by Nico Rosso
If only she could revel in the panic that must’ve made the hackers want the mercenaries close by. The perils of the high-speed chase narrowed the scope of her thoughts to basic survival. “How close are Art and Raker?” She still couldn’t see them behind.
“Not within striking distance.” He swerved across two lanes to get around a slow-moving work van. She banged against the door and swallowed the pain in her arm and shoulder.
The black SUVs split up, one veering high, closer to them, while the other maintained a position closer to the slow lane. “They’re cutting off our exit.”
James swiveled his head, tracking them. “I see it.”
She watched both SUVs edge nearer. Four car lengths away. “This wasn’t part of the plan.” Her throat closed on her words. The world blurred by. James was the only thing clear and in focus.
He stole a glance at her, fierce determination in his face. “We will end them.”
How, she had no idea. But she couldn’t doubt James’s abilities and willpower. The windows rolled down on the SUV closest to them in the fast lane. The black steel of a killing machine protruded from the opening. Cold fear racked her body. “They have guns.”
James spat, “Bloody monsters.” He steered with one hand and drew his pistol with the other. “They’re not even worried about collateral.” All she could do was watch. He barked, “Weapons free. Weapons free,” presumably to Art and Raker.
The SUV charged past a sedan and sped one lane parallel to James and April. Two car lengths. James countered by moving into their lane, directly in front of them. Giant concrete pillars for an overpass flew by, seemingly inches away from James’s door. Her heart pounded and she fought to slow her breathing. The smallest bump, a bottle cap in the road, would wreck them completely at this speed.
She checked the SUV behind them at the same moment a flame flashed from the barrel of the passenger’s gun. She ducked as the pop cracked. The bullet didn’t impact their car. She had no idea where it landed.
“Contact. Contact,” James repeated. The freeway curved. He yanked the car out of the lane, away from the SUV. He switched his pistol to his left hand and aimed out the open window. “Steer,” he commanded.
She grabbed the juddering wheel and fought to keep them tracking with the curve. James fired three shots, then pulled back to face front, taking the wheel again. She hoped to see the SUV engulfed in flames and slowing to a stop in the distance behind them. But the machine continued its pursuit.
“Bulletproof windscreen and panels.” James steered to the center of the freeway. Once the shots had gone off, many of the drivers hit the brakes and backed off. But she and James still rushed into new traffic that had no idea what was coming.
“The police will be out soon.” She scanned as far as she could, but there were no flashing lights yet.
“Roger that.” James peeked in the rearview mirror. “Welcome to the ball.”
She looked back to see Raker and Art’s compact SUV powering into the mix. They approached the car on the far right of the freeway.
James spoke to them, “Copy that. We’ll call them Car two. Car one has Hathaway.”
The men in the SUV by them were obscured by the tinted windshield. “He’s there?”
James’s lip curled. “He’s the one shooting at us.”
Now she saw the man. He leaned further out of the car to aim toward them, his face a mask of deadly rage. His pistol fired again in a wild barrage. She dove low in the seat. A bullet blasted through the side window behind James. Another punched a hole in the door frame and roof.
“Stay down.” James switched his gun to his left hand again and aimed while driving. His answering salvo chattered. He returned to driving for a moment, then shot again. She couldn’t see the effect, but didn’t hear any great damage to the SUV.
More gunfire popped to her right. She stole a quick look at Art in the passenger seat of his car, trading fire with the other SUV. Both cars sped on.
James fired again and again, then turned back to face front, cursing. “The worst thing about bloody driving on the wrong side of the road is that I have to shoot with my left hand.”
She saw the slide of his pistol was locked open and put her hand out. “Reload.” As he handed her the gun she reached past his jacket to one of the fresh magazines on his shoulder holster. She ejected the old, slammed in the fresh and snapped the slide forward.
He took the pistol and immediately fired back at Hathaway’s SUV. More bullets responded; one pinged off a rear wheel. “Switch, switch!” James called out. “He’s trying for the tires.”
She braced herself as James pulled hard to the right. The car screeched across the freeway, narrowly missing the trailer of a large semi. The truck helped block the SUV from staying on them. Raker and Art veered opposite, toward Hathaway.
A confused look took over James’s face. “What the fuck is a do-si-do, Raker?”
“It’s a dance move,” she was compelled to explain. The second SUV came into view when they cleared past the semi. The driver was bearded, in a baseball cap and sunglasses. He steered with one hand and held a submachine gun with the other. The barrel rested on the window frame, aiming right at them.
James hit the brakes as the gun chattered. Bullets ripped into the tires of the semi. They exploded with a boom that resonated in April’s chest. Chunks of rubber rained down over the windshield of her and James’s car.
The second SUV was slightly ahead of them now. James slowed more and swerved to get behind them. He extended his gun out the window and fired into the back of the SUV. Sparks erupted and the metal dented, but the car kept moving. James shot again, this time at the rear tire. Some rubber tore away. She excitedly anticipated the tire blowing and knocking the SUV out of the chase. The wheel kept turning. The fight wasn’t over.
