The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Devouring Storm, Part 6 of 6

Mickey Malloy has found himself in a hard spot, trapped directly in the line of fire between the two greatest minds in the world of martial entomology. With a carnivorous storm brewing above and enemies all around, Mick must trust in the last thing he ever wanted to rely on: science.

Until Only Roaches Remain is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is the finale of The Case of the Devouring Storm. To avoid spoilers, check out Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 first.

Content warnings: Mild swearing, alcohol use, death, violence, gun violence, animal violence, gore, Nazis.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 4, 1943
FORMER SITE OF THE BOXHEAD QUARTZITE MINE
SOUTH OF LANCASTER, KANSAS

“Were you expecting us?” Mickey Malloy asked the sneering Nazi.

“Our specialty here is entomological research,” the pale Brother said. “Did you think we would miss the trailing fireflies?”

“I was hoping you might,” Mick replied. “You're pretty good at this. Ever think of switching sides?”

“I am happy in the Führer's service,” the man answered. He rested one hand on the revolver holstered on his left hip and undid his collar with the other. He bared his chest, grinning and proudly displaying the number eleven tattooed next to Department Three’s many-armed swastika.

Most days Mickey had more patience for flapping gums, but he'd seen two families murdered already, which didn't inspire much patience in him. Mick locked eyes with the creep and squared off. Neither man said a word, and neither backed down until a boney elbow jammed Mickey right in the kidney. He doubled over, allowing Evenstad to shove past and stick a knobby finger in the Nazi's albino nose.

“Where is Adrial?” Evenstad demanded. The Brother's grin grew even wider.

“Doctor Nordholm chose not to be present for this,” he said. “But I will convey any message to him you wish.”

“And who are you?” Evenstad growled. Mick have to give it to the little doctor: he had guts.

“I am Brüder Elf, Doctor Nordholm's Department Three liaison,” he answered. A chuckle accidentally escaped Mick's lips. The Nazi's eyes went wide. “‘Brother Eleven,’ in English.”

“'Elf' would've been easier to believe,” Mick said, “Given your complexion.”

“Had you any knowledge of the Brotherhood, official, you would not find any humor here.”

“And if you knew me, Snow White, you'd know I’ve very well acquainted with your comrades,” Mick said.

“If you were not so old, I would take great pleasure in inducting you into the Brotherhood myself,” Elf hissed. He leaned toward Mick, evidently forgetting that Evenstad still stood between them. The doctor jabbed the tip of his umbrella-turned-cane into Elf's solar plexus and shoved the Nazi back.

“I came all the way to Kansas to see Adrial, now where is he?” Evenstad shouted. The goons surrounding them brought up their weapons, but Elf put up a hand to stop them before anything happened. He smacked the umbrella away from his chest and leaned forward until his face was inches away from Evenstad’s.

“Doctor Nordholm chose not to be here because he did not want to watch me kill you,” Elf hissed. “But you have now convinced me that he must.”

Elf nudged Evenstad away, a powerful shove to the old man. Evenstad teetered, but caught his balance with his umbrella. Artyom growled behind Mickey, but Lewison held him in check.

“Doctor Nordholm!” Elf shouted. There was no response. He turned and yelled into the trailer's open door. “Doctor Nordholm, come out here, please!”

A wavering voice, cranky and elderly with a Norwegian lilt, emerged from the dark doorway:

“I told you, I will not watch!”

“Your colleague is very insistent, doctor,” Elf said. He flashed Evenstad a carnivorous grin.

“I warned you he was,” the disembodied voice complained.

Elf shrugged at Evenstad.

“Adrial!” Evenstad tried. “Adrial, what do you call them?”

“Torval, you are my oldest friend,” the voice pleaded, “Do not make me watch.. I have seen what he does, I cannot watch him do it to you.”

“Simply tell me about the work you have been doing, then you may hide yourself away,” Torval said. He was playing his old student's ego like a fiddle.

The sound of a tapping cane and shuffling steps came from inside the trailer. A rumpled man materialized from the shadow.

