Freedom Beer, Part 7

Hank's legs were folded up in front of him. Each bump in the road threatened to send a knee up his left nostril. Luckily, he was wedged in place on either side by the shelves that lined the inside of the van. They were laden with enough parts to repair a swarm of motorcycles.

On the down side, each bump also threatened to drop a gas tank on his head.

On the bright side the tanks were empty.

The stacks of parts and bins of tools rattled like a dumptruck full of snakes driving past a parade route lined with mongoose. The only noise that he could hear over the rattle was the occasional low-flying plane. Hank had once parked himself behind a machine gun for six hours to suppress a an entire platoon of Nazis before the United Nations could arrive and convince them to surrender. By time he saw their blue helmets he thought that his index finger might be permanently cramped. That had been a quiet evening at home with a pitcher of scotch compared to this.

Zelphia had been no help. They wouldn't have been able to hear one another if they had wanted to. Hank wasn't convinced that she did. She had seemed very upset with him at the diner.

She'd feel differently when that grilled cheese was powering a kick to the Viper's stomach.

As it stood, Zelphia had bent her lithe shape into a pretzel that fit up closer to the front of the van. She was engaged in conversation with their two biker escorts: a weathered, ragged piece of man by the name of Daffodil and a woman with all of the black leather biking gear and menacing demeanor of a pretty young bank teller by the name of Mrs. Skull. She sat in the driver's seat and hauled ass across Arizona.

When Hank heard the familiar crunch of a fender slamming into the side of the van and the jolt sent one of his knees into his eyeball, he let out an unheard woop of delight. Now he was in his element! This was a problem that he could solve!

And then more jolts. Hank felt the van leave the smooth surface of the asphalt. The parts symphony crescendoed. Out of a tiny back window he saw the flash of olive green paint on a big, military-looking truck. One final slam rained parts off of the shelves and the van came to a halt.

Hank didn't wait for Zelphia. Hank didn't wait for Daffodil. Hank didn't wait for Mrs. Skull. Hank kicked open the back door and leapt from it, a long wrench in one hand and an exhaust pipe in the other.

A half dozen army trucks had surrounded them. One of them bore streaks of torquise paint stolen from the van.

Hank dropped his weapons and saluted.

Uniformed soldiers erupted from the trucks. But they hadn't been dressed by the United States Army, Navy or Air Force. In fact, they weren't wearing any military uniform that Hank had ever seen; he did not know of a single military uniform embroidered with the insignia of a brewer. The emblem of Saint Secaire Brewing stood out red against the bland cloth.

It was obscured by the submachine guns that the soldiers carried.

The flash of their muzzles just made it worse.

Hank dove behind the van, where Daffodil, Zelphia and Mrs. Skull waited for him.

"Dammit, I hate that noise! I've heard enough!" Hank bellowed while the bullets pinged off of the van.

"My van!" Mrs. Skull said.

"Her van!" Daffodil said. He grimaced. Or at least, Hank thought that he grimaced. Daffodil had a face like the bottom of a shoe, and its quite hard to tell if a the tread of a shoe is frowning. He pulled a long, silver revolver out of his pocket and traded gunfire with the soldiers.

"This isn't going to stop them for long."

"They're walking towards us!" Mrs. Skull said. She reached underneath the car, rummaged around for a moment, and removed two long machetes with small silver skulls for pommels. "Oh shoot, they've gotten quite dirty."

She rubbed one of the blades on the fabric of her slacks until it shone.

"Do you have any more weapons in the car?" Zelphia asked while the hail of bullets cut through the windshield. It cracked and showered marbles of safety glass into her hair.

"No," Mrs. Skull said. "I only brought these. I didn't expect to get in a proper fight, just a minor scrape."

The sound of the submachine guns came closer. The van wheezed onto its rims as the tires popped.

"They have the advantage of distance. Hhmm. I can fix that." Hank spat into his palms, rooted his feet in the ground, and began to shove the van. It moved towards their assailants.

"What are you doing? You're going to get us killed faster!"

"You, urgh, can kick people, wooogh, in the face and she's, arrggh, got two machetes, ooof, so get to work!"

Mrs. Skull and Daffodil rushed around one side of the van, Zelphia the other. Hank leapt into the van, tore open the side door, and started throwing pieces. A gearbox caught one soldier in the knee. A rack of wrenches hit another in the face. A handlebar jabbed one in the shoulder and polevaulted into the hand of another.

Mrs. Skull had already cut the guns out of the hands of three soldiers. A line of soldiers were doubled over behind Zelphia, clutching at parts of their anatomies. Daffodil had pinned another.

