by Shawn Keys
As the glass cleared, a flurry of movement caught his attention. The sexy, young girl who had been filling up the station wagon on the next row of pumps had finished. She slipped into the driver’s side door and was fiddling with the keys, making ready to get on her way. Carl never got a good angle on her face, though she wasn’t standing out to him. Oh, she was gorgeous from what he could see in a classic, girl-next-door sort of way.
Instead of pulling right out of the gas station, she backed up first, putting more distance between her and the SUV. Then, cranking over the wheels, the wagon aimed at the front door to Marion’s.
Habit made Carl type in the license plate: it looked old, but real enough. It was from over the state border in Idaho, but they weren’t that far away. Nothing overly suspicious about someone driving from Boise into Seattle for a getaway.
Just as the ownership listing flashed onto the screen, he saw more movement at the front door. A small flurry of people exited the diner, cracked open the doors on the passenger side, and funneled in. He saw someone in the back seat scrambling across to the driver’s side. It would have been more natural for them to simply walk around and get in… but that would have put them in full view of the agents.
Carl’s eyebrows drew together in concern. “What the hell is this, then?”
Vince paused in his work on the windows to ask, “What?”
Even as he asked, the station wagon accelerated away from the diner. Not racing, but a fraction faster than might be normal, considering there was a police cruiser sitting at the pumps. Police cars usually made people toe the line of legality as long as they were visible.
Carl glanced at the computer again. Then he said to his partner, “See that smoking little number who was filling up that wagon?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the owner of that car is an old farmer over in Idaho.”
“Could be his daughter.”
Carl held the tablet out the window, showing a fifty-something black man with a chiseled jaw and extremely dark skin. “Not unless his wife is an albino.”
Vince jammed the squeegee back into the slot for it. “Weird. What does her implant read-out say?”
Carl dialed back the read-out on his arm computer a couple minutes. “Her name is Janice Dowaker. Age 23. Says she’s from Butte, Montana.” He flicked over to the three other implants shown getting into the car with her. He sat up a little straighter at the sight of the guy, thinking he looked a whole lot like Hutchings except for the thicker forehead and a different shaped nose. The next woman looked a little familiar, though he had only seen the DOJ picture for Jackie Moraker twice in the past. He opened the last implant window, and knew immediately he was looking at the face of Debra Simmons. Her hair was brown instead of purple, cut into a mohawk instead of a punkish mop. He swore Simmons didn’t have quite this many tattoos, either. But something about her attitude couldn’t be disguised.
Gritting his teeth, Carl barked out, “Damnit, Vince, I think that might have been them!”
The other agent balked, “Are you serious? Hold on, the Sheriff was inside!” He started to head for the door of the diner at a jog.
Just then, the woman he knew as the owner, Marion, shoved open the door and gestured to him in a near panic. “Officers, you need to help! They handcuffed John and Fred to the railing in here and stole the keys! They have their radios back on and they are calling for help, but any other deputies are fifteen minutes away at the least!”
Vince called through the open door, “Who were they, Sheriff?”
From inside, the Sheriff growled back, “You know damned well who it was, Agent. Hutchings and a small posse of women, including that Simmons woman. Had a…”
Whatever he was about to say, Vince didn’t hear him. He retreated back to the SUV, tugging open the door. “Quick! Call up their implants on the system! Don’t you dare lose them!” Starting the engine, he shifted into gear.
Marion cried out, “You can’t just leave! The Sheriff’s here! You can’t leave him like that!”
Not caring one whit about the two officers locked inside, Vince hit the gas and peeled out onto the small highway. “You have them?”
Carl had a good lock on four implants sailing down the highway ahead of them. At first, they had opened the distance to a mile or two, but that distance was now closing. The SUV was big and armored, but it had an engine with enough horses behind it to more than match the ancient station wagon for speed. “Yeah, I have them. Looking at these pictures, I think we’re looking at Hutchings, Simmons and the DOJ Agent who came into the area. Think the girl at the pump was Chloe Erling. She’s the one who matches closest.”
