“Vince, they tried to backshoot me right here in the truck.” Randy and Elena both climbed out. “I need you to get Elena someplace safe. And I need you to get these up on Youtube.” Randy handed Vincent his camera and tape recorder. “That’s a recording of what happened, and my public statement.”
“Randy, I ain’t lettin’ you do this alone.”
“Yes you are. One, I need you to keep Elena safe right now. Two, no one can help me, you could only die with me, understand? This is a fight to the finish between me and this department, and I need to be clear about this. No one is invited to join in.” Randy grabbed his friend’s hand and shook it. “So long, bud.” Then he got back in his truck and started it.
“What should we tell them when they come by?” Vince asked.
“Tell them they just missed me, but they won’t miss me for long.” Randy put it in gear and pulled out onto the road, thinking about what his next move would be. First he had to buy a few things, and after that he’d need to find the next big concentration of city cops. Where would he find that, he wondered? That would be easy.
As everyone watched him go, Frank tapped Vincent on the shoulder. “Come back to the office, I’ve got a computer with everything you need.” Vincent took Elena’s arm and they all headed in.
* * *
Randy’s first stop was a bank machine, and the second was Wal-Mart. The news of what was happening was still pretty fresh, so unless the store personnel had the news running on the televisions in the electronic section, the chances that they knew who to watch for were slim.
First he picked out a prepaid cellphone. Not just any phone, it was one of the fancy smartphones. He also bought a refill card for it. In the toy section, he picked up a package of party poppers.
Waiting through the checkout line was a little nerve-wracking, but he had been right about the news not having reached the store personnel yet. He paid cash for everything so his bank wouldn’t reveal everything he’d just bought. As soon as he was done there, he was off to Home Depot for a quick stop in the plumbing section.
Thank God for stores with late hours.
* * *
Randy’s home was under siege, even if no one was home but the cats. Two city police cars blocked his driveway, with four officers hunkered behind them. A little further away on the road that led into his place were three County cars with another six deputies.
Two of the city cops were firing tear gas into the mobile home. Another one periodically announced through the loudspeaker that the place was surrounded and whoever was inside had better come out immediately. They knew perfectly well that no one was home, but they had to go through the motions before breaking the door down.
The fourth officer of the group was a detective who also doubled as the negotiator. He periodically attempted to call inside the house from his cellphone, but all he got was the message machine. As certain as they all were that no one was home, he was more than a little surprised when he called again and Randy answered.
“Hello?” Randy’s voice came through the phone as though nothing was wrong.
“Randolph Gustin? This is Detective Trevor Chipman of the Forest Hill Police Department. Are you inside your home?”
“I’m on the home phone, aren’t I? What seems to be the problem?”
“Mister Gustin, did you recently shoot ten police officers?”
“Indeed I did. And if you all don’t leave my property immediately, you’ll be next.”
Detective Chipman waved at all the other cops to get their heads down, then spoke back into the phone. “Shall we negotiate on that?”
“One thing first. Inform the county deputies that my beef is with your department, not theirs. So long as they don’t point any weapons or take other hostile action toward me, that’s how it’ll stay.”
Chipman got on his radio and informed them, then resumed talking to Randy. “They say message received, and taken under advisement. Now shall we negotiate?”
“Don’t see much point in that, but let’s hear your opening offer.”
“All right, here it is. Surrender peacefully, and I’ll personally recommend to the prosecutor that you do not receive the death penalty.”
“I call that an insult. Fuck your kind offer and fuck you.” Detective Chipman’s phone clicked as it disconnected.
“Sounds like his mind is made up,” Officer Andrew Bergman said from behind the door on the passenger side. “And that works fine for me.”
“I’m making one more attempt first,” Chipman replied, and he dialed Randy’s phone again.
“What now?” Randy’s phone made a crackling sound as he answered.
“I get the sense this is a waste of time, but I thought you might like to make a counterproposal.”
“Well first off, here’s the problem with your offer. The courts are stacked, my evidence of what happened will somehow be excluded, and even if I don’t get the death penalty, there’s not a chance in hell I’ll ever see the light of day again. So I’m having trouble with seeing the benefit of surrendering.”
“And what evidence are you afraid is going to be discounted?”
“My tape recording of one of your boys trying to blow my head off while my hands were on the wheel and my gun was behind the seat of my truck.”
“Tell me why I doubt that it happened that way.”
“Don’t know and don’t care. It’ll be on Youtube soon, you can hear for yourself.”
“Even if that’s true, explain how that justifies killing nine more on top of him.”
“Because you’re all on his side, and you all want to shoot me first chance you get, even knowing what he did. This is war, and your department declared it.”
“Mister Gustin, that’s not true. A murderer is a murderer, and you can’t judge a whole class of people because one murderer happens to belong to them.”
Randy’s laughter came through the phone, long and genuine. “All right detective,” he said, “I’m about to make you the one and only surrender offer that I’m going to make. You ready?”
“I am.”
“I want you to call Everett Police Officer Troy Meade a murderer. Do that and I’ll come out with my hands up.”
