Mind Bender

by Linsey Lanier

  A little boy’s whine echoed up to the high ceiling. “Mommy, can we go home now?”

  A worried-looking woman near the outskirts of the crowd took the boy into her arms. “Shh.”

  Audrey jumped, swung the gun in the boy’s direction. “Keep that kid quiet!”

  “He’s hungry. If you could just let him use the restroom—”

  “I said shut up!”

  She looked like she was going to pull the trigger again, but she didn’t.

  How many shots was that? One for the bank clerk, one for the window. Miranda squinted at Audrey’s weapon. Small. Looked like a 9 millimeter. If it had the typical ten rounds, that would be eight left. Enough to do some serious damage. But what if the gun had sixteen rounds?

  She glanced across at Parker and saw he was making the same calculation. Way too risky to get Audrey to spend her bullets until she was out.

  Where the hell was Holloway?

  Finally she saw movement in the darkness beyond the counter. In the shadows of the opening that matched the one she was in near the front of the bank, she caught the gleam of Holloway’s weapon. She couldn’t see the SWAT officer with him. Holloway better not have ditched him.

  He began to move, slowly making his way along the side of the counter.

  About two feet away from the lobby proper, he stopped. She watched his face. Even at this distance, the mixture of emotion playing over it was apparent. Worry, confusion, and a little despair.

  Come on, Holloway. Keep it together.

  She saw his chest expand, then he called out in a friendly tone. “Hey, baby. What’s going on?”

  Audrey startled, spun toward the sound, waving her gun. Miranda wondered how accurate a shooter she was.

  But she didn’t fire. “Curt?” she answered. “Is that you?”

  “Of course, it’s me, baby. Didn’t I say I’d come?”

  “You did. Yes, you did.” Audrey grinned like a teenager on her first date. Was this woman still in love with Holloway?

  “And here I am.”

  “Come over here so I can see you.”

  “You come here, baby.”

  She took a step in that direction, then she stopped, stepped back. Miranda tried to read her face. All she saw was confusion.

  Audrey shook her head. “No, you have to come here.”

  Holloway licked his lips and glanced toward the window where he knew more SWAT officers were waiting outside. “But it’s more private over here.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Don’t you want to be alone, baby? We have so much to talk about.”

  “Yeah, we do.” Her tone turned nostalgic.

  Miranda glanced over at Parker. If he was wondering how the man who was dating his daughter had gotten himself into this situation, his face didn’t show it. But Parker could be cold as ice water when the situation demanded.

  “Come on, Audrey. Let’s get out of here and get a drink. You can tell me about your movie.”

  “My movie?”

  She looked like she was just about to step forward again when a man on the floor touched her leg. He had long black hair and was dressed in black leather. Miranda couldn’t see his face. Was that the same person she’d noticed on Erskine’s screen outside?

  He’d only brushed her, but the touch seemed to make Audrey turn wild.

  She pointed her gun at the woman with the boy. “If you don’t get out of here now, Curt, I’m going to make you sorry.”

  “Mommy,” the boy whimpered.

  The mother took her son into her arms and turned him away from the gun. She rocked him, frantically trying to keep him quiet.

  Miranda watched the color drain from Holloway’s face. Then he squared his shoulders. “Okay, honey. Just let me spruce up a bit. I want to look my best for my girl.”

  The dialog had to be making him sick, but Miranda had to hand it to him. He was a good actor.

  With his weapon hidden behind him at his side, he stepped around the corner with a big grin. “Audrey, baby.”

  “Curt.”

  They stood staring at each other for a long moment. The man on the floor in the suit looked like he was thinking about going for Audrey’s gun.

  “They’re getting your money ready for you,” Holloway said.

  Miranda winced. No need to bring that up.

  “My money?”

  “The fifty thousand dollars.”

  Audrey frowned as if she’d never heard of that. Slowly she shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Never mind. Let’s go get a drink. I know a place down the street that reminds me of The Roadhouse. Remember?”

  She cocked her head in a dreamy look. “Where you asked me to marry you.”

  “Uh huh. C’mon. Let’s go.” He gestured toward the door.

  Audrey seemed as if she was about to comply when the man in black reached up and touched her leg again. Right behind the knee. Pressure point.

  “That’s not what I want, Curt. I want you.” She raised her arm and fired.

  Just in time Holloway ducked toward the counter. The bullet whizzed past him and hit the window with a boom, making another spider web. The hostages shrieked. Several others screamed. The woman with the boy began to sob.

  Audrey fired again toward Holloway, this time almost hitting him, but he managed to scrambled back around the far edge of the counter.

  “Help!” someone cried. “She’s going to kill us all.”

  Holloway raised his gun and fired back at Audrey. He missed and the bullet went into the wall ten yards behind her.

  The din of screams in the room grew louder.

  What the hell was Holloway doing? You can’t shoot into a crowd of hostages. Before she could think what to do, Jerry stepped between her and Parker. He pointed his assault rifle at Audrey.

  “Put the gun down, ma’am. We have you surrounded.”

  Wrong move.

  Audrey spun and fired at the SWAT officer. The bullet hit his Kevlar-protected chest and he staggered a bit. Then he recovered and aimed his machine gun, about to return fire.

