side jingled. He led the Old One inside and then held the door for Johnny and Heydan.

Inside the room were a simple pair of desks, a dust-coated filing cabinet, and twin jail cells that were both presently unoccupied. The beds inside the cells were freshly made. The floors shone. A trio of stuffed game birds sat respectively atop the front counter, Loon’s desk, and the filing cabinet.

“Let me grab some chairs for ya.”

He set two rickety wood ones in front of his desk and then looked back at Wareagle.

“Don’t think I got one that’d fit ya.”

“I’ll stand,” Johnny said.

Loon helped the Old One into one of the chairs and then slid back behind the desk to take his own. “Now, what is it I can do for ya?”

“You up to some tinkering, Tyrell?” she asked him.

“Not much ’round these parts to tinker with.”

“There is today.”

Johnny handed over the miniature pager to the sheriff.

“I was in the Signal Corps over in ’Nam,” he explained, inspecting it. “Army done give me a great technical education. Guess you could say I haven’t done much with it.”

“We need to know the contents of the last message, Tyrell Loon,” the Old One told him. “Can your tinkering bring it up for us?”

“Don’t know. It’s possible, if this thing has the kind of memory chip I think it does. Let’s take a gander.”

He used a small screwdriver to pry the back off, and then a pair of thin explorers to work through the pager’s insides.

“I love tinkering,” he said without looking up. “Just like I figured. Chip keeps the last message received stored until one comes in to replace it. Yup, here we go. …”

With a few more seconds of manipulations with his tools, he turned the pager over and gazed at its miniature screen.

“There it is.”

He slid the pager toward Johnny, who leaned over the desk to study the message that was scrawled across two tiny lines:

Livermore Air Force Base. Hanover, Kansas.
The final phase begins.

It must have been a signal to come in, a recall. The team of killers in the bayou would have gone straight there upon completion of their mission. Johnny had his next destination.

“Not alone, warrior,” the Old One shot at him, seeming to read his thoughts. “You can’t beat them alone.” She turned toward Loon and continued before Wareagle had a chance to object. “My warrior here has got hisself a problem, Tyrell. Got an enemy been doing plenty of harm and plans to do lots more. Got to be stopped.”

“Uh-huh,” Loon acknowledged.

“Big in number the enemy be now, though. Too much for one man to best, even my warrior. You hear?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How many men can you round up, Tyrell?”

Johnny spoke before the sheriff had a chance to. “I can’t let you do that,” he said to the Old One.

“I don’t remember asking your permission,” she shot back at him.

“You know what we’re dealing with.”

“But you don’t know the kind of man lives down here.”

“She’s right,” Tyrell said. “I’m not the only man here who paid his dues elsewhere ’fore he come home. Some of the older men was in Korea. More of the younger ones been to the ’Nam. You was there.” A statement.

“Yes, I was.”

“I can always tell. Never could figure out how. Anyways, most of the men here knows what it be like to fight for your life. And not just abroad, neither. No way. Some been fighting all their lives till they came here.”

Johnny looked down at the Old One. “We can’t fight this with just experience.”

“How about with the best weapons money can buy?” Heydan Larroux suggested. “I’ve got plenty stockpiled for emergencies. I’d bet they’d impress even you,” she said to Wareagle.

“Where are they?”

“New Orleans. In storage.”

“How many men you figure we need?” Sheriff Tyrell Loon asked the Old One.

“Twenty-five.”

“Make it twenty-four. Sorry, forgot the Indian. Make that twenty-three.”

“Why?”

“Got my reasons.”

A boy who cleaned up around the jail building came by seconds later. Tyrell whispered something in his ear and sent him on his way.

“Hurry up now!” he called after the boy, as the bells jingled again. Then he looked back toward his guests. “Problem we got is some of the men I got in mind ain’t hardly ever left No Town since they got here and won’t take kindly to flying, even if we had us a plane. We gonna use them, we gotta make them feel at home, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I want to use them at all,” Wareagle said.

