Ascendant- a Mira Raiden Adventure

by Sean Ellis

  The Volvo had initially led the pursuit, weaving in and out of light traffic more effectively than the bulky Suburban. But upon reaching a main street—Avenida del Libertador—it had become entangled in the traffic jam, barely able to merge with the stagnate flow, to say nothing of closing the gap. Where the Volvo’s finesse failed to accomplish the task, however, the cumbersome Suburban was the perfect tool for creating an opening.

  Linked to his counterpart by hands-free cellular phone, the driver of the Chevrolet hastily explained his strategy. After only a moment of consideration, the driver of the Volvo, one of the upper-echelon soldiers of an organization descended from the refugees of the fallen Axis powers, quickly assented.

  Rather than force his way into the snarled traffic, the Suburban veered away from the idling cars and angled toward the street’s edge, where a string of unattended automobiles were parked. The driver geared down, reining in the engine’s considerable horsepower, then moved slowly, steadily forward into the narrow gap between parked and idling vehicles. The space between was only about three feet, less than half of the Chevy’s width. All that changed a heartbeat later when the Suburban plowed forward.

  The shriek of metal on metal was audible more than two blocks away. The reinforced steel bumper guards, driven by a 300-horsepower, 6.0-liter V-8 engine, rammed into the cars like a tank, thrusting them negligently aside. The steel cage around the headlights and grill took the brunt of the collision, leaving the Suburban unscathed. Immediately, a dissonant outcry of automobile horns, peppered with screamed obscenities from outraged drivers, added to the symphony of chaos.

  The Suburban’s assault was relentless. It pushed cars out of its way in either direction, creating a ripple effect of secondary collisions. A wave of panic soon overtook those in its path of destruction, with startled drivers struggling in vain to get out of the way of the approaching juggernaut.

  Mira eased back on the throttle, risking a glance over her shoulder. The motorcycle was more versatile on the choked streets, but she doubted it could provide escape from an enemy that did not hesitate to wreak total havoc in their efforts to capture or kill her. Moreover, she was playing on their field, and she didn’t doubt her enemies were already summoning additional firepower to intercept her. On the plus side of the equation, DiLorenzo seemed more at ease on his precarious perch, anticipating her movements and minimizing his tendency to overreact.

  A major intersection loomed ahead. The sign hanging from a traffic signal indicating that Avenida Sarmiento lay down the left-hand path. Red-lining the tachometer in a sudden burst of speed, she shot ahead of the cars entering the junction and cut across their path. DiLorenzo’s hold around her waist barely tightened.

  Avenida Sarmiento traveled northeast through the park that contained the city’s zoo and botanical gardens, then hooked due east, where the horizon was broken by the jagged outlines of industrial loading cranes. To their left lay the open space of the Municipal Airport, but Mira did not alter her course. Instead, she raced at full bore toward Puerto Nuevo, the four-mile-long strip of port facilities on the Rio de la Plata.

  The river was actually more of a large bay at the terminus of several major waterways, flowing from the interior of South America and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. During the era of Spanish conquest, the Rio de la Plata had seen cargoes of silver and gold loaded aboard large galleons for transport back to the Old World. The name “Argentina” was in fact derived from the word “argent,” an adjective often associated with silver. Though very little of the earth’s precious metal remained to be harvested, the port continued to be a focal point of Argentine wealth, with an almost unrivaled volume of beef cattle and cereal exports to global markets. However, Mira’s interest in the docks that lay ahead had little to do with the state of Argentina’s economy.

  A sudden eruption of noise in their wake signaled that one or both of the pursuing vehicles had reached the intersection and turned after them. Her lead was not nearly great enough to run the gauntlet on the crowded riverfront, but alternatives were in short supply. Leaning forward to reduce wind drag, she twisted the throttle handle wide open, merging onto the Avenida Obligado Rafael, which paralleled the waterfront. This time she surprised her passenger, and the suddenness of his grip all but drove the breath from her lungs.

