David Robbins - Green Bay Run

Andy gulped and shook his head. “Not really. We wouldn’t want to do anything rash.”

“When the shooting starts, duck down,” Blade advised, and thrust his door open. He slid out with his back to the transport, warily surveying the bikers, ready to fire at the first hint of hostility, and pulled back the cocking handle on the Commando.

Samson slid into the driver’s seat and poked his head out the window.

“Be careful.”

With a nod, Blade stepped to the front of the SEAL just as Yama came around the passenger side.

The bikers blocking State Highway 46 kept the barrels of their weapons pointed at the ground.

“The guy with the Dart is mine,” Blade whispered.

“Got you,” Yama responded softly.

They advanced cautiously.

“Howdy!” called out the man holding the portable missile launcher. His fleshy round face split into a broad smile, but his cold brown eyes belied the friendly greeting. He wore a green shirt and faded jeans. “You are two of the biggest sons of bitches I’ve ever seen!”

Blade did not bother to respond. He halted eight yards from the row of bikers and slanted the Commando downward. One of his favorite weapons, converted to full automatic by the Family Gunsmiths, its original five-shot clip replaced by a 90-shot magazine, the Commando resembled the ancient Thompson submachine gun.

“My name is Bruno,” the burly biker announced. “Who might you guys be?”

“What do you want?” Blade responded, ignoring the question. “Why have you blocked off the road?”

Bruno scowled. His right hand supported the Dart, which rested on his right shoulder, and his left hung by his side. “You’re not being very polite, sucker.”

“I’m just getting warmed up,” Blade said contemptuously.

Bruno took a menacing stride forward. “You’d better watch your mouth, prick, or you’re history.”

“You plan to kill us one way or the other anyway, so what’s the big deal?” Blade replied.

“Who says we’re going to waste you?” Bruno asked. “All we want to do is talk.”

Blade sighed and glanced at the skinny biker on the left who shifted nervously from foot to foot and repeatedly hefted an assault rifle, apparently eager to cut loose. “Don’t play games with me, Bruno. I know what you’re up to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Blade said. “I’ve met your type before. You’re a scavenger. You make a living by taking what you want from those who rightfully own whatever you steal. You prey on anyone and everyone, and you’ve probably killed dozens of fine, innocent people. What you don’t steal, you buy on the black market. Like that Dart, for instance. Where did you find your little toy?”

Bruno grinned slyly. “You think you know it all, don’t you, smart guy?”

“Where did you obtain the Dart?” Blade asked, repeating his question.

“From the Armorer, a guy in Detroit who can supply any weapon you want if you can meet his price,” Bruno disclosed, and eyed the missile launcher proudly. “We traded him seven women for this baby.”

“Seven women?”

“Yeah. We hit a small town a while back and found seven foxes living there. They were real prime, if you get my drift.”

“You’re disgusting,” Blade remarked.

A belly laugh burst from the biker. “Am I, now? Well, Mister Goody-Two-Shoes, if I’m such a bad cat, how come I didn’t just blow you away the second I laid eyes on your van?”

“Because you want the van for yourself,” Blade stated flatly. “You don’t want to destroy our vehicle if you can help it. So you set up this ambush, hoping to draw everyone inside out in the open where your buddies can gun them down.” He paused. “But your ploy hasn’t worked. We have friends in there ready to take off if you open fire.”

Bruno snickered. “And how far do you think they’d get? If I can’t have your van, nobody can.”

“We’ve heard that line before,” Blade said.

“Tough dudes, huh?” Bruno commented, and chuckled. He gazed past the giant at the green van. “Why can’t I see inside that thing?”

“We have the curtains closed.”

“I’ve never seen a vehicle like yours,” Bruno mentioned. “I bet it’d be worth a ton of gold to the right party.”

“Like the Armorer?”

“Or the Commies. Or maybe even the Technics.”

Blade tensed. “The Technics deal with the likes of you?”

“Up yours, mother,” Bruno snapped, then added, “Yeah, they do. What of it? We keep them posted on everything we see and they fix our bikes for us and give us guns.”

A convenient arrangement, Blade realized. The bikers served as eyes and ears for the Technics, an arrangement similar to the pact the Technics had worked out with the Leather Knights in St. Louis. The Technics weren’t yet strong enough to subjugate the Midwest, so they maintained a spy network to keep them apprised of ongoing events.

Crude, but effective.

“The Technics are all right,” Bruno went on. “They treat us fairly. And they let us do whatever we want with the foxes we snatch.” He paused.

“You got any foxes in that van?”

“No,” Blade said.

“Too bad,” Bruno stated. “I could go for some fluff. We might even let you live if you had some women for us.” He snorted. “Except for those Technic bitches. I had one once. Boy, was she lame in the sack. Those Technics can’t screw for beans.”

Blade felt his abdominal muscles tighten.

“Yes, sir. I could go for a little fuzz right about now,” Bruno said. He was surprised when the other guy, the one in blue who hadn’t spoken a word, suddenly took a step toward him.

“How about a little lead instead?” Yama asked, and before any of the bikers could hope to react to his threat, he leveled the Wilkinson and fired.

It took three and a half seconds for the startled bikers to react to the sudden attack, and in the brief span the silver-haired Warrior downed six of the bikers. He whipped the Wilkinson barrel in a tight arc and sent a withering hail of bullets into the scavengers. His first rounds ripped into the fleshy features of the scavenger leader, tearing Bruno’s face to shreds.

Several of the bikers screamed as they died.

Blade had intuitively sensed, a fraction of an instant before Yama squeezed the trigger, that the man in blue was about to wade into the gang. He brought the Commando barrel up with a flick of his wrist and added his firepower to Yama’s, going for the scavengers directly in front of him, the louder blasting of the Commando drowning out all other noise.

He felt the short hairs at the nape of his neck tingle, and he wondered if one of the bikers on the side of the road would shoot him before he could whirl to confront them. He saw two scavengers hurled to the asphalt, their torsos perforated and gushing crimson, then three, four, five of them were dead or dying, leaving a tall biker who was taking a bead on his chest with a rifle. Blade started to throw himself to the left, knowing the man would fire before he could leap out of the way.

Several rounds suddenly bored into the scavenger’s forehead and catapulted him backwards.

Blade spun, crouching as he did, sweeping the Commando at the nine bikers to the left of the highway, but someone had already beaten him to them.

Samson had both his steely arms sticking out of the window on the driver’s side, and in each malletlike hand he held a Bushmaster Auto Pistol. At a range of ten yards he had emptied both 30-shot magazines into the scavengers on his side of the road. Two of them had managed to get off wild shots that struck the SEAL and ricocheted off. Now six of the nine were prone on the ground, their motorcycles lying beside them or under them, while two others had fallen to their knees and were aiming at the Nazarite.