Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull (Bloodsong Series) (10 page)

11

BULL SHIT

Austin Zemsky got it all on his video camera. Out of nowhere, Leroy Watches Jr. leaped over the arena’s gate and ran at the bull. The men on horseback spun away. Watches grabbed the bull’s tail and pulled on it. The animal began to move slowly away from the fallen bullfighter, pulled by the grasp of Leroy Jr. The bull bellowed, turning its head like it might go after the younger man. It didn’t: the end of the tail broke off. Watches fell backwards, landing on his butt, holding a tuft of hair and a bloody hunk of backbone. The bull leaped forward, savaging the elder man again.

Leroy Watches Jr. roared and charged the bull.

Austin not only saw, but filmed, blue beams coming out of Watches’ eyes. They hit the bull’s head first. It exploded like a missile. Flesh and bone scattered like shrapnel all over the crowd. Then the younger Watches aimed his eyes at the animal’s body. The blue beams struck it. The huge carcass lifted off the ground at least a yard and exploded. The detonation was so colossal that a good portion of the audience was splattered.

Austin and the kids looked liked they’d been in a slaughterhouse; they were front and center. He had had the presence of mind to clean his camera’s lens after the head blew; he was able to fully capture the body’s detonation. It exploded like a bloody warhead. Nothing was left but the gore splattered everywhere. People screamed, too shocked to run for the exits.

This was more disgusting than anything he could imagine. Austin was revolted. When he thought of an animal blowing up, Austin imagined blood and red meat. Bone fragments. The bull had far more than that. He had organs in colors that Austin didn’t know existed in a living creature. All fifteen or however many stomachs a bull has exploded. The contents of the animal’s intestines flew everywhere. Austin had once stepped in a cow pie. That was nothing to being sprayed with the partially digested contents of a full set of bovine stomachs. There were green things and white things, all blown up into slivers and shreds, completely covering him and the kids, and everyone. The stench was worst of all.

Austin knew a national security emergency when he saw one. This was an act of terrorism. He grabbed his cell phone and tried to call the sheriff. It didn’t work on the lower level, so he ran to a higher part of the stadium. Austin dialed Bill Rodriquez, the County Sheriff. He had known the contact would be valuable.

“Bill, it happened.”

“What happened, Austin?”

“The terrorist activity we were afraid of. I witnessed it and I’ve got it on video. Terrorists for sure. Two explosions here at the rodeo at the Thomas & Mack. Blood all over. I need support and medical assistance for the wounded.”

“What exploded, Austin?”

“You won’t believe it, Bill. They developed the perfect weapon. No one would think of it: a bull. Someone in the arena blew up a bull––you’re not going to believe this, but I’ve got it on film––he did it with blue beams coming from his eyes.”

“Oh,” the sheriff paused. “Is there any substantiation of the attack?” Austin could feel his incredulity.

“You better believe it. Half the people in the stadium filmed it. This is big, Bill.” He could have kicked the cement seat behind him in frustration. The sheriff thought he was out of his mind. “If you don’t believe me, I saw Antiterrorism Force personnel all over this place. Call the ATF and ask them.”

“Hold on. I’ve got a call coming in.” Austin waited, irritability rising from his toes. The sheriff thought he was some nut case. People always did. But he wasn’t a conspiracy theory bozo. The conspiracies he reported were real. This was real. And it was the case that would get him promoted, if he got the chance to handle it.

“Austin, Bill. I’m back. You’re right. That was the ATF team leader. She reported what happened exactly as you described it. She said there were a lot of wounded. Bone splinters. Sorry for doubting you. It’s just so crazy.”

“No problem. Let’s get on to the next step. It’s my case. I’m the senior officer. I called in the act of terrorism first. The FBI can handle this better than the ATF.”

“It’s yours, Austin. I’ll send the Metro police over now. All the assets we’ve got are yours.”

With Bill’s blessing, Austin reported what had happened to his superiors in Washington. They gave him full authority to move ahead, especially when they learned that ATF agents were on the scene.

“We’ll send you a team right away, Austin. There are a few agents on duty around Las Vegas. The ATF was already there?”

