The gates rolled aside electronically, and Remo drove through without a problem. He ran the heavy truck a, quarter mile down the road, just fast enough to outpace the trailing smell, and pulled over to the side.
Getting out, Remo walked around to the back, tapping the side with a knuckle that actually left a small dent.
"We did it! We're out!"
The "Yay" coming from inside lacked enthusiasm.
"I'm having trouble breathing in here with all this slop," Orvis complained.
"Be with you in a second," Remo promised.
Remo took hold of the lever. There was a little light coming up now. It was dawn. The start of a new day. And in the light he found the metal plate that explained the proper way to work the hydraulic sweep blade. It was covered with grime. Remo swiped it clear with the sleeve of his gray-blue uniform.
" 'Push up and then down to compress load,' " Remo read.
So he pushed up and then down.
The sweep blade was already closed. Now it behaved like a monster steel tongue the truck was trying to swallow whole. The blade went deeper and deeper, and the three convicts inside began to panic.
"Hey! This slop's bunching up!"
"What goin' on?"
"My mistake," called Remo. "I think I yanked the lever wrong."
"What happened to your great training?"
"I had to rush through the lever part. I tried cramming for it, but you know how that sometimes goes."
"I'm feeling crammed right about now," Orvis complained.
"Do tell," said Remo.
"Do somethin'!"
"I'm open to suggestions," Remo said, casually leaning against the truck body and mentally counting off the seconds.
"Use your magic finger."
"Great suggestion." Remo counted five more seconds and said, "Oh-oh!"
"What was that uh-oh?"
"My magic finger isn't working."
"What! What happened?"
"Battery must have gone dead."
They were screaming now.
"You got fresh ones?"
"Sorry. Fresh finger batteries would have set off the metal detector."
"Oh, Mother of God," DeWayne groaned. "He's right!"
"The best laid plans gang aft a-gley," Remo said sympathetically.
"What was that last part?"
"If you ever find out, let me know."
Then they were screaming and their arm and leg bones were snapping. Howls came. Rib cages began splintering. Skulls were compressed and internal organs ruptured, merged, and became red masses of jelly.
Finally, the only sound was that of the hydraulics completing their inexorable cycle.
Satisfied, Remo drove the truck to the local office of the ACLU and after only an hour of trying, finally succeeded in getting the Leach Body to disgorge the truck's contents into the dumpster behind the office building.
Then he returned the truck and borrowed uniform to the Department of Sanitation yard, where he called the local police.
"Police Emergency."
"I got a hot tip for you," Remo told the police operator. "The ACLU just broke three death row convicts out of prison, and when they refused to pay their legal fees, killed them and dumped the bodies."
"Sir, there is a stiff fine for filing a false police report."
"I'm calling, not filing. And if you don't believe me, check the prison. Then go talk to the ACLU. And here's a major clue: look in their dumpster."
Remo hung up, knowing that even if the police followed through, the ACLU would probably weasel their way off the hook in the end. He only wished he could stick around to hear them explain away the dead bodies.
It was not an entirely happy ending, but in an imperfect world, it was as good as Remo sometimes got.
He walked away whistling.
Chapter 3
Nancy Derringer was overcome by the urge to commit murder.
She had never wanted to kill a living thing in her entire previous twenty-eight years on earth. She loved all living things. The stinger of the desert scorpion filled her with the same wonder as the delicate mechanism of a butterfly's wing. The beauty and terror of biology were two sides of the same wondrous coin to her. All life was sacred.
Today, standing on the sloppy edge of a primordial pool, her nostrils filled with the fecund stench of swamp water, she wanted to throttle Skip King with her bare hands. Except that she was using them to cover her ringing ears. She had been standing directly beside him when he had unloosed the first volley of tranquilizer darts. That had pretty much paralyzed her left eardrum.
Nancy barely heard the call to open fire. But she heard the rest of the guns opening up through her remaining good ear. It was one great blast of concussive noise, and then she was down on her knees in the muck trying to hold the sound out with both hands while screaming, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
No one heard her. Not even herself.