Car Wars

by Mike Brogan

  Krugere felt his pulse thump against his temples. “Find the bastard! Bruner can ruin us. Blow our whole operation. Eliminate all his links to us!”

  Van Horn nodded.

  With Bruner gone, Krugere thought, there’s only one link to me.

  The guy sitting opposite me . . .

  Van Horn. A relatively safe link, since Krugere had enough dirt on Van Horn’s felonious past to stop him from caving in to the cops. Still, if the cops squeezed Van Horn too hard, he might cough up Krugere’s involvement to cut a deal. Van Horn, like most people, always did what was in his best interests . . . despite what he promised to do or not do.

  “What about the GV engineer, Brooke Daniels?”

  “We’re closing in on her.”

  “Handle her for Chrissakes! No telling what she overheard Bruner say. And what about her friend the ad woman, Madison?”

  “That’s the good news,” Van Horn said.

  “Why?”

  “She’s at the bottom of Napeague Bay.”

  FORTY FIVE

  On the beach, Madison heard Kawasaki Man’s motorcycle engine growing louder.

  He’s coming back . . . making sure I’m dead. She crawled across the sand and ducked between a boulder and a grassy mound.

  The motorcycle sounded different now . . . softer, quieter. She lifted her head . . . and saw a teenage boy on a motorbike speed by - too fast to signal.

  Shivering, she covered herself from the freezing wind gusting off the water. She felt like she was wearing ice. She crawled a little farther behind the rocky outcrop and brushed sand off her arms and clothes

  She took deep breaths to calm herself. It didn’t work.

  She heard a car coming.

  Did Taxi Driver have another car? Were they coming back to make sure she’d drowned?

  The car drew closer, seconds away maybe, but she couldn’t see it because of the boulder. She had to see it. Maybe it wasn’t the Taxi Driver. Maybe she could signal the driver. To do that, she’d have to crawl out and reveal herself to the driver.

  She crawled across the ground, looked up, and glimpsed the car a hundred yards away, coming fast. A black SUV. Driver only! No passengers! Not her abductors!

  She ran up to the road, waving her hands. The driver saw her, hit the brakes, skidded sideways to a stop, and jumped out.

  Madison blinked and couldn’t believe her eyes.

  The driver, a tall young woman, wore a Montauk Police uniform. The officer stared at Madison’s drenched clothes and rushed toward her.

  “You all right?”

  “I am now,” she said, her teeth chattering.

  Her police badge read: Tena Kavanagh. The officer looked at the tire tracks in the grassy sand.

  “Your car in the water?”

  “Yes. Pushed in the water with me in it.”

  Kavanagh studied her face. “You’re Madison?”

  “How’d you - ?”

  “- your photo’s everywhere. Where exactly is the taxi?”

  Madison pointed at the spot. “About thirty feet underwater right there.”

  Officer Kavanaugh shook her head in amazement.

  “All of New York law enforcement is looking for you!”

  “So are the guys that abducted me! They think they drowned me. They’ll be coming back to make sure.”

  Madison heard a vehicle approaching and pointed toward the noise.

  Officer Kavanagh gripped the handle of her holstered Glock 9.

  FORTY SIX

  Robert Bruner drove south from Mackinaw City on I-75, then turned onto M 69 heading toward his small rental cottage near the village of Emmett, Michigan. He remembered that he surged one of the first XCars in Emmett. The lucky driver named Ryan, somehow strong-armed the car into a ditch filled with water that shut the engine off. Smart guy.

  Bruner checked the vehicles behind him. Two pickups, a minivan, and an old red Chevy LUV truck in mint condition. Nothing suspicious. No one tracking him.

  As he turned onto Emmett’s Main Street, he saw a beautiful turn-of-the-century, red brick Victorian home with turrets and gingerbread roof trim. Built for a large family, like most families in those days. Like most Muslim families these days. America’s Muslim birth rate was double the birth rate of non-Muslims. Numbers don’t lie. Someday Muslims would rule America. It was only a matter of time.

  He looked back at the red brick home. He preferred these graceful old Victorians much more than the flamboyant McMansions that metastasized into McBoring suburbs.

