drums were encased in lead shields, wrapped together with wire. The cargo was on steel pallets strapped to the walls. But he’d seen human flesh melt inside HAZMAT suits from a spoonful’s splash of the mystery toxin. No way in hell did he want to be anywhere near those drums when they were transferred. If it could eat its way through material designed to see a man safely through a few thousand degrees of nuclear fallout.
Grogen was shuddering at the image of the human puddle when he spotted the behemoth parked on the rise. Conklin looked at him when he said, “Flash your lights, twice.”
“Sir, I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand, soldier! Just do it.”
Grogen felt the heat rise from his driver, but Conklin followed the order. The headlights on the eighteen-wheeler blinked in response. Grogen sighted two shadows on the port side.
“Park it, lights on. Fall out,” Grogen ordered, slipping on his com link.
The driver was questioning the moment, reaching to open the door, when Grogen jammed the subgun’s muzzled snout in his ribs. Hitting the trigger, Grogen blew him out of the vehicle and into the night.
Grogen saw armed shadows flapping their arms. They were shouting at one another in their guttural Brooklyn tongue, flinging around a variety of curses. He was out the door, subgun up, the transport rumbling up on his right flank when he spotted the red eyes dancing over his chest.
“Get those off me now, or the deal dies here!” he shouted. Another red dragon’s eye stabbed the blackness from a jagged perch beyond the transport’s cab. He marched on through the light, drawing a bead on the capo. “Do it!”
Advancing, Grogen felt his finger taking up slack on the trigger. His soldiers fell out, black-clad shadows taking cover behind the GMC and the transport. A quick count of hostiles, spotting two with AR-15 assault rifles hunkered behind the doors of an SUV, and he figured seven goons to his seasoned foursome.
“Everybody, cool it! Lose the light show!”
When the laser beams died, Grogen keyed his com link. “Road Warrior to Dragonship, come in.”
“Dragonship here, sir.”
“You have them painted?”
“That’s affirmative, Road Warrior.”
“Bring it on, but hold.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“You nuts, Grogen? What are ya doin’?” said the capo, approaching.
“Covering my assets, that’s what.” Grogen halted, lowered his weapon and studied the engineer of the future.
Mikey “The Pumpkin” Gagliano had broken out in a sweat. He swore as he noticed the corpse dumped by the Hummer and fired off more questions, lacing them all with the “f” word as if he’d invented it.
“Don’t worry about it,” Grogen told him as he made out the first faint buzz of rotor blades to the southeast. “You have my money?”
He waited for Gagliano to make the move, wondering how the capo got his nickname. Figure the fat head with cauliflower ears, a squat walrus frame with a buffet of pasta for a midsection had helped earn him the tag. The capo wasn’t exactly dressed for warfare of any kind, standing there in his silk threads, Italian loafers and five pounds of gold. Typical hood. It was hard for Grogen to believe this was the future of the New York Mob, but the ilk of the Mafia lineage was little more than a long succession of thugs with a lust for money, power and pleasure. Brute animals, more hyena than lion, but still dangerous criminal scum.
“Joey! Bring the case!” the capo ordered.
Gagliano was on the verge of composing himself, squaring his shoulders, face hardening to street tough, when the rotor wash blew a squall over the rise. The hoods were shouting and cursing once again and Grogen was smiling as The Pumpkin jacked up the decibels of outrage at the sight of the winged behemoth.
“You wanna explain what’s goin’ on with that kind of firepower? I thought we had a deal, Grogen, but I’m startin’ to feel you’re ready to break it off in my ass.”
“You just worry about me and my money,” Grogen shouted back.
The capo was unable to take his eyes off the black warbird. It was a fearsome sight, and Grogen completely understood his anxiety. Hovering to the rear of Gagliano’s SUV, Dragonship was a hybrid cross between the Apache and the Black Hawk. Winged pylons housed ten Hellfire rockets. Grogen knew a 30 mm chain gun in the nose turret was ready to cut loose on his word and grind them into puddles of human pasta and marinara.
Grogen grabbed the briefcase from Gagliano’s errand boy and hefted it. “Something tells me you couldn’t exactly pack two million in this,” he shouted.
“You get the balance when I deliver the merchandise.”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“Neither was your messenger boy tellin’ me to bring space suits if we wanted to check what we’re buyin’.”
“What you’re buying, pal, isn’t any tub of irradiated water.”
“So you better be right.”
“Heads up,” Grogen called to his men. He tossed the briefcase toward the GMC. “Oh, I’m right, Mikey. I’m so right, if the people you’re unloading it to get popped and start singing to the Feds like your boy back home we’ll all be on death row faster than you can suck down a plate of linguini.”
Grogen watched the fear flicker in Gagliano’s cunning eyes. Thugs. Animals. Sociopaths. To do business with such loathsome creatures stung his professional pride.
What had started as his predecessor going for his own pot of gold now dumped Grogen into deep waters already chummed. And there were far bigger man-eaters in this game than a bunch of leg-breaking hoods.
As Gagliano barked the order to roll the forklift down the ramp of the big rig’s cargo hold, Grogen came to understand a little more about the future—what would separate the winners from losers. It all boiled down to survival of the fittest in his mind, but those without conscience or scruples held an edge. With what was on the table for the players in this future they would have to turn two blind eyes and harden the heart still more if they were to use the toxin the way he believed they would when it reached its principal buyer.
Grogen backed up, and his men moved away from the transport. He saw Gagliano making faces, holding out his arms.
“What the…You booby-trapped my merchandise?” The Pumpkin was startled.
Backpedaling farther from the truck, Grogen chuckled as he nodded at the forklift driver. “I’m merely establishing my comfort area, in case your driver tips it off the pallet.”
Gagliano scowled and waddled away from the forklift. “You drop it, it’s your ass!” he screamed at the driver.
“By the way, Mikey. There’s been another change of plans,” Grogen said, grinning.
“How come I know I ain’t gonna like this already?”
