by Gerry, Frank
Throwing the duffel bags in the back seat, Dylan jumped behind the wheel. Tien ran to the passengers side. She opened the back door, then fired on one of the overhead drones. Letting loose a sustained burst of machine gun fire, hoping to get lucky. Sparks flew off the drone, pushing it back and off kilter somewhat. But it didn't get knocked out. With her gun out of ammunition, she dove into the back seat. “Go, go, go!” she yelled, while slapping the back of the drivers seat.
Dylan sped off, trying to figure exactly what street they were on. The hover drones followed in pursuit. Tien got the duffel bags opened as fast as she could. She bounced from side to side as Dylan swerved the cruiser past the buckled street and then around the street traffic. She reloaded her weapon, then reached forward, grabbed his machine pistol and jammed in a loaded magazine clip. “You did good, Dylan,” she said while cocking the firing mechanism to his gun and handing it back to him.
Dylan found his bearings, seeing the signs for the highway, and headed for it. He looked down at the instrument panel. “Shit! We've got less than a quarter of a tank of gas.”
“Just get on the highway. I'll get the electronics going. If we can get to the O'Neil Tunnel before being hit by a Hellfire, we've got a chance. Let's just hope this jamming device works,” Tien said. Dylan didn't ask any questions, he was focused on getting to the on ramp as fast as their stolen State patrol car could take them. The hover drones still trailed behind. Sometimes falling back, then catching up, depending on the traffic. Tien continued to bounce around in the back seat as she rummaged through their bags. She retrieve the remaining ammo clips for the machine pistols, only two left. She pulled out the M4 assault rifle. She counted six self propelled rockets and five ammo clips for the rifle. She quickly arraigned everything for quick access. Lastly, she got out the stainless steel case for the German made electronic jamming device. She opened the cover and powered it on. The device made a humming sound as it initiated it's power on sequence.
The hover drones fell out of laser targeting range. Dylan found the switch to the patrol cars sirens, turning it on momentarily to get some slower moving cars out of the way. “OK, jamming is operational,” Tien called out. They had almost reached the on ramp to the highway when a Homeland Security cruiser swerved out from a side street with it's sirens blaring. A State police cruiser followed seconds later. More sirens could be heard in the background. A whole lot more sirens.
Dylan made the turn onto the ramp. He floored the gas, bringing the car up to sixty, then seventy miles an hour. The DHS cruiser screeched as it followed onto the on ramp. The State cruiser close behind. Dylan brought the patrol car up to eighty miles an hour by the time they reached the highway. The police cars following in pursuit.
Tien held the jamming device on her lap. Keeping an eye on the screen for any sign of target lock by an airborne Reaper. She knew the device had flaws. It could only jam the guidance signals of an inbound Hellfire III missile. It couldn't change the flight path of the missile. Once a Reaper fired it's missile, it could fly anywhere including the trajectory it was heading on. She put the device carefully to the side.
Dylan kept the gas petal floored, pushing their speed up to ninety seven miles per hour. The more powerful Homeland Security cruiser closed in. Tien shouted to Dylan, “Block your ears.” Before he knew what she was talking about, Tien blasted out the glass of the rear windshield with her machine pistol. Shards of safety glass flew everywhere inside the car and out.
Tien loaded a rocket into the M4. She twisted around and crouched on her knees in the back seat, aiming the assault rifle through the rear window opening. She pushed glass away from the top of the seat as she took aim at the approaching DHS cruiser. The M4 made a swishing sound as the rocket exited the launch tube. The armored DHS cruiser swung hard to the left, the rocket missing by no more than two feet. “Damn!” Tien yelled out. She opened fire with the weapon, sustaining her fire till the ammo was out. The cruiser swerved right, then left, sparks flew everywhere with the onslaught of the automatic weapons fire. The bullets had no effect.