  Though the street ahead was broad and fairly open, Mira immediately recognized that this would work to their disadvantage. Overburdened, the motorcycle was no match for the Volvo. They could not outrun the pursuit. She was going to have to outfox them.

  With almost mechanical efficiency, she began gearing down, letting the torque of the engine carry the burden of braking. The Harley lurched as second gear engaged, at which point she squeezed the hand brake and turned sharply to the left. The Harley crossed the avenida and speared toward a side street that ran between two large warehouses, appearing to end at an open wooden dock. A few moments later, the front tire hit the boardwalk, generating a violent tremor that quickly traveled into the handgrips and up her forearms, setting her teeth rattling.

  The smell of the riverfront, a mélange of things organic and artificial—the aroma of live cattle and the scent of offal from meat-packing houses, the unique tang of algae from the river, diesel and grease from the industrial complex—assaulted her senses at a visceral level, but barely registered in her battle-heightened brain. A hundred yards onto the boardwalk, they passed the end of the warehouses, and Mira steered right, turning parallel to the river. All too soon, they heard the rattling sound of the Volvo’s tires hitting the planks, and Mira knew that their lead was almost gone. She brought the Harley to a skidding halt, leaving a swipe of rubber on the weathered boardwalk.

  She turned her head sideways, her cheek almost touching DiLorenzo’s chin. “Get off!”

  She felt his hold loosen automatically, but he stopped short of letting go. “Why?”

  “There’s no way we can get away if we stay together,” she shouted over the noisy Harley engine.

  DiLorenzo nodded, unclenching his knotted fingers and sliding back over the rear fender. “Gotcha. Split up and lose ’em. Where should we meet up?”

  “We don’t. Go home to New York, and watch your back.”

  She saw the protest instantly register in his countenance, but silenced his denial by revving the throttle and letting the clutch slip. The Harley, almost two hundred pounds lighter, burst forward in second gear. From the corner of her eye, she watched in the side mirror as DiLorenzo shrank to a mere spot in the distance. The decision stung her as much as it did him, but she took consolation from the fact that she had probably just saved his life.

  She wished she could be more confident about her own fate.

  The clopping sound of the Volvo’s tires quickly replaced the noise of the motorcycle, and the detective’s instinct to survive overpowered his disappointment at being abandoned. He dashed toward the warehouse and ducked behind a stack of wooden crates as the front end of the sedan rounded the corner.

  The Volvo passed by his hiding place without slowing. In fact, the driver put on a burst of speed once clear of the narrow alley. Dock workers, still recovering from Mira’s sudden appearance, scattered as the black sedan charged into their midst, some fleeing into the warehouse while others were forced to choose between a three-story plunge to water below or going under the Volvo’s all-season radial tires. Their panic was compounded when the passenger side window lowered and a masked man with wielding a machine pistol leaned out and fired short bursts at the retreating motorcycle.

  As quickly as the wave of panic had risen, it subsided, the laborers venturing back onto the dock to gaze after the speeding car in wonderment. Though many of them had watched DiLorenzo’s concealment with quizzical glances, he now seemed to have been forgotten. Worming his way deeper into the maze of shipping crates, the detective was thankful for that small blessing.

  Three hundred yards away, Mira ducked her head as a near miss from the shooter in the sedan showered her face wi
th splinters. Without DiLorenzo’s added mass, the Harley Davidson was more responsive—feeling more like a natural extension of her mind and body—but the damage was already done. She had wandered into a place where speed and maneuverability would only count for so much, a maze that might not have a way out, except through her opponents. Praying that her luck would change, she drove deeper into the tangle.

  Removed as he was from the immediate struggle, DiLorenzo’s ego, like any other part of the body that suffers a trauma, began to smart. Though he could not fault the logic of her decision, he was irritated at the implicit lack of faith in his abilities. Between the two of them, there was surely enough firepower to make a stand, but Mira obviously didn’t trust him, and did not yet think of him as an equal in their venture.

  He knew that he was being unreasonable; she had not asked for his help and had every right to disdain his company. Nevertheless, he was invested in the struggle against Montero and his allies, if for no other reason than to avenge his partner’s murder. Surely that was something she could understand.