  Where are the descendants from this old house? he wondered. And where are my ancestors? He’d never met his father’s German relatives. His mother’s Iraqi relatives were all deceased. Maybe he didn’t have any living close relatives. On the other hand, his DNA would certainly connect him to some relatives. Maybe he’d try one of those spit-in-a-tube DNA tests and find some DNA cousins. He suddenly wondered - what if my surges kill some of my DNA relatives? Ironic. But martyrdom for a just cause.

  He drove behind a line of shiny cars as they turned into a charming church, Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He saw men in suits, women in colorful dresses. A limo in front. Clearly, a wedding . . .

  His wedding had been perfect. His wife, Abeela, had been resplendent in every way, but even more stunning in her red and white wedding dress trimmed in gold. A year later, she gave him a beautiful daughter, Bahiya, a smart, obedient child.

  And she almost gave him the son he wanted. Abeela was three months pregnant with their son when the GV car crash killed them both. So he’d really lost three loved ones that day. He remembered weeping in a Mosque prayer room at their funeral. The Imam placed his hand on his shoulder and calmly assured him that “your wife and daughter are with Allah and at peace.”

  “But I am not at peace!” he’d said.

  “It will come with time,” the Imam said.

  But it hadn’t.

  So Bruner chose another Imam. One in a London mosque, Imam Ahmed. The man who changed Bruner’s life. Imam Ahmed preached that Islamic justice demands revenge. Righteous revenge! His fiery rhetoric ignited something in Bruner . . .

  Bruner soon realized his goal in life was to avenge decades of Muslim deaths at the hands of infidels. Like the American aircraft bombers that struck his parent’s home and killed his mother and father and two sisters, an aunt and uncle. And his grandparents.

  It was time to give Imam Ahmed an update. He opened his iPad and wrote a quick encrypted email.“The roads of America shall soon be paved with the corpses of her infidels. Praise Allah!”

  * * *

  In Langley, Virginia, Clint Mackey sat at his desk in CIA Headquarters studying an email that just got red-flagged on his alert system. The email sent from the US to a London cleric, Imam Ahmed.

  Mackey knew Imam Ahmed was bad news. Ahmed’s fiery rhetoric had ignited jihadist attacks through Europe and Africa.

  Mackey opened the red-flagged email and had his decryption software decipher the short message sent to Ahmed.

  The translation read, “The roads of America shall soon be paved with the corpses of infidels. Praise Allah!”

  The message appeared to be sent from Emmett, a small town in Michigan, by a man named Roberto Brunetti. A name Mackey was also familiar with.

  Years ago, Roberto Brunetti was believed to have masterminded a series of jihadist attacks. In Cairo, he’d blown up a Coptic Christian church, killing a priest, two nuns, and three young children. In Lyon, France his restaurant explosion killed three Sorbonne University students. In Fort Campbell, Kentucky, his bar bomb injured seven soldiers.

  The name Roberto Brunetti had always stuck with him because the guy was never caught. It was thought he lived in America.

  Then this year, Mackey red-flagged a man with a somewhat similar name, Robert Bruner, who first sent an email to the Imam Ahmed after Bruner’s wife and daughter had died in a car accident.

  And this morning he’d received an FBI BOLO to be on the lookout for a - Robert Bruner. Similar
to Roberto Brunetti.

  He wondered what Bruner’s middle initial was.

  He checked and saw it was – K.

  He wondered what Brunetti’s middle initial was.

  He checked and saw it was also – K!

  Mackey wondered what the “Ks” stood for.

  Within seconds, he learned both men had the same middle names – Khalid!

  Robert Khalid Bruner must be Roberto Khalid Brunetti!

  He quickly found Bruner’s regular IP address.

  Then he found some emails sent to Brunetti’s IP address.

  The men had different IP addresses.

  But he noticed a few emails went to yet another Brunetti IP address. He checked the other Brunetti IP address and was stunned to see it was . . . Robert Bruner’s IP address.

  Brunetti was Bruner.

  FORTY SEVEN

  EMMETT, MICHIGAN

  “Right where the guy said he was,” Nick Tucker whispered, looking at Bruner’s small rental cottage in the distance.