The final soldier brought his gun around at Zelphia. Hank didn't have a choice. He leapt between the gun and Zelphia.

The gun crackled.

The bullets hit Hank. They weren't going very fast. They had just finished traveling through the enormous toolchest that Hank had been hugging to his chest when he jumped from the van. Two hundred pounds of metal tools fatigued them but had not cooled them off. They felt like knobs of hot toast against his chest.

That made him angry. While the soldier tried to load another magazine, Hank seized him by the collar and socked him in the mouth.

"That should be all of them."

"Not quite," Zelphia said.

Hank turned. One soldier stood over Zelphia. The snout of his sub machine gun pointed to her chest like a truffle pig earning its keep. Hank's mind raced. He was too far away. Mrs. Skull was too far away. Daffodil's already emptied his gun.

"Throw your gun."

"Would you throw a baby?" Daffodil asked.

"Don't argue, throw it!"

Daffodil shook his head.

"Zelphia!" the soldier said. He let the gun slide off of his shoulder.

That's all Hank needed. He barreled forward and tackled him.

"Hank! Let him go!" Zelphia said.

"Why should I do that?"

"Because he's an old friend!" Zelphia hauled Hank off of the man. "We used to be partners in a cleaning service that actually conducted corporate espionage. Josiah, it's great to see you!"

"You too! What're you doing out here?"

"A client is trying to kill me."

"Perry Easton?"

"Yes! How did you know?"

Josiah gestured at his outfit.

"I didn't want to tell you this at the time, but the reason that I sold my part of the cleaning business was on the advice of my doctor. I had some pretty serious ulcers burning a hole in my gut She said it was stress and told me that I could either pick a new career or look forward to a future of surgeons rummaging around in my digestive tract. Burgling had lost its charm so I joined the air force. Turns out they need electrical engineers. After learning to defeat all of those alarm systems it was a quick couple of courses to fill in the gaps."

Hank thought the story sounded real. Too real. Without letting Zelphia see, he tensed his body to tackle him again if he tried any funny business.

"But this isn't an air force uniform," Zelphia said.

"No. My life was going too well. I forgot my luck. I went out to a party one night and on my way back to the base a couple of goons threw me into the back of a van and told me that The Viper would ruin my career if I didn't cooperate."

"Where does Perry Easton come into this?"

"I'm sure that Perry Easton is the Viper. It makes sense. He was my point of contact for quite a few jobs that he always claimed were for that Mr. X guy."

"Listen, toots, we can't trust this guy just because he had an airtight story. Now I'm going to be a bad cop for a while."

Zelphia rolled her eyes.

Hank stood so close to Josiah that their stubble almost touched.

"You still haven't told me one thing," Hank said, "that's going to blow your whole story to tatters. How did you know where we were?"

"Haven't you seen those planes flying overhead?"

"Yes. All the time. They're for traffic enforcement."

"Not all of them," Josiah said.

Hank stepped back and scratched his chin.

"But you never answered Zelphia's question about your uniform! Hah! Very clever!"

"Oh, that. When the call came from Perry Easton today that he'd need me to steal some trucks I told him that I'd do it. But I made damn sure that as soon as we left the base to change out of my uniform. I may be a coward, but I wouldn't be a coward in my uniform."

Hank clapped Josiah on the back.

"You know what, you're alright. And not just for not shooting Zelphia, but for treating the uniform with the respect that it deserves. Are you based at the Ariel Hanson Air Force Base?"

Josiah nodded.

"Good. I'll be telling Colonel Josen about your integrity."

"You know the colonel?"

"We go way back. I've wrestled more bears with him than any other man."

"That eyepatch isn't just for show?"

"Ask the polar bear that took it from him. Oh wait, you can't, because he had it pinned in ten seconds flat after that. If there's one thing that Josen can't stand, it's cheating in a fight. The golden rule: in a fair fight no hitting the balls, either the ones in your head or the ones between, um, well, there's a lady present."

"Getting back to the price that's on my head," Zelphia said, "do you have any more information on Perry Easton?"

"A little. Some of our birds have collected surveilance in the Sonoran desert. There have been a lot of arms shipments and building materials going to a supposedly uninhabited stretch of dust. The Mexican military has no reason to maintain any facilities there but they're too busy to investigate."

"The Sonoran desert. Josh Spurlock," Hank said.

"My client," Zelphia said.

"Time to see if Colonel Josen remembers those favors that he owes me. Help us pick up this trash and take us to the base and we'll call it even with the whole damn shooting match."

"I'd be glad to," Josiah said.

Hank shook hands with Mrs. Skull and Daffodil.

"Thank you for all of your help. I was serious about you and your crew stopping by for a beer."