Reckless: a book tied to the Cotton Creek Saga (Shattered 1)

by Ciana Stone

  Cord didn’t see anything noteworthy and figured Samuels must not have either because he turned back around. Only a few seconds passed before Workman looked in the mirror again and made a sudden left turn.

  “What the hell?” Samuels braced himself on the dashboard and looked over his shoulder again.

  Cord did the same and saw the black Audi. It must have made the same left turn because it was quickly catching up to them.

  “Step on it!” Samuels yelled to Workman and in the next breath shouted at Cord. “Hold on!”

  Cord braced himself by grabbing the armrest of the door. He watched as Samuels unbuckled his seat belt, reached inside his jacket and unsnapped the strap of his shoulder holster. Just as he started to draw his weapon, the car jolted violently, and he pitched forward against the dashboard.

  Workman struggled to maintain control as Samuels yelled. “Floor it! Here they come again!”

  The Audi did, indeed, hit them again, but this time from the driver’s side. Luckily, the Ford was heavier, so it was pushed to the shoulder of the road, but not entirely off. No sooner had Workman gotten the car straightened out, the Audi closed in again.

  Cord heard the roar of the engine and felt the car accelerate. Workman steered ahead of the Audi and passed several other vehicles. The car was still accelerating as they approached an intersection where traffic was stopped for a red light. Workman ignored the vehicles coming through the intersection, cut sharply to the left, passed three cars and just missed an oncoming delivery van.

  “Shit! Watch it!” Samuels yelled.

  From Cord’s viewpoint, it didn’t seem as if Workman was paying Samuels any attention. He plowed the Ford through the intersection, tagged a car crossing in front of them and sent it into a spin. Another vehicle just entering the intersection ran into the side of the car they’d just hit.

  “Jesus!” Samuels shouted. “Would you watch it, for Christ's sake?”

  Samuels looked behind them again, and when Cord did the same, he spotted the Audi roaring around the wreckage in the intersection.

  He felt strangely calm and detached as if he’d just stepped into the pages of a cheap spy novel. This couldn’t be happening to him. He was just a rancher turned software developer, a regular Joe. Things like this didn’t happen to regular guys. While his sight registered everything that was happening, his mind seemed to have shut down his capacity to react.

  In and out of traffic they wove, making sudden turns with tires squealing and engine racing. On and on. It seemed quite strange to Cord, there was not a police car in sight. Surely a patrolman somewhere would notice two cars barreling down the streets like bats out of hell. There had to be a cop somewhere who would try to stop them or at least give chase.

  Just then, the thing he never imagined happened. The back window exploded in a shower of flying glass. Cord’s sense of detachment abruptly ended with the realization that someone was shooting at them. He threw himself forward and buried his face in his lap with his arms over his head.

  The sound of a shot inside the car was like the blast of a canon, deafening Cord and filling the car with a hot carbon smell. He looked up just long enough to see Samuels with his arm laid across the back of the seat, aimed at the car behind them

  “Get down, goddammit!” Samuels shouted and fired again.

  Bullets hit the back of the car in rapid succession, making loud thunking noises. Workman was dodging the car from lane-to-lane across the road.

  Samuels grabbed the hand mic of the radio. “Dispatch! This is Samuels, car 2-0-4. We need assistance. Repeat, we need assistance. We’re−" He looked around. “Where the hell are we?”

  Cord figured this was a good time to speak. “I don’t think.−“

  “Shut up! I don’t give a shit what you think. I need the location.”

  “Well, you better get on your phone because that radio doesn’t work.” Cord pointed to the tangle of wires hanging loose underneath the dash.

  “Fuck!” Samuels threw the mic aside just as gunfire erupted again from the car behind them.

  In a brief pause in the gunfire, Cord looked up to see where they were. Somehow, they’d managed to get into the northeast section of the city. Samuels was yelling at Workman to get them back onto the main roads when Workman suddenly made a sharp right between two old buildings.

  “No, no don’t turn here!” Cord yelled.