  “And no nosy neighbors,” his partner, Elroy Fern, said.

  The two men stepped through the shady forest toward the cottage.

  Tucker had parked his pickup near Emmett’s Main Street, then walked down Brandon Road. Now they were hiking through fields of knee-high grass, noisy crickets, small critters scurrying through the brush, briars sticking like Krazy Glue to Tucker’s pants.

  They’d located Bruner because he bought gas at a station near town. The station attendant recognized Bruner’s photo and said, “Yep. That’s the fella. Filled her right up. Paid cash. Word is he rented a small cottage down Brandon behind Fred’s forty acres.” He pointed the location out on the map.

  Now, as they walked toward the cottage, Tucker heard an owl hoot at them like it owned the forest.

  “That owl is fuckin’ warnin’ us!” Fern said, looking frightened. “It’s a real bad omen!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Tucker said.

  “I ain’t. It’s a sign from God Hisownself!”

  “Fern, that’s bullshit! If you was any dumber, you’d need someone to water ya!”

  “Awww. . . go fornicate yourownself!”

  Tucker and Fern reached the cottage area. They set down their full kerosene cans, took out their Glocks and attached suppressors.

  Tucker saw Bruner’s SUV parked right beside the cottage, right where the gas station guy said he saw it earlier.

  Now, as they approached the cottage, Tucker remembered what Nester Van Horn said – “Make sure Bruner, an electronics wizard, didn’t install motion detectors near the house, like at his Upper Peninsula cabin.”

  Tucker and Fern checked, but saw no motion detectors or spy cams.

  The two men positioned themselves on both sides of the cottage door. A light was on inside. Tucker leaned close to the door and listened. He heard weepy middle-eastern belly-dancer music.

  Guy’s a fuckin’ A-rab! he thought. One more reason to grease him!

  Tucker tried to peek through the window curtain, but it was too thick.

  On a three count, they opened the squeaky door, looked inside, and aimed their guns, and two shots pierced the quiet night.

  * * *

  Bashir Salam drove the new Domino’s Pizza delivery car, a new red XCar with blue and red Dominos logos, down Kendal Street in Dearborn, nine miles west of Detroit.

  He was delivering to his favorite customer, Triple-Cheese Chuck, a Chrysler worker who wolfed down a triple-cheese and pepperoni large pizza and an order of hot wings every other day. Triple-Cheese Chuck was six-seven and three hundred pounds. A big guy. And even better – a big tipper.

  Every tip went into Bashir’s Michigan State University tuition fund. He’d already saved seventy percent of the freshman tuition and promised his parents he’d pay it all. After all, they’d used their entire savings to bring him and his little sister, Sahar, from war-torn Lebanon to America. And some day, he’d replenish their savings.

  And driving the XCar was cool. No other pizza joint had one. And the XCar saved so much gas money, his manager promised employees a Christmas bonus.

  Ahead, Bashir saw Ford Road, a busy cross street with cars zipping past at more than fifty miles an hour.

  He slowed down to enter Ford Road.

  But suddenly his car picked up speed. A lot of speed. Seventy!

  His foot was off the gas!

  What the hell?

  He hit the brakes. Nothing.

  Then the car slowed to thirty, but a second later, it raced up to sixty-five approaching Ford Road.

  He still hadn’t touched the gas.

  He careened out into the middle of Ford Road traffic, barely missing a BP petroleum tanker. He sped ahead on the busy two-lane divided road, dodging cars. He couldn’t pull the key out, the keyless fob was in his back pocket.

  He pushed the on-off button. It didn’t work.

  He glimpsed an Exxon station on the other side of Ford Road. Maybe they can help . . .

  He saw a turnaround just one hundred yards ahead. He skidded around it on two wheels, careening wildly into traffic, nearly losing control, as his car raced back toward the Exxon station.

  The car slowed itself . . .

  He steered it toward the entrance for the Exxon station - but the power steering suddenly switched off.

  He gripped the steering wheel hard and strong-armed the car into the station where it miraculously slowed to a full stop.

