Quaranteam - North West Ch. 21

"Kuwait?" I asked.

"And Afghanistan," he grunted. "You?"

"Afghanistan and Iraq," I said.

"Hmm," he hummed, though it came out more like a growl. Then he asked me something in Farsi.

"I only ever got a bit of Farsi, and I've lost most of it," I said. "I only caught a couple of words."

"Well, at least you couldtell it was Farsi and not Arabic," he said. "What are you really doing here, Dog Face?"

"I told you, I heard there was a sort of market. I wanted to figure out what was going on, see if it was something I should be interested in or not."

"Interested for what?"

"Buying things," I said.

"We aren't a cash business," he said. "We deal in trade. You got anything to trade beyond that firearm?"

"Well, what are you looking for?" I asked.

He grunted. "We've got food, fucker. Fresh, preserved, all sorts of shit. And chickens, if you've got half a brain to be able to keep them, and plenty of gardening supplies if you've got the space to start a garden and feed yourself or bring what you grow here. We take goods-for-goods or other valuables. We don't ask questions, but if we find out you killed someone for what you bring in then you'll get whatever you gave. We're also interested in useful skills. Auto work, carpentry, sewing, that kind of shit. So now you know."

"Now I know," I said.

"And now you need to give me a reason not to tell Georgie Boy here to fill your chest with lead and toss you into the woods, cause no one is going to come looking for you."

I clenched my jaw to stop from reacting outwardly. "Do I look like a piece of shit?" I asked. "Seriously. I clearly am not hurting for food right now, so I'm doing something right, and I'm not desperate enough to try to roll you guys for eggs and bacon. I grew up in this town, I heard a rumour, and I came to check it out. Now I know that this is your turf, and what the deal is. And I didn't walk the fuck on in your front door because Ididn't know who you were. I've had more interactions with the fucking sovereign citizen idiots than I would ever care to, and if this was one of their things I didn't want to even start with them."

He stared, or maybe glared, at me for a long and silent minute. "What do you do for work?" he asked.

"I'm an artist," I said. "Movies, video games, that kind of shit. I wanted to create things after I got out, so that's what I did."

"You don't look like an artist," he said. "Those aren't the arms of an artist."

"Yeah, well, four years of high school football and eight years in the service got me used to working out. I'm not as big as I used to be."

"You looking for work now?" he asked.

"You want me to draw you something?"

"No," he said. "I want to know if a man with eight years of service is looking forwork. If it comes around."

"Depends on the work," I said.

He looked me up and down again, then narrowed his eyes. "Here's the deal. You aren't getting out of here without taking a beating. The principle of the thing, sneaking around like that. But instead of one of us just laying into you a bit, you can fight Georgie Boy there straight up. He'll clobber you, I'm not going to lie, but if you can put up a decent fight maybe we keep your number and give you a call in a couple of weeks if we need something done. This shitstorm out here, it's better to make some friends, right? We just make sure our friends are worth having."

Fuck me, I groaned internally. Georgie Boy was the big guy with the shotgun.

"If I'm going to take some shots, I might as well give some of my own," I said.

"Just like a grunt," the biker said, grinning behind his gaiter. He stood up and grabbed his chair, pulling it out of the way as he looked at Neck Tattoo near the door. "Go find Garret and Chuck. They'll want to see this." He followed Neck Tattoo through the door into the warehouse.

The woman, who had watched the whole conversation silently, strode up to me. She was short, maybe five-foot-three at best, but gave off the sort of presence that made her seem eight feet tall based on her ego. She stood in front of me, glaring at me through half-hooded eyes as I made certain not to glance down at her tits. "You might have found my father's soft spot, you fuck, but that doesn't mean you aren't leaving here broken and busted. Georgie doesn't stop punching until something goes snap."

"I'm guessing you aren't single then," I said, not able to resist the chance to tease her.

Her glare sparked angrily as she sneered behind her mask. "I'm not. And I guarantee my boyfriend has a bigger cockand gun."

"Those are some weird things to compare," I said. "You sure he's OK with you talking about how big his gun is?"

She scoffed and looked over at Shotgun, who was still covering me. "Do me a favour and break his jaw," she said.

