Dirty Job by Felix R Savage

Author:Felix R Savage [Savage, Felix R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knights Hill Publishing
Published: 2019-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

32

I related what Nanny B had told me as I drove crosstown and turned onto Outback. The news restored Irene’s spirits. I drove at high speed through the Slumps, past the old helioba plantation, where an RV throng wallowed, reminding me of Timmy Akhatli. As we crossed Mill Creek, Irene glanced down at the stagnant brown water. “Wonder if they’ve found him yet?”

“Nothing about it on the news,” I said, but I didn’t bother to take out my phone and dig. I was only interested in getting to Lucy.

On the far side of the bridge, violently green undergrowth walled a narrow, twisting road. This was the way to Cascaville, the logging town on the far side of the hills, which also hosted Ponce de Leon’s largest Fleet base. I drove too fast, adrenaline pumping, around the blind curves. Ten klicks out of town, our phone service cut out, completing our transition from urban Mag-Ingat to an alien planet. The overhanging trees blocked out the sunlight. Tree slugs dropped onto the windshield, too heavy for the wipers to move. Irene had to lean out and pick them off.

I almost missed the turnoff for the range. It had no signpost. You wouldn’t even notice it unless you knew it was there. An unpaved track wavered around forest giants, swung around hairpin bends, and dead-ended at a log laid on trestles. A sign hung from the log. Macaulay’s Live Fire Range. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.

I stopped the truck and rolled down my window. Heat flooded in, along with the distant pop-pop of rifle fire. Mosquitoes sang over stagnant puddles. I pushed my hair away from my sweaty forehead. Where had I gone wrong, that my daughter had ended up in a place like this?

I blew the horn. Then we sat and waited until a lean, dark-skinned man, wearing a high-tech gun belt over camos, walked out of the trees. Alec Macaulay had nubbly close-cropped hair, a face that wasn’t built to smile, and a .45 in his holster.

“Welcome back to civilization, Mike. Wasn’t expecting you for another few days.”

“We made good speed on the return leg,” I said, shaking his hand.

Alec was one of the most successful Shifter entrepreneurs on Ponce de Leon, although most folks had never heard of him. His business catered to the small but dedicated crowd of Shifter gun nuts. Some of them even lived out here in a kind of permanent training camp associated with the range. Alec was a fellow veteran of the 15th Recon—he’d done two tours on Tech Duinn, although we’d never crossed paths there—and a friend of Dolph’s. He was a man of integrity, and I knew he would not have offered Rex sanctuary if he thought he was mixed up with any shenanigans.

“You’re looking for your kids,” he said.

“That’s right,” Irene and I said.

A couple more men materialized out of the brush and lifted the log barrier aside. We walked between trees furred with moss and vines, while Alec’s guys drove my truck away to some hidden parking area under the canopy.

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