by Amy Lane
Burton called him just as he saw a shambling converted school bus, painted badly in rainbow colors that were never meant for the side of an automobile. As Ellery roared past it in the Tank and then spun around in a bit of driving worthy of the most hardened stunt man, Jackson read the words Johnson’s Independent Church of the Christian Republic on the side.
“Oh dear God,” he muttered over the phone. “You would not believe what we’re following down the road.”
“Ace and Jai stole one of those shuttles from an eldercare home to take its place,” Burton replied flatly. “They should be about a block behind you.”
“Wow,” Jackson muttered just as Ellery said, “Seriously?”
“Oh God, he’s not going to make it much further.” Jackson could see the wobble Burton had been talking about, and it looked like the tire was off center because the axle was cracked. And from the amount of smoke and the smell, the engine was about to catch fire.
“All right,” Jackson said. “I’ve got an idea. Have him hang a right at Ninth and then left directly onto Capitol Mall. Have him follow the roundabout and then turn left on Ninth again. There’s a park about a block down. We will be right on his tail. You got that?”
“Got it. I can spot all the things from here. Traffic is just waking up, but it’s not dire yet. I think he can make it.”
“Tell him,” Jackson ordered. “I’ve got—”
Something bounced off their passenger window, and Jackson looked up in surprise in time to see the bank of windows at the top of the school bus explode into pulverized glass.
“Oh fuck. We’re passing Seventh and someone was here to meet us,” Jackson told Burton. “There’s three SUVs full of Ziggy’s guys or Kovacs’s guys or who-the-fuck’s guys and they’re… oh.”
The SUV that had passed Jackson, and then the bus full of children on the wrong side of the road suddenly went screaming onto the sidewalk, hitting a light pole before rolling down the road and stopping upside down half on the walkway and half on the sidewalk.
“Dead,” Ellery said, voice blank. “Those guys are dead.”
“Guess it doesn’t matter who they’re working for,” Jackson muttered, wondering where the fuck Burton was. “Oh shit. Here comes another one for another pass.” They were coming up behind Ellery, heading for the inside lane next to the bus.
“I don’t have a clean shot!” Burton muttered. “If they keep firing into that bus, they’re going to hit someone. I don’t care if the kids are flat on the ground!”
“Ellery!” Jackson cried out, panicked. “We’ve got to—”
“Yeah, I know,” Ellery muttered. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I will never give you shit about wrecking another car again.”
And with that, Ellery gunned the motor of the Tank and made an abrupt right, standing on the brakes so the black SUV with the gunmen popping out of the driver’s side, getting ready to spray the school bus, would T-bone them right in the center.
Jackson got a good look at the whites of the driver’s shocked eyes right before they hit.
It Takes a Fish Bowl to Save a School of Fish
THE TANK came specially modified, including protective webbing and a triple-lock suicide seat belt. When Ellery and Jackson braced for impact, they were flipping the last two closures of the webbing before the SUV hit them broadside, sending him and Jackson rebounding sideways and back and exploding all the airbags.
All of the modified airbags that took most of the impact and made it bearable, that cushioned their fragile bodies just enough that Ellery’s head didn’t smash through the window and Jackson wasn’t thrown across the center console.
Turns out, there was a bag there too.
They sat for a moment, stunned, and then Jackson started issuing orders.
“Out of the car,” he muttered. “They’ve got airbags too, and—”
There was a series of short explosive sounds coming from Jackson’s side of the car, and the glass—bulletproof, yes, but not completely disaster proof—began to show fractures radiating out from the shots aimed at them by whoever was conscious in the SUV.
“Forget getting out,” Jackson barked. “Does this thing still run?”
“Hasn’t stopped yet,” Ellery mumbled, still dazed. “Isn’t the engine supposed to kill in a crash?”
“Thank Ace later,” Jackson cried. “Get out of this place now!”
“Fuck!” Ellery’s left wrist and forearm ached ferociously, enough to disable movement completely. He shifted the Tank to Reverse and lifted his right hand to the giant knob on the steering wheel that was probably illegal and spun it, giving the modified SUV enough gas to rip it off the grill of their attacker’s car.