"We'll see," Georgie mumbled darkly. Based on the size and gnarled nature of his hands along with the cauliflower ears he sported, I had a feeling no matter how good a fight I put up, this was going to hurt.

"I'll make you a bet," I said to the woman. "If I can make Georgie here give up during the fight, I get to take you on a nice, relaxing date and treat you like the lady you are, دخترزیبا."

Her eyes widened and she sniffed as I called her 'beautiful girl' in Farsi. The Persian language wasn't as popular in Iraq or Afghanistan as it was in western Iran, but I'd picked up enough during my tours that I could give out a basic compliment to a woman - always a handy thing to have in my back pocket.

She didn't answer, or maybe just didn't have time to, before her father, Neck Tattoo and another guy came in from the warehouse. That meant there were still two other bikers around somewhere, unless the woman rode her own bike, and I had a feeling she could but she was more of a ride-on-the-back gal if her boyfriend was in the gang.

The new biker was older with long grey hair past his shoulders and I immediately got the vibe that he could have been a hippy trying to sell acid at a music festival, if it weren't for the pistol stuck into the front of his pants and the knife hanging from his belt that looked more like it was the size of a machete.

"Where's Chuck?" the woman asked.

"He'll come around," the boss said, somewhat cryptically. He turned his attention to me. "You ready to take your medicine?"

"That depends on if Georgie is going to put down that shotgun and make this a fair fight," I said as I stood from my chair.

The boss gave a nod to the big beefcake of a man, who lowered his shotgun and set it down on one of the old desks ringing the room. He turned back to me and cracked his knuckles with a loud pop.

I looked at the boss again. "I fight, I have the chance of walking out of here with your respect?" I asked.

"I doubt you'll be walking," he replied.

I grabbed the chair I'd been sitting on and swung it like a fucking baseball bat at Georgie. The big guy was quicker than I hoped he would be, getting his arms up to block the swing. The chair, an old wooden thing, proved to be a little less sturdy than it had felt as I'd been sitting on it. The back snapped off of the seat as the legs cracked against Georgie's arms, splinters shooting out in every direction.

The big guy grunted and stepped towards me, already reaching to try and grab me, but I managed to slide sideways away from his grasp and I tossed the rest of the chair back I was still holding at his head before snapping a kick at his knee. I connected, though not as hard as I wanted, and Georgie grunted again but didn't collapse as I'd hoped.

He was a solid slab of muscle and bone. I was in trouble.

I had two options, just the same as every fight really. Be defensive, try to wear out my enemy while taking as little hurt as possible; or be aggressive and try to do as much damage as I could as quickly as possible. With a guy as big and sturdy as Georgie, it was entirely possible that I could have played it back and let him tire himself out, except that I could already feel the stitches in my leg aching and for all that I'd been trained in hand-to-hand combat it was pretty unlikely I had the pure experience that the big biker did.

If I was going to win, or at least survive this without being turned into a bloody pulp, I had to cheat and cheat fast.

People were shouting behind me, encouragements for Georgie or curses at me, but it was all a wordless ringing in my ears as I followed up my kick to his knee with a hard, toe-forward kick to his nuts. He exhaled heavily, collapsing forward in shock and pain but still grabbing for me. He got a hold of my arm and wrenched me forward, but instead of trying to pull away from his strong grip I stepped into it, slamming my forehead into the big biker's face. There was a distinct crunch of his nose breaking and the big man roared.

I was in his grasp now though, and he proved just as tough as I thought he would be as he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed, lifting me off my feet. He had my right arm trapped, but my left arm ended up sort of over his shoulder as I was kind of looking behind him. My ribs immediately felt like they were groaning and threatening to give and my vision tunnelled.

Without any leverage, the best I could do was heave myself against him, and with my own considerable size, he was bent backwards a bit. I stretched, reaching through the black tunnel of my vision as my lungs strained for another breath, and my fingers found the cool metal.

One-handed, I raised the shotgun as I held it by the end of the barrel and I hammered the pistol grip down right on Georgie's tailbone. That made him grunt in a shock of pain as he stood straight up and arched his back in reaction. My next blow was able to reach lower and I slammed that grip into the side of his knee, which buckled this time and we both went over.

