Die Again to Save the World

by Ramy Vance

  “This means you’re not in the trucks, right?”

  “Right.”

  “OK, Aki is close,” he said. “She’s got a backup crew.”

  Martha made a face into the phone. Aki. Aki. Aki.

  “If the trucks get to the other side—the American side—Detroit police will be on it, and cops are going to die.”

  Martha felt her blood surge at his words. Criminals and shootouts were one thing, but officers dying in the line of duty…

  “I’m on it,” she said.

  She ended the call and took out her gun. She switched out the heels and slipped quickly into her tennis shoes. Then she ran like hell to catch the trucks. They were almost to the border. With ease, she flagged down a black BMW driven by a young businessman in a suit.

  “Car broke down?” He flashed her a sexy smile and glanced around at the shoulder.

  She collapsed into his passenger seat. “Something like that. Just book it to the border.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “I’m a lawyer.”

  “And I’m a cop.” She flashed her badge and her gun. “Just drive, dammit.”

  He held his hands over the steering wheel in surrender. “OK.”

  He swerved in and out of traffic, and Martha kept her eyes on the trucks. Thanks to the hot lawyer, she was gaining on the trucks.

  “So might I ask what you’re doing out here?” he asked.

  She didn’t take her eyes off the semis. “I’m on a case.”

  “All the way out here from…New York?”

  She whipped her head around and then blushed when she noticed she still held her badge in her hand. She shoved it into her bag. “Federal case.”

  “You’re on the other side. This isn’t your federal.”

  “Shut up and drive,” she ordered.

  He obeyed. They got close enough to the semis, and Martha rolled down the window and stuck her head out. The highway speed hit her full in the face, and her hair blew every which way, obstructing her vision. She finally leaned out enough to get her gun out the window. But there was an Escalade between the BMW and the last semi. If only she could get around it. The semis were almost to the bridge. If she could just get around that Escalade, she could get a clean shot. Martha waved her gun toward the Escalade, and it quickly changed lanes and sped away.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled. Now she had a clear shot at the tires. She aimed and pulled the trigger. Boom. Boom. Boom. The gunshots hit the tires, and the crippled vehicle slowed.

  She sat back down in the car, and the lawyer visibly gulped. “Look, lady, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want any trouble—”

  “Then just shut up and drive,” she repeated. “And get me closer to the other ones.”

  “You got it.”

  The lawyer switched lanes and pulled right up beside the other two back-to-back semis. Now on alert, the drivers both looked at Martha and mouthed obscenities. She knew they were armed, so she had a limited time. She emptied her magazine out onto the tires of the two vehicles. It worked, and they both hobbled to the side of the road.

  Chapter Forty

  Reuben—Wednesday, February 8, 4:23 p.m.

  Reuben and Buzz sat in the rental on the shoulder before the border crossing. They had gotten a Kia Sedona because that was mainly what the rental agency had, and they figured they could use the ample space. Now, as they waited for news from Martha, Buzz spent the entire time complaining about cheap Korean cars and how badly they were engineered and how he missed his Mercedes.

  Reuben flipped on the heat, and the knob instantly popped off.

  “See, that’s what I mean,” Buzz said.

  Reuben laughed and popped the knob back on. There wasn’t much he could argue with. He had never driven a Mercedes, and certainly not Buzz’s. This was, in fact, a sore point he would rather not revisit.

  Where’s Aki? Reuben wondered as he called her.

  “Yeah?”

  He put her on speaker “What’s your 20?”

  “I’m still in Michigan, twenty minutes to the border. But the traffic is horrible, so the ETA on my GPS is going up, not down. What are we getting ourselves into here?”

  Reuben narrowed his eyes as he kept a lookout for Martha. “My sources show an illegal shipment of maple syrup about to cross the border into Detroit—”

  “Maple syrup?” she interrupted. “Then why are we on it? Why not border patrol? Local police? I thought you said this was big. International war crimes-big.”