  Bashir exhaled.

  He opened the door to run – but the car suddenly raced toward the gas-pump island twenty feet ahead.

  The car hit the concrete island and stopped.

  The airbag scraped his face.

  He waited for the fiery disaster . . .

  But nothing happened.

  Bashir jumped out and ran for his life.

  FORTY EIGHT

  DETROIT

  Special Agent Neal Shaw worked in an FBI conference room with Agent Hayden and their FBI SWAT team, searching all possible hideouts for Robert Bruner. The man had simply disappeared from his Upper Peninsula cabin, his office at AutoSystemics, his Rochester Hills home, and his California company office.

  He also disappeared on line.

  Shaw’s phone rang and he punched the speaker phone. “Agent Shaw?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Clint Mackey with the NSA. We worked together on the kidnapping situation in Atlanta last summer.”

  ““Oh yes, Clint, I remember. What’s up?”

  “I just picked up an email from the guy you’re looking for. Robert K. Bruner. He sent it to a radical cleric in London, Imam Ahmed, who we’ve red-flagged for years.”

  “What did his email say?”

  “The roads of America shall soon be paved with the corpses of infidels. Praise Allah!”

  “He’s talking about his XCar surges,” Shaw said.

  “I agree.”

  “Can you locate where he sent the message from?”

  “Checking that now. Hang on . . .”

  Donovan heard Mackey tapping keys.

  “Bruner sent that email from somewhere near the village of . . . Emmett in Michigan’s thumb area.”

  “This helps a lot. Thanks Clint. Let me know if you intercept any other messages.”

  “Will do.”

  They hung up.

  Shaw’s phone rang again.

  He picked up. “Agent Shaw.”

  “Agent, this is Sheriff John Kearns from Port Huron up in St. Clair County. I’m calling about your BOLO for Robert Bruner.”

  “Yes,” Shaw said, growing excited. “I just learned he might be in the Emmett area.”

  “Seems very likely. A man rented a cottage that just burned down in Emmett. I’m at the cottage now. Dead male inside. Burnt to a crisp. His ID is charred, but his last name starts with a B r u n . . . And a local guy says he rented this cottage to a guy named Bruner.”

  Shaw’s heart pounded. “Thanks, Sheriff. We’ll send a tech team to get a DNA samp
le. Any other evidence?”

  “Couple R. Bruner receipts in a metal box. Also some burnt engineering papers for AutoSystemics.”

  “The company he works for.”

  “We’ve yellow-taped around the entire cottage area and left everything as is.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll keep everyone out until your CSI techs get here.”

  “Appreciate that, Sheriff. We GPS-ed your position off Brandon Road.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Can a chopper land there?”

  “No problem.”

  “So what’s the deal with Bruner?” Kearns asked.

  Shaw owed the Sheriff some explanation. “We think he’s involved with some kind of major attack.”

  “In the small village of Emmett?”

  “No. National. The XCar surging.”

  Shaw heard someone shouting for Sheriff Kearns.

  “Hang on,” Kearns said, “. . . one of our deputies just found something.” He paused. “It’s a Visa card receipt from the deceased’s back pocket. Name on it is Robert K. Bruner.”

  Shaw felt enormous relief. “Our guys will be there soon.”

  They hung up.

  Shaw looked at Hayden and the SWAT team. “Good news and bad news.”

  “What’s the good news?” Hayden asked.

  “Robert Bruner is dead.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “Robert Bruner is dead.”

  “Why bad?”

  “He may be the only person who can turn his surge program off!”

  FORTY NINE

  Madison felt incredibly relieved to be alive. She also felt incredibly warm thanks to Officer Kavanagh’s gift - an America Stops at Montauk soft wool sweatsuit.

  Madison’s beautiful saltwater-drenched Armani suit was in a plastic bag beside her. It smelled like halibut. She wondered if it could be saved.

  Madison chartered a jet that was flying her from LaGuardia to Detroit. She grabbed her new phone and called Brooke Daniels. She got voice mail and left a message, explaining her ordeal and escape, and warning Brooke to be alert for men she didn’t recognize paying too much attention to her.