Adrial Nordholm was somewhat less stooped than his former mentor, but he looked older. The eccentric, child-like vitality that beamed out of Evenstad was absent from the other man. He was twisted, tired. Though he wore his hair in the same style as Evenstad, Nordholm's was thinner, and closer to decayed-bone yellow than his mentor's regal silver. Nordholm leaned on his ebony cane, like he'd crumble to the ground without it. He propped himself up in the dark doorway, showing off a cruel, snaggle-toothed smile as he looked down on his old professor.

“I knew the children would impress you, Torval,” he said. His yellowed eyes jumped from his teacher to Artyom. “And you are Mister Kozuch. Your theories regarding the diffusion of R. majalis in the western hemisphere are very interesting.”

Artyom's jaw dropped.

“Do not look so surprised, Mister Kozuch, I read all of my successors' publications.”

“And I read yours, Doctor Nordholm,” Artyom replied. “Though pertinent anatomical information was absent from your description of V. calakmul.”

Nordholm chuckled.

“The joy of our game has always been improvisation, Mister Kozuch. It would be no fun if Torval arrived with a map of the maze.”

“That is what I wished to discuss with you, Adrial,” Evenstad said. “Your latest entry into Acrididae.”

“You see, Elf? I told you he would identify the children,” Nordholm hissed. “It is only a matter of time before he finds a way to render them useless.”

“Yes, you were right again, doctor,” his Nazi handler mumbled while rolling his cadaver-gray eyes.

“The leaked passport seemed pretty easy,” Mick said.

“It accomplished its goal,” Nordholm said, smiling at Evenstad. He had indeed drawn out his target. “My work cannot succeed with a mind such as his working against it. He cannot be allowed to fight this, as much as the result will pain me.”

“I'm sure it'll pain us a lot more,” Mickey grumbled.

“No, official, I am an expert. There will be no pain,” Elf assured them.

“It is a shame, Adrial,” Evenstad mumbled. His former protege perked up.

“What is?” he asked.

“We will never see if my wit has bested yours,” Evenstad replied.

“You have not even examined the children,” Nordholm protested. He slammed the tip of his cane into the wooden platform. Its ruby red head gleamed under the spotlights. Nordholm’s knuckles glowed bright white. Evenstad was getting his goat. “There is no way you could have countered them.”

“We had ample time with the pheromone,” Evenstad teased.

“No one could derive my formulas so quickly, not even Torval Evenstad,” Nordholm proclaimed, though his voice wavered, suddenly unsure.

Evenstad simply raised his bushy white eyebrows and shrugged, saying:

“It seems we will never know for sure.”

“Yes, what a shame,” Elf said. He stepped back and issued the order to his men: “Shoot them all.”

His goons raised their pistols. Mick counted Walsh among their number. Lewison and Mickey pulled Artyom and the doctor behind them, as if it would help against that many bullets.

“Wait!” Nordholm barked. Elf sighed and rolled his eyes again, then raised a hand. His men lowered their guns.

“What is it, doctor?” he asked, annoyed at the interruption. Nordholm eased himself down the trailer's three steps and worked his way to Elf's side.

“I must know how the children can be defeated, Elf,” he hissed. “I can fix them if I know.”

“He is simply trying to stall the inevitable, doctor,” Elf said. The Nazi had guessed Evenstad's tactics. Mick had to get in on the game.

“You should listen to your boss, pal,” Mick goaded. “Shoot us, now. You wouldn't want Torval's last act on this Earth to be besting you again.”

Elf’s pet doctor was so steamed that Mickey was sure that he was going to work the wrinkles out of his clothes. Nordholm grabbed Elf by the elbow and tugged. The Nazi whirled around, his face contorting with rage as he ripped his sleeve out of the old man's grip.

“Never touch me,” he hissed. Elf towered over Nordholm, but the Norwegian didn't back down.

“I must know what he's found!” Nordholm insisted. He placed the globe head of his cane against Elf's chest. Elf glared the swirling red and black pattern within the glass ball, then smacked it off his chest.

“You told me after the trial that your project had been perfected, doctor!” Elf shouted. “These vermin are manipulating you.”

Nordholm jammed his cane back into Elf's chest and hissed:

“I cannot take that risk.”

