The Old Corps

“10-68, Sheriff Coyle. Do you read me?”

“10-4 dispatch, I read you. What’s the status of SWAT, Carrie?”

“10-17, Sheriff. They should be there soon. That’s why I called you.”

“Thanks Carrie.”

“Stay safe, Sheriff!”

“That’s a 10-4… oh, and I see SWAT’s pulling in off 160 now. Will rendezvous. Out.”

At the same time, Cliff hung up his cell phone, having checked up on Donnie and Art still positioned up on the butte, “They’re solid. Donnie thinks he plugged one of ‘em.”

“That’s good! Maybe we got more than just one ‘cause it sure got quiet there.” After the death of four of Pahrump’s deputies, it was difficult finding any news good.

The smoke had lingered around the building, and now at a quarter-mile distance, on the other side of a rocky cluster, Johnny was field-dressing the sheriff’s wound with limited resources of the clothing they had on and a little burned gun powder from a dissected bullet; he cooked it in the open wound to cauterized it as best as he could; enough to stop the heaviest bleeding. He patted her leg; she stood drawing her uniform pants, and buckling them up, favoring a limp and a short stride. She knew it would be worse by tomorrow… but there was a whole lot of hell still playing out, there was no bemoaning one’s pain. And no promise of tomorrow. Good men were dead.

The tough, cake-baker of a woman was up for the fight. “Thanks for the painful gift there, Mr. Decencies…” Johnny nodded in return, “… I gotta go over and communicate with SWAT. I don’t want them getting too close until we know exactly what’s going on… We gotta get setup, and do something with these guys.”

Cliff intruded, “Can I recommend you stay clear of the SWAT personnel carrier, Sheriff? Maybe even call them back to 160?”

“Why? They’re my men.” Cliff had no good answer, just a gut feeling.

“Sheriff, this morning we didn’t know this crew existed. By noon, Art had a stare-down with one of the critters, and he called it right. He knew they were up to something.” He paused, “And pardon the directness, but we had a tactical approach to these bad guys, and you and your people walked right into a bunch of bullets… and suddenly, instead of puttin’ out their lights, we were saving your hide.” his eyes grew fierce looking, “Are you gonna trust our intuition ever?” He was incredulous… Darlene knew he was right.

Sheriff Coyle decided to radio the SWAT leader instead, “Chelmo, you read me?”

“Yes, I read you, Sheriff. Where you want us? Should we introduce ourselves to them like in the cowboy days?”

Cliff overhearing this was shaking his head ferociously, waving his hands in absolute mandate of “No!”

“Negative, Chelmo, stage for now… You got a full car with you? We might need every last one. I don’t know the number of perps, but I know they’re lethal.” As Sheriff Coyle was having this exchange, looking at the façade of the Zanzibar Club, she noticed the smoke finally dissipated, bringing clarity back…

“Full as can get, Sheriff, eight happy and hungry tactical members of the Nye Sheriff’s Office.” It rang hollow to Darlene as she was taking in the scene… there was something different… there were people sitting outside the building, almost casually. “Hold, Chelmo. You got eyes on the house?”

“Yes ma’am, Sheriff. And… it’s unusual… but looks like a couple Nye County unis.”

“Yea, that’s what I thought… get a scope on it, tell me what you got.”

There was a moment as Scott Chelmo, SWAT team leader, and 11 year vet, pulled a binocular and scanned the array… what he had to report wasn’t good.

“Sheriff, three are our guys, and they’re not healthy. Dead deputies, ma’am… and two others… civilians… one I think is Big Sally herself… the other guy, I don’t know… And they’re all arranged like they’re relaxing.”

“Grisly fuckers; they posed ‘em…” she spoke to no one, “Is Big Sal dead? Can you tell?”

“Yes ma’am, I’d say she’s dead. From what I can tell, she’s cut to pieces… her eyes look open, but there’s no way she could be alive with all that blood all over.”

“Goddammit! This shit can’t get any worse…” She was lost in her thoughts, tactical wisdom had escaped her… she had completely fucked this up with her desperate want of justice, on her terms, the Law’s terms.

“I see movement inside, Sheriff… looks like a heavy piece of equipment moving… Can’t see any perp, but a blink of red… I think a laser. A bullet’s not gonna do anything to us…” Scott Chelmo chuckled.

Cliff thrust himself into the call, “Get out of there, now! Go…”

It was too late. The target had been locked in, and an anti-tank missile launched right at the SWAT unit, streaking through the dust and smoke leaving its own lethal trail… Scott Chelmo never got the vehicle into gear.