  Who’re you trying to kid? accused his conscience.

  The thumping noise of car tires on the boardwalk grew again, reminding the detective that there had been two vehicles pursuing them. He wrestled the silenced .22 from his belt, inspecting the weapon for the first time. Though the design seemed familiar, a stubby, angled grip hung beneath a half-slide and fixed barrel, the name of the manufacturer, embossed on the slide was one he had never encountered: TALA (Talleres Armas Livianas Argentinas). A locally manufactured gun, it resembled the weapons often used by the bad guys in spy movies; the suppressor, nearly doubling its length, completed the picture. If he’d had the time and the tools, he would have attempted removing the silencer. The additional length and weight would doubtless skew his already questionable ability with semi-automatic firearms—he preferred the less visually appealing Colt .38 Cobra—but the set screw that secured the cylindrical sleeve around the barrel would not yield to the efforts of his fingers to loosen it. Thumbing the safety off, he eased out his hiding place.

  The silver Suburban rolled slowly down the dock, the occupants scanning the path ahead. They appeared to be searching the boardwalk and the open warehouses, and DiLorenzo realized with a start that they were looking for him. Likely, the driver of the Volvo had called his counterparts in the Chevrolet, informing them that Mira had dumped her passenger. Though he was well concealed, he caught himself holding his breath as the Suburban rolled by.

  The multi-use vehicle passed him without slowing, continuing past a small mountain of shipping crates and out of his view. Hesitantly, he moved in the direction of the crates, edging toward the open dock. He peered around the corner, glimpsing the rear end of the Suburban, still creeping forward.

  The immediate threat had passed, and he was safe for the moment. All he had to do was lie low and wait for a chance to hail a cab, or for that matter, simply hike the short distance to the airport, where he could change his flight reservations for a nominal surcharge and return to the relative safety of New York City. He knew that was exactly what he should do. It was the smart thing to do.

  But it wasn’t what Mira Raiden would do.

  With an almost manic gleam in his eye, he started forward. He made a quick dash toward a double stack of waxed cardboard shipping boxes, his dark hair easily visible above the topmost container if anyone in the Suburban happened to look in that direction. They did not. From there, he sprinted another fifteen yards, reaching the rear bumper of the vehicle, and jogged along behind it, too close to be seen by either the driver or his companion. The passenger had his head and shoulders through the window frame, gazing back and forth in search of their quarry. DiLorenzo remained in the blind spot until the man’s gaze roved forward, then he made his move.

  He ran forward, seizing hold of a conveniently provided handle beside the door, and hopped onto the running board. At the last second, the man in the passenger seat saw his approach, but it was too late. DiLorenzo roughly thrust the silencer end of the pistol against the man’s ear, his finger ready on the trigger.

  “Stop the car,” he shouted, then hoping he remembered the correct Spanish word, added: “¡Alto!”

  The driver’s eyes grew wide in the narrow slit of his mask. DiLorenzo, anticipating that the man would try to slam on the brakes in order to dislodge him, flexed his knees while tightly gripping the handle. As if on cue, the driver stomped the pedal, throwing both himself and his passenger forward against the dashboard. DiLorenzo felt the strain in his biceps as the momentum yanked his arm straight, but he held on, the muzzle of the pistol never losing contact with the man in the passenger seat.

  In that moment, in spite of his disadvantaged position, the passenger, perhaps believing that DiLorenzo would falter, turned and made a grab for the gun. The New York detective then did something that he never would have believed himself capable of. In a moment of pure, uncontrolled reflex, he squeezed the trigger.

  The .22 round punched into the skull of the masked passenger, killing him instantly. The force of the gases expelled from the muzzle blew tissue and fluid from every orifice, showering the windshield with gore.

  Instinctively, the driver let go of the wheel and hurled himself across the interior of the vehicle toward DiLorenzo. The Suburban, still idling and in gear, began rolling forward as soon as his foot left the brake pedal, veered off on a tangent when the man’s hip struck the steering wheel. The automatic clutch did not accelerate the vehicle, but the gentle force it transmitted to the wheels was enough to nudge it toward the edge of the dock.