“I can,” Elf growled, and he smacked the cane away once more. “And if you poke me with that stick again, I will break it in half across your back.”

“Science is bigger than all of us, Brüder Elf,” Nordholm said, then set the glass ball back onto the taller man's pectoral.

Elf snarled, revealing teeth as white as his bleached skin. He grasped the old man's cane by the collar and yanked it away. Nordholm almost fell when it was ripped from his hand.

“It would have only taken a moment,” Nordholm muttered. He took two careful steps away from Elf. The Nazi glared at him, then turned the cane over in his hands. The glass globe popped and fell apart in two pieces. The red and black that had been within uncurled into a quick, slithery shape that snaked up Elf's sleeve in a flash.

“What?” he yelped. He dropped the cane in panic and swatted at his forearm, but he was too late. His spine went rigid, bloody froth tumbled over his grimacing lips. His men stepped forward to help, but Nordholm screamed at them:

“It is too late for him!”

The confused goons froze. Another gurgle of pink froth drove them back a pace.

An inhuman sound escaped Elf's lungs, a warbling screech that lowered in pitch and volume until it became his death rattle. He fell to his knees, twisted into a fetal ball, and died.

Mickey was the only person able to speak:

“What. The. Hell.”

A snake-like creature slithered out from under Elf's collar. It was a centipede, spiny and black with jagged red stripes running down its body. Mick stepped back, dragging Evenstad with him.

“Scolopendra fulminerosso,” Evenstad said.

“The red lightning centipede,” Artyom translated before Mickey had to ask. “So named because its venom strikes so suddenly.”

“A dear pet,” Nordholm said. He shambled over to the crawling bug and stomped on its head. Its body thrashed under his shoe, whipping around for a few seconds before finally succumbing. Nordholm retrieved his cane then turned his attention to the terrified hired guns.

“Bring me their equipment,” he ordered, “Or you will be next.”

Walsh and another man snapped into action and carried over the gear they'd confiscated from the four infiltrators. Nordholm examined the pile they set before him. He grunted and disregarded the pistols, knives, club, and shotgun. The unmarked sacks of powder that Evenstad had made Mickey carry were what caught his eye.

“Is this the solution you came up with?” he asked. He jabbed at the top bag with his cane, punching a hole in the paper sack. Soft white powder tumbled out, smoother than flour. “Insecticide, Torval?”

“Of course not,” Evenstad said indignantly. “The volume of poison required to neutralize your entire swarm would be deadly to all other life for seasons to come. I would never adhere to anything so indiscriminately destructive. No, Adrial, I have developed a natural defense.”

“Trust that Schistocerca exodora is my masterpiece, professor,” Nordholm said, his smirk crinkling his entire face. “It is beyond nature: a swarming grasshopper with a six day gestation period, three day maturation period, and the ability to eat four times its own body weight before laying two thousand eggs and dying.”

“This continent would be barren in weeks,” Evenstad said. Nordholm nodded eagerly.

“Weather permitting, the results would be biblical,” he replied. “The children will eat and eat, until only roaches remain. And you think you could stand against them?”

“I would try,” Evenstad said. “My entire life has rested upon my understanding of the small world, Adrial. Why should not my death?”

“I understand completely, old friend,” Nordholm said. “One last round of the game, then?”

“Yes,” Evenstad answered.

The two men looked peaceful, friendly even, as they discussed their own imminent deaths.

“Do we get a say in this?” Mickey asked.

The two Norwegian entomologists barked at him together:

“No!”

“All right, fine,” Mickey mumbled. He eyeballed his gear, just a few yards away through the cross-fire of three dozen goons.

“This will be determined by science alone,” Nordholm said. “There will be no interference from the lay.”

“The lay?” Artyom objected. Both old men shot daggers at him and he shrunk under their scholarly glare. Evenstad let a small smile turn up the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth.

“Gentlemen,” he said to his three comrades, “Please leave this to me.”

“Let us know if you change your mind, doc,” Mick said. Lewison nodded as well. The three men backed twenty or so yards away, leaving Evenstad plenty of space to work.

“Gather these things, then take refuge in the trailer,” Nordholm ordered his apprehensive men. “If the doctor's assistants try anything, kill them all.”