“You steer, I’ll shift,” Jackson commanded, and Ellery stomped on the brakes, letting Jackson shift into Drive. “Go!”
And he shot forward, squinting through the cracks in the front windshield that blocked their vision.
“See the bus?” Jackson asked tersely, making muffled grunting sounds as he unhooked his seat belt and webbing so he could rummage on the floorboard at his feet. “Fuck!”
“I’m going right,” Ellery told him, spinning the wheel hard and pumping the brakes. The brakes barely responded, and the Tank screamed in pain—much like Ellery’s entire body, head, spine, arm, wrist, leg…. What in the fuck had he done to his left leg?
It was not his imagination. Jackson was whimpering, bracing against the dashboard with one hand while clutching at his phone.
“Are you okay?” Ellery asked, keeping the bus in sight. “Oh fuck! Did you see that?”
He couldn’t see where the car came from, but the third SUV full of Ziggy Ivanov’s men turned right from the outside lane, cutting off two lanes of traffic and diving after the bus. Ellery groaned and dove right, following the bus and the bad guys.
“Are you okay?” Jackson asked irritably. “We’re not okay. Catch them!” His phone started buzzing, and he looked at the face of the thing. “Well, shit.”
Ellery spared a glance at it and saw that it was cracked beyond all use, except for answering a call.
“How you guys doing after that?” Burton demanded over speaker.
“Peachy! Going skydiving next,” Jackson lied, his voice cracking a little.
“Fabulous. Okay, the cops caught up with the car that hit you. They’re taking down idiots with guns and attitudes as we speak.”
“The third SUV is right on Jason’s tail,” Jackson told him. “We’re doing our best, but this thing’s wobbling like a motherfucker, and something keeps screaming—”
“Brakes,” Ellery said shortly. “Feels like the axle’s bent.”
“Yeah. Big car no-go pretty soon. Where are you?”
“Passing on your left,” Burton said, and to Ellery’s surprise he heard a motorcycle buzzing past. Burton didn’t slow down or even wave, but the bike was scary impressive—streamlined, shiny, and the helmet obviously had some sort of state-of-the-art com link in it. No wonder they hadn’t been able to spot him. He could have been anywhere.
“Nice ride,” Jackson said sourly. “Do we have a plan?”
“I’m going to try to take out the driver,” Burton told him. “If you two can pull alongside him when I do?”
“He’s going to be shooting through a moving vehicle in our direction,” Ellery said, feeling the blood throb in his forehead. “How can this possibly go wrong?”
“School bus full of children,” Jackson reminded him tersely. “Besides, your windows are pretty intact.”
Ellery made a sound in the back of his throat like Snoopy getting a titty-twister. “Great. We’re solid. We can do this.”
“Was that a go from Ellery?” Burton asked over the phone. “Because they’re turning left onto the Mall. Can you see them?”
“We can see them,” Jackson ordered. “Stand on it, Counselor.”
It was like Ellery’s gas-pedal foot was a completely different creature than the rest of him, because it obeyed without question.
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To say the Tank shot forward was an overstatement, but the engine made growling, screeching noises, and they lurched ahead, taking the turn onto the Mall about two car lengths behind the SUV as Burton pulled up next to it.
They were in a perfect position to watch as he pulled out a gun with a silencer on the end and shot. And shot. And shot again.
Ellery practically stood on the accelerator, and they were just starting to draw even with the SUV as it leaned to the side, slowing as it did. Ellery drew up so he could look into the passenger window, and he and Jackson made the same noise.
The car had carried four men. The driver, the passenger, and the guy behind the passenger were all dead, neat holes in their foreheads, their brains splattering the armrests and windows around them.
The guy behind the driver was screaming, terrified, no gun in his hand at all, fumbling with the door lock with fingers clumsy from panic.
“Shit,” Jackson muttered. “Ellery can you roll down your window?”
Ellery made a sound like a hurt kitten, and Jackson shifted in his seat and gasped.