The missile struck the personnel carrier head-on and exploded in a ball of fire, with sheets of metal flipping like coins high into the air, the back doors springing wide with the concussion blast, a couple burning bodies flipped out. The vehicle cartwheeled, came to a rocky finish, ablaze, with only the sound of a couple men moaning, soon to be dead. Without fire equipment, not even a blanket, and out in the open, where they’d be prized target practice… they had to watch the men die, but Cliff and Johnny scrambled out low and grabbed the harness on a flak jacket on the two men squirming, drawing pinging shots against the carcass of the vehicle. They were fast, feeding on adrenaline, and they had them in safety before a third shot clipped into the sand. They doused the smoldering men with the sand, patting out fires, until the SWAT members just drizzled smoke like a dying cigarette. Tragically, these men were on a parallel journey. Johnny looked up to the sheriff, shaking his head, with no morphine to even put them out of their pain.

Darlene Coyle knelt, in tears, her hands clawing together in feeble prayer… and one belligerent demand, “Goddamn them to hell, Lord! And let me send ‘em there.”

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“Jesus Christ!” Art screamed out. “Fucking scumbags! They took out the entire SWAT unit!”

Donnie put his gaze to the ground, only imagining the number killed. And this wasn’t even war… it was a whorehouse resort in the western desert of Nevada… and maybe that’s what they had all gotten wrong so far. It was war.

As they saw Cliff and Johnny dart out to retrieve a couple victims, Donnie scoped down on the gaping window into the darkness of The Zanzibar Club searching for the weapons expert who had just annihilated the SWAT unit en masse. He wanted to send a response through his .30-06 Savage. What he saw was the laser of the guiding system they had just deployed, and the laser was pointing at them…

“Get off the rocks, Art! They’re firing on us!”

They grabbed the duffels of weapons and ducked to the back of the rock, where Cliff and Johnny took the sandy furrow down, but they wouldn’t take the casual journey. Art then Donnie heaved their bags and swan-dived off the ridge and into a rolling finish down the sandy slope, hitting enough rock to do them damage, bloodying Art’s jawline… but the worst of it was not over.

WHAUMPFF! The rocks exploded in granite confetti, spraying in all directions, the fire cascading into the air, but not following the divers down into the sand below. But the avalanche would…

The resounding blast had shattered what remained of eons of coalesced igneous and metamorphic rock and it came apart like a massive puzzle, and a heavy cleft of red rock collapsed, following the soldiers. Art, dazed but in full fight-or-flight adrenaline, lifted and ducked to his left with speed, running and stumbling, and rolling into the bramble of brittlebush that surrounded the butte. Clear but shaking.

Donnie had followed on Art’s path off the rock, but two steps behind from his being prone; he took a heavy chunk of rock to his lower torso and kidney, firing him out of a canon into the scrabble and cacti that collected at the bottom of the sandy runoff. In fevered motion, for what was surely the end of the earth falling around him, he jumped into a crablike crawl, speeding through the damaging clusters of needles and chipped rock without thought, with a hopeful final dive to outpace the avalanche. And he knew he was done, for he had nothing left in him that could outrun the rocky titan that would end his days.

He was spitting sand… sucking dust and squishing his eyes shut to keep from being flooded with parched dirt and gravel. Hurting, but not dead, he groaned in bodily appreciation for his years and his survival. St. Michael had done it again. He pulled his necklace and kissed his defense minister.

“Art? Art, you good?”

“Fucking better than you, D… holy Christ! Don’t move, bro. I gotta kick some of the cactus away… you’re penned in, and you didn’t make it free and clear. You look like a fuckin’ porky-pine.”

“Oh, my God!” He lay his brutalized face in the hot sand, “Just tell me I’m alive, Artie… just tell me I’m alive!”

“Well, do you hurt?”

“Like a motherfucker… back, arms, and face…”

“Then you’re alive.” He started kicking at big paddles of cacti, putting the heel of his boot to them so not to get skewered himself. “If you didn’t spot that laser, neither of us would be, Donnie.” Whump! Another large branch of cactus fell, opening a prickly path out, growing wider.

“Awe, fuck! What God would make a plant like this shit?”

“The same God that gave us these Turks or the bitch-pimp… be glad you outlived a couple of them. That might be the best we can get today.”

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Sunset came screaming across the sky in orange and reds, very angry reds. What would normally be thought as beautiful, it was not this evening. It faded quickly, smothered in a smoky billowing hue hurrying into the blackness of night, complemented by the cloying fetid smell of burning oil and men. It was more the dying of the day. And the burning vehicle created an aberrant glow, as some hellish campfire, giving unwanted sight to the survivors of this war.

Sheriff Coyle would not receive National Guard reinforcements until the following morning, if lucky. Mid-day was likelier. Her SWAT division was wiped out in one missile blast. Her only reserves this night would be her remaining four patrolmen and Detective Bunting, who had the dark deed of explaining that they think they had found the missing soldiers’ remains.