“Yes, sir. They were looking for terrorism, but I found it.”

“Good work, Austin. I’ll get you whatever I can. May take a while. Commandeer office space at that stadium for headquarters.

With the Bureau and the sheriff behind him, Austin ran to the rodeo announcer’s stand. He declared a state of emergency, ordering people to stay where they were.

“We have experienced a terrorist attack on the United States of America. This is a state of emergency. You must stay in the stadium until you have been debriefed and samples of any … animal matter … are taken.” Wails louder than those elicited by the stricken clown and exploding bull arose.

Having made his declaration, Austin turned to the announcer and said, “Talk to them. Keep them in calm and in place. We have to question everyone and take samples of the …
bull.
This could be bioterrorism––some new strain of bacteria that we can’t kill. Could be
anything
. I’m calling the Center for Disease Control. If you can’t keep the people in the stadium, the sheriff’s riot squad is right outside. The sheriff has given orders to deploy them to control the biohazard.”

Austin left the glassed-in room, leaving the announcer to handle the crowd. That’s what announcers do. He did not realize that the sound equipment had been on when he was speaking to the guys in the announcer’s booth. Everyone in the stadium heard what he said.

The announcer did a great job for a while, but when a pressure cooker gets rocking, it’s hard to keep the lid from blowing. Pressure cookers can also be goosed by turning up the heat.

“Ryan,” the announcer said to one of the guys in the booth, “Did he say flesh-eating bacteria? Or was it antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or new stuff that we can’t kill?”

“I thought he was talking about mad cow disease. Isn’t that what that CDC handles?”

“I didn’t hear that one. Mad cow? Shit. This
is
a disaster.”

“That’s what he said: a national emergency.”

That conversation was broadcast, too. The stadium went silent. They had been exposed to three types of deadly bacteria and mad cow. The riot police were right outside, ready to shoot them. People froze. Then they hunkered down, creeping towards the exits, trying to be invisible.

Austin walked into the Thomas & Mack business office and held up his badge. “I need to requisition office space for the FBI.” The secretaries recoiled from him, faces filled with terror.

He looked at his sleeve. He was covered with blood and guck from the bull. “I’m sorry. I was front and center at the attack. I need to set up offices for FBI headquarters. Street level with outside access. I need them
now.
” The women moved on it.

“Give us fifteen minutes and we’ll set you up.” He had his office space.

“Where can I get cleaned up?”

Before hitting the locker rooms under the stadium, Austin requisitioned clothes from a vendor on the concourse. All black; a western shirt with pearl buttons, jeans, a black silk scarf like Roy Rogers once wore––and best of all, a black Stetson hat. The shop owner even told him how to put it on properly.

He emerged from the locker rooms resplendent: the FBI’s only western-themed special agent.

The offices the stadium gave him were everything he could hope for: computers and net access were already in place, as were desks and phones. It looked like the space had handled ticket sales. Rodeo posters and prints for rock bands covered the walls.

His four new agents arrived. He set them to work implementing the FBI’s protocols. Clean-cut people dressed in black and white moved quickly into the computer room. Austin loved the FBI.

This was a terrific set up. There was even a large window next to the exterior door so he could keep tabs on the parking lot.

His jaw dropped. Through the window, he could see the head of the Antiterrorism Force striding toward their door. She looked like a dog groomer. Her apron had multi-colored brushes tucked in it and little neckerchiefs for the dogs. Something even more offensive to Austin’s sensibilities was approaching. The ATF mobile command vehicles pulled up on the curb.

“You can’t put those buses there,” Austin barked. He would never allow anything like the rag-tag pieces of shit they were trying to park near the FBI’s headquarters.

“Of course we can,” the dog groomer said. “I’m the same grade you are. We’ve been here for weeks. The populace has adjusted to us.”

The ATF Mobile Command was a couple of old hippie buses from San Francisco, all painted up with flowers and dancing gypsies. Animals. Rainbows. “Let’s go to the zoo!” was painted on the side of one. What kind of a government agency would have a mobile command like that?

They did blend in with the retirees’ RVs that dotted the parking lot. Old timers stuck in the Summer of Love. The ATF even had a mobile kitchen installed on the side of one bus. People began lining up for hot dogs.  Austin had to admit that no one could tell that the vehicles housed a top-secret government operation.

