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Back Dead of Winter Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
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  34. 34
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  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42

“Lower your weapons,” boomed a voice from the helicopter. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”

“Not us, dumb shit!” Tomás yelled. Pointing to the fishing pier, Tomás said, “Them!”

The helicopter banked and turned, putting the men at the pier in the spotlight.

Cockroaches and germs tend to hate intense light. These particular cockroaches were equipped with Ruger AR-556 MPR rifles and two Zodiac Bayrunner 500s.

The DPD helicopter came under fire. It banked hard left, lifted and hightailed it south along the Detroit River.

“Those guys get away, and there goes our alibi for this shit!” Tomás said.

“Not gonna happen,” I said, gunning my snowmobile in the direction of the moored boats.

I kept low, closing the distance between myself and the pier, taking enemy fire. My windshield was blown away. I did a few quick S-turns to kick up a cloud of snow as cover. On the last turn, I managed to take off my belt, aim the snowmobile at one of the boats and wrap the belt around the accelerator handle. Following the fastest Hail Mary I’ve ever recited, I rolled off the snowmobile. It took flight and crashed into one of the boats, igniting a bright orange fireball.

One of Bojing’s men crawled out of the freezing water and stood on wobbly legs.

The last man.

“Toss your weapons! Get on your knees—”

That’s as far as I got before he pressed his sidearm just beneath his chin, fired and fell backward into the river.

Our alibi was literally dead in the water.

39

39

The well-dressed, middle-aged Black man behind the podium looked uncomfortable, as if his tie were choking him. Or maybe the white camera flashes were painfully distracting. It could have been the phalanx of men and women assembled tightly behind him: the mayor, the DPD chief of police, the police commissioner, the Michigan Director of Natural Resources and a host of other men and women who looked as if they’d rather be anywhere else except in front of rabid reporters and TV camera crews jockeying for the perfect shot.

“Some thirty to forty deer suffering from CWD—chronic wasting disease—were culled two nights ago on Belle Isle in a joint operation between the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Detroit Police Department—”

Tomás nearly shot beer through his nose as we watched the press conference live on my TV.

“These deer are commonly, and perhaps apocryphally, referred to as ‘zombie deer.’ They posed a serious public health threat,” the well-dressed Black man said with a straight face while reading from a prepared statement. “A night operation was deemed the most efficient way to cull this CWD herd without endangering public safety.”

Tomás was nearly in tears as he laughed at the press conference.

“It was reported to have sounded like a war zone!” a reporter shouted, momentarily throwing the well-dressed Black man at the podium off his timing.