Rebel's Revenge - Chapter 22

Chapter 22



By the time they reached the edge of the forest where it connected with the suburbs it was almost sundown so they took cover in an abandoned house to await full darkness. The house was run down but it appeared to be intact. In a closet they found several sizes of men's clothing and changed from their battle dress fatigues into the civilian clothing. Both put their BDU's in a small ruck sack and took them for replacement after they completed their mission. In another closet like pantry they found canned beans, beef, soups and a variety of other goods, most of those items in boxes and bags thoroughly chewed by the local mice population. They made a tasty but greasy cold meal from the can goods checking the inside of the cans for signs of rust or seam breakage. They still had the automatic pistols they'd liberated from the late Captain Davis; however, they had left their other weapons with Mike and his people.

"There's no possible way every man left here can know all five thousand men that went with General Snake," Monday said. "Our best bet is to mingle with the outlying guards, if there are any, and pick up what information we can."

"Think we ought to lie down and roll in the dirt first," Grady stated, "even in these old dusty clothes we're a might bit cleaner than most of those scum I saw."

"No. What we need is some whiskey to spill on our clothing so we'll smell more like them. Take a look around."

Ten minutes later they found a fifth of Old Forester and another of Jack Daniels hidden in the back part of a kitchen pantry. Monday poured a liberal amount on himself and then on Grady, took a few swigs for good ole times, and then passed the bottle to Grady.

"Couple of swigs will get us in the mood, and then we'll carry the half empty bottle with us. We'll save the Mad Jack for bribe money. I reckon good liquor is hard to find these days around here."

They left the house and headed boldly down the street towards town. They checked two other well to do looking houses and came up with more bottles of whiskey, vodka, tequila, and two fifths of scotch. It was an eerie sensation walking down the center of a main highway and both unconsciously glanced behind them occasionally to see if any traffic was approaching. Naturally, there was none. About an hour later they entered the outskirts defining the major part of downtown Albuquerque. By then most of the Old Forester was gone, the temptation to have another, little swig, overpowering after the abstinence of good whiskey for almost two years.

A few minutes later they spotted what appeared to be a guard post. Half a dozen men were standing around a fire burning on the sidewalk feeding the flames with furniture, paintings, books, and anything else that would burn. They were staggering around, eating something from a soot blackened pan setting next to the fire, and making small talk with two smaller gangsters Monday recognized as women as they got a little closer. Holding the bottle up and pretending to drink from it, Monday and Grady walked into the fire light.

"Who you?" A question came out of the shadows.

"Been out lookin' for booze," Monday stated, blurring his speech. "Got lucky."

Someone in the shadows let out a rebel yell and advanced on them.

"Colonel Dig put out the word no crawlie huntin' and no booze scrounging," the first voice stated, sounding a bit authoritative.

"Fuck Colonel Dig," Monday replied, "don't need no pretend ass hole officer to tell me what I can and can't do."

"You's talkin' to a Loutenant," the voice replied.

"Fuck you too Loutenant," Monday yelled in his best half-drunk voice.

By that time they were surrounded by the squad of punks. Monday took out a bottle of vodka and passed it to the first one to approach them, then asked for the Loutenant.

"Where's you at, Louie," Monday slurred, "got you a bottle of Old Crow here iffen you want it?"

A young dirty blond haired man suddenly appeared in front of him. "Outta report this," he stated, "you still ain't told me who you are?"

"Julius Fuckin Caesar," Monday replied, "commander of all Italian forces in this here army."

"Ain't got no Wops here," the man replied, "an ain't never heard of a Jew called Caesar."

"Well sir," Monday replied, leaning heavy on the sir bit, "reckon you gonna haft to settle for Captain Davey Jones, detached from General Snakes intelligence corps."

Grady was looking at him with an incredulous stare.

"Telligence," the punk replied, "you'se them guys that make up the battle plans and torture the crawlies?"

"At's us," Monday replied. "We also have a mission to check up on what forces Snake left back here. You know, sneak back, check things out, and report what we see to Snake."

"Been doin' my job Captain," the kid replied with an obvious tone of nervousness in his voice.

"Good," Monday stated, passing a bottle to him and handing him another. "Pass these around, kinda chilly out here this evening."

The kid took the bottles with happiness, taking a long pull from one before giving it up to one of his friends. One of the scraggly women walked over and gave Monday an inviting smile. From her looks Monday deduced she had any possible number of venereal diseases, she was filthy, had blackened teeth, and smelled to high heaven.

"Some of the getmees broke down," Monday continued, “Snake needs to replace them. Ole Stretch still in charge of the motor pool?"

The kid looked at him suspiciously for a second then replied. "String bean's been in charge ever since the fall," he stated, "moves the pool every other day like Snake said though."

"What I said," Monday replied, a little heavy in his voice to command attention. "String bean and Stretch is the same damn person idiot. He was called Stretch long before the fall on account of how he use to stretch his time out in the can. Never could keep his damn mouth shut."

"Yes sir."

"Where's he got the pool now?"

"Over on Coor's Road, right next to the Interstate," the punk replied, Dead Meat here works there." He pointed to a sun darkened man with long greasy black hair who was trying his best to drink half the remaining vodka.

"Well, looks like you been doin' a mighty good job Loutenant, I'll make sure Snake hears about it. What's your name boy?"

"Raw hide," the punk blurted.

"Hell, his name's Dickey," one of the females stated, "Little Jimmy Dickey and Little Jimmy do have a little dickey." She snorted loudly and clucked at her off color joke.

"You boys get the latest password," Monday asked, just in case the punks and scum had enough of a leadership chain to even think of one."

"Why shore," the man called Dead Meat replied. "We's supposed to say Hot and anyone coming in is supposed to call back Shit. You know, hot shit, funny ain't it?"