“Come inside.” He pulled what’s-her-name into the FBI HQ. “What are you doing here?” Austin’s voice rasped.

“That’s classified,” she said.

“Listen, we can play, ‘I’m higher ranked than you are.’ Doesn’t matter who’s higher ranked. I can make one phone call and put you on the line with someone will chew your ass to hamburger. Somebody who lives in a big white house.”

The ATF officer lowered her voice, even inside the FBI headquarters, where they were recording her every heartbeat, of course.

“It’s mad cow. Extremist cells of the animal rights movement are trying to bring a new strain into the country. They aim at killing people; animal deaths are extraneous to them. The new form of the disease is spread by contact with infected flesh. It works very quickly and is deadly. It’s bioterrorism at its worst. The cell leader is hidden among the people picketing the Thomas & Mack. We’ve been after them for years.”

Austin gasped.

“We chased them from England.”

“England? They like cows there.”

“Via the Middle East.”

Austin gasped again. Then thought out loud. “Why would animal rights groups, who protest cruelty to animals, want to spread a disease that would destroy animals?”

“That’s how extremists are. They don’t really care about what they say they care about. The issue is power. Terror. World domination.”

This thrilled Austin. He wanted a big splashy case to make his career. This was bigger than he reckoned for. “We need to get the Center for Disease Control here.”

“I have already called the CDC. They should be setting up a portable lab right next to you.”

Austin looked out the window of the office. A couple of tasteful beige vans with black lettering rolled up. Center for Disease Control was lettered on them.
That’s a proper governmental vehicle.

He and the ATF leader went outside to greet the CDC team.

“I am Dr. Herbert Bosch, representing the CDC.” Dr. Bosch looked the way you’d expect a senior scientist to look: lab coat, thick glasses, bushy hair. Ink marks on the pocket of his coat. “I was in Vegas on vacation, so I got the case. I commandeered lab technicians from local hospitals and clinics. They are getting ready to take samples now.  We’ll get this sorted out.” The doctor looked very capable of sorting things out.

A commotion caused Austin to look at a second story balcony, one of the minor exits of the Thomas & Mack. The cops barred the stairways down, but people were sneaking out and dangling off of the landing. 

They could hear a guy on the porch shrieking. “The CDC is here. It
is
mad cow.”

He dropped off the edge, landing on the tarmac. “Oh, God I broke my ankle.”

The ATF chief nodded at the writhing victim. “That’s what the new mad cow does. Makes people nuts.”

“Mad cow can’t do that,” Dr. Bosch objected. “It operates in a totally different manner. Its incubation time …”

“Wait a minute, everyone.” Things were getting heated. The discussion was polarizing: CDC against the ATF. Austin didn’t know where he stood, but he didn’t want to trigger one of his asthma episodes. He needed to cool things down.

“Let’s have a meeting and pool our knowledge,” Austin said. “Everyone into our inner office.” All the FBI focus groups he’d been part of showed that coming together and sharing info made the situation better. “We should not only share our thoughts,” Austin directed, “but our feelings.” He led the group. In minutes, the members of the organizations were shouting at each other.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Where did you get an idiotic idea like that?” Austin commented when an ATF operative stated that the exploding bull was the result of a wireless detonating device planted by terrorists, using the guileless animal rights people as dupes.

“We’ve been tracking them for years. We know.”

“Did you watch the video?” Austin bellowed. “How do you account for the blue beams that everyone in the world saw coming out of that guy’s eyes?” He played the video of the beams again. “Wireless device my ass.”

The ATF operative blinked and withdrew, blowing her nose moments later. Tears ran down her cheeks. Austin decided she was more of a wuss than Sylvia.
If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen, sugar.

“I think the bull was already infected with the disease and then blown up by a very small  drone.” This from an ATF dude who looked like a dealer at one of the casinos.

“Of course, it was previously infected.” Austin couldn’t believe what ninnies the ATF were. “What was the point of blowing it up if it wasn’t infected? Why aren’t you asking
how
it got infected? Or who did it?