“I’m thrilled for you. Anything else?”
“Nope. That’s it. Sorry, there’s not anything useful. Like I said, I’m not…”
“Actually, that’ll do just fine,” Storm said. “Get the tennis bag up here and hand me your racket.”
Cracker fished out a Head YouTek IG Speed MP. It was made of carbon fiber–reinforced polymer. There were two more identical to it in the bag.
“That’s the racket Novak Djokovic uses,” Cracker said enthusiastically.
“I’m sure he’d be very proud,” Storm replied, rolling down the window and allowing air to rush into the car.
Storm looked at the Lincoln in his rearview mirror, still keeping pace a few cars behind him, weaving in and out of traffic like he was. Storm maneuvered until he had a length of open pavement behind him and drifted into the right breakdown lane.
Then he jammed the brakes, pulled the wheel hard left, and executed a perfect one-eighty into the left breakdown lane—directly into the oncoming traffic.
A chorus of car horns blared at Storm, as did a small army of one-fingered Jersey salutes, but Storm ignored them and focused on what he was about to attempt.
A little known fact about Derrick Storm—one he seldom bothered to share, because it seldom seemed relevant—was that he was ambidextrous. He could throw with his left arm and his right. The right tended to be more powerful. But the left was, for whatever reason, more accurate. He was relying on that as he got the Jaguar straightened out and pounded the gas pedal.
Gripping the racket, he put his left arm out the window. He waited until the onrushing Lincoln was nearly on them, then hurled the racket, boomerang-style, at the gunman.
At the moment Storm released his improvised projectile, the Jaguar had gone from a dead stop to perhaps twenty miles an hour. The Lincoln was only just starting to slow in response to Storm’s move and was still traveling fifty. Counting the fifty miles an hour Storm was able to generate throwing from a seated position, the racket was coming at the gunman at an effective speed of a hundred and twenty miles an hour.
It struck him square in the forehead, knocking him unconscious and sending him careening backward, out of the flatbed and under the tires of an eighteen-wheeler. The truck didn’t have a chance to react before flattening the unexpected pedestrian.
“I guess that’s one down,” Cracker said.
“More like fifteen-love,” Storm said.
As they sped past the still-confused occupants of the pickup, Storm spied a break in the concrete Jersey barriers that separated the northbound and southbound sides of the Turnpike. It was an official-use-only U-turn, and Storm decided to officially use it. It seemed prudent to join the travel lanes of the direction he was currently pointed. He allowed himself to creep through the gap, then exhorted the Jag’s V12 forward, quickly joining the northbound left lane.
He knew better than to think that simple move would lose Volkov’s pickup. Sure enough, as Storm looked back, it was in the midst of pulling its own U-turn. It was not as adroit as the Jaguar, and Storm watched it clip the front bumper of a Chevy Cavalier then slam into the Jersey barrier, gouging its side panel but then speeding forward through the same U-turn that Storm had used.
The Jaguar had gained some ground, but the northbound lanes were not flowing any more smoothly than the southbound lanes had been. The pickup was four cars back, matching the Jaguar’s passes car for car. But at least, Storm thought, they weren’t being shot at anymore.
Then gunshots rang out again. Storm guessed, from the sound of them, it was either a .38 or a .357. Enough to shred a tire, for sure. Some cars were swerving out of the Lincoln’s way into the breakdown lane. Others honked. Others seemed oblivious—a man in the car next to the Jaguar was talking on his cell phone as if he was out for a Sunday drive.
Storm looked in his rearview window and saw a man with half his body leaned out the truck’s passenger-side window. It wasn’t Volkov. He must have been driving.
So it turned out getting rid of the gunman in the back of the truck had only improved their circumstances marginally. A shooter who had to lean out a car and use a handgun would be more errant than one planted on his feet using a rifle. So the probability of being hit by any one bullet had lowered. But each bullet still carried with it that possibility.