The assembled gunmen looked more confused than before, but they followed the old man's orders nonetheless. They'd just watched Nordholm murder the most proficient killer any of them had ever met without even touching him. The hit men did not know how Nordholm worked his magic with his deadly insects, so they didn't dare test him.

They took Mick and Lewison’s weapons and filed into the open door behind Nordholm, packing the large trailer without question.

Nordholm watched the door close then turned his attention back to Evenstad:

“It had to end this way, you know.”

Evenstad shook his head.

“No, it didn't,” he replied. “It is you who have forced this, Adrial.”

“You never understood my goals, how we could change the world by changing the little things,” Nordholm accused.

“That is not the entomology I taught,” Evenstad said. “I taught you to learn from the little ones, not to twist them. They are our mentors in change, not our slaves.”

“We shall see whose philosophy prevails, professor,” Nordholm seethed. “Prepare yourself.”

Nordholm shuffled back to the trailed and chattered at the men who barricaded themselves inside. Evenstad winked and pulled an object out of the pile of confiscated gear. Mickey instantly recognized it as a radio detonator. Lewison had identified it as well.

“So much for the game,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?” Artyom asked.

“Doesn't seem sporting or scientific to just blow Nordholm away,” Lewison answered.

“Oh, the charges. They total less than one ounce. Just a pop,” Artyom clarified. “They are merely the dispersal medium.”

“Holy hell,” Mickey said. He hadn't been listening to Artyom at all, he'd been watching Nordholm. The men in the trailer had handed him two items. One was a remote that looked similar to the detonator Evenstad held. The other was a canister-type hand grenade, not unlike the spinnennetz bomb Nordholm's goons had dropped back on the main street in White Cloud. Both doctors had come prepared for their odd little war.

“Are you ready, Torval?” Nordholm asked.

“Yes, Adrial,” Evenstad replied. Both men wore the identical grim look on their wrinkled faces. Nordholm held up the brown canister grenade for Evenstad to see.

“This is a man-portable aerosol dispersant device. It contains aggregation pheromones for S. exodora. It is a far smaller yield than the air-delivered munition we tested earlier, but this is enough for the children. They will be drawn to anything marked with it,” he explained.

Evenstad nodded calmly; he already knew all of that. Nordholm pulled the pin and tossed the canister to his teacher's feet. Evenstad flipped up the tall collar of his stained lab coat to cover his mouth and thick glasses.

The grenade went off with a champagne pop, spraying Evenstad down in a airy yellow cloud. He uncovered his face and examined himself. Every inch of him was misted with the stinking spray. Nordholm shifted uncomfortably, but quickly regained his composure. While he might be about to cause the death of his oldest friend and mentor, he had his name, his research, and his philosophy to protect. That would require composure.

“Allow me to introduce the children,” he said. He held his arms out from his sides and pressed the button on his remote. The three trailers without windows groaned and their side panels slammed to the ground. An oppressive buzz filled the pit mine. He shouted over the din:

“Welcome the Nordholm exodus locust!”

A seething cloud surged out of the three trailers and congregated above Nordholm's head. His swarm was several hundred thousand strong, a plague of ravenous newborn locusts aching for their first meal.

They could shred a man to his brittle bones in minutes.

Evenstad watched the locusts pour out of their mobile hives, studying their twisting fractal flight paths with a critical eye. The cartwheeling mass of insects rose high above, eager to explore the open air for the first time. One whiff of the sprayed pheromone shifted the whole personality of the roiling swarm.

It was as if an uncountable pack of insectine sharks had sniffed a drop of blood in the water. They screamed toward Evenstad as a thousand-pointed rain of hungry spears, eager to fall into and devour the Scandinavian feast Nordholm had served up. The little doctor didn't try to run, he simply pressed the activation stud on his remote detonator and watched.

The bags of powder Mickey had carried burst into twin chalky clouds that hung in the air for a long moment. Mickey and Lewison dropped to the ground, dragging an unconcerned Artyom down with them. He wrenched out of Mickey's grip and rose to a knee to watch his professor. Mick and Lewison risked a peek as well.