  “It is,” he assured her. “Look, I can’t tell you everything that I know. There are informants with families, and I’m not entirely sure if I can trust everyone at the office.” Reuben paused for dramatic effect. “But, between you and me, there’s more than maple syrup being transported in one of those trucks.” He swallowed, hoping his story had been convincing.

  There was a pause, and then Aki came back on the line. “OK. Tell me what needs to be done.”

  Oh, thank God, he thought. “We’ve got to stop three semis from crossing the border and—”

  Up ahead, he saw the semis. One was out front, and the other two were farther back. But next to the first semi was a black BMW with…

  “Is that Martha?” Buzz asked.

  “Aki, I’m going to have to call you back.” Reuben ended the call abruptly.

  Martha leaned out of the passenger side and pointed a gun at the semi.

  “Go, go,” he yelled at Buzz.

  Buzz fired the engine and pulled out onto the highway. Gunfire rang through the street, and drivers scrambled to get out of the way. It wasn’t clear what Martha had hit, but the semi shook, and it didn’t look good. When she let off another shot, the vehicle swerved and spun in a complete three-sixty. The BMW raced to the shoulder for safety, and Martha got out. Then the BMW sped down the shoulder at the highest speed the car could manage, disappearing before the semi hit the highway barricade and squealed before knocking the steel barricade completely over. It teetered for a moment, trying to find balance on its broken wheel.

  Finally the crippled truck fell flat on its side, hitting the asphalt with a fantastic crash of metal and glass.

  Buzz was on the shoulder now, trying to stay away from the scene.

  Martha stood on the highway in cutoff shorts and watched the whole thing. Once the truck had finished crashing, the whole highway stood at a standstill. Then, the drivers of the other two trucks started to run toward Martha.

  Reuben instinctively jumped out of the car and ran toward her. “Martha!”

  But it was too late. The other drivers fired their guns, and he saw her crumple.

  “No! No, Martha!” he yelled as he ran.

  The drivers kept firing, and no sooner had he reached her body than the familiar sting of a bullet ripped through his chest. He writhed in pain, and then they just kept coming.

  Oh well. Better luck next time, he thought as he died.

  Reuben—Wednesday, February 8, 3:30 p.m.

  Reuben, Buzz, and Martha sat in the Kia on the side of the road. This time, Martha wasn't hitchhiking. Reuben lamented, remembering her skimpy cutoff outfit. That had to have been cold…

  “We never did come up with a plan,” Buzz remarked. “We’ve spent the entire day discussing how we needed a cheap shit minivan, but we don’t know how to stop the criminals. Not that we could with this inferior engineering.”

  Reuben groaned. “OK, we get it; you hate the minivan. Well, if you could have chitty-chitty banged-banged us here in your Mercedes, we would have been glad to go take it. But since you don’t know how to do that, I guess we’re stuck with the Kia.”

  “I know how to make a car fly,” Buzz said.

  “A Toyota,” Reuben said. “But you still have yet to figure out how to make German engineering fit your aerodynamic purposes. It’s a work in progress.”

  “I could. It’s just, I mean you know—”

  Martha chimed in from the backseat, “Guys, guys. Let’s not fight. Let’s talk about the plan.”r />
  Buzz glanced at her in the rearview. “The fact that we don’t have one?”

  “I have something,” she said.

  Reuben sighed. Oh yeah, this wasn’t going to work.

  “I could pretend to be a sexy damsel in distress hitchhiking again.”

  “Won’t work,” Reuben said.

  “I’d pick you up,” Buzz muttered, and Reuben shot him a side glance.

  “We can come up with a better plan than that,” Reuben said.

  She applied lip gloss. “I think it might work. It’s an idea, and I don’t see you guys volunteering anything.”

  “These guys are on a mission,” Reuben said. “They’re amped up enough that they’re planning to shoot cops. They don’t have time for hot hitchhikers right now. Besides, we would need to be sure of a closing plan. If we don’t have a clear one, it could put you in danger. Again. I have another idea.”

  He pulled out his phone and put it on speaker. “Aki, where are you?”

