that chariot resembling a bright cloud in the sky
It sat in the garage under all the lights and eyes like an alien artifact lying in wait. A Chevy Suburban, supercharged V8, drive flat tires, grey as a thunderstorm, with deep tint windows and riddled with impacts, none of which penetrated, thanks to the armor. VPAM VR 10, rated to withstand even the potent 7.62x54r round. A protection level which normally would have been overkill in a US city, but seeing as how the PKM up on the hill had been putting the rounds out at 250 a minute, showed quite a bit of forethought. Whoever had brought this thing had known they would be playing with some serious fire.
Inside, it was an armory on wheels. Over two thousand rounds of ammunition, armor plates, all kinds of explosives, smoke grenades, gas grenades, flash bangs, gas masks, enough medical equipment and controlled substances tucked away in tightly organized compartments to set up a small field hospital, and a seemingly random collection of clothes that upon closer inspection proved to be intelligently chosen for disguise.
There were also a few laptops and phones. Of course, they were fried, and probably encrypted before that anyway. Same thing with all the internal computers, many of which had to be welded open. The biggest scare came when a compartment of high explosives was found under the floorboards, wired to something. It had been an hour of the squad checking it over before they were allowed to return to the garage, and by that time Detective Williams had gotten some updates.
The fingerprints had come back. Only one match, though they had found at least three distinct sets. Some guy from Saginaw. His only arrests were for drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He worked night security six days a week and had no known criminal connections. Another fucking mystery. Now with the FBI on hand maybe something would come of it. Lewis had thought it might be some cult shit, or some gang recruiting known nobodies with clean records or something.
Two other armored vehicles had been involved, one of which was captured on the downtown cameras picking up the robbery suspect, and both of which, like the SUV, had been armored by unknown persons using state of the art techniques after being passed around used car lots and marked as salvage titles, then registered to drug addicts and inmates with credit scores in the double digits. Like they had been willed into existence just to get shot at next to a flea market.
The Beetle had looked like a bomb was dropped on the roof, and the Mercedes had bare metal and white windows on one side like someone t-boned it. Looking at the three-inch-thick window glass rolled part way down in the door of the SUV, he tried to imagine the pointless carnage that had broken out on that irrelevant intersection. The gas station had been shredded. Hundreds of machine gun rounds shot blindly in the general direction of the SUV, he was told, when it hadn’t been gunning down his brothers in arms or drilling through the Beetles armor. It was a miracle the gas pumps hadn’t gone off.
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He knew a lot about what happened, by now, but a handful of nothing when it came to why.
Detective Martinez slapped him on the back with a folder as he came up to gawk at the SUV.
“Gat damn, I want one. Gonna feel like I’m driving around in a tin can after seeing this shit.” He shook his head at the SUV, where a tech was adding another Cuesta Ray to the “miscellaneous pile” of cigars and liquor and water bottles and even bags of fucking gummy worms.
“You see that Bearcat ride in?” Williams asked, just to say something, without looking away.
Martinez whistled. “I sure did. Almost makes me wanna start kissing ass so I can get on the team.” He smiled and looked around to see if anyone had heard.
“Oh!” he slapped the folder on his hand. “Patrol found your robbery guy dead in some Grandma’s house on the eastside.”
“What the fuck?” Williams took out his phone.
“Oh yeah, I was supposed to call you but—” He gawked at the SUV some more and watched a technician gingerly remove a pistol from under the cupholders.
“Ten-millimeter casings, like the guy was hunting bear, and get this shit. Jacksons says five casings, five headshots.” Martinez held up his open hand and gestured for effect. “Two of em through the wall, one through the front door, one through the passenger window of the car on the lawn, right through and got the driver. Like they all stood still for it. You believe that?”
They were walking back towards the offices now. Williams looked over his shoulder one last time at the SUV.
“Hell no. Jackson made that shit up.”
“Maybe. Oh, and here.” Martinez handed him the file. “I know you like paper when you’re thinking. I had Roberts Jr. type this up to keep him busy. Kid’s gonna have an aneurysm if he sees one more fed. Thinks we’re on fucking Narcos.”
“What is this?” Past the sheets of stuff he knew, mostly hand typed bullet points, was a printout of a driver’s license photo and some demos.
“Some guy turned himself in,” Martinez said. “Claiming to be part of the team that shot up the party wagon in there. Says he knows where they’re gonna hit next. A hundred dollars says he’s a schizo that saw it on the news and flew over, but the FBI’s talking to him anyway. Fucking National Guard will be here at this rate.”
Williams opened the file under the fluorescent light in the hallway while the words “flew over” looped in his head. A door creaked behind him, the sound romanticized into an echo by the garage on the other side, while voices murmured from the offices. It was like the turning point in a horror movie.
“Shit. Did you say fly?” Sure enough, the guy had no record, no known associates, worked a dead end nine to five at some call center, and lived a thousand miles away in some suburb near Columbus, Ohio. Financial statements showed no firearms or ammo purchases ever, unless you count every Call of Duty in the last ten years, and a plane ticket three days ago. Family worried sick, supervisor preparing termination for no call no show, no signs of emotional disturbances, besides the general malaise of a disappointed existence common to almost every wage slave across the nation. It was the kind of file that was becoming disturbingly familiar in this case. The dots were connecting, but they weren’t pointing towards anything he could see. It felt like watching some unknown force build a highway on the moon.
“What? I didn’t see anything interesting,” Martinez said, watching him frown.
“Exactly.”