  Though killing a man in such a gruesome fashion had rattled the detective, he still held the gun tightly, and was ready to use it again. But his new opponent somehow wormed under him, thrusting his gun hand up. His finger again tightened on the trigger, releasing several rounds, with a noise that was no louder than a cough, into the upholstered headliner. Abandoning the idea of shooting the man, DiLorenzo instead threw himself back, wrestling the weapon free.

  Barely keeping his hold on the Suburban, he again pulled himself back toward the door. Inside, the driver was fumbling with his own gun, an MP5K-PDW. DiLorenzo did not even bother trying to shoot him, but instead brought the TALA .22 down like a club on the side of the driver’s masked head. As his second foe slumped unconscious between the seats, DiLorenzo realized the vehicle was rushing toward the edge of the boardwalk.

  The Harley Davidson was barely moving now, crawling along only slightly faster than a normal person’s walking pace. Mira clenched her teeth in frustration as she rounded a corner in the warehouse maze and found yet another dead end. She almost cursed aloud at her own stupidity.

  Like a chess player realizing that a checkmate was inevitable she could only look back on the opening moves and berate herself for having followed her heart instead of her head. Seconds wasted waiting for DiLorenzo to flee the hotel . . . the escape hampered by the added load on the old Harley’s engine . . .

  This was why she preferred to work alone.

  Wheeling the Harley around, she faced back the way she had come. A long corridor of large wooden bins, stacked three high, stretched to the front of the warehouse. As she started to roll forward, the nose of the black sedan crept into view at the opposite end, slowly turning until it was face to face with her. The wide-bodied Volvo moved into the channel, barely clearing the irregular wooden walls on either side. Mira doubted that the sedan’s doors could be opened enough for the occupants to exit the car.

  She squeezed the clutch lever, watching the Volvo make its approach, and weighed her options. She could not go around. She could shoot, but in an escalating gun battle, she would surely lose. She had no cover, while her opponents could duck behind the dashboard, waiting for her to run out of ammunition. As if to jump-start her mental process, she unconsciously revved the throttle, which caused the glass-pack muffler to roar like a challenge. With a grim smile, she realized what she had to do.

  Before the rumble of
the engine subsided, Mira dumped the clutch and the motorcycle shot forward. The sudden burst of speed lightened the front wheel and Mira pulled back on the grips, crossing the distance to the car with the front tire raised like a battering ram. The driver of the Volvo barely had time to apply his brakes before the front tire of the Harley smashed down on the Volvo’s hood, crumpling the metal and demolishing the immaculate paint job. The undercarriage of the Harley grated against the grill and snapped the fiberglass grid as the rear wheel climbed up the bumper of the car and shot Mira forward again.

  The windshield of the Volvo miraculously bore the weight of the vintage motorcycle, but as soon as the front tire settled onto the roof of the car the glass fractured into a spider web pattern, radiating from the center where the sedan’s roof had folded in half like a taco shell. The Volvo was engineered with a reinforced steel cage to withstand the worst imaginable crashes, but it had not been built to survive bisection by a motorcycle. Nonetheless, the upright posts held, bending only slightly as the weight of the bike rolled down the length of the car.

  Mira leaned back as the leading tire dipped suddenly, crashed past the shattered remains of the rear window, and slammed against the boot cover. Another jarring drop put her on the floor, the demolished remains of the Volvo behind her. She opened up the throttle, knowing that the men inside the car might still be able to shoot, and that her only refuge lay in getting out of the deadly canyon of crates.

  No shots were fired, but the fifty yards remaining to be crossed seemed like a killing zone where death might descend at any instant. One by one, the uneven planks rolled beneath her tires, speeding her closer to salvation. She was so intent on escaping the killers behind her that she barely sensed anything when a masked figure moved from behind the end stack. She did not even have time to raise a hand in defense.