  “Ugh, I’m stuck in traffic,” she told him. “GPS says I’m thirteen minutes away.”

  Reuben grimaced. “Yikes. It'll be close then. We’re on the Canada side, and they should come through here in about twenty, but we don’t think we can stop them in time.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in time?’”

  Reuben forgot that Aki wasn’t in on his powers. “I’ve got intel that they’re twenty minutes away from the border. They’re armed and dangerous and ready for a fight.”

  “They’re hauling something other than maple syrup, then?” she guessed.

  Screw it. He’d tell her the truth and save himself from the “international war crimes” spiel. “We think it’s an experimental microwave bomb.”

  There was a pause. “Are you serious? Shit. I should’ve told Sven and got some reinforcements. This is serious.”

  “It won’t be necessary. Sources say that there are only three truckers. They’re armed, but with you, we can take them.”

  “Um, all right. What about local PD?”

  “We haven’t alerted them yet,” Reuben said. “To be honest, I’m not sure they’d believe me.”

  “I have higher clearance than you. I’ll call them and have them alert customs to let us do our thing. I don’t care how many hostiles there are; this is too sensitive to have them interfering.”

  “That would be nice,” Reuben said. “But you can’t just call up the police and tell them to hold off.”

  “You can if you’re a federal agent,” she said. “At least, temporarily.”

  “Right.” Reuben blushed and felt stupid. She was right. She had a higher security clearance than he did and had probably been in countless situations like this.

  “I’ll put them on standby,” Aki said, “and then I’ll meet you on the Detroit side.”

  “That will work.” Reuben ended the call and turned to Buzz and Martha. Martha’s eyes were narrowed at him. “Security clearance? Federal agent? I thought you worked for the State Department. What is it you do, exactly?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.” He strapped on his seatbelt.

  “Christ.” Martha shook her head.

  Buzz started the engine and pulled out onto the northbound lane.

  “Aki wants to meet us on the Detroit side of the border,” Reuben said.

  “I know, I heard,” he said.

  “Then where are we going?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.” His eyes twinkled, and Martha laughed.

  “Come on, you’ve got government clearance, too.”

  Buzz raised his eyebrows and kept driving.

  “Really, we’ve got to meet her,” Reuben said.

  “Uh-huh, I know.”

  “Buzz? Really, where are you going?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.” He pulled into the McDonald’s drive-through.

  “I guess I don’t have security clearance for lunch, then?” Reuben said.

  “Nope.”

  The Kia covered in discarded fast-food wrappers, they met up with Aki on the other side of the border. They met her in a parking lot, where she arrived in her Porsche.

  Buzz didn’t waste a beat on that one. “See, how come she gets a sports car and we get a car named after some voodoo town in Arizona.”

  Reuben wasn’t listening. Aki stepped out of the car wearing skintight leather pants with studs down the front, matching high-platform lace-up boots, and a crop-top vintage t-shirt from the band KISS. Her asymmetrical pixie cut had fresh purple highlights.

  “OK, I get it now,” Buzz muttered to Reuben.

  “Yeah,” Reuben whispered back.

  Martha scoffed. “She dresses like that for work? How unprofessional.”

  “No, she doesn’t. Just when she’s doing field work.” He stepped out of the car, and Buzz and Martha followed him.

  “Hey,” he said to Aki.

  She simply nodded.

  “Aki, meet Buzz and Martha. Guys, Aki.”

  “Cool,” she said as Buzz and Martha nodded to her. “Let’s get down to business. PD’s on standby, but we’re going to intercept the semis as they come across the border. Three semi drivers, four of us including a getaway driver. Everyone armed?”

  “Uh…” Reuben scratched the back of his head. Wow. He hadn't expected Aki to go full Rambo. It was a good thing he'd done all that combat and shooting training with Martha at Buzz's mansion.

  “I’m NYPD,” Martha said.

  Aki nodded with approval but wasn’t impressed. “Cool. You guys packing?”

  Reuben and Buzz looked at each other.

  Aki reached back into her car and pulled out a duffel bag. “These ought to do.” She passed out handguns.