His grip loosened and I was able to suck in a breath, my head and leg both pounding in pain, and I blindly threw a backwards elbow towards Georgie's head. It was a glancing blow, and he wasn't done yet either as he scrambled to grab me. His huge hand found my leg and I growled a scream as he gripped my thigh right on the stitches.

"He's a fucking cop!" cut through the ringing in my ears.

I kicked, hitting Georgie in the chest as we scrambled on the ground instead of his face like I'd been planning, and he snarled behind his gaiter and reached in and grabbed me by my throat, his steely fingers tightening quickly. I clawed at his hand for just a moment but realised as he leveraged himself up onto one knee that there was no way I was prying it free. Instead, I swung the shotgun I was still holding around and clocked him right in the side of the face with it, though it was just with the flat instead of the grip. He growled and I saw real violence in his eyes as he raised his fist and brought it down in a hammer blow. I managed to roll us both slightly, his fist glancing off the side of my skull instead of straight into my face. We naturally rocked back to flat and I used that bit of momentum to swing the shotgun again, this time landing the grip handle on the side of his head. He staggered and his eyes went glazed, his squeeze loosening enough for me to get in a gasp, and I pulled up my feet and kicked him off of me.

Georgie rolled backwards and I jumped to my feet, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, but I only got one step towards him before movement out of the blurred side of my vision made me reel backwards.

I felt the whoosh of air as someone in a Guns of Thunder cut swung a wild haymaker and missed me by inches. My instinctive reaction was to swing back, both hands on the shotgun in what would have been a home run hit on the baseball diamond. The crack of this guy's nose was sharper than Georgie's and he stumbled past me with a wail, falling right on top of the big man as he was trying to rise. Georgie, wracked with his own pain and deep in Fight brain, immediately wrapped his thick arms around his perceived attacker and got him in some sort of choke hold.

The shouting was loud - the three bikers not in the fight all yelling at once, and the woman screaming bloody murder at the theatrics. It was her voice, sharper, that drew my attention to the fact that she was a few steps behind me.

"Sorry about this," I grunted as I took two fast strides and grabbed her across her upper chest, yanking her around in front of me like a shield as I flipped the shotgun around and pressed the mouth of the barrel to her side, jamming it into her leather jacket somewhere between her waist and her tit.

The room didn't exactly go quiet, though two of the bikers stopped shouting, including her father the boss, as they took in this new situation. Garret, the older hippyish guy, was trying to stop Georgie from choking the life out of the one that had tried to sucker punch me as he shouted, "It's Chuck! It's Chucky!" at the big man. Chuck, for his part, was scrambling and writhing, caught in the rear naked choke, tapping like a madman and getting little response. Chuck was younger than the others, slim and not quite as imposing, though that may have been because of how much of a ragdoll he seemed to be in Georgie's arms.

Garret ended up pulling out his handgun and pressed it to Georgie's temple. That seemed to get the big man's attention and he let go, Chuck falling to the side limply but still breathing.

"So," I said, feeling like absolute shit as I kept a tight hold on the woman, who had frozen in my grasp. "I think I win."

"Let go of her and we can talk this out," the boss growled with the ice-cold voice of someone who was very sure of his ability to commit murder.

"That sounds like a bad idea right about now," I said. "But I don'twant to hurt a hair on her head."

"می توانم بیضه هایش را لگد بزنم" the woman said, her voice thick and melodic as she spoke in Persian.

"Don't try it," I grunted, pulling her tighter against me. I didn't know what she'd said, but I could tell by her shifting her weight she was going to try and kick backwards and catch me in the nuts.

"What now, then?" the boss growled.

"Now, you," I looked at Neck Tattoo, who was currently pointing my sidearm at me. "Are going to eject the clip from that and hand it to him." I looked at the boss. "And you're going to pick up my badge there from the ground. Then we're going for a little walk."

My badge, which was in fact on the ground of the office area, must have been found by Chuck outside and he was the one that had yelled I was a cop. I wasn't sure what they had all been shouting during the fighting, but I'd definitely heard that.

At a nod from the boss, Neck Tattoo ejected the clip and handed over the pistol, and then fetched my badge from the ground. Part of me wanted to try and push the woman through into the warehouse so I could get a look at their operation but second-guessed that plan since there was still a sixth biker somewhere. Instead, I started to slowly pull her back towards the door that led out near the motorcycles.

