Revolution No.9

“People!”

Monks swung toward the sound, shouted over a megaphone. It came from a young black man wearing a stocking cap and one of the garish orange T-shirts. He had climbed up on top of a fish-processing shed at Spud Point, where the crowd was thickest.

Holding the megaphone to his lips, he yelled again.

“People, y’all listen to me. We here today to talk about gettin’ back what The Man been takin’ away from us.”

Monks absorbed instantaneous and disturbing impressions. The accent didn’t sound quite right-it had the ring of a white man trying to imitate black speech. The voice was high-pitched, strained-

And yet, even over the megaphone, familiar.

“Oh, Christ,” he breathed, and took a ru

“Now I want y’all to look around you,” Gle

As more heads turned toward him and the crowd’s noise quieted further, the sirens and thunder of the chopper rotors rose, as if a giant volume knob was being turned up. The Coast Guard patrol boat was discharging armed men at the harbor’s mouth, and the sheriffs’ helicopter was landing on the headlands to the west, dropping what looked like a SWAT team. Red and blue lights were lining Highway 1, popping like flashbulbs at a celebrity wedding.

“Now, when The Man put on his uniform, he think it give him the right to walk all over us. But when we put on our uniform-” Gle

“Cease and desist!” a much louder voice interrupted. This one was coming through an amplified microphone mounted on a Sonoma County sheriff’s truck, not just a handheld bullhorn. “This is a police order. You with the megaphone-come down and walk forward with your hands up. People in the crowd, start dispersing peacefully.”

“You think they go

A different kind of murmur was starting to rise from the crowd, with a tone of angry assent. Monks saw several clenched fists raised into the air.

“This is an unlawful assembly,” the police microphone bellowed. “I repeat, disperse yourselves peacefully.”

The cops on foot were shoving their way toward Gle

“Andrew, that’s my son up there. That’s Gle

“Ten-four that,” Pietowski said. “We’re coming.”

Monks was twenty yards away from the shed when a California Highway Patrolman on a motorcycle came charging through the tangled mass of people, ru

As the cop passed in front of the shed, he slowed and unholstered his pistol, raising it to aim at Gle

Monks stared, rigid with disbelief.

Then he yelled, “No,” and threw himself forward, grabbing shoulders and handfuls of clothing to claw his way through the crowd.

A man with the look of a biker snarled, “Watch it, fucker,” and punched him hard in the side of the head, knocking his sunglasses flying. Monks reeled, tripping over legs-

Hearing the terrible thumps of high-powered gunshots.

When he fought his way to his feet again, Gle

And then, a black spiderweb the size of a half-dollar appeared on the back of the cop’s white helmet, like an eggshell shattering. It slammed him forward over the careening bike’s handlebars.

“Eleven ninety-nine, officer down!” the police microphone roared. “Code Three for all law-enforcement perso

Monks struggled on toward where Gle

“…return fire!” he heard the microphone boom. “There are snipers in the crowd! Repeat, officers are authorized to return fire!”

Monks made it to the shed where Gle

Gle

Monks jumped from the derrick onto the roof. Both cops swung to face him, aiming at him with two-handed combat grips.

“Stop right there!” one bellowed.

“That’s my son,” Monks shouted, and kept coming.

“I don’t give a fuck! Turn around and get out of here.”

“Wait a minute, you saying you know this kid?” the other one said. He yanked his handcuffs from his belt and started toward Monks. “Get down, asshole. On your face, hands behind you-”

“I’m FBI and that man’s a doctor!” a hard voice broke in, yelling up at them from below. “Stand back and let him work.”

It was Pietowski, striding toward the shed with a pistol raised in one hand and his FBI badge in the other. He was flanked by two men who looked like undercover agents, dressed like Monks in funky outfits, but also brandishing guns.

The cops on the roof hesitated, looking at each other. Monks pushed past them and dropped to his knees beside Gle

Gle

“Hush,” Monks said. “Don’t try to talk.”

He could hear Pietowski behind him, up on the roof now. “This situation’s under control,” Pietowski told the two policemen. “You men can get on down and help your buddies.”

“If this guy’s really a doctor, he should be taking care of cops, not this maggot,” one muttered.

“With all due respect, officer, you don’t know zip minus shit about it,” Pietowski said harshly. “There’s still shooters out there. Go find them.”

Monks’s fingers located an entry wound in Gle

He eased the stocking cap off Gle