  Reuben took one, but Buzz held up his hands.

  “I’m not comfortable carrying deadly weapons. I’m a staunch advocate of gun control.”

  Reuben looked at him sideways. Buzz had killed him so many times. But now, when it was time to go after real criminals, he went all anti-second amendment pacifist?

  Aki had little patience for his shenanigans. “If you’re going to be on this op, you’ve got to be armed. I’m not going into a high-danger situation with an unarmed crew. Too much risk for several reasons, one being the possibility of a hostage situation. I’m trusting you because Reuben obviously does. Either take the gun or take a hike.”

  Aki’s no-nonsense manner sent Reuben’s heart racing. Damn, she was hot taking over like that.

  Buzz took the gun silently.

  Martha loaded hers. “I think we need to establish a command post. Buzz and Reuben and I have been working this case if you want to fall in with us.”

  Aki didn’t falter. “NYPD, you’re out of your depth and jurisdiction here. This is a federal operation. I’m cutting you in because you’ve got intel and we can use you.”

  “Oh.” Martha blushed.

  “Having said that,” she placed her hands on her hips and studied Reuben, “where are we?”

  He checked his watch. “They should be crossing right about now, if you want to jump in the van?”

  Aki nodded, and they all boarded the van. It suddenly felt much more crowded with Aki in the back seat.

  Buzz turned onto the highway, then pulled out onto the shoulder right on the other side of the bridge.

  “We can stand outside and get a good angle from there,” Martha said. “Maybe we could pretend to be hitchhikers.”

  Aki shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. We need to be prepared to leave the scene. Also, this first customs lane is the one for declared goods, so it’s likely to be the lane they’re in. We need to block them off, taking over two lanes as soon as they come across. Then, before they can switch lanes, we’re on them.”

  “This is pretty aggressive driving,” Buzz said. “I’m not sure this Kia is engineered—”

  “Shut up, Buzz,” Reuben said.

  This was not the time for Buzz’s complaining. Aki would not be impressed.

  Aki pointed toward the semis bar
reling through customs. “There they are. Go, go!”

  Buzz pulled into the first lane and parked on the highway, half in the first and half in the second lane. Traffic from the second lane backed up, perfectly creating a wall that wouldn’t allow the semis to get away.

  Aki yelled, “Go, go!”

  Buzz stayed in the Kia, set to move it as soon as the rest of them were safely inside the semis.

  The other three jumped out of the van, brandishing guns. Aki reached the first one and talked to the driver. He wasn’t sure if she was using charm or violence, but he moved on to the second one.

  He approached the driver, about twice his size. His palms felt sweaty and his mouth was dry. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t hold up a semi-truck.

  In his periphery, he saw Martha confidently jog up to the last semi. How could she do that? He couldn’t let her show him up. So he steadied his gaze on the driver of the truck. Now that Aki had halted the driver, Buzz moved the Kia and was gone. There was no turning back now. That was when he heard the gunshots.

  He instantly turned to see Martha stumbling toward the asphalt. The three truckers got out, all with their guns, and the next thing Reuben knew, Aki was on the ground.

  “Aki.” He ran over, knelt on the ground next to her, and accidentally dropped his gun. One of the truckers kicked it away from him, and Reuben stood. He held his hands up and was surrounded by three burly truckers.

  In the distance, police sirens wailed. No cops were coming to save him.

  “Get on out of here, boy,” one of the truckers slurred.

  Reuben knew he needed to go back in time and fix all of this, and this was the perfect way to do it. “Just kill me already.”

  The trucker furrowed his brow. “You want to die, son?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not?”

  The three truckers stared at each other.

  “Why? I don’t need to kill you. You ain’t done nothin’. And by yourself, you cain’t do nothin.’”

  “I just want to be like the cool kids.” Reuben gestured toward the dead women in the road.

  “Dead?” the trucker asked.

  “Yeah. Dead is the new black.”

  “Damn millennials.” The trucker shook his head. “I never will get your generation.”