“Oh, baby—baby, don’t worry about it. Here.”
Oh God, Ellery couldn’t even look at his left arm. It hurt, it hurt it fucking hurt, but Jackson was bleeding from a cut on his head and cradling his own shoulder like it had taken a beating.
But that didn’t stop Jackson from scrambling between the two front seats to the back. He grunted a couple of times, probably from pain, and Ellery got a glimpse of blood running down from his backside, probably from ripped stitches.
But he made it, twisting with a yelp of pain and landing heavily on his bottom so he could roll down his window and stick his head out.
“Hey,” he hollered. “Hey!”
The guy in the back seat of the SUV turned to him with saucer-wide eyes. “Oh my God!”
“Dude, reach over the front seat and steer!”
The guy gaped. “What—”
“Steer, goddammit! Right now we’re the only thing keeping you from veering into oncoming traffic. Now steer. You’re slowing down. Steer until someone can get in and stop you!”
“But… but… the cops!”
The guy was weeping, and Ellery could almost hear Jackson rolling his eyes, even with the blast of wind coming in through the window.
“But… but… but… you should be dead!” Jackson mimicked. “Now steer this piece of shit to the side of the road and get out and deal with the cops.”
And to Ellery’s relief, he did, the buffeting against their own vehicle stopping as the back-seat passenger began to steer to the curb that guarded the grass inset of the Mall itself.
“Slow down and let him pull over,” Jackson told him. “Then go around the circle and catch up with Burton’s friend.”
Ellery’s vision was coming in firework sparklers, but he couldn’t imagine Jackson’s was any better. For a few blissful moments, he just drove, the car screaming in their ears because they wouldn’t scream themselves.
By the time they got around the Mall and pulled off alongside Stanford Park, their engine was starting to smell suspiciously like burning oil, and the steering wheel threatened to break his other wrist. He parked practically perpendicular to the giant school bus that was up against the curb and killed the engine before the car exploded.
“Fuck,” he said weakly, and he felt Jackson’s hand over the headrest, stroking his hair.
“It’s okay, baby,” Jackson murmured. “You did great. You stay here where it’s safe. I’m going to go check on our status and get you an ambulance.”
“You’ll ride with me?” Ellery begged, feeling stupid.
“Couldn’t stop me.” Jackson rubbed Ellery’s cheek. “You were a fucking hero. Man, that was some driving. Now stay put. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re hurt—”
“Yeah, but I was premedicated,” Jackson said, and Ellery could hear his smirk. “I was practically swimming in ibuprofen. When I come down from this high, they’ll see my footprints on the moon!”
Ellery laughed again, and Jackson reached into the center console, digging under the airbag and swearing for a moment. He came back with a water bottle and the ibuprofen, right where Ellery kept it, and Ellery heard him chuckle.
“You’re right, Ellery. It always pays to be prepared. Now, I’ll be right back.”
As Jackson shoved, swearing, against the warped door and then slammed it shut, Ellery could only be amused that he’d thought they’d need his legal expertise, not his driving prowess, when he left the house that morning.
One Last Dirty Stinking Crappie
JACKSON TALKED a good game to Ellery, but he could barely walk. His knee felt dislocated from the pressure on the door, and he knew he was bleeding from his stitches again. His head, neck, and back were on fire, he had blood dripping in his eyes, and he was pretty sure his wrist was sprained.
Ellery’s arm was definitely broken, though, and he’d managed to drive their bustedass vehicle through a high-speed chase. The least Jackson could do was make sure everybody was okay. That didn’t stop him from checking on his gun in his holster, almost groaning when he realized he’d have to reach for it with his bad wrist.
God, let there be people here in better shape than Jackson and Ellery.
Jackson limped around the front of the Infiniti, grimacing at the smell of cooking engine and burned rubber, and stepped up on the curb of the small park. There he found a stunningly handsome African American covert ops officer in bicycle leathers talking to a tallish, pale, dark-haired country boy and an almost seven-foot, bald Russian bear, who all looked like they’d spent the night rolling around in gunpowder.