"Why didn't you challenge us?" Monday asked, pressing his luck, "and why didn't you call in on your radio to check us out?"

The punk lieutenant suddenly looked sick to his stomach. He knew the type of work the intelligence people did and it wasn't all done on the crawlies.

"Got no radio," he replied in a nervous tone.

"I'll let this one slide Lieutenant," Monday replied with relief, "and the password was changed. The new one is Red and Brick. Do you understand that?

"Yep Captain."

"I'll be back this way as soon as I check in with Colonel Dig. In the meantime you boys have fun with that booze. I ain't no hard nose officer like most of the rumors say I am, I was brung up proper."

"Thank'e Captin," Dickey said, as Monday and Grady left the warm fire heading north.

"Jesus Joseph Christ," Grady blurted, as soon as they had put a little distance between them and the punks. "One wrong word back there and we'd have had half a dozen well-armed punks opening up on us with automatic rifles. I don't know if you have a super pair of balls or you're just plain crazy."

"Well," Monday smiled, "we know where the motor pool is, we know who's in charge of it, and we know they don't have extra radios to spare. I think our little deception was well worth the risk."

Grady shook his head. "What was that little chat about friggin passwords, you could have got us buried on that one alone?"

"We know the password now also. I think the next bunch to show up will give the old password and our little Lieutenant Dickey will be so worried about the big bad Intel Captain and the new password he'll open fire on them. Should be fun to watch," Monday snickered.

"You sure have one devious mind," Grady answered, "sure am glad you're on my side."

Two hours later they were surveying the gang's motor pool from behind a barricade of rusty old cars. They could spot no sentries walking back and forth only three men sitting in a well-lit shack drinking and playing cards. There were approximately twenty vehicles in the parking area, most were older two and a half ton trucks, several that appeared to be jeeps, and three which could be nothing but the strange vehicles they called the Getmee. Monday could smell hydraulic fluid and oil but did not receive the sharp pungent smell of gasoline.

"We gonna try your little trick, Captain Davey Jones?" Grady shook his head again at the crazy name.

"No. I think this punk String bean, or whatever in hell he's called, may have a little more on the ball than that wet nosed punk we just met. This is strictly a hard hit and run caper, no survivors."

Monday pulled his bola from the rucksack and checked to make sure it was untangled. They moved to within twenty yards of the shack and halted next to a vehicle. Monday picked up a small metal rod and pounded on the side of the vehicle to get the attention of the men in the shack.

A few minutes later they were rewarded with a curse and one of the punks left the shack and stood outside in the faint light looking around.

"Who the fuck's there?" he yelled into the darkness.

"Loutenant Dickey, er, Raw hide," Monday replied, "hit my fuckin leg on the damn bumper here."

The punk walked in the direction of the noise. Five steps before he reached Monday, Grady took him out without a sound. They squatted down to await the next guard. Five minutes later they heard more noise emanate from the shack.

"God dammit Bill, you're holding up the hand," the voice barked, poking his head out the door.

"This ere's Loutenant Rawhide," Monday replied. "Bill slipped on some oil or somethin' and I can't get him up on his feet."

"Crazy bastard," the annoyed voice returned, leaving the shack and closing the door. He headed in their direction but once again got no more than five feet from Bill's body before Monday took him out.

Monday knew that by this time the remaining member of the crew, probably String bean, was starting to get a little suspicious. He ordered Grady to go to the left about thirty yards and light an oil fire and he moved around to the right to within twenty yards of the shack.

As soon as the fire blazed up, String bean ran from the shack to stand on the outside deck yelling for the two men to answer him. Before he could open his mouth again he was hit upside the head with a very hard object. He never knew what hit him.

Monday untangled the bola from around the neck of String bean and looked into the shed. Just as he'd figured there was a radio there and next to the radio a handwritten schedule of the times to report in. A quick look at the clock on the wall told him they had thirty five minutes before the next report was due to be called in.

"He's dead," Grady stated, entering the shack.

Monday noticed blood on one of the balls of the bola and shrugged. "We have about half an hour before they get suspicious," he replied, "let's find the vehicles we want and see what we can do to disable the others."

The Getmees were odd looking vehicles with eight oversized tires and resembled a fat caterpillar. It took fifteen minutes to figure out how to start the Getmees, they were electrical powered, and another few minutes to learn the controls. They pulled two of them beyond the perimeter of the motor pool and parked them, throwing several five gallon cans of oil and transmission fluid in the back. Noticing a locomotive like attachment on the front and rear of each vehicle, Monday pulled the third one up, which was loaded with odds and ends, and coupled it to the one he was driving, throwing the gear into neutral. They then returned and started pouring oil, transmission fluid, and anything else that would burn onto the other vehicles. Monday noticed a small caliber machine gun mounted on the back of a jeep and tossed it into the back of his vehicle along with every can of ammo he could find. By that time he could hear the radio in the shack sending out a scream for someone to answer. He went inside and keyed the mike.

"Yeah, what you want?" he barked.

"Where's the fuckin report?" came the answer over the other end. "You guys are ten minutes late."

"Bill caught a crawlie and we was havin' some fun," Monday laughed into the mike.

"Next time I tell Colonel Dig," the voice came back, sounding very authoritative, "this is headquarters signing off."

"Yeah," Monday replied, pulling the mike from the radio and throwing it to the floor. "Shouldn't be too hard to beat this scum," he thought, if all of them were carrot brains like the ones he'd met so far.

He signaled Grady to start his vehicle then lit a collection of oil soaked rags he'd wound around a small two by two. He ran from vehicle to vehicle starting each on fire then threw the burning torch in what appeared to be the oil storage area and ran for his own vehicle. Ten minutes later he could see an enormous pillar of fire billowing up behind them as the motor pool turned into a blazing inferno.