  At almost the same moment, the front windshield blew into a million pieces. A split section later, the back of Workman’s head exploded in a geyser of blood, brains, and bone that showered Cord and the back seat.

  As he fought the urge to retch, Cord realized that the car was hurtling along out of control, straight down the alley toward a loading dock with a metal ramp angling down from its opening. Just before the dock, on the opposite side of the alley, a large delivery van was parked beside a rusted metal door. Past the loading dock the alley ended, right into a brick wall.

  Cord shouted a warning to Samuels then threw himself into the floorboard and held his breath.

  The car suddenly jerked to the left, rammed something and became airborne. It fell like a rock, bounced and then flipped to land on its right side, grinding along the asphalt to finally come to a stop.

  After bouncing around like a fish in a net, Cord finally landed on the rear door. When he realized he was miraculously intact, he looked around. Samuels lay crushed against the front passenger door with Workman’s dead weight pinning him. Cord crawled up to peer out of the opening where the left rear window had been. The Audi was blocking the entrance to the alley, and two men were getting out.

  Fear galvanized Cord into motion. He readjusted his position so he could grab the back of Workman’s coat. The sight of the mangled head almost made him throw up, but he managed to pull Workman off Samuels and over the seat.

  Cord lost his grip, and when he fell back, the body landed on top of him. Shuddering with revulsion, he squirmed from beneath it. Samuels wasn’t moving. Cord reached across the seat and shook him.

  “Samuels! Come on, get up! We’ve got to get out of here.”

  He heard a groan and a muffled reply as he climbed across the seat and kicked out what was left of the windshield. His actions apparently drew attention because bullets suddenly rained down on them, puncturing the exposed side of the car. Cord waited until the gunfire ceased and shook Samuels again.

  “Goddamn,” Samuels whispered as he came to. He climbed up to look and was greeted by another barrage of gunfire. “They’re on the fucking buildings. We’re sitting ducks.”

    Chapter Four

  San Antonio International Airport, Texas

  Morgan arrived at the airport and managed to get checked in five minutes ahead of boarding. She took a seat and dug into her shoulder bag for her phone. It dawned on her that she’d left it on the seat of the Jeep. ”Great,” she grumbled and got up to go in search of a payphone.

  When she located one, the next challenge was finding change. She rarely carried currency but did find four quarters, two dimes and several pennies in the bottom of her bag. She placed a call to her home phone and accessed the voicemail, hoping Cord had called.

  “Ten, seventeen,” said the electronic voice, followed by Cord saying “Shit. Hi, it’s me. This is the first chance I’ve had to call. I’m at the Hilton. You know, the one I usually stay in. Anyway, I’m in 421. I’m gonna shower and crash. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll call before I go back to Tom’s office this afternoon. I love you.”

  Morgan deleted the message and hurried back to her gate, grateful that he’d called to let her know where he was. A sudden thought stopped her dead in her tracks. Wait a minute! Sandy said Cord called around eight, and the voice mail recorded his message at ten-seventeen, so why did he say he’d just gotten time to call if he’d already called and left a message with her?

  Troubled by the discrepancies in the timing and sequence of the messages, she started walking again, even more anxious to get to Washington and find
out what was going on.

  Washington, D.C.

  Pinned down by gunmen on the tops of the buildings and the men from the Audi who had the alley blocked, Cord scanned the area for another avenue of escape. There was nowhere to go. They were surrounded on three sides by brick walls with no open doorways. Even the door on the loading dock was closed.

  He was starting to feel hopeless when his gaze jerked back to the van parked alongside the building. Its doors were closed, so it wasn’t of use. “Damn. There has to be a way out of here.”

  Then it clicked. The van was parked directly over a manhole, one that probably led down into the city’s sewer system.

  “Samuels.” He poked Samuels to get his attention and pointed at the van. “Look.”

  “What?”

  “The manhole. If we can get to the van maybe, we can slide the cover back and get down into the sewer tunnel.’