The State Police car in pursuit pulled up even to the Homeland Security cruiser, as if they were racing to be the first ones to take down the fugitives. Tien slid back into the seat, reloading the rifle. She called out over noise of the rushing wind to Dylan, “Drive straight when I tell you to!” At just that moment, a hail of bullets slammed into their car. Shards of glass from the passenger side window blew inward, covering Tien. Dylan ducked his head. “Motherfucker!” he screamed, while steering the car from side to side to prevent the patrol cars from overtaken them.
Tien got up, swung the M4 out the back window, and took aim at the State Police patrol car. She yelled to Dylan, “Drive straight.” The trooper in the passenger side of the State patrol car, having reloaded his gun, stuck his machine gun out his window and began firing. Bullets flew past her head, hitting the car all around her. She took a breath, aimed at the the grill of the State police car, and squeezed the trigger. The rocket hit the front end, causing the car to explode in flames. It swerved to the side hitting the DHS cruiser, knocking it to the side and almost off the road. The State Police car swerved in the other direction of the road, crossing over several lanes before hitting the vehicle barrier. It rolled side over side before coming to a rest as a mangled wreck of smoke and flames.
The DHS cruiser lost some ground with the hit. But quickly continued the pursuit. Tien reloaded her assault rifle with another missile. Dylan steered the car sharply to the left to avoid hitting a slower car in their path. The DHS cruiser changed lanes to follow. The soldier in the passenger side reached out and fired his machine pistol. Bullets flew wildly about. A few hitting the car. Tien aimed her M4 for the cruisers front grill. Took careful aim, and let the missile fly. At just the instant she took her shot, Dylan took a sharp turn to the right to avoid hitting another car in his path. The missile flew wildly off target. “Arghhhhh!!!!!” Tien screamed bloody hell while emptying the magazine of the rifle, hoping to hit a tire. There was no effect on the cruiser, the bullets bounced harmlessly off the armored plating or bullet proof glass.
Dylan swerved the car to the left, changing to the center lane. The DHS cruiser changed lanes to follow. The soldier in the passenger side stopped firing momentarily, probably to reload. Tien sat back in the rear seat and grabbed her duffel bag. She rummaged through it until she found the one grenade she had asked Dylan to pack. She yelled up to Dylan, “I'm going to blow that fucker to hell!”
She knew she only had one chance. She pulled the pin to the grenade and began counting. It had a six second fuse. The soldier in the DHS cruiser recommenced firing. This time with another more accurate weapon. Bullets tore throughout the fleeing car. Tien counted to two, lifted herself up to throw the grenade out the rear window. At the count of three, while in motion to throw the grenade, a bullet ripped into her right shoulder. She screamed in pain, dropping the grenade out of her hand and onto the trunk of the car. It bounced around until finally sliding off. It landed on the road, bouncing a few times, before exploding under the DHS cruiser. The patrol car burst into flames, flew out of control, and slammed into the median strip concrete barrier.
“Are you alright? Are you hit?” Dylan asked, yelling above the noise of the rushing air through the broken windows. He tried to look at her in the rear view mirror. She managed to sit down in the seat to inspect the wound. “I took a bullet in my shoulder.” She opened her shirt to see the blood beginning to ooze. There was no exit wound, the bullet was lodged in her shoulder blade. She looked around to find something to act as a bandage, there was nothing other than her own clothing.
“I'm going to pull over,” Dylan yelled.
“Don't you dare. You keep going. Do you hear me!”
He knew she was right. He had no choice. He had to keep driving.
Tien slowly removed her jacket, grimacing with pain on every movement. The sound of more police sirens in the distance grew louder. The blood continued to flow out of
the wound. With her left hand she pulled at the front of her blouse. Ripping off the buttons to the top of the shirt. With the second pull, she managed to rip off the remaining buttons, and get her blouse off.
She rolled the shirt into a ball, pressing down hard to try to stop the blood. Dylan again looked at her in the rear view mirror. There was nothing he could do.
Tien leaned back in the seat. Unbearable pain shot through her shoulder. A warning signal emitted from the electronic jamming device. She pulled the case over with her bloody left hand. “A Reaper has target lock on us!” she yelled. Dylan didn't need to be told. He knew as soon as he heard the warning tone.