On the other side of the freeway, Raker and Art dodged cars and traded shots with Hathaway. A police helicopter quickly approached in the sky behind them. “Helicopter,” she said.
James hissed a curse. “Eyes in the sky. Wrap it up.” He hit the gas and rammed the back of the SUV. “We’re taking the next exit we can.”
“We are?” She braced for another impact and was still jarred forward. Glass and plastic broke and scattered past.
“Negative!” James shouted. “Break off pursuit.” She followed his glance back to where Hathaway screeched across two lanes to wedge himself onto an off-ramp. “Police’ll be swarming. Then no one wins.” Art and Raker’s car hurried to catch up to James and April. He warned, “Stay back.” Then to her, “Hold on.”
“What’re you going to do?” Nothing had worked against the black SUV so far.
“Send a message.” He rammed the SUV again. They pulled ahead, forcing him to speed up to hit them on the left of their bumper. The SUV screeched and started to fishtail. James kept pressing until the black car spun around in front of them, then next to them. But the driver was fast and put the car in reverse. The cars rubbed, door to door. In an instant she was directly across from the passenger in the SUV.
He wore sunglasses and a bandana pulled up over his mouth and nose. An expressionless killer who raised a submachine gun toward April and James.
“Lean!” James extended his pistol across the car. She yanked on the seat lever and fell back and out of the way. He fired twice, the gunshots deafening. Acrid smoke filled her nose, and the concussion rattled her ribs.
The hit man screamed out and dropped his weapon between the cars. He slumped over the open windows, hands dangling on her leg. Blood spread on the front and back of his denim jacket. She saw the impression of a rectangle in one of the inside pockets and suppressed her rising bile to paw inside. The SUV started to pull away, dragging his body with it. Her heart leaped. She searched more frantically for what she hoped was in his pocket.
“Are you done?”
James clipped, struggling with the wheel. His voice seemed very far away. Her ears rang from the gunshots.
“Wait...” The man’s phone slipped into her hand. “Done!”
James jammed their car into the SUV, sending it across the shoulder and into a large cinderblock sound barrier. The man whipped out of her window and was wrapped up in the black car as it screeched along the wall, buckled and flipped onto its side.
She spun away from the carnage. “I have his phone.” The screen was open to the dialer, indicating a call had ended a minute ago. “It’s unlocked.” She closed that app, opened the settings and adjusted the sleep function so the phone would never time out.
The phone nearly flew out of her hand when James swerved hard to the next exit. He drove across the shoulder, kicking up debris that rattled against the car, and bumped over a curb on the way to the city streets.
Raker and Art were close behind. At the first intersection, James veered left and the other Automatik operators headed right. She checked the sky and saw the helicopter track with Raker and Art. “The helicopter’s following them.”
“Helo on you.” James swerved through another intersection. “That car sterile?” Three blocks away from the freeway, he slowed to fit in with the traffic around them. “Roger that. Good luck.” He told her, “They had to bail out of the car. They’re on foot, and we have no backup until they secure another car.”
“Are we good?” The car had several bullet holes in it and the engine complained, even at the slower speeds.
“We’ll switch this out when we can.” He headed north on city streets, running parallel to the freeway. Cold rage tightened his face. “And I need a bigger gun.”
The exit where Hathaway had ducked off the freeway was only a mile behind the one they’d used. He could come down on them any second. She searched the streets for the SUV. “He’s still hunting.”
“He’s scrambling.” James finally put his pistol back in the holster. He shrugged his shoulders high, then released them with a breath. “He’s down a team and took a big risk with a public assault. He’ll ditch the car and go underground.”
“Back to the hackers.” She tried his relaxation technique, but it barely dialed down the churning adrenaline in her. High-pitched ringing still pierced her ears. Her pulse raced. Focus. Control, she commanded herself. No use. A task might help. She flipped through the emails on the phone, but it was filled with innocuous communications.
“Most likely.” He punched the steering wheel. “Fuck!”
Her alert peaked and her muscles tensed, though she couldn’t see the next threat. “What?”
“A bloody waste.” He grunted in frustration. “All we bought was another delay. And that bastard motherfucker got another shot at you.”
“We got this.” She held up the phone.
“You did good to get it, but there won’t be anything on there. Hathaway’s men are too experienced.” The cords of his neck flexed and his jaw set like iron. “I know.”
She dug deeper into the emails. “The man was from Akron, Ohio. Not very communicative.” A minor victory bloomed. “But he does have some bank notifications of electronic payments.”
James got back on track with the mission. “We’ll send those amounts and account numbers to Automatik. They should be able to track them down.”
“That’ll take too long. The hackers know how close we are.” She looked over the other apps, probing for where the man might’ve slipped up. “They could be packing up right now.” His web search history revealed a list of recent activity, mostly sports scores. “I’ve got them.” She was nearly giddy. “I got them.”
James matched her excitement, showing his teeth in carnivorous anticipation. “Give them to me.”
“Two days ago he searched for pizza restaurants in Quartz Hill, California.” She switched to the map app and found the city. “It’s north, on the other side of Los Angeles.”