“You wrecked that nice SUV Sonny made you,” Ace Atchison—the country boy—said as Jackson rounded the corner in front of the school bus.
“Sorry,” Jackson muttered. “Couldn’t be helped. There was this SUV full of bad guys….” He frowned and looked into the school bus. “Have you checked on the kids?”
“Constance is waiting for your friends from the DA’s office,” Burton said, his leathers so stiff and shiny they creaked as he shifted his feet. “He doesn’t want to get the kids out until it’s safe.”
Jackson grimaced at the bullet-riddled side of the bus. “Anybody hit?”
Burton sucked air through his teeth. “Jason,” he said softly. “I stuck my head in, and he’s lost a lot of blood. He’s not looking great. The chatter at the moment is that if he comes in right now, he’ll be court-martialed for disobeying orders. Did you mean it when you said you had a safe place for him?”
Jackson nodded. “If we can promise that the guy won’t lose his residency for not reporting a gunshot wound, I might even get him his own personal-care physician. But you’re right. First the DA needs to get here, and we need to make a record that the kids got here safely.”
“Good,” Jai—the giant Russian bear—said. “These children were abducted. They belong with their families.”
Jackson nodded, watching the route from which they’d come. He saw a minivan, an unmarked SUV, and three cop SUVs all headed in their direction, as well as the flash of ambulance lights about two blocks behind the other vehicles.
Good. Ellery needed medical attention, and Jackson’s entire body hurt. Of course the children and Jason Constance would have priority, but just the knowledge that there was help coming reassured him.
“I think we’re in luck, then, because—fuck!”
If he’d been standing still, the bullet would have hit him center mass and possibly stopped his heart because after last night’s blow to the back he’d been lucky not to feel any signs of arrhythmia. But he’d been in midturn, and it caught him in the shoulder, a graze, enough to send him off balance, and he fell to his knees while the next bullet hit Burton square in the chest—and the substantial body armor he was wearing under his leathers.
“Fuck!” Burton snarled, pulling out his gun. “Ace, Jai, get down!”
But Ace and Jai were never gr
eat with orders, and before Jackson could even register what he was seeing, Ace had cleared a bigassed knife from a sheathe at his belt and hurled it with force and deftness that bespoke long practice. Jackson followed the trajectory to where Ziggy Ivanov stood, just in front of the small shuttle that Ace had co-opted, gun in hand.
He looked like hell—battered, his clothes torn and bloodied—and Jackson had time to wonder which of the two wrecked SUVs he’d been in. Probably the second one, the SUV that had rammed Ellery and Jackson. They’d been close enough for Ziggy to see the trajectory of the giant school bus and to make it there on foot.
Ace’s knife embedded itself deeply in Ziggy’s shoulder, near his chest center mass, but not quite. Ziggy’s arm fell, the gun still clutched in his hand but his arm useless to aim. He turned abruptly, the haft of the knife still sticking out of his body as he swerved into the street and started to run toward the school bus on the outside of the parked cars. Jackson and Burton were the first on their feet to give chase, Jackson dodging between the school bus and the Tank to intercept whatever he had in mind for the driver of the school bus, while Burton circled around the front of Ace’s stolen shuttle to keep him pinned.
Jackson had the shortest route, so he saw what happened next, and because he’d seen Ellery’s probably broken arm, his swollen wrist, he knew what true heroism was.
Ziggy came hauling ass alongside the parked line of cars, limping, yes, his arm dangling almost uselessly, the gun practically falling from his fingertips. As Jackson came out from between the vehicles, his own gun drawn, he watched as Ziggy transferred the gun from his right hand to his left, raising his left hand to aim at the driver of the school bus even as he ran.
He got off one shot, so intent on using his last strength in his pain to get revenge on whomever had stolen the children from their intended destination in the first place that he wasn’t paying attention when Ellery shoved open the driver’s side door of the Tank. Ziggy charged into the open door full bore, driving the knife farther into his shoulder and flailing backward onto the pavement.