  “Are you fucking nuts? Do you have any idea how much those things weigh? There’s no way in hell we’ll move it lying on our bellies. Who do you think you are, anyway? Superman? Besides, why would we want to go into the damn sewer?”

  “Well, first of all, the sewer runs underneath the city. There are manholes everywhere. If we can get down there, we can use the tunnels to get out of here and go back up to the surface when we’re far enough away. Second, maybe we can, and maybe we can’t lift the damn thing, but it’s worth a try. It sure beats the hell out of sitting here waiting to be shot.”

  After a few seconds, Samuels nodded. “Okay, you go first. I’ll try to keep the boys on the roof busy long enough for you to get to the van and then I’ll follow.”

  “And who’s going to cover you?” Cord realized that Samuels was offering him a much better chance of escape than Samuels himself would get.

  “Don’t worry about me. Just get ready. When I start shooting, take off. You got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then get ready.”

  Cord got into position, and when Samuels said, “go” and started firing, he crawled out of the car and flew the few yards to the van. He dove beneath it as bullets tore into the pavement, kicking up asphalt in small explosions around him.

  He squirmed on his belly to the manhole cover then stopped to look back at the car. Several things seemed to happen all at once. Samuels was headed in the direction of the van with bullets impacting the pavement all around him, and suddenly their car exploded like a bomb had been dropped on it. A huge mushroom of flame and smoke plumed upward with twisted and charred chunks of metal flying in all directions.

  Spurred by terror, Cord shoved his hands into the handholds of the cover and jerked with all his might. The onslaught of fear-induced adrenaline must have given him added strength because the cover lifted a couple of inches. With arm straining and muscles bunching into knots of tension, he dragged the cover toward him. He managed to move it enough to prop the edge of the cover on the lip of the hole.

  Cord saw Samuels belly crawling toward him under the van. He wiggled around to the opposite side of the manhole, braced his hands and shoulders against the axle of the van and pushed against the cover with his feet. A gap started to form. When the cover had moved enough to expose about two—thirds of the hole beneath it, Cord slid down into the hole, feeling for the rungs with his feet. As soon as he located the first one, he quickly climbed down.

  The moment his feet touched down, he was off at a furious pace, his feet splashing through the water and his arms pumping like pistons.

  Cord took advantage of any intersection he came to in the tunnel and turned. He hoped that changing direction and not traveling in a straight line for long would help minimize the risk of getting shot in the back.

  *****

  Samuels wiggled into the sewer hole and searched for the rungs with his feet. At last, he found the metal ladder. He lowered his weight down and banged into the side of the concrete pipe as the leather of his shoe soles slipped off the support. The toes of his shoes beat against the concrete as he floundered for the rungs. Finally, he got his right foot onto a rung. He grabbed his gun from the pavement beside the manhole and descended as quickly as possible into the sewer.

  When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he dropped to the floor below. The resulting splash from his landing drenched him from the knees down. He grimaced at the odor and looked around.

  “Alexander?” he called out in a half-whisper.

  There was no response. Samuels looked up at the light filtered in from the hole then around the sewer tunnel again. The absence of sound told him he was alone, but his fear reminded him that he probably would not be for long.

  “Alexander!” Desperation seeped into his voice as his mind conjured up visions of pursuing gunmen. “Damn, where’d he go?”

  While he tried to decide which direction to go, he heard a faint, indistinguishable sound coming from somewhere far down the tunnel. On impulse, he moved in the direction of the sound. One step took him out of the circle of light and into almost total darkness. He listened carefully. All he could hear was the sounds of his own footsteps, sloshing through the ankle-deep water.

  With his heart pounding a rapid staccato, he moved forward cautiously, his left hand stretched out in front of him to feel the empty air. He gripped his gun in his right hand, ready to fire if the need arose.

  Somewhere in front of him, he couldn’t determine how far, a small glimmer of light danced on the water. With a destination now in sight, he proceeded.

  His eyes began to adjust to the darkness and his fear of encountering gunman abated. He stopped to listen but heard only the sounds of sewer rats, their shrill shrieks echoing hollowly through the tunnels.