Vince nodded, eyes fixed on the road as he powered through the curves well above the legal maximum. It helped that they had been in the area for a day doing their sweep. Gave them a little familiarity with the road. Not a lot, but every edge helped. “Maybe I should have let the Sheriff go. Could have called in police support.”
“Out here? They couldn’t scramble enough to matter. Besides, we don’t need witnesses. They’ll want to arrest them and bring them in. This way, we can make it look like a wreck on the road.”
Vince jutted his chin at the dash radio. “See if Central can get us air support. Satellite tracking. Anything.”
Once again, Carl scoffed, “This far out? No way anything is pre-positioned.”
“We could get lucky! Try. Besides, they need to know anyway. They’re clearly heading toward Seattle. This might be the break we needed.”
* * *
Kyle scanned out the back window, not seeing anything on the road following them.
Yet.
He just couldn’t believe they got away clean. “Take the next turn, Chloe.”
“What?”
“The next turn! In about five hundred yards. It winds a lot more through the hills, but it comes out on the next country highway to the south. We need to know if they are following.”
Jackie grimaced, then turned her own tablet computer to face them. It showed two implants blipping along behind them. “They are.”
Kyle gaped. “You can track them?”
She shrugged back. “The DOJ doesn’t use the information as often as the FDPC does, but we have access to most of the same software.”
Dazz looked a little pissed. “Would have been nice to know! We could have seen them approaching the chalet! We could have left a warning computer for the others!”
Jackie shook her head, “Think they would leave their implants on if they were about to invade your chalet up there?”
Knowing she was right, Dazz didn’t look any happier admitting it. “Just saying. We could have gotten lucky.”
Kyle tried to get past it. “Alright, I get it. Jackie, I know you are being tugged between two different sides here. You still have people to answer to. I’m betting you aren’t free to just let anyone log onto that server, right?”
Glad to see he understood, Jackie nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Kyle rubbed his forehead, concentrating. “Well, thanks for telling us. Doesn’t change the fact that these two are coming at us hard.”
Chloe’s focus was totally on the narrow road, weaving along as quickly as she could. Blind corners were everywhere, and she was taking them recklessly fast. “Longer they chase us, the more likely they’ll call in help! Only a matter of time before they surround us!”
Kyle knew she was right. Even if they shut their implants off, there were only so many places to go. Only so many directions they could drive. They had to assume the ring around them was already forming and would start tightening fast.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit…
Then, he got an idea.
Running wasn’t working. Which meant, time to go on the offense.
He turned to Jackie. “Time to change the nature of the game. We’ll do it your way at the start, but we need to be ready for when things go bad.”
Jackie cautioned him. “You mean if they go bad. They could be
FDPC for real, just trying to bring in a fugitive.”
Kyle huffed. “Yeah, could be. Could also be that the moon will blow up tonight and we’ll finally get to see that green cheese inside of it.”
* * *
Vince swerved onto the narrower lane, then made the rubber on the tires burn a little as he accelerated up the new road. “Are they trying to lose us? Don’t they realize we can track them?”
Carl cursed, “Damnit! Lost their implant signals!”
Vince didn’t look too surprised. “Well, if they were faking their IDs, makes sense they have the access to turn them off on a whim. Should have done it earlier, though.”
Carl nodded. “Yeah, before this turn. Pretty sure there isn’t another road between here and the next highway that doesn’t end in a cul-de-sac or a dead-end of some kind.”
Vince nodded. “Any GPS or phone app will tell them that much. They won’t waste the time. They’ll be on a straight run for the next road, hoping they can outpace us. Make us guess east or west once we get down there.” He asked, “What about backup?”
Carl had just received a message. “No air support within two hours. Next agents are an hour away, heading inbound. Where should I send them?”