He lit up. “You are the most brilliant and vicious hunting hummingbird.” He waved her toward him. “Give me a kiss.”
She leaned close and kissed his cheek while he drove. He gripped her leg with an appreciative squeeze. She kissed him again and took her seat, buzzing with the small victory and James’s enthusiasm.
He retrieved his phone. “We’re going to destroy them.” After dialing, he related to Automatik the information she’d found, then signed off with, “We’re closest and inbound after resupply.”
“It’s us?” Fear and a brutal thrill mixed in her.
“If you want it?” He glanced to her, checking.
When the hackers had first taken her site weeks ago, she’d felt helpless. Every avenue she’d tried to combat them had terminated in a dead end. The hopelessness had dragged her down. James changed that. She had an ally. A partner. And a hunger for the fight. “I want it.”
Chapter Nineteen
She didn’t know any of the cities they passed through. It felt like James had been driving for hours and they hadn’t even reached Los Angeles yet. She watched the sky for helicopters and scanned the streets for Hathaway. AM news radio recounted the shootout on the freeway over and over, but the details remained sketchy. Art and Raker’s car had been found, but no occupants. The second black SUV disappeared. Her and James’s car hadn’t been identified.
James navigated without directions away from large streets and into a family neighborhood. His demeanor pulled taut and ready. She prepared to meet efficient, capable special operators when he pulled up to a medium-sized two-story house on the middle of the block.
“Another Automatik soldier?” she asked, slipping the mercenary’s phone in her coat pocket and pulling the heavy fabric around her for protection.
James answered, barely audible. “My parents.”
* * *
Taking point on an assault of an enemy tunnel system cut into the side of a mountain had been easier than walking up the front steps of his parents’ house and punching the doorbell. At least then there’d been a plan with contingency escape routes. He had no idea what he was going to say to his parents. There were things he needed from the house, but would he lie? Again?
Footsteps approached on the other side of the door. April huddled close to James’s shoulder, incredulous. “Are you serious?”
His father’s voice called out, muffled. “One moment. Dheeraj. One moment.”
“Very serious.” He brushed his hand over his hair and straightened his jacket.
The door opened and there stood his father, Sunil. The man goggled, surprised at his son, then brightened with a smile. “James!” He stepped onto the front porch and embraced his son. James hugged him back. His fifty-plus-year-old father’s muscles were still ropy under his T-shirt.
Sunil stepped away from James and turned his attention to April. “And we haven’t met.”
“April Banks.” She hesitated, uncertain, then extended her hand.
His father gave it a welcoming shake and waved them both inside. “Your mother is with her friends today, but I can call her to get her here.” He closed the front door and angled toward a phone on a small table by the sofa in the living room. A TV opposite it showed local news helicopter shots of the aftermath of the freeway action. “She’d hate to miss a visit.”
James intercepted him. “We won’t be long, Papa.”
Sunil’s smile flickered. He looked at his son with a more critical eye. “Is everything alright?” His questioning gaze jumped to April.
James’s gut tightened. What could he say? “There’s trouble.”
Sunil stepped closer with concern. “What is it?”
The news report continued on the television, braying and sensational. James tipped his head toward the TV. Sunil’s eyes stretched wide.
“That’s you?” His father moved away from him. Anger then flared in his
face and he extended a long finger to James’s chest. “Are you a criminal?”
“No, Papa.” James was suddenly sixteen again and trying to explain what he’d been doing out so late with all his friends.
Sunil wasn’t convinced. He kept his finger on James and addressed April. “Are you alright? Did he take you?”
“Not at all.” She was emphatic. “He’s helping me.”
Sunil’s skeptical eyes narrowed. “You’re both criminals.”
James gave his father credit for being brave and confrontational, if not completely frustrating. It was obvious that James was bigger and stronger than him—it had been that way since he’d hit his teen years—but Sunil didn’t back down. James put his hand on his father’s and lowered it from his chest. “We’re not criminals.”
Sunil made use of the finger to point at the TV. “Gunshots? On the freeway?”
“They were shooting at us.” James still burned to make Hathaway pay for that.
“What did you do to make them shoot at you?” Sunil crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
James threw up his hands in frustration and stalked toward the kitchen. His father followed, April close behind. She displayed more patience than James could muster. “Mr. Sant, we’re not doing anything wrong.”
“I’ve heard that from James before,” Sunil barked, disappointed.
“When I was a kid.” James entered the kitchen and was surrounded by the aromas of his mother’s cooking. Warm spices and sharp onion. The stove was clean, but he was sure a meal was packaged into tidy containers in the refrigerator. “What about when I was in the SAS, Papa? Did you trust me then? Or when I helped you emigrate and buy this house?” He tugged open the junk drawer and pulled out the heaviest hammer he could find.
Sunil stepped back, hands raised defensively.
James cornered his father, keeping the hammer at his side. “I’m not a criminal. I’m the good guy.”
“It’s true.” April stood as a buffer between them. “It’s true, Mr. Sant.” To hear her avow it made the truth sink in. Like she’d picked the lock to a chain hanging around his neck. He was making right what he’d done wrong.