White dust covered the entire area between Nordholm and Evenstad and the two doctors stared at each other across it. Above, the locusts milled in confusion from the small concussions, swirling about in bewildered spirals, the teeth of their diving attack blunted and dispersed.

“And what was that?” Nordholm asked. “You know my pheromone is a stronger pull for them than even their own sense of self-preservation.”

“I know, Adrial,” Evenstad said. “But your formula is derived on an aggregation ecto-hormone. Mine is centered on a baser drive. I anticipated that copulatory signalers elicit a stronger result.”

Nordholm's jaw dropped. He stammered until his voice caught up to his runaway thoughts.

“You had access to the compound for mere hours! It took me four months to perfect. There is no way...”

“Artyom and I developed a method to rapidly adapt and synthesize pheromones two months ago, completely by accident. That is the benefit of science for the sake of knowledge: you cannot anticipate what discoveries the small world will provide. Your own research has been too narrow, too focused. Your best outcome would be to learn one thing at a time, while my students and I have the entirety of the small world waiting to reveal itself to us.”

The locusts’ drone suddenly synchronized and the entire horde descended onto the white powder. Mickey watched in awe. The insects were wolfing it down like it was their last meal.

“You infused this substance with the copulatory pheromone,” Nordholm realized aloud. His face became wracked with loss. His wrinkles deepened, his stoop became more pronounced. Nordholm carefully lowered himself to his knees and watched his creations gorge themselves, unable to stop them.

“Powdered ispaghula fiber,” Evenstad told him. Though Mick and Lewison weren't familiar with the stuff, they could see that Nordholm knew what was coming. The detective and the agent couldn't take their eyes off the unusual confrontation unfolding before them.

“My children,” Nordholm sighed. He nodded, then his chin sunk to his chest. He could no longer watch.

“I am sorry, my friend,” Evenstad said.

“What is that stuff?” Mickey asked Artyom over his shoulder, to which he got no response. The big man twisted around to see the Russian grad student wrapping an emergency blanket over his head. Mick grabbed Artyom and asked: “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Ispaghula fiber is a powerful hydrophilic. Its muscilage experiences a tenfold increase in volume when it is allowed to bind with water, such as within the gastrointestinal tract of S. exodora.”

Before Mick could ask him to translate, the horde took back to the air. The locusts had eaten every last grain of ispaghula that Evenstad had spread for them. Mick could tell it had done something to them. The bugs were flying slower, sloppily careening through the air. They began to spread out, and were buzzing overhead on their way out of the pit. They were close enough now that Mickey could see individuals.

After all that buildup, the actual appearance of the exodus locusts was almost disappointing to Mick: they were just fat green grasshoppers, flapping around. Nothing special.

Evenstad watched the gorging swarm for a moment, then hobbled his way over to his former student. Nordholm hadn't moved since he'd fallen to his knees. Evenstad gently lowered himself to the ground next to him and popped open his umbrella. Mickey looked to Artyom for an explanation. The Russian grad student slipped on a pair of lab goggles and winked.

“You should cover your eyes,” he advised. Mickey glanced at Lewison, then up at the drunkenly bobbing swarm of locusts.

His mouth was open when the first one popped.

Locust juices splashed onto Mickey's face, spraying bitter bile into his mouth. Before he could curse and spit it out, every one of the ispaghula-engorged thousands detonated from the inside out. Hot bug guts showered down by the gallon.

Mick and Lewison were coated head-to-toe in stinking green goop and shattered exoskeletons. Liquid horror dripped off of them in clumps.

After the swarm’s shared scream, the pit become silent. The last of the innards had fallen.

Mick dragged himself to his feet. He looked at his gut-stained clothes and shook himself out like a muddy dog. Lewison was caught in the spray.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“Sorry kid,” Mick said, then got another taste of the grasshopper gunk and spat. “What the hell.”

“I explained it quite clearly, inspector,” Artyom said. He removed his splattered goggles and blanket, then straightened his slightly wrinkled sweater.

“Well try again, Ivan,” Lewison said. He scraped a handful of guts off his face and globbed it onto Artyom's clean shoulder. “And this time explain it like you're talking to an anthro major from Wichita State.”