“You can’t win this by yourself, warrior,” the Old One told him. “And you can’t afford to lose. Fact that this enemy is holing itself up at an air force base can only mean one thing.”

“Kansas is up north quite a ways,” Sheriff Loon followed somberly. “Quite a ways. Don’t know if the Blue Thunder can make it.”

“The blue what?” raised Heydan.

Loon had started to answer when a cluttering, clanking sound outside made him stop. A series of backfires like a machine-gun spray followed, and the sheriff’s face lit up with a smile.

“Here she comes now,” he said, and stood up.

Johnny and Heydan followed him to the door. The Old One stayed back in her chair.

“Yup,” Leon continued, “here she be.”

Johnny fixed his eyes on a twenty-four-passenger bus painted in what had once been a royal shade of blue. Much of it had worn down to the dull gray primer now, and there were rust patches and even gaps where the rust had eaten its way through the metal. The tires were different makes and sizes. The windshield was cracked, and plenty of the side windows were covered by boards. Rust had eaten away most of the wheel wells, as well as a hefty portion of the metal over the bus’s rear bumper. As Johnny looked on, the door jerked open with a grinding rasp that had once been an easy hiss. A toothless driver gazed down from behind the wheel and grinned with his gums.

Blue Thunder had arrived.

Blue Thunder sputtered and shook, but held fast to the road like it was afraid to let go. Hours before, while Sheriff Tyrell Loon had gathered up the men to pack it for the journey, the Old One had made the rounds of No Town with Heydan by her side to gather up a select group of women. Several looked as old as she was. Others were young enough to cart babies with them to the center of town. All of them brought beads and rattles and other implements Johnny knew were used to evoke blessings or curses depending on the manner in which they were used.

“Must be the water,” the Old One advised him. “See, I wasn’t the only one to be born in No Town with special powers. These women all born here, too, and they all got their special ways.”

Led by the Old One, the women surrounded Blue Thunder in a circle and went about their individual ceremonies. One threw stones against the old bus’s few still-whole windows. Another blew dirt down its rusted tailpipe. A third spit repeatedly on its engine, chanting between each expectoration. A few sang. Others took more accepted positions of prayer. The Old One oversaw it all, feeling her way amidst them without participating in the ritual directly.

Johnny watched from a distance. As the ritual drew to its close, he turned suddenly to his right. The Old One was standing right next to him.

“You will travel safe now, warrior. You will be delivered. And you will not fight alone. Another comes to join you.”

Wareagle’s lips quivered ever so slightly. “Blainey,” he muttered.

“I have not seen his name,” she told him. “But his pursuits now mirror yours.”

Johnny had spent part of the ride to New Orleans in the back of Blue Thunder wondering what Blaine McCracken had uncovered in Turkey that had led him to the Tau. He’d had plenty of time to study the rest of the men crowded in the old bus with him. Under the circumstances, Johnny found them to be most impressive. These were indeed men who had fought many fights in their time and would never shy from another. There was a monster of a man, called Bijou because he was as big as a movie house. There was a man who looked to be formed all of knobby bone called Pole, so thin he had to cut a new hole in his belt a foot from the last one in the row. There was a former military demolitions expert, called Smoke because he knew how to blow things up.

Some had fought for their lives just because they were black. Others had served in whatever branch of the service would have them. Married or single, young or old, their status mattered not at all. Each one had not hesitated in the slightest after being selected. For the Old One, apparently, their duty knew no bounds. And the fact that she had blessed them filled each with a certainty that they would be returning unharmed when all this was done.

Wareagle wished he could have shared their optimism.

The weapons would be waiting for them at a warehouse in New Orleans, and Tyrell Loon had already chosen a crew to do the loading. The street leading to the warehouse was narrow. Toothless Jim Jackson was forced to back up several times to manage the turn. Blue Thunder’s gears creaked and clunked but somehow held. There was a pay phone down the street, and Johnny stepped off to use it.

He called Sal Belamo’s private line. A series of clicks followed, indicating that the line was being rerouted. Johnny was ready to hang up as soon as the phone was answered if Belamo’s voice was not on the other end.