“Okay, I want you to listen to me very carefully, and follow each one of my instructions exactly,” Storm said. “And I don’t have time for you to question me. Can you do that?”
“I… yes, I… Yes.”
“Very good. Okay, first step. Take the Swiss Army Knife off the key chain.”
“What? We’re going to challenge them to a knife fight?”
“What did I just say about questions?”
“Sorry,” Cracker said, and worked the knife away off the key chain as Storm deftly picked his way through traffic.
“Now I felt some shirts in your tennis bag. Are those made of some kind of blended fabric? Something that wicks away moisture?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Cut one of them into six long strips.”
“Okay,” Cracker said and went to work with the knife on the shirts. Storm heard the ripping of fabric. More bullets were coming from the Lincoln. One shattered the right side-view mirror, evoking a yelp from Cracker. But, to his credit, he kept at his work.
“What next?” he said when he was through.
“Take those Poland Spring bottles and empty them.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care. On the floor.”
Cracker did as he was told. “Now?”
“Pour the Macallan in equal portions into all six bottles. And try not to spill any. We need those bottles as full as possible.”
Cracker apportioned the Scotch equally, filling each of the bottles roughly a third of the way. “Okay. Next?”
“Stuff those shirt strips in the bottles. Get as much of the fabric into the booze as you can, but leave some of the shirt sticking out the top.”
“Uh-huh,” Cracker said and applied himself to his task. He was apparently struggling with it: “The mouths of these bottles aren’t very big. I’m having a tough time getting them in there. Should I cut narrower strips?”
“No. We actually need a nice tight fit. Tight enough that it won’t spill if held upside down.”
“All right.”
Cracker worked diligently for two minutes, during which time Storm managed to keep the Jaguar shielded from gunfire.
“Done,” Cracker said.
“Great. Leave the bottles upright so that they lean against the back of the seat,” Storm said, then jerked his thumb toward the rear of the car. “Then go back there and unbuckle your daughter’s car seat.”
“Uh, all right.”
Storm allowed himself to feel optimistic for a moment. He was confident he would soon be rid of the Lincoln.
But the moment didn’t last. The Turnpike bent to the left, and Storm needed to make a decision: Going into the left breakdown lane would allow him to pass several more cars and reach an opening that would give him the opportunity to put some significant space between him and the Lincoln; but doing so would also give the shooter a more direct line of fire to the Jaguar’s tires for a few seconds.
Storm decided to risk it. He gunned the engine and burst into the left breakdown lane.
It turned out to be the wrong decision. The moment his tires were exposed, a burst of fire came from the pickup.
And the left rear tire exploded.
The Jaguar skidded and swerved to the left, scraping concrete. Storm fought the steering wheel to keep them from losing control altogether, engaging his triceps and biceps in the battle. There were still pieces of tire clinging stubbornly onto the rim, but they were little help. It was all he could do to wedge the Jaguar back into the left lane.
“What’s going on?” Cracker called out from the backseat.
“We lost a tire,” Storm said. “It’s not your problem. Just concentrate on w
hat you’re doing.”
“Okay. I’ve got it loose.”
Storm was thankful the Jaguar was front wheel drive. The car hadn’t lost its power. Just its handling.
It made threading his way through and around the slower traffic an impossibility. Merely keeping the car in its lane had become a struggle. Storm was now limited to moving at the speed of the other traffic.
The Lincoln had taken advantage of this disability and had closed to within two cars. It would soon be directly behind them, or next to them, or wherever Volkov wanted it to be.
“Hand the seat up to me,” Storm said.
The car seat was a dense, unwieldy hunk of padding, composite plastic, and metal. It weighed in at roughly thirty pounds, and was bottom heavy, since that’s where the metal parts that anchored it to the car lived. Cracker struggled to get it through the narrow opening between the two front seats and into Storm’s lap.
“Terrific. While you’re back there, get that cigar case. There’s a lighter in there, yes?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s actually more like a small blowtorch.”