“Bring them in hard from the west. If we don’t catch up to them by the highway, we’ll turn east. Either we’ll have to run them down, or they’ll run into our backup. Either way, we’ll get them –”
His words cut off and turned into a gasping yell. He’d been taking a blind corner at double the speed limit. The backend of a station-wagon appeared right in front of them. He jerked the wheel to one side, trying to evade, but their left-front bumper connected with the rear-right tail light on the other vehicle. The station-wagon crumpled far worse under the impact. The mass of the armored SUV launched it away. But the velocity involved didn’t let the SUV come through undamaged. Buckling inward, the whole front end popped up a little off the road before crashing back down again in a bone-shaking drop. Both of the front tires exploded under the pressure, while even the bullet-resistant, reinforced windshield and side windows exploded into pebbly shards under the ripple of force caused by the impact.
Inside the cab, the two agents were thrust up against their seat belts with staggering force. The air-bags deployed, smashing into their faces in a way that might help save their lives, but also served to bruise them all along their chests, leaving them stunned and drifting on the edge of consciousness.
* * *
Kyle and Jackie watched the two cars settle into their final resting spots after the collision. He shook his head, impressed by the violence of it all. “Damn. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen for real.”
Jackie had. A couple times. Plus enough in the aftermath to make her glad she didn’t see them even more often in her line of investigative work.
Deciding it wasn’t the time for chit-chat, Kyle asked, “You sure? We could walk away. Dazz and Chloe will find us a new car any minute, I’m sure.”
The DOJ agent shook her head. “I need to see what I’m dealing with.”
“Could get ugly,” Kyle warned her.
“Well, that’s why you’re here.”
Kyle gripped the now familiar bulk of his 5.56 LWRC M6H, gifted to him by Danielle’s father. It was one of the assault rifle variants used by the Särskilda Skyddsgruppen, and had been his personal weapon for the last few months. “Yeah. I have your back.”
Jackie nodded, then advanced toward the crumpled SUV. Her pistol was out and on aim, pointed at the driver’s door. “Agent Moraker, DOJ! Show me your hands. Don’t make this difficult, Agents. I know there are two of you inside and that you are armed. I’m here to –”
From inside the cab, a bark of a pistol sounded along with a muzzle flash. It was followed quickly by two more bang bangs as the agent inside finished off his grouping.
Jackie grunted like she’d been whacked by a rubber mallet in the gut, stumbling to one side.
Kyle clenched his teeth. They hadn’t even tried talking! What was worse, they’d gone after Jackie before they had even shot at him! Which meant they thought the danger of anyone in actual authority knowing the truth might be even more dangerous than him being alive.
Walking sideways to open his angles, Kyle cut loose with a rapid-fire chain of aimed shots. Not going to full auto, he blasted away at anything that looked like it might be moving inside the cab. It took him only a few seconds to unload his whole magazine into the interior. With calm, practiced movements, he ejected it and slammed a new mag into the seat. Then, he advanced, holding his fire.
A flicker of movement. He put a bullet into it. He didn’t care if it was a flash of light, a fly on the dash, or one of their fingers.
Another. Same treatment.
He kept walking. Nothing moved inside. He got close enough to be able to grab the handle. The metal of the door was bent, already half-popped off its hinges. Grabbing it, he pulled hard while backing away. His hand went back to his rifle, ready to shoot if anything at all so much as twitched at him.
The scene inside the cab was a horror show. If it wasn’t for his supercharged adrenalin and even more fiery anger, Kyle probably would have hurled whatever was left from his last meal all over the road. As it was, he held it together and scoured the twisted shapes for any sign of resistance.