Detective Trevor Chipman was a bit shaken by that offer. But a lot was riding on this, and he thought he could do it if it would get Gustin to come out. “That’s all?” he asked.
“That’s all you have to say, but not to me. You have to call the Gazette and state it for the public record as your personal opinion. Soon as I can call them for confirmation, we have a deal. If you won’t say it though, then you’re on the side of the murderers and everything you’ve said to me is a load of shit. The clock is ticking.”
Now he was more than a bit shaken. The silence on his phone bored right into the side of his head as he weighed his options. It was true that very little could be done in the way of defending of Troy Meade. He had shot an unarmed man in the back who was boxed in and not going anywhere. His victim, Niles Meservey, had also not attempted to harm anyone, he was merely in a position where he “could” have tried to, which was what Meade had cited as the reason for killing him. The bulk of the public was already calling him a murderer and so there was little to be lost with them. But by and large police were still backing him, even if only with the specious excuses they always used to justify the unjustifiable. If Detective Chipman made such a statement, he’d be a pariah among his own people for the rest of his life.
“Randy,” he began, “that’s a case that has to be tried in a court, in front of a jury. They’re the ones in the position to judge, and there’s nothing you or I can say about it that will make any difference.”
“I’m not asking for your judgment, I’m asking for your personal opinion, which you are fully entitled to. But is that your answer?”
“I cannot comment on a case I have nothing to do with,” Chipman replied. He took a breath, feeling the weight of his answer. The fact was that part of him wanted to say the truth, bu
t a much bigger part of him knew what crossing that line meant. “Is there another option we can discuss?” he asked to break the silence.
“No there isn’t,” Randy replied, his voice sharp in the phone. “And for that matter, why should I even talk to you? I don’t believe you’re even here. I think you’re sitting safe in some office while your underlings do the dirty work.”
“I assure you that I am here.”
“Where? I’m looking out and I don’t see you.”
Chipman stood up beside the car, feeling pretty secure that no accurate rifle shots would be coming through the closed curtains of the mobile home. “See me now?”
“I see you now.” The phone crackled again.
“Is your phone’s battery running dead?” the detective asked.
“The battery’s fine, I’m just at the limit of my range,” Randy replied.
Something about that didn’t feel right to the detective. Randy’s home wasn’t that big a place. He turned to his partner on the other side of the car. “You know what the range is on a cordless phone?”
Bergman thought for a second. “If I remember right, mine gets a little over three hundred feet. I tested it once.”
Chipman felt his legs begin to buckle under him. The mobile home was only sixty feet long. He looked around the property, which was dimly lit by the moon. Behind Randy’s place was a lightly wooded area with a public road on the other side. Down the length of his property however were only a few trees of his own, then a fairly empty adjacent lot, and beyond that, there were some woods.
Right around three hundred feet away. That’s where he saw the muzzle flash come from, and then it was too late to duck. The .308 soft point slug blew through both side windows of the patrol car and lifted him off his feet. He landed on his left side with a wound he would never get back up from.
Officer Bergman felt the wind from that slug as it passed him. He ducked low and made a dash to get behind the engine compartment, but another slug hit him in the right buttock and shattered his hip. From his concealment, Randy thought briefly about using him for bait as he had before, but he didn’t have time for dawdling. So he put the next shot through his forehead, right underneath the front bumper. At a hundred yards, it was tough to miss.
At the other patrol car, officers Linda Anfinson and Stephen Black had already taken cover behind their engine block, so there wasn’t much chance of getting them, especially with the deputies getting ready to open up on him. So he dedicated the rest of his rifle magazine to making sure those five vehicles wouldn’t be following him. When he perforated the Sheriff’s cars, he was careful to only put his rounds through the grilles and into the engine block, and not to aim at the deputies. But he left the two city cars totaled.
With that done, he swapped rifle magazines, and as he began his retreat, he picked up his cordless phone again. “You still there?” he said.
“What…” came the reply from the dying detective.
“You get my message?”
“What message?” His voice was fading along with his consciousness as he bled out.
“The message is, I’m not really interested in talking.”
* * *
Officer Linda Anfinson was fortyish, had been on the job close to eleven years and considered herself pretty cynical. But she was completely unprepared for what she had just seen. Two of her co-workers had just been blown away in front of her, and it didn’t look anything like it did on TV. It looked like it hurt, and it looked like they died in terror. All she wanted right then was to be away from there.
Her partner Stephen Black tried to start the car. The engine turned over, but it made noises that clearly indicated it would not be starting. “We’re going after him on foot,” he said.
Linda pointed at their fallen friends. “What about –“
“Too late for them. Let’s go.” He got out with his AR-15 and took off running. Not knowing what else to do, Linda followed with her pistol in hand.
They crossed the property to the adjacent lot and approached the dark woods that Randy had fired from. Linda had never seen woods that scared her so much. The dark shapes of the trees reminded her of the trees in the Wizard Of Oz that had come to life and threatened to rip off pieces of Dorothy. (At the age of four, she had considered that to be a bit inappropriate for kids.) “He could be waiting for us in there,” she said.