  Before he could, Parker grabbed the gun and pointed it at the ceiling. “There are civilians in here.”

  Jerry glared at him. “I’m well aware of that, Mr. Parker. I’m not going to hit one.”

  No time to discuss the possibility. Audrey fired again. Parker and the SWAT officer ducked back around the corridor wall just in time.

  Relief swelling inside her, Miranda calculated. Six rounds spent. Did she have four left? Or ten?

  She squatted down, about to exit the hall and make her way around the crowd in the confusion. Suddenly the guy in black on the floor got to his feet, took Audrey’s hand and pulled her toward the back.

  They disappeared through a rear opening.

  Realizing their captor had vacated the premises, some of the hostages began to get up and run for the doors.

  Parker rushed from the corridor. “Over here,” he said, guiding them out the front where the rest of the SWAT team was.

  Miranda joined him.

  “They’re heading out the back,” Jerry said into his microphone.

  Erskine’s voice bellowed, “They?”

  “The suspect left with a man. Long black hair. Black leather jacket and jeans. About six foot, average weight.”

  Shots and shouting came from the hall where Audrey and the guy had disappeared. There was another SWAT officer back there.

  “Unit ten, report,” Erskine cried. “What’s your status?”

  “Unit ten. I’ve been hit. Suspect and a man in black are climbing into a white van.”

  “Tag number?”

  “Blank.” He went silent.

  “Get an ambulance back there.” Erskine sounded frantic.

  Miranda helped Parker steer the rest of the crazed crowd out the door.

  He gestured to Jerry. “Can you take over here?”

  The SWAT officer nodded.

  Parker turned to her and
pointed back toward the corridor. “We can get to the car that way.”

  “Right.” She turned back for only a second. “Holloway. With us.”

  For a change, Holloway didn’t argue. He barreled through the crowd of escaping hostages and was behind her just as they made the first turn into the hall.

  Chapter Six

  Outside, they scrambled across the pavement to Parker’s Lamborghini as fast as humanly possible.

  Miranda hopped into the passenger seat while Parker raced around to the driver’s side and Holloway squeezed his lanky body into the cramped area behind the front seats. The next instant Parker pressed the button and the sports car growled to life. He leaned on the horn to blare out a warning to pedestrians, and swung into traffic just as a couple of the cops reached their squad cars behind them.

  The cops sounded their sirens, but Parker had already roared around the corner onto Piedmont.

  Miranda pointed up ahead. “There they are.”

  There was only one white van, and it had just passed a furniture store on the left, more than a hundred yards away.

  “They’re heading north,” Holloway said as they zoomed past a tidy row of trees and hedges growing alongside the tall buildings.

  Were they heading for the mall? Miranda wondered what kind of carnage they might be planning there.

  “Can we catch them?” Holloway said.

  She thought she heard Parker utter a low “hah” under his breath as he steered around a Honda mini-van and an Explorer. And then they hit the post-lunchtime traffic and screeched to a halt.

  “Damn!” Holloway cried.

  “The traffic will slow the van down, too,” she told him, trying not to sound like his mother.

  But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, the white van pulled out of the line of waiting cars and into the opposite lane.

  “What are they doing?” Thank God there was no oncoming traffic, Miranda thought—then Parker did the same.

  She held her breath as they whizzed past the string of cars lined up on the street alongside the hotels and bank buildings.

  They were closing in on the van. Only a few feet away now.

  At last the two cops cars came around the corner behind them, sirens screaming. Drivers started pulling over, but that only caused more confusion.

  In the opposite lane Miranda saw a bus coming straight for the van. “Look out!”

  The van swung back into its lane. Tires squealing, Parker swerved and just missed the bus, an Audi pulling to the curb in time to give him just enough space to avoid a collision.

  Miranda caught a glimpse of the hapless bus driver shaking his fist at them. He must be wondering what the heck was going on. No time to think about that.

  The van was zooming ahead of them.

  Just beyond the lane it now occupied was a construction area with orange cones blocking access. That had been part of the hold up. The van ran over the cones with a slapping sound and ploughed through the workers, sending them yelling and scurrying to the sidewalk for safety.

  Now she really was mad. She used to be a road worker.

  Parker was mad, too. Jaw tight, he zoomed ahead and finally caught up to the van. With another surge, he hit the rear bumper.

  The van swerved, then pulled ahead, screeching as it swung around the corner onto Lenox. Too fast. The van barreled up onto the sidewalk and sent pedestrians running to get out of the way. Some of them screamed for help, others stopped and started recording the action with their cell phones.

  Miranda could smell burning rubber as the curving glass of the corner building whizzed by.

  Still, the commotion on the sidewalk had slowed them down. The van was maybe fifty yards ahead of them now.

  Miranda felt like she could bite through nails. “Don’t lose him.”

  “I won’t.”

  “We can’t,” Holloway said. “We can’t let that guy drive off with Audrey.”

  “Who was he?” Miranda said.

  “I don’t know. Never seen him before. Is he heading for the mall?” Holloway echoed Miranda’s earlier concern.