“We used Doctor Nordholm's original aggregation pheromone, modified it to appeal to locusts’ procreative drive, then infused it in ispaghula fiber, an organic substance which expands to more than ten times its original size when exposed to water,” Artyom explained slowly.

“So you blew up the bugs from the inside-out using Nordholm's own grasshopper sauce?” Lewison asked. Artyom looked horrified with the agent's simplified analysis, but nodded nonetheless.

“You all good, doc?” Mick yelled. Evenstad stood and shook off his umbrella, then closed it. Nordholm didn't move.

“I do not think so, Inspector Malloy,” Evenstad said.

“You hurt?” Mick asked.

“Not me,” Evenstad said. He looked down at his former student. Nordholm's rounded shoulders were not rising. He wasn't breathing.

“Is Doctor Nordholm... ?” Artyom tried to ask.

“S. exodora was his greatest work, Artyom. I am afraid that seeing it fail was too much for him,” Evenstad said wearily. He looked down on the kneeling man. Nordholm stared at the ground, his soft chin resting on his brittle chest, his gnarled hands on the ground. “My oldest friend.”

Tears trickled down the nooks and crannies on Evenstad's face.

There was a commotion from the trailer, and Mick remembered they weren't alone. Best he could do was ball up his aching fists.

“Hold it right there, G-man,” one said. It was Walsh. He had a shotgun aimed straight at Mickey's chest. The rest of his men fanned out behind him, weapons leveled, feet squelching in the bug guts.

Lewison glared at the armed men. Without his Auto5 confiscated, glaring was about all he was equipped to do.

Walsh flicked his shotgun barrel, indicating that he wanted his four prisoners to bunch together. Artyom helped his still-weeping mentor stand and they joined Mickey and Lewison in the center of the pit.

“It looks like the albino had the right idea after all,” Walsh said. “Pick one and shoot, boys.”

A mechanical thumping perked up Mick's cauliflower ears. It was a sound he hadn't heard since he was last in New Orleans. The goons heard it, too, and hesitated. The thumping was getting louder.

“You shoot us, they shoot you,” Mick said. The sound had become a throbbing roar, loud enough that the paddy had to yell to reply.

“What is that?” Walsh shouted.

Mick didn't say a word, he just pointed up. Six Chickenhawk roto-copters burst over the lip of the pit, skimming the ground just yards above the tall grass.

Each of the strange aircraft looked like it had a glider fuselage, painted canvas over a metal frame, with long pylons in place of the wings. These pylons stuck straight out the sides with giant upward-facing rotors mounted on their ends. Their strange configuration allowed the Chickenhawks to take off and land on the spot without a runway, and to hover in place, which is what they did above the perplexed goons.

Walsh was yelling orders at his men, but the howling rotors drowned him out. Sliding doors opened on the roto-coptors and harnessed officials leaned out of each side behind the triggers of heavy machine guns.

Elf’s goons looked at each other in a panic. They were prepared to take on four unarmed men, not a squadron of strange aircraft ready to ran fire on them from a dozen Browning machine guns.

Mickey recognized the men manning the door guns on the lead 'copter by their blonde hair and giant frames: the Lane brothers, Wailey Earp's personal muscle. Christopher and Alexander were as at home capturing a submerged submarine in the Gulf of Mexico as they were leading an airborne assault in the middle of Kansas. It was no wonder the Regional Inspector put so much faith in them.

The nearer Lane, Mick thought it was Alex though he couldn't tell them apart at a distance, put a microphone up to his mouth. His voice blared through a speaker on the ‘coptor's nose, louder even that the thumping rotors.

“Alright you traitorous screwheads, listen up!” he growled. “You see this? This is my chopper! The Chickenhawk-class Fa 223 Drache. Germany's top of the line. Now only found in America. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Detroit, Michigan. Carries three thirty-caliber Browning M1919A4 machine guns ready to drop a combined eighteen-hundred-rounds per minute down on you. Add eight pissed-off, fully-armed commandos in the back, well that's a bad day just itching to dawn.”

The confused goons looked around at each other. None of them knew how to respond. Walsh, their would-be leader, shrunk to the back and tried to blend in with the crowd.