Another, different signal tone emitted from the device. “We have an incoming Hellfire!” Tien yelled. She punched in the command with her good hand to disrupt the missile's trajectory. “Six seconds to impact!” Dylan swerved to the right as far as he could go. Is this evasive enough. He didn't know. Then it dawned on him. “Hold on,” he screamed, then slammed on the brakes as hard as he could. The car's tires locked up, laying rubber on the roads surface. The car slid to it's side. The missile flew directly overhead, slamming into the highway in a ball of flames twenty yards ahead. Debris from the explosion rained down on their car.
“Get moving. That Reaper still has another Hellfire!” Tien called out. Dylan punched the gas, screeching the tires. He steered in the wrong direction of the highway. There was no oncoming traffic, all the cars having halted with the explosion of the State Trooper's vehicle. Dylan counted to six. “Hold on again!” he said, then slammed the brakes while spinning the steering wheel. The jamming device once more signaled a warning alarm. Dylan floored the gas. “The second Hellfire is on it's way!” Tien screamed. She punched in the commands to the device once more.
Dylan pushed the car to accelerate as fast as it could. Tien continued to monitor the jamming device. “Three seconds to impact! Two, One!” The missile landed wildly off the mark, at least a hundred yards behind them.
“Nice driving Mister. Now lets get the hell out of here!”
She pulled the bloody shirt off her wound, readjusting the bandage to find a clean, blood free side, then pressed down hard again. She laid her head back against the seat, relaxing a bit, still keeping an eye on the display to the jamming device.
“Tunnel's up ahead,” Dylan said. He looked in the rear view mirror at Tien, not knowing how badly hurt she was. A half a minute later, they were inside the O'Neil tunnel. Safe for the moment from airborne attack drones.
THIRTY TWO
Dylan drove the battered car out of the tunnel on the third exit ramp he came upon. He took the first left, then the next right. He drove on quieter city streets, trying to bypass busier intersections with DHS surveillance cameras. A few minutes later, they came upon a main road, Dylan had no choice but to take it. He recognized the area as South Boston. “Southie” as the locals still called it.
“Pull into the next parking lot you see,” Tien said. “We need to ditch this car fast. They know where we are. It'll take them only minutes to call up the surveillance video in the tunnel.” Tien labored to speak, her breathing becoming more difficult.
About a quarter mile up, Dylan pulled the State Police cruiser into a parking lot of a strip-mall. He drove around looking for an early to mid-20's model year American made hybrid electric car, the kind that Tien had taught him were easy to hot wire. He didn't search long before he found just what he was looking for, a 2024 or 2025 Chevy SUV in what looked to be pretty good shape. He pulled the tattered police car into an empty space a couple of parking spots away.
Tien was getting light headed. She felt sick to her stomach and thought she could pass out at any moment. “I need a pen and a piece of paper,” she spoke urgently. Not saying a word, Dylan rummaged through the center console, finding a small paper notebook and a pen, quickly handing her both items. Tien managed to scribble down an address and handed it him. It was barely legible, with blood smeared across it, but he could make out all of the letters. It was to a location in the city of Dedham, just to the south of Boston. “This is where we're going,” she managed to say. “It's an office building. When we get there pull into the parking garage, drive down to the lowest level.” Tien paused to get her breath. “Now lets get a new vehicle.” She leaned back in the seat and applied pressure to the wound, “Fuck! This hurts.”
The Chevy SUV was unlocked. It was old, the owners probably didn't care one way or the other if it was ever stolen. Dylan helped Tien into the front passenger seat, then tossed the bags into the back seat, before sprinting around to the drivers side.
“You have to make sure that the connector type is trapezoidal shaped,” Tien said.
Dylan reached through the service panel and felt for the connector. “Yeah it is.”
“Good, now jam the key into the right side to reset the ignition code. Don't worry about insulating the key. It's not the car's ignition current flowing through the connector, it's just the current for the keypad switch. You'll get a tiny zap.”