“I hope he is,” Stephen replied. Linda was sure at that point her partner would get them both killed. But, she had to be brave, or at least do a good job of pretending she was, and pray for the best.
They heard footsteps up ahead, far enough and fast enough that they could be sure no ambush was waiting. They picked up the pace, and emerged from the wooded area into another clearing. This one had a dirt road heading in from the main road, and they were just in time to see Randy’s white truck pulling out. Stephen raised his rifle and got off a few rounds, but it didn’t appear likely they hit anything more than trees.
Then they noticed a flickering light nearby. There were a few abandoned vehicles in the area, and something was burning inside the rusting hulk of a pickup truck. They jogged close enough to see what it was, and saw what appeared to be a stack of papers burning in the front seat. “What the hell, is he burning evidence?” Stephen wondered aloud. He walked over and reached for the door.
Linda’s husband had been to Iraq and had come back with a lot of stories to share. At the moment Stephen reached for the door Linda started hearing alarm bells, and she tried to shout at him to stop, but it was too late. He grabbed the door handle and pulled, and then a thundering blast came out the side of the truck and blew him to the ground.
Linda covered her face as she was showered with debris and fragments. When she looked, Stephen was climbing to his feet and brushing himself off, seemingly okay aside from the missing right arm.
Stephen noticed it right after Linda did. The whole arm and part of the shoulder was gone, and the stump was spurting freely. The nature of the wound was such that the arm would not be getting reattached. His face was going white, but he still had to know what had just hit him, and he returned to look inside the truck. The blast had put the fire out, and a quick glance revealed that all that was burning was a few magazines and a newspaper.
He tilted the seat forward. Behind it was a two-foot length of two-inch pipe, with a cap on one end and a string laying on the floorboard. It was the kind of string that attaches to a party popper, which can be made into a pretty good pull-string detonator. It was tied to a longer string that was attached to the door. The pipe was blown back against the passenger side now, but had been propped up before and aimed up toward the driver’s side. “Fuck me silly, he got me with an IED,” he said. Then he stepped back, bent down and picked his arm up off the ground. The image reminded Linda of “Saving Private Ryan.” He stared at it with growing comprehension that he was every bit as fucked as he had wanted Randy to be.
Stephen slumped down against the side of the truck with his arm in his lap. Linda looked at the wound and took off her jacket to try and stem the bleeding, but he shook his head. “Can’t live without it,” he said, his voice growing dim.
Linda acknowledged his wishes and moved back. She didn’t want to watch him die too, and he didn’t seem to need her comfort. She walked to the tailgate of the truck and sat down, unconcerned about the rust she was getting on the seat of her pants. She weighed her options briefly and then keyed the microphone of her radio. “Randolph Gustin, are you listening? This is Officer Linda Anfinson. You just killed three of my partners at your home. Please respond.” There was nothing, not even static. She tried again. “If I quit, will you still come after me?” She had no idea if Randy was listening, but she certainly had the attention of every person with a badge within twenty miles.
“No. Do you quit?” The voice crackled back at her.
“Yes, I quit.”
“Accepted. But I think you’d better leave town and not come back.”
She t
ook that for what it was, friendly advice offered for her own good. There were a whole lot of cops at that moment who thought less of her than they did of Randy, and she no longer had a home here. She took out her phone to call for one of her kids to come pick her up, when she heard the whispering voice.
“Don’t blame you,” the voice said.
“Stephen?” She looked around the truck to where her partner sat propped up against the side. His eyes were closed, and the blood flow had almost stopped, as had his breathing.
“Don’t blame you one bit,” was the last thing he said.
* * *
Officer Stephen Black didn’t know it when he died, but his marksmanship had been better than he thought. Randy had a fresh .223 wound crossing his back. It was bleeding and he couldn’t even reach it to put direct pressure on it. He had to settle for pressing his back against the seat of the truck, which seriously didn’t feel good.
As he drove back toward town again, flashing lights appeared in his mirror and closed in fast. It appeared that one of the Sheriff’s Department vehicles he had put a few rounds into was still in operation. And then a second car appeared too, which told Randy that he needed to be more careful with his aim.
This was bad. He couldn’t keep driving forever, and when he finally had to stop, his condition was such that things would likely not go as well as it had up until now. But he still had no intention of surrendering.
As the car closed in, Randy got his countermeasures ready. He didn’t want to shoot at a Sheriff’s Deputy, because that would officially expand the scope of the conflict. Shooting backwards from a moving vehicle was a tad bit difficult anyhow. But he did have his laser, which worked well when shined through a rear-view mirror, and he had his extra large pepper spray canister made for bears. He rolled down his window to shoot the pepper spray out the window, where it would be sucked into the pursuing car through the ventilation, but right then the front car slowed. Randy took another look, and smoke was pouring out from under the hood. It pulled off the road, and flames appeared in the engine compartment. His bullets might not have shut down the engine, but they had at least drained the cooling system, and now this car would be going up in smoke too.