Alex yelled through the loudspeaker again:

“You are the chickens. We are the hawks. Don't try anything.”

He flung his microphone aside and put a burst of tracer fire into the ground a few feet in front of a pistol-packing gunman. The targeted goon was sprayed with mud and bug guts. He dropped his gun and stuck his hands as high in the air as he could get them.

“Got that?” Alex yelled, his magnified voice bouncing off the slopes of the pit mine. The hit men damn near jumped out of their shoes. Their weapons splatted to the ground and their hands went straight up.

Mickey grinned. He was getting used to having backup. He made his way through the surrendered men, kicking their guns away from them as he passed. Walsh was busy trying to keep his eyes on the ground and not get noticed.

“Hey bud,” Mickey said. Walsh resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to slip away. He stood and looked Mick in the eyes. The man was maybe thirty, built like a dockworker, and had a droopy, mean face that didn't look like it was capable of holding a smile. “Is that a Boston accent I heard?”

“Could be,” Walsh muttered.

“Who’d you run with up there?”

“Frank Wallace and the Gustin Gang,” Walsh replied. Mick knew the crew. They’d been infamous in their day.

“Desperate times?” Mick said. The gunman showed no reaction. Another Walsh, Dodo, right hand of the Gustins, had gotten himself shot in the back a decade earlier by a rival crew. His death began the downfall of the entire Irish mob in the Boston underworld. If the surviving Walsh had put all his eggs in that basket, he’d have been easy pickings for a charismatic killer with money to spare. Mick yelled over the Chickenhawks: “Work's rare these days. Might force a man to work for someone without checking all the details first.”

Walsh huffed and looked at the ground. He was staring down the barrel of a lengthy prison sentence, if not a noose. Mickey could tell he was calculating the percentage in talking.

“You stew on that, buddy,” Mickey said. “Just sit tight and wait for the friendly men with the handcuffs.”

Five of the six Chickenhawks landed on the lip of the mine, and the officials who'd been riding along descended the shallow slope. The Lanes were on point. The last chopper hovered above, covering the gunmen with its machine guns. Mick gave a thumb's up to Chris Lane when he approached Lewison, marking the Indian agent as a friendly. The giant blonde commando moved on without a word.

“Lewison!” Mickey shouted. He waved the agent over. Lewison weaved between the Office commandos and their prisoners.

“What is all this?” Lewison wondered aloud.

“Bet this wasn't what you were expecting when you called Washington,” Mick chuckled. “But you did all right, kid.”

“Who the hell are you?” Lewison asked.

“Would F.B.I. work?” Mick wondered. Lewison shook his head. Mick sighed. He was hurting for a smoke and a drink. “This is not my every day. There's usually fewer bugs.”

“This is insane,” Lewison muttered.

“Yeah, it is. But you ran with it. Let's talk about your future, kid, over some dinner.”

“I know a place. But it'll be breakfast.”

“How's that?”

“Look.”

Mick looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, the horizon was glowing orange, illuminating the green goop on the ground with gold.

“A hell of a day,” Lewison said, grinning through the bug guts dripping down his face.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 4, 1943
QUICK BITE COFFEE AND DINER
LANCASTER, KANSAS

The clink of a ceramic teacup against the tabletop roused Mickey from his exhausted stupor. He jumped up in his bench seat when he remembered where he was. He'd fallen asleep in a diner. Both Lane brothers were sitting across from him, sipping steaming black tea out of tiny cups. A couple plates of cold eggs and bacon had been shoved off to the side so Mickey could pass out. He patted his pockets for a second before remembering the tragic fate that had befallen his Lucky Strikes.

“That was a hell of a day,” Mickey groaned. He sat up and slumped back into his seat to look around. No other diners were sitting within three tables of him.

“We gathered it was rough, Mick,” Chris Lane said. He was the older one, with the split eyebrow.

“You been mumbling 'hell of a day' while you drooled on yourself for the last two hours.” That was Alex, the wiseass.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mick grumbled. He took a sip from the half-empty coffee by his elbow. Ice-cold, but it'd have to do. The other customers in the joint eyeballed him warily from across the room. “What's their deal?”