The driver, who was probably the one who had shot at Jackie, fell out of the seat and onto the pavement. On the far side of the cab, the other agent was leaning against the passenger door. His face had two entry holes, and the spatter behind him told the tale that the exit wounds were far, far worse. He was dead. The agent on the pavement at Kyle’s feet wasn’t far off. He was hit at least a dozen times, mostly along his arm which he had instinctively been using to shield himself, but the power of the rifle shots had made the effort useless. The high-powered rounds had cut right through into his lungs and surrounding organs. Anger blazed in the agent’s eyes as he stared up at Kyle. His hands closed and opened spasmodically, as if trying to find and grab a weapon he could use.
Kyle shook his head, staring back at him. “What gives you the goddamn right, huh?”
The agent’s head fell back onto the road, unable to keep it up any longer. His breath became more and more wheezy.
Kyle gritted his teeth even harder, then fired again into the agent’s head, killing him instantly. It wasn’t a mercy. He could have gladly left the guy to live out the rest of his life in horrible pain. But he had been raised on movies, where the bad guy summons one last, terrible effort and shoots the hero from behind when everyone thought he was already dead. He wasn’t about to let that happen, and he needed to see if Jackie was alright.
Turning away from the horrific scene, Kyle raced back over to the DOJ agent.
She was pulling herself off the ground, sucking in wind between her clenched teeth. “Damn, does that ever sting like a bitch!” She spun in slow circles, trying to walk off the impacts on the bulletproof vest she had donned before the fight had started.
Kyle asked, “How many times he catch you?”
“Twice. Not bad shooting after they got banged around like that.”
Kyle wasn’t going to stand around and compliment the killer agents. Instead, he pointed out, “They went for you first.”
Jackie nodded soberly. “I noticed, trust me.”
Kyle reached out and clenched her shoulder, stopping her from moving around and meeting her eyes. “They would rather kill a good agent than let you hear my story or tell anyone else. Get it?”
Grudgingly, Jackie nodded. “Trust me, Kyle. If anyone gets it, it’s me. I’m the one they just tried to assassinate.”
He nodded. “They heard you. They heard you ID yourself. They didn’t suggest you work together. They didn’t try to talk you out of harboring a fugitive like the Sheriff did. They knew that you knew too much.”
Jackie rolled her neck. “Fuck me right to hell.”
Kyle snorted. “I’ve always figured heaven was the destination
of that particular train…” The agent glared at him, so he quickly said, “But I get the idea. Come on. Let’s grab the bags and see how the other two are doing.”
They had rapidly offloaded everything out of the station wagon before leaving it parked in the road to be hit. It was a lot to carry. Certainly, too much to walk more than a few hundred yards with it before needing a rest.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to go more than a dozen. From out of a driveway, Chloe appeared behind the wheel of an old truck from about the same era as their now-destroyed wagon. Dazz was riding shotgun. There was only a single plank seat in the front, which meant all four of them would have to cram in hip to hip.
Not minding that idea one bit, Kyle tossed his load of bags into the back. “Couldn’t have found anything newer?” he teased.
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Anything newer, and I wouldn’t be able to hotwire the damned thing. Not like I’m a master car thief or anything!”
Kyle could see the exposed wires she had cobbled together under the dash, figuring she was probably right. She had been learning a few of the sneakier tricks out there, including how to pop open a door lock or get a vehicle like this started. But on anything more advanced, with things like engine cut-outs and electronic verification starters, Chloe wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Hurry up!” Dazz pushed them. “That Sheriff isn’t going to stay stuck there much longer, and he’s going to lock down this whole county as soon as he gets organized!”
Kyle stopped long enough to rip off the old license plates on the truck and replace them with the set from the station wagon. It wouldn’t fool anyone for long, but might give someone pause if they were looking for the truck with specific stolen plates. Then, he squeezed into the cab and said, “Alright, let’s go!”
“Which way?” Chloe asked.
“Back down to the first highway; we’ll keep going to the next turnoff, then head north up toward the Okanogan valley and the national forest up there. That’s opposite to where anyone thought we were headed if they called this in. I’m assuming they did. Keep your implants off until we’re well clear. We’ll pop back up on the grid with a new set of IDs once we’re farther north.”