“Perfect. Put it behind my back in this seat. I’m going to need to grab it quickly when I turn around.”
As Cracker completed that task, Storm rolled down his window and punched on the cruise control at fifty. A small gap opened up ahead of him, but that was fine: He wouldn’t have to worry about ramming the car ahead of him while he attempted the stunt he had been planning.
There was now only one car—a green Toyota—between the Jaguar and the Lincoln.
“I’m going to need you to come up here and grab the steering wheel,” Storm said. “Keep us straight as best you can. It’s going to battle you and try to tug you to the left. But if you get to the side of the wheel, left becomes up and right becomes down. You can use gravity to keep it down. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yeah, got it.”
Cracker got himself in position, then put both hands on the wheel. The Lincoln pulled into the left breakdown lane to pass the one car that had separated it from the Jaguar. It was the move Storm had been waiting for.
“I’m letting go now,” he said.
The wheel tugged left, but Cracker had all the leverage he needed to hold it in place. Storm grabbed the car seat, twisted his body so he was facing backward, then perched himself on the side of the door, so that both the seat and his torso were outside of the Jaguar.
With both hands, he heaved the car seat at the windshield of the Lincoln, putting as much strength as he could muster into the throw.
It hit the windshield dead center, creating a huge crater. The Lincoln swerved violently, rocking on its suspension, and Storm briefly hoped it might spin out. Instead, it righted itself by side-swiping the green Toyota, which sparked a chain-reaction accident behind it—but did not, unfortunately, slow the Lincoln.
Storm focused on the pickup truck, assessing the damage he had caused. The force of those thirty pounds hurtling backward had not broken the entire windshield, as Storm had hoped—the shatterproof glass did its job and held—but it did punch a car seat–sized hole in the middle. That would have to do.
Storm retreated back into the Jaguar, which was being held steady—or at least somewhat steady—by a very determined Whitely Cracker. Storm seized the cigar lighter and the first Poland Spring bottle and lit the piece of shirt sticking out the top. He hoped Volkov appreciated this tribute to Vyacheslav Molotov, the Russian foreign minister who introduced the world to the crude, homemade bomb that still bore his name.
Storm waited until he was sure the wick was lit, then leaned back out of the car and tossed his creation toward the hole in the Lincoln’s windshield.
Unfortunately for him, because he was on the left side of the car and facing backward, he was using his less-accurate right arm. He missed. The bottle bounced harmlessly off the top of the Lincoln’s cab and did not ignite until it hit the pavement, well behind the pickup.
There was no more gunfire coming from the Lincoln. Perhaps the car seat had injured or killed the passenger as it hurtled through the pickup. Or maybe he was just reloading.
Storm lit the next wick, then tossed. It missed wide right. Attempt number three splattered into the grille plate and burst into a fireball, but it was like hitting a charging rhino with a BB gun. The Lincoln was not affected.
Attempt number four hit the windshield in front of the driver but bounced the wrong way and, more to the point, did not go off until it struck blacktop.
Storm had two more chances. Worse, there was once again sniping coming from the Lincoln. The shooter was leaning out his window and squeezing off rounds in steady succession. The first six missed. The seventh struck the Jaguar’s right rear tire just as Storm got the next shirt lit.
Storm was thankful he was inside the car when it happened. The wild lurching of the Jaguar might have thrown him had he been trying to hang on outside.
As it was, he was tossed against the side of the vehicle, taking a chunk out of his forehead. It was not a serious wound, but it was a bleeder. Storm cursed as blood poured into his eyes.
“Oh my God, are you hit?” Cracker said.
“Just drive,” Storm growled.
The Jaguar was now on its rims on both sides in back, pouring a steady stream of sparks behind it. The engine was working double to maintain the speed requested of it by the cruise control, its twelve cylinders firing furiously.
Storm looked down at the second-to-last Molotov.
“Come on, Derrick,” he urged. “Let’s do this.”