“You stink to high heaven,” Alex whispered. Mick snorted. He'd forgotten about the rain of locust guts. He couldn't smell them any more, but the other diners sure could.

“They'll get over it,” he mumbled. He drained the rest of his mug.

“You'll be happy to know that we recovered all of Nordholm's research and arrested thirty-one mercenaries,” Chris said. “These weren’t typical hired muscle. They’re Abwehr-trained.”

“I’m surprised Elf hadn’t converted them to his own little cult yet,” Mick said. His coffee was cold and bitter.

“The process had started,” Alex said.

“Yeah, Elf had already branded elevens on four of ‘em,” Chris added. “They’re the most talkative so far. Seems they didn’t appreciate it.”

“Walsh one of those?” Mick asked.

“Oh yeah, he thought being Brother Elf’s most eager helper would get him a bonus, not a burn,” Chris answered.

“Good, he seemed like he was tuned in. A grudge’ll encourage him to talk to us.”

“You'll get your chance, Mick,” Alex said. He grinned then locked eyes with the battered, bug-splattered, bleary old man across the table. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, deepening his voice before he corrected himself: “I mean, Inspector Malloy. Walsh and the rest headed to the Grave.”

“Whereas Nordholm and Elf are just going to ‘a’ grave,” Chris quipped. He looked around then pulled a shaker out of his coat pocket and dumped a startling amount of sugar into his tea. He sipped it, smiled, and hid his rationed goods back away.

“You have anything more on Elf?” Mickey asked. The pair looked at each other before Chris responded:

“Nothing new. The Brothers think they’re Hitler's elite, that's for sure. Totally loyal, deadly effective soldiers and infiltrators. They don't feel pain or fear and live only for their mission.”

“That’s all we got?” Mick asked. He already knew all that.

The brothers shrugged in unison. No one had been able to capture a Brother alive. The suckers fought to the death, or they offed themselves when they didn’t have any other options.

“The krauts only put those freaks into the field when they’re invested in a plan,” Mick pointed out.

“The Nazis wanted to wipe out the entire heartland,” Alex said.

“And they could’ve if we hadn't stopped him,” Chris said.

“Evenstad did all that, I just ate a few cockroaches and lost my britches,” Mick grunted. His eggs suddenly needed to be on the other side of his plate.

“You do what?” Chris snorted into his tea.

“If Nordholm wasn’t so hung up on beating his old teacher, you’d have been piranha’d on the spot,” Alex interrupted. “And if that little kook hadn't lured Evenstad here, none of you would've gotten out of there and that swarm would be in the wind.”

“Where is Evenstad anyway? He holding up?” Mick asked. He’d hardly gotten to speak to the doctor since Nordholm had died.

“Doctor Evenstad was pretty broken up, but he’s already on the way back to Oak Ridge with Artyom. He'll be back in the lab in no time. He said he’d be advising Artyom on his doctoral thesis, too,” Chris answered.

“Artie also says you should watch your mail for an invitation to his graduation,” Alex said.

“I’ll let Marge know to keep an eye out,” Mick muttered.

Mickey pushed cold eggs around his plate for a moment before he realized someone was missing.

“What about Lewison?” Mickey asked. The Indian Affairs agent was nowhere in sight, even though he was the one who'd brought Mickey to the diner.

“Agent Lewison is already on a flight to Washington to tender his resignation from the Department of the Interior, then up to Canada,” Alex said. He sipped his tea, winced, and piled another ounce of sugar into his cup.

“He's scheduled for the next training cycle at the Academy,” Chris said. “I don't know what you told him, but we should have you recruiting full time.”

“Yeah,” Mickey groaned. He had no idea what he'd said either. As soon as his battered bones had settled into the booth a couple hours before, his brain had turned off and his mouth had started running 'til he'd passed out.

He was getting too old for all of it.

“So what's next?” he asked wearily.

“First we get you a change of clothes,” Alex said, nasally while he pinched his nose

“A wash, a rest...” Chris added.

“Some smokes and a fifth of rye,” Mickey added, then asked: “And then?”

“Then we do it all over again tomorrow,” Chris said.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Connors.