“That you again, McBalls?”

Johnny didn’t hang up.

“It’s me, Sal Belamo.”

“Hey, big fella! Your friend and mine’s been hoping you would check in. You’re not gonna believe this, but the two of you are chasing the same son-of-a-bitching thing.”

Silence.

“Hey, you surprised or what?”

“Nothing about this surprises me, Sal Belamo. Tell Blainey I’m on my way to an air force base in Kansas. Tell him what we both seek can be found on this base.”

Johnny’s gaze slid back to the shuddering shape of Blue Thunder. The last crates were being loaded. The old bus’s frame had dipped closer to the ground.

“Tell him he’d better meet me there.”

Chapter 32

“
LIVERMORE AIR FORCE BASE?
” Blaine raised. He had been calling Sal Belamo every half hour or so since the end of the battle here at Nineteen to see if Wareagle had called in, knowing the big Indian was his only hope of finding where to take his search for the White Death next. Though Tovah had supplied him with the names of the rest of the original Tau, she didn’t know where they could be found or how to contact them. And at the speed things were progressing, there was no way he could rely on traditional intelligence methods to track them down.

“Straight from the big fella’s mouth, boss. Want me to call in the cavalry?”

“No, Sal. We’re keeping this private.”

“That a good idea, given what you’ve told me?”

“That’s the point. Any official types who help are gonna want to know what it is we uncovered. You can figure out the next step.”

“They’ll want it for themselves. …”

“You’re learning, Sal. The White Death has to end here.”

“You mean in Kansas.”

“Yes.”

“Gonna need help from somebody, boss. And, you ask me, plenty of it.”

McCracken looked back at Tovah. “I’ll think of something.”

McCracken explained the specifics to her as soon as he was off the phone, and Tovah was all too happy to comply with his request. First, he let her choose the best commandos Nineteen had to offer to accompany him back to America for the final battle against the Tau; after the attack on the kibbutz, it wasn’t hard to find volunteers.

From there, the old woman called on her many contacts both inside and outside Israel to arrange the logistics of their journey. From Nineteen the small army would be driven to the same airstrip Melissa and McCracken had been flown into earlier in the day. A jet would be waiting with a flight plan filed for New York’s Kennedy Airport. To avoid scrutiny, it would fly under diplomatic markings.

“Thank you,” Melissa told Blaine when they were finally airborne. The jet was a twenty-four-seater, and all but two of the seats were taken. Weapons gathered from Nineteen’s stash had been stowed in the cramped baggage compartment.

“For what?”

“For not trying to tell me I couldn’t come along.”

“You’ve got it coming to you.” He eyed her warmly. “Your father died for what we uncovered, Melly. You deserve to be there for the finish. I never really considered otherwise.”

She turned to the window and then back at McCracken. “Do you ever get used to it?”

“Used to what?”

“Loss. Fear. Anxiety.”

“No. To all of the above.”

Melissa took his hand and they sat in silence.

Sal Belamo was waiting as planned at the diplomatic terminal at Kennedy Airport when the jet landed. McCracken climbed down out of the plane and met him on the tarmac.

“You bring the specs on Livermore, Sal?”

Belamo frowned. “You ask me, maybe you forgot who it was you were dealing with here. Mothballed SAC base located on the outskirts of a little town called Hanover. I got us a flight plan to an airport forty miles away in Hastings, Nebraska.” Sal was smirking now. “What’d you bring, boss?”

Blaine turned back toward the women of Nineteen who were stretching their legs on the tarmac.

“Oh,” Belamo said.

“So what’s eating you, boss?” he asked before Blaine could start back for the jet.

“It shows that much?”

“Does to me.”

“It’s just that things aren’t clear-cut this time, not black and white. It’s tough to argue with what the Tau is attempting. Every name comes off their list makes this a safer world to live in.” Blaine’s expression grew reflective. “I don’t know, it seems to me that what the Tau are doing—what their predecessors did forty-five years ago—isn’t much different from what I’ve been doing for the last decade or so.”