  Samuels suppressed a shudder at the thought of the rats and came to a firm decision. Give up on Alexander and get the hell out of the sewer.

  *****

  After what seemed an eternity of running and waiting in dread for the feel of a bullet piercing his back, Cord started to hope that he’d gotten away. He’d tried to count as he ran and estimated he had gone about two miles.

  He tried to concentrate on the sounds within the tunnel. He didn’t hear any anything indicating pursuit, so he slowed. What he needed was to find a good spot to go above ground. He didn’t exactly relish the idea of sticking his head up out of a manhole in the middle of a busy intersection. After all he’d just been through, he didn’t intend to get run over.

  Not far down the tunnel was an intersection. It wasn’t large enough to stand in, but navigable enough to get into the pipe that led upwards. Safe for the moment, Cord allowed himself a breather and rested on the metal ladder attached to the tunnel wall.

  After a minute, he started the climb. When he was in a secure position on the service ladder directly below the manhole cover, he pushed with all his strength and slid the cover out of his way.

  Fear gripped him as he stuck his head out of the hole to look around. He didn't see anyone around, so he hurried to climb out and replace the cover. His first realization was that it was probably going to be easier to figure out where he was than to get his body to stop shaking.

  He'd emerged in a small alley. Safe, as far as he could tell, he took the time to check himself over. There was no major damage, just scrapes, and bruises. He was essentially unharmed, except for his nerves which were shot all to hell. Cord still couldn’t believe what had just happened. Instinct told him to keep moving, so he cautiously approached the entrance of the alley and peered out. Once satisfied it was safe, he exited the alley and headed west.

  As he walked, he replayed the events in his mind. The adrenaline rush had started to dissipate, leaving in its place an almost overwhelming sense of paranoia. People on the sidewalk who looked at him caused him to jump. Every person he passed looked suspicious. His gaze darted about and scanned the face of every person he saw, searching for some sign in their eyes that they were watching for him.

  Passing cars provided another source of anxiety. Each one could be the one carrying the gunmen. He u
nconsciously increased his pace. Fortunately, he’d emerged from the sewer only a few miles from his hotel.

  As he walked, he kept a running dialogue with himself. Come on Cord, old buddy. Keep it together just a little while longer. You’re almost there. Just a little farther. Don’t lose it now. Hold on. We’ll make it, just take it easy. Don’t act suspiciously.

  Those two miles seemed like twenty, but at last, Cord reached the hotel. He’d never seen such a welcome sight. As he walked along the sidewalk at the side of the hotel, he caught sight of himself in a window.

  Holy shit. He looked like a vagrant, a really disgusting one at that. His clothes were soiled and soggy with dried splatters of Workman’s blood and brains. His face was filthy, marred by dark, smeared streaks where he’d wiped blood and sweat from his face with dirty hands.

  His gaze moved from his reflection in the window to his hands. They were disgusting. His nails were torn and ragged and his skin encrusted with a combination of blood, grease, and grime. What a mess.

  Another revelation hit him. He smelled as bad as he looked. There was no way he’d make it past the doorman, and he was in no mood to try and explain his present condition. He’d have to find another way in.

  Cord went around to the rear of the hotel and made his way into the lower level of the parking tower. As he’d hoped, there was a service elevator. Almost as soon as he started for the elevator, he heard a car entering the lower level. There was a Dumpster along the inner wall, just a few yards from the elevator. He made a dash for it and managed to wedge himself behind it before the car pulled into a slot.

  The occupants, apparently hotel employees, got out. Cord waited for them to leave so he could get to the elevator. His luck, or lack of, ran true to form. The two young men, room service attendants from their appearance, were in no real hurry.

  Cord ventured a quick look and saw them sitting on the hood of an old Oldsmobile, sharing a joint. Great. My luck, they’ll get stoned and forget what they’re here for. Stemming his frustration, he remained in his hiding place and waited for an opportunity to leave.