“OK, here goes.” Dylan pushed the key into the connector, shorting the circuitry, then punched 1, 2, 3, 4 into the keypad. The electric engine whirred and the instrument panel turned on. “Alright we have three fourths of a tank of gas, batteries are fully charged,” Dylan spoke calmly. After what they had been through, stealing a car was child's play.
While he put the car in reverse and and started driving out of the parking spot, Tien issued more instructions. “Forget changing the plates, we need to get out of this area as fast as we can.” She fought to remain conscious. “Once they find the cruiser it won't be long till they pull the security videos to the lot and see what car we stole...... arrghhh …..Son of a Bitch!” The pain in her shoulder jolted her back to full consciousness. She re-applied pressure to her wound. “We need to find a car in the next town. Find a residential neighborhood. Steal some license plates first.”
Dylan drove south, away from Boston and in the direction of the adjacent city of Quincy, being careful to obey every street sign and speed limit. “Car, turn on GPS mapping.” Tien tried to get the mapping system started. Nothing happened, no computer synthesized voice returned the acknowledgment. “Voice commands must be broken,” she said, hitting the on button to the GPS. “Don't punch in the address I gave you. We don't want that information in the hands of Homeland Security if we're captured. Change that, if you're captured. You know what you have to do if we're about to be captured.” Dylan looked over at Tien, giving her a slight nod of his head. He just didn't want to have to say the words.
Tien looked like hell. No sooner had they passed the city limits to Quincy, Dylan spoke out loud what he was thinking, “I say the hell with going to Dedham. We need to find you a doctor as soon as possible.” Tien shifted her body to face him. She spoke in a firm but calm voice, making sure he understood every word, “The address I gave you is the headquarters for the regional command. I was under orders not to disclose that information to you, of course. But the circumstances have changed. You have to get us there as soon as possible. They'll have medical facilities there.”
Dylan put his foot down on the gas pedal, pushing the car faster. He still drove carefully to avoid being pulled over, but drove more aggressively. At the next red light, he held up the bloody note paper to take another look at the address that Tien had written, moving it near the instrument panel to be able to read it. The light turned green. He turned his head to look at Tien before accelerating. She had slipped into unconsciousness.
Senior Agent Goodman and his subordinates remained inside the mobile command center parked in Boston's Back Bay. “Anything yet?” Goodman asked Agent Chung. Reports were continuously flooding in from the patrol cars and hover drones. But nothing yet on the whereabouts of the fugitives. “Have we got any results on the surveillance video in the tunnel?” Goodman asked. Agent Greene, standing behind a couple of agents at their consoles, called out, “We're having a network problem with the server that stores the video surve
illance to the tunnels. We have technicians looking at the system right now. They'll have an answer for us momentarily, Sir.”
The events of the evening had failed miserably. The police roadblocks setup at the end of the O'Neil tunnel and each of the exit ramps were established too late. The remaining police cruisers in pursuit of the fugitives, further back on the highway, were trapped in the traffic jam created by the Hellfire missiles. By the time the police finally got through the traffic, the fugitives were long gone.
Goodman wasn't giving up. “I want more Reapers and hover drones airborne. Get online to Hanscom Field,” he yelled, before walking over to Agent Greene at the other end of the makeshift command center. “Get more roadblocks setup throughout the metro area. Shut down the highways. And I want the fugitives descriptions sent out to every police officer in eastern Massachusetts. They would have ditched the state police cruiser by now.” Goodman turned and again yelled out to the agents in the command room, “I want all reports of stolen vehicles as soon a possible. I mean every single missing car!”
Agent Goodman took a deep breath of air. He'd have to be reporting his status to Senior Agent Riviera in another minute. He swore under his breath once again. Though before making that call, he addressed the entire group in the command center, “OK people. Listen up. We're packing this operation up and moving back to headquarters in Burlington. I want to see everyone back there in forty five minutes. I want any important reports sent directly to me while we're in transit. And I want updates from everyone once we're back in operation.” Agent Goodman walked out of the trailer, his head hung low.
THIRTY THREE