“They were up into the foothills of Spring Mountain, just like that Susie girl said, right by a little collection of mesquite trees. And they were buried on the backside, just like she said we’d find ‘em. But she didn’t tell us they was decapitated. Heads and hands, Sheriff. Gone.” Harry was shaking his head in disgust because it rated as his most gruesome discovery in his years with the Nye County Sheriff’s office. “We won’t know for sure until the coroner gets done… and that could be days because we have nothing to identify them with.” He turned to the victims’ friends, “I’m sorry to be telling you, but we think it’s your people.” He bowed his head in well-practiced respect for the survivors.

The vets, all hardened men, were in tears that shined against the unholy glow of the war-fire burning. Donnie, feeling a bitter dose of responsibility wanted immediate answers. “It’s them if that bitch told you where you can look for ‘em. I can identify ‘em. Bring me to ‘em! I know ‘em… I can… I know…” he choked out.

A tattered mix of rejections from the sheriff and the detective, all discouraged his demand, because they had to maintain control over a very fragile situation, and being there was no sure way to confirm anything. It was Cliff and Artie that gave him a hug that quelled the angry, broken man.

“This is where the fight is, Donnie. Right here. And helping our boys is the only place you’re needed. Right fucking here!”

Johnny joined the group, and they embraced in the orange firelight on the edge of madness.

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After the SWAT vehicle was taken out, and a chunk of the distant butte was collapsed, the Turks knew they had given enough hell to their enemies. The Americans were licking their wounds, occupied with death and carnage; Yusef could now move them all to a sturdier, more secure position.

Yusef had completed the transfer of all information extracted from the fat woman and the financial man, the one who had baited Gorko into the deal. When asked if he thought he had all of it, Yusef answered simply, “Yes, Gorko, more.” It was high confidence their score had drained the financial accounts of the sloppy westerners, their partners. Gorko had a simple response: “şahane!” Wonderful. “Now clean up and make it home. If no, we take care of your family. Tanrı iyidir!” Yes, God is good. Whichever devilish God a fiend or martyr called upon.

They retreated with their duffels, weaponry, and their string of hostages to the back building of suites. The hostages remained gagged, and bound securely, the girls still crying for the horror and butchery they were now witness to… and they all thought they’d be fucking for money this day, like any other day, the lesser horror… Tobias and Leonard just followed instructions to the letter knowing how tempting it would be to eliminate the highest risk to the interlopers. When you made your life punishing victims and stealing every cent in your life, it was hard to not appear as trouble. But they would be unrivalled victims now because they wanted to survive.

“Bring prisoners to de second floor. Middle room, and keep dem.”

As Ule guided the chain-gang across the pool patio, they had disconnected all power; night had all but consumed them. Omer remained as a spotter, watching the enemy gathered around the rocks and the lasting fire from the military vehicle, he would radio any unusual activity. There was nothing. The cowards remained in hiding.

Lenin and Yusef had moved along the perimeter on both sides of the property staying low and keeping an eye to any movements towards their flanks. It was all quiet. Ahmet followed the last of the hostages as they entered the suites building, and radioed to the others.

“We now make into hotel. We secure them in top floor. Then we take positions on east and west windows.”

“Good Ahmet, Ule. Omer, now go to join Ahmet. We are done wid de building. We now set up defense and fight if dey want to fight. De bodies have gifts we leave de western pigs. Tanrı'ya şükürler olsun!”

Collectively, “Tanrı'ya şükürler olsun!”

Praise God.

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“We’re outmatched! Look at the weapons they have!” Sheriff Coyle was lost between wanting immediate retaliation and the long wait for the National Guard… she knew it was cowardice, but brilliant, life-saving cowardice, and she just couldn’t make either argument. She just didn’t want to see anymore of her people killed. “There’s already twelve dead!”

Donnie, having regathered himself, grit his teeth and squeezed out in anger, “Fourteen, if you count Mark and Lazlo… Fifteen if you count the Margot girl… and how many more that you had been investigating… and now have proof it was the bitch-pimp?” It brought things into sharper focus, and the sheriff knew their own failures were mounting. Her head was hurting for the screaming voice of vengeance.

“Donnie’s right, Sheriff. These Turks might be real army, and you’re not. I get it. But you are deciding on either letting them escape by waiting… because they will escape… they have a plan in place, whatever the fuck it is… don’t fucking fool yourself… Or you decide to act. And you and your detective only have to stay home right here to make it look like we’re all holed up…”

Cliff leaned into the finale, “And let us do what you were going to let us do yesterday.” It was not without contempt.

“You might have weapons, but you don’t have anti-tank shit! They have munitions… I don’t know… God only knows what they have… What do you have?”

“We have training, and war experience, and we don’t back down!” He was staring down the tough sheriff, “You might have been bit here, and I’m sorry for your boys; sorry for your loss. But they’re eating and celebrating their victory right now. And we won’t stand for it.”

“But what do you have? What do you have that can beat those explosives?

“We have a fucking ton load of Oorah!” All four responded, “Oorah!”

That’s all the old corpsmen would ever need.

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