"Alright," I said. "We're going to take it nice and easy as we go for a walk."

"You hurt her and I kill you," the boss said.

"You come at me and I shoot her," I replied. "Neither of us wants that, but I'm not fucking around."

She followed me and we stopped at the door.

"Alright, sweetheart," I said. "You might as well tell me your name so I have something to call you."

"Kashm," she said.

"Beautiful," I said. "OK, Kashm. We're going to step outside and head around the side of the building. We're going to go slow, and your father and one other guy are going to follow us. When we get to my truck I'll be happy to let you go."

"You're an asshole," she grunted.

"You get that, Pops?" I asked.

"I got it," he grunted.

I took the step back and down, and she followed.

"Can I say something?" I asked as we took one slow step after another, followed at about ten yards by her father and Neck Tattoo.

"Is it you begging for your life?" she asked. "Because if you grovel, I might just decide to only leave you paraplegic."

"Jesus, you're a nasty one," I said. "But no. I was going to say I hope Chucky in there isn't the one you're dating, because there is no way that a sucker-punching runt like him could handle a woman like you."

".... fuck you," Kashm growled.

"Yeesh," I sighed.

"You don't know us," she said. We had made it around the end of the building and were backing towards the old road.

"I don't," I agreed. "But I'm betting that your pops is in charge, and you grew up a bit of a princess even during the hard times. I bet he isn't super happy about you dating anyone in his club, but you've got him wrapped around your finger as much as you still love him."

"How about we don't talk about my personal life while you've got a shotgun jammed into my breast?" she asked.

"Alright," I said, taking a quick glance behind me as we hit the road. "We're heading this way."

It was a long, slow walk as I trudged backwards down the road. The potholes made things even more frustrating, and I wondered how the fuck these guys rode it on their motorcycles.

"So whose idea was the market, anyways?" I muttered to her.

"Mine," she grunted.

"I had a feeling," I said. "Tell me this. Is it all above board and you just take a skim off the top as profit, or are the boys making side deals and taking advantage of people?"

She was silent.

"Are they forcing women?" I asked.

"No," she exhaled. "But if someone only has their looks to trade, why should I stand in their way from getting the food they need?"

It was hard to argue with that logic in the current national circumstances. If I hadn't run into Mary in the parking lot she could very well have been doing the same thing within days, she'd been so desperate. Two kids to feed, let alone herself... would I have judged her for doing it? I could blame the bikers for not just giving away the food, but if they were paying discounted prices to the grocery store manager, along with wherever else they got their supplies, then it was capitalism and not charity.

I felt gross, accepting that people were surviving on sexual favours, but I couldn't exactly offer a better alternative.

"This way," I said, and she followed me as we walked backwards off the road and through the overgrown green space behind the grocery store.

"Do you really think you're going to get away from this?" she asked, her spite softer now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

"I think I understand your father," I said. "And I think the fact that I'm just doing what I have to and not being an asshole is helping."

"I'd say you're a pretty big asshole," she growled.

"Really? Because I could have been groping you this whole time and being a creep, but I'm not. You're a lady, and a daughter, and I respect that even if I have to use the leverage I've got to not have my head caved in."

That shut her up.

"Step down," I warned her as we reached the curb into the grocery store parking lot.

"So you really are a cop," the boss said, about twenty yards back as he and Neck Tattoo continued to follow. Their handguns were lowered but still out and they could clearly see my truck behind me.

"Sheriff, technically," I called back. "Look, you and I both know that last year at this time, someone with my job meets someone with yours, and we have problems. But the world is going to shit, and as far as I can see your operation back there isn't hurting anyone. And, considering you threatened that you'd kill me if I came with shit that was stolen by force from others, I think you still love this country and respect the fact that ordinary people should be out of bounds for criminal shit."

He grunted, glancing at Neck Tattoo, then took a breath. "That about sums it up," he said.

We were about five steps away from my truck now and I stopped walking backwards, Kashm backing into me for a moment. "Alright then. So how about this - I don't have a problem with your black market as long as you hold to those values. Looters are a problem though, and they're dangerous to the folks who are still living through this shit. They're also dangerous to you; the virus is airborne and if they are stealing from the homes of the dead they could very well be carrying it with them already. Start wearing gloves, and disinfect anything that's brought to you."