  They were flying down a wide road past the restaurants and coffee shops and into the tree-and-brick lined area near the mall.

  “He’ll hit traffic here for sure.”

  She was glad there was a median on this road, complete with foliage growing out of it. The van wouldn’t be doing any fancy wrong-way lane changing here.

  But the traffic was lighter than expected. Enough for the van to push ahead, while Parker struggled to navigate around a cluster of cars that seemed determined to slow their movement. The drivers were reacting to the police sirens, which were still well behind the Lamborghini.

  It was maddening. But they managed to keep the van in sight as they puttered through the vehicles.

  Miranda chewed on her lip, hoping they could stop the van before it got to the mall and took more hostages. Instead it swung around the next curve and onto the ramp to the highway, with the tall buildings of the Atlanta skyline in the distance.

  “He’s getting onto 400,” Holloway cried from the back. “How fast can this Lambo go, sir?”

  “Two-twenty on a good day. But not with traffic.”

  “That van can’t be faster,” Miranda said.

  Parker’s grip tightened on the wheel. “It isn’t. And neither is that truck.”

  The shadow of a huge eighteen wheeler pulled up to their left, blocking their view of the van. They didn’t have much of the ramp left before they’d have to get behind it.

  “Hold on,” Parker said.

  He pressed the accelerator and for a moment Miranda thought she was on a ride at the carnival. The Lambo growled and whirred like a tiger as it whizzed past the truck and into the lane in front of it. The truck’s horn blaring in her ears, she resisted the urged to give the driver the digital salute.

  She had other things to think about. The van had just swerved into the far left lane.

  Overhead Miranda heard the chopping of a helicopter and felt a wave a relief. Then she looked up. It wasn’t the police. It was a news chopper.

  Just what they needed. Another appearance on the evening news.

  They were going downhill now, through the tunnel south of 141, the three-lane highway dark and long and curvy. Once more Parker jammed the accelerator, and in what felt like a second the Lambo was on the van’s tail.

  He sacrificed the sports car’s finish and turned into the van, nicking its bumper. The sound of metal scraping concrete grated on Miranda’s ears as the van grazed the wall for several feet. Then it sped up again, its motor grinding as if in annoyance.

  They came out of the tunnel and into the light. Miranda risked a glance in the side mirror and saw the flashing cop cars emerging behind them. Wedged between a sound wall on one side and a cyclone fence on the other, she knew something had to give soon.

  “Can you get behind them?” she said to Parker.

  “I can.” He got into the far left lane.

  “A little closer?”

  “Of course.” He edged up a bit until they were maybe two car lengths away.

  “That’s good.” No need to explain. Parker knew what she was doing.

  She reached for the Beretta tucked in her waistband and pressed the button to open the window. The wind whooshed into the car and whipped her hair around her face. Miranda leaned out the window, spat back her hair and aimed for the right rear tire.

  She fired.

  Missed. The bullet hit the van’s side. The vehicle swerved and screeched, then moved across all three lanes, nearly hitting another car.

  Damn. “Can you get closer this time?”

  Without replying, Parker zoomed forward. Now they were one car length behind.

  Miranda took aim again, but before she could pull the trigger, Audrey’s head popped out of the van’s passenger side window. She aimed her gun at Miranda’s head.

  “Don’t shoot her,” Holloway cried.

  Her colleague was delusion
al.

  Audrey fired. Miranda ducked inside as Parker swerved the car back to the left. The bullet whizzed past and struck the hood of the cop car that had finally caught up to them.

  The squad wobbled a little then recovered.

  Audrey disappeared inside the van.

  “She’s going down,” Miranda said. “The cops aren’t going to go easy on her now.”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. I’m going for the tires again.” Holloway leaned out the window, his weapon drawn.

  “Get back in here, Holloway.”

  Of course, he ignored her. He squeezed off a round and blew out the van’s right taillight.

  “Now you’ve made them mad.” Still it was a good shot.

  Parker’s face suddenly went grim. “I have bad news.”

  “What?”

  “We’re low on fuel.”

  She glanced down at the gauge just as a warning bell on the dash dinged. They hadn’t filled up after their long trip that morning.

  “If we’re lucky, the police will have more units gathering up ahead somewhere.” Parker was trying to be optimistic.

  Miranda shook her head. “Except most of them were at the bank.”

  “True, but there might be one or two units who could come from the south or from DeKalb. They might be putting down spike strips.”

  That would be a better way to blow out the van’s tires.

  Someone would stop the van. They had to. But just as Miranda was envisioning what she’d like to do to Holloway’s ex once the van was captured, one of the rear doors flew open. Audrey appeared in its dark cavity.

  Miranda’s stomach dropped. “What’s she doing?”

  “I don’t know.” Holloway sounded exasperated.

  Hanging onto a side strap, her highlighted hair blowing wildly, Audrey lifted something heavy from the van’s floor. The door closed again as if she couldn’t manage the weight. A moment later she pushed the door open again and tossed out a long chunk of metal. A contraption that folded out, accordion-like, like a row of Z’s. As the metal extended, it hit the pavement with a clang, clang, clunk.

  “Audrey, what are you doing?” Holloway cried from the back.