"Duffy, get out of here!" Karl's shirt was matted with blood from his shoulder to waist. He grabbed Campbell and pulled him up and the four of us ran out the side of the storage building. The storage building filled with three-foot high flames. We got out and slammed the door; though we couldn't see the flames, I knew they were climbing.
Outside the building, trucks and sirens and all sorts of cops fueled the confusion. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew we didn't have much time to get out of there. We all ran toward the Deuce.
"Duffy, Duffy-get over here!" I squinted toward the voice and saw Kelley.
"Kell-what the hell is going here?"
"Was that place filled with canned sausages?"
"What?"
"You heard me. Sausages-was it sausages that caused the explosions?"
"Yeah, yeah-how did you know?"
He handed me a piece of fax paper from the Department of Homeland Security.
"This came over our fax at around 10:00 p.m." Intelligence reports point toward the use of small cans of VIENNA SAUSAGES as explosive devices. The plan appears to be that they are being sent to US soldiers in CARE packages and will be detonated in mass quantities when they arrive in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"What the hell?" I said. "That kid at Notre Dame had Vienna Sausages in his back pack."
"He got arrested two days ago and found with a cache of weaponry in his dorm room," Kelley said.
"What the hell?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe I ain't as crazy as everyone thinks."
"Maybe," Kelley said.
Another cop-type guy came over to Kelley and grabbed at his elbow "We gotta evacuate ASAP. That whole place could blow. Hazmat fire personnel are on their way." A flash of bright headlights ran across our faces, blinding us for a second. We could hear the rumbling of a large engine coming through what used to be the gate.
A black Hummer, and it was pulling a trailer.
46
"Who the hell is that?" Kelley said.
"Holy shit."
"Duffy, who the hell is it?"
"Oh my God."
"Duffy!"
The head cop yelled instructions into a megaphone, telling everyone to evacuate ASAP. He repeated it over and over. Meanwhile the hummer and the trailer headed for the storage shed.
"Duffy, what the fuck is going on?" Kelley said.
"They're coming for the sausages. Holy shit. They're coming for the sausages."
"Who?"
"Newstrom! The guy no one has believed us about. The guy behind everything. He's part of this."
"He's headed for the shed?"
"He doesn't know about the fires. He can't tell," I said and watched Newstrom and his men file out of the Hummer. They came to load up the trailer.
"We can't-" Kelley started to head toward the shed. I grabbed him by the arm.
Kelley looked at me with his mouth open. I shook my head.
"But Duff, it's going to blow-"
I just held him by the arm and shook my head.
I looked over to the ambulance taking Karl. They had him on the stretcher, but he was awake.
I looked at Karl. He looked toward the shed and then at me.
We exchanged thumbs ups.
"Everyone outta here now!" Kelley's commander said.
"He can't see the shed from his angle," Kelley said.
"Kelley, get those civilians outta here, now and get your ass out right behind them!" The commander yelled.
"Duff-take care of Gladys!" Karl yelled before they pushed his stretcher into the ambulance.
Kelley broke away and ran to his squad car, hit the light and headed toward the gate
Rocco yelled that the hounds were all accounted for and they were ready. I ran to the Deuce and jumped on board. Al stood in the front next to his mother who moaned and breathed heavy. She didn't look good.
"Hold on tight," Rocco shouted. "We're out of here." He hit the gas hard and everyone lurched forward, which made Gladys let out a horrible sound. I looked in the back. The entire AJ's Army tended to the motley crew of bassets. The hounds howled and barked and in a chaotic mess. I crawled through the opening to check on the dogs and I got to meet up close and personal all the hounds Karl had told me about through their name tags. The hounds were wound up, but they all seemed okay except for Gladys. I climbed back through to the front seat and squeezed in next to Al.
Several cops and troopers fell in behind us with their lights on. We got out of the entrance seconds later and before my sigh of relief cleared my lips, the whole world shook. A series of explosions cascaded and then one giant one kaboomed like Independence Day. The sky turned burnt orange and, for a moment, it was as bright as day out. Sparks, debris, hunks of storage building rained down on us. I looked back. Everything close to the storage building was gone. Through the smoke I could see a huge crater and then I realized something. Just because somebody's crazy doesn't mean people aren't out to get him.
The truck made a dramatic swerve, righted itself, and I snapped back in the moment. A very pregnant basset next to me made it tough to be totally relieved. Up ahead, I could see Karl's ambulance disappear and I hoped he was as all right as he acted. A slew of fire engines passed us going the opposite way, heading toward the puppy mill. I thought they were going to be just a tad late.
The sky, still lit up, made me think of Independence Day.
47
Gladys moaned and the rest of the boys hooted and hollered from the back of the Deuce.
"Duffy, I got just one question," Rocco looked over at me while he drove.
"Yeah?"
"Where the hell are we taking 50 hounds, including this very-soon-to-be mother?"
"Uh…oh geez…"
"Forgot that detail, huh?"
I got so bent on my promise to Karl, I hadn't thought any further down the line. The top priority was to get Gladys to a vet. The problem, it headed toward 11:00 at night and I didn't know the first thing about vets. The second thing, we needed a safe place to house the hounds while I figured out what to do with them. That meant I needed a big fenced-in area, medical attention and food for fifty dogs.
"Head to Rudy's," I said.
"You're kidding, right?" Rocco said. "Tonight's his big todo, win-back-the-ex-night. Gourmet food, the string quartet, tuxedos."
"There's food, there's a big fenced-in area and there's Rudy-he's a doctor. It will be perfect."
"I'm not sure Rudy will think so."
"Yeah, there's that."
Rocco shook his head, but he hit the gas and headed toward Rudy's. It would take us about twenty minutes. I looked down at Gladys and I was not sure she could make it. She panted pretty bad, fussed around, and drooled excessively, even for a basset. Al whimpered and looked back and forth from me to his mom. This was tough.
"Rocco, speed it up a little. I think she might be ready," I said.'
"Ready? Like ready, ready?"
"I think so."
Rocco turned and yelled, "Hang on men, we're making the shift to light speed."
The Deuce lurched forward and I have to admit it got more than a little scary. Hounds barked, some bayed, and when I glanced back, it looked like my new best friends, the gangbangers, did their best to avoid the basset induced fragrance.
"You get any thoughts for a strategy once we get to Rudy's?"
"Uh… Not really. I think this is just one of those Rudy things."
"A Rudy thing…" Rocco wasn't actually talking to me. Rudy lived on the outside of town in a nice big old colonial. He had spent the summer getting it spruced up, having it landscaped, painted, the whole deal. This was all about getting Marie back. I didn't want to screw that up, but I had a pregnant hound on my hands.
Rudy would understand.
I thought he would.