Chapter 16

Of all the places that Jamie might have wanted to go, this was not something that Jake would have guessed. Jake also wished his bother would have thought of it on another day too. The traffic on most of the streets had been a lot lighter than normal and, in fact, Jake had never seen them so deserted before. Then he got here to this damn discount store and he found out where all the missing cars had vanished too.

As they were fighting to get in to the parking lot, Jake counted no fewer than three near misses with other cars. The last one of the three caused him to do a double take. He thought he recognized the vehicle but, could not make out who was inside before it buzzed off up the highway. Jake figured it was probably pointless anyway, so, he drove in and found a parking place.

“These people drive like lunatics on the best of days,” Jake told his brother as he backed his car into a space. “I didn’t realize they got worse on holidays.” Only then did Jake see a little old woman in a red car, looking at him with an angry gaze. He beeped the horn and yelled, “what?”

“I think you took her space Jake,” Jamie told him.

“Do you want to drive Jamie?”

His little brother was only snickering at him now. So Jake just gritted his teeth and changed the subject, “you flew ninety gazillion light years just to come to a discount store? Is Langley hard up on toilet paper these days? They must be handing out a lot of op orders for that to happen.”

“Hardy har,” his brother replied. Then Jamie opened the passenger door and said, “what I want here is for you to stay in the car.”

“And do what,” Jake complained. “Look Jamie, why don’t you just tell me what the op is and maybe I can help!”

Jamie was already out the passenger side but, he did stop, turn, and address Jake’s suggestion, “sorry big brother but, your clearance doesn’t go that high.”

“Oh don’t hand me that shit Jamie,” Jake yelled at the guy as he walked off towards the store. All that Jamie did in response was raise his hand back towards the car, without even bothering to look, and extend his middle finger.

That left Jake stewing as he watched his brother vanish into the constantly moving sea of humanity that was entering and leaving the store. Jake thumped his fingers for a minute. He looked up at the big sign over by the highway that simply read, “WMD’s.” Then he pulled out his phone.

Surprisingly enough, Norm actually picked up rather quickly. His voice sounded pretty angry so everything must have been all right back at the station. Norm also did not waste any time, “where the hell are you Jake? Where have you been all morning?”

“Um,” Jake thought about it for a second and picked his words carefully, “it’s kind of hard to explain Norm. Let’s call it personal business and leave it at that. I just wanted to let you know everything was all right and sorry I…”

“Fuck you Jake,” Norm said cutting him off. “We’ll take this up later. I‘m kind of busy right now.”

The phone hung up before Jake could get another word out. Jake grunted and slapped his hand on the steering wheel. He did not even get to ask about how Amy was doing or, pass the word on about Johnson’s car. The little old woman in the red car was still parked in the same spot too. Her snarling and foaming at the mouth had yet to cease either.

Jake just ignored the woman and thought about calling Johnson but, realized, he didn’t know how. Jake called up the phone book application and after scrolling through names he mumbled, “well it fucking figures.” There were an awful lot of Johnson’s on this island. He tried the search feature and found out there were also way too many Bob and Robert Johnson’s. Jake did not see an address by any of them that even looked remotely familiar so he gave up on that.

“I’ll call Barbara,” Jake told himself. He had an icon on his main screen for her phone. He touched it with his thumb and then waited as it beeped and beeped. Finally her voicemail picked up and Jake hated that so he hung up and tried it again. After a third try Jake told himself, “that woman is just snubbing me again. I bet you she’s out on the beach, in a lounge chair, sipping on a beer, and laughing every time she sees my name on her phone.”

A very familiarly looking white, four by four, vehicle came to a stop just past Jake. It stopped right next to the little old lady who had yet to move and apparently thought this damn space had her name written on it or something. At this point Jake had kind of figured the woman was never going to move.

The white vehicle backed up at high speed but, it did not have far to travel. Jake could see the Colonial Government sticker on the door now but, he no longer needed that to realize he did know that vehicle! Jake could clearly see Barbara backing it. She rammed her rear bumper right into the front grill of an on coming black sedan.

Jake mumbled to himself, “I think our insurance is about to go sky high.”

Only after Barbara got out of the SUV did Jake realize this was no accident. For one, this woman was wearing a black dress and since Jake had no idea that Barbara even owned a black dress he was quite positive it meant something bad was about to happen. Jake did know that she owned a gun, he had just never seen her waving it around in a crowded parking lot before. He definitely had never seen her fire one in such a place or, anywhere else for that matter.

That was exactly what Barbara proceeded to do. She put three holes in the hood of the car and one in the drivers side, front, tire. Jake had to admire the fact that she went for the sidewall and not the treads. He was also pretty sure she had done it deliberately and not just had a happy accident that the tire blew out and went flat. Then Barbara turned her attention on the men inside the car.

Jake caught himself going from “YEAH! YEAH!” to “no, no, no, don’t do it!” She put her gun right in the drivers side window and, more specifically, in the ear of the driver. Two guns went flying out of the car at that point. Then, when Barbara pulled the trigger next, she shot up the dashboard of the car.

All of five seconds had passed when Barbara got back in her vehicle and sped off. Jake’s jaw was wide open and, at first, all he could manage was a, “damn.” Then he realized there was one thing he needed to do. He jumped out of his car and ran over to the drivers side window of the now disabled vehicle. Jake told the stunned driver, “sir, are you all right? I’m a doctor?”

The man shivered, shook his head, and then said, “yes, I, I think I am fine.”

“Good,” Jake told the man and then knocked him in the backside of the head with his own pistol. Jake then pointed the weapon at the guy on the passenger side and said, “I’m a very poor doctor so, wallets, now!”

Jake dropped the gun back on the ground where he found it and rushed back to his car. He did take a moment to stop and give the little old lady in the red car a very evil eye. She put her vehicle in reverse and began backing away as fast as she could. When Jake got back in his car he fired it up and went the opposite way. He doubled back around the parking lot and missed the German goon squad which had descended on the scene shortly after he pulled out.

Jamie had been standing along the front of the store with a lot of other bystanders who were just loitering to see if anyone might get shot. Apparently, people were stupid like that but, there was nothing Jake could do about it so he let his brother in the car and prepared to leave.

Jamie was concerned as they began to pull off. He pointed towards the mayhem and said, “did you do that?”

“Hell no,” Jake told his brother as he turned for the parking lot exit, “just the sight of a lot of well armed German’s always makes me nervous.”

Only after Jake calmed down did he notice that his brother had no bags, no goods, nothing that he had not gone in there with. Jake scolded him, “we went through all that and you didn’t even buy anything?”

Jamie looked around like some bags would magically appear and then he said, “oh, the sale was off.” Then he added, “why is it that every discount store is always the same on every damn planet?”