He twisted himself out of the car, exposing more of himself so he could get his left arm free. He focused on the hole in the wind-shield, except it wasn’t a windshield anymore. It was a catcher’s glove. And he wasn’t a grown man anymore. He was a twelve-year-old pitcher, in his backyard, standing on the makeshift pitchers’ mound his father had created for him.
“Keep your eyes on the mitt,” his father always told him when he was struggling with his control. “Don’t aim. Just throw.”
The old man had kept him on target in so many aspects of his life.
This would just have to be one more.
He whipped his left arm, following through as best he could with the throw.
The bottle traced a straight line toward the pickup truck, spiraling gently as it sailed in the air. Throwing a two-inch-diameter bottle through a hole no more than two feet wide from out the window of a fishtailing car traveling at fifty miles an hour was, Storm knew, a nearly impossible task.
But impossible is what Derrick Storm did for a living.
The bottle passed through the hole. The interior of the pickup’s cab was suddenly engulfed in flame.
The Lincoln veered suddenly to the right, clipping a car in the right lane then going into a spin. Midway through the spin, it lost its grip on the pavement and rolled.
It rolled once, tossing the erstwhile gunman from out his open window into a stream of oncoming traffic.
It rolled twice, caving in the roof of the cab.
It was when it rolled a third time that the combination of several factors involved—the growing conflagration inside the cab, the rupturing of the gas tank, the twisting of metal—came together to create an enormous explosion.
Storm did not bother to watch the rest. He settled back in the Jaguar, grabbed control of the steering wheel, and went back to the battle of keeping them on the road.
“Is that… is that it?” Cracker asked, his face having lost all its color.
“One more thing,” Storm said. “Hand me the last bottle.”
Storm braced the wheel with his leg as Cracker gave him the bottle. Storm yanked out the cloth, tilted it back, and let the Macallan slide down his throat.
CHAPTER 31
HACKENSACK, New Jersey
They came to a stop at a combination gas station/used car lot just off the Turnpike, a seedy place that had seen everything—except a bullet-riddled Jaguar XJL limping into the parking lot on its ri
ms.
“I’m still confused about one thing,” Cracker said as they climbed out. “How did he find us? I mean, you told me all those bugs were CIA… so it’s not like he could listen to us in my car.”
Storm thought it over as he pried open the trunk of the wasted Jaguar. He retrieved the Dirty Harry gun, putting it back in his shoulder holster. Its weight felt good. He checked the revolver. It was full.
“When you were with Volkov this morning, did he touch you at some point? Bump into you? Hug you? Grab you?”
Cracker thought it over. “No, I mean we shook hands, but… The only other time we had contact is when he asked to borrow my phone. But I don’t think we…”
“Let me see your phone,” Storm interrupted.
He turned the phone over and located a small piece of black tape that blended nicely with the back of the phone. Storm peeled away the tape to reveal a tiny microchip.
“He put a tracking device on it,” Storm said, showing Cracker the chip. “He collected his men and waited until we stayed put for a while. Then he moved in. I’m sure we gave him pause when he realized we were at an FBI office. But he knew time was on his side.”
Storm tossed the tape and microchip into a nearby Dumpster and was about to hand Cracker his phone when it rang.
Storm took a glance at the screen. The caller appeared as “GREGOR VOLKOV.”
Storm stared at it. “Don’t you ever die?” he asked, rhetorically. How could it be that Volkov had survived that accident, unless… Of course. He hadn’t been in the Lincoln. Storm realized he had never actually laid eyes on the man driving. Whoever it was, it hadn’t been Gregor Volkov.
It rang again. Storm answered the call with “What do you want?”
“Derrick Storm?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe it, it is Derrick Storm!” Volkov boomed in Russian-tinted English. “How delightful to hear your voice. I was very surprised to see you in Manhattan this morning. I had been under the impression you were dead. It was a very pleasant impression.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual.”
Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller Page 25
