The Inner Circle (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Not much so far. The only word right now is there’s been an explosion at a hotel in Miami Beach.”

  “Wonder how Caesar is going to spin that.”

  “That’s the least of your problems,” the Kid said. “Are you guys in a GMC Yukon?”

  I looked up sharply at Ian. “Why?”

  “It was just reported stolen.”

  I shifted again in my seat, wincing at the pain. “The cops aren’t going to bother with a stolen vehicle right now, not after an explosion like that.”

  “That depends on how badly Caesar wants you guys.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning someone could always call in an anonymous tip saying the Yukon is suspected in the explosion. Where did you pick it up anyway?”

  “It used to belong to one of Caesar’s people.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? The thing’s probably LoJacked.”

  I thought about it for a second. “No, it’s not. If it had some kind of tracking device on it, why would they report it stolen?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “Look,” I said, shifting again in the seat, my body flaring with pain, “do you have our location?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s the fastest way to get back to 95?”

  I heard quick typing on the Kid’s end. He said, “Two blocks up, make a U-turn. Then keep going until the bridge and take it and continue straight. It will put you guys back on the Julia Tuttle Expressway.”

  I relayed the directions to Ian and then said into the phone, “How’s Ronny?”

  “He’s fine. But you guys ... what’s your plan for the girl?”

  “Still haven’t figured that part out yet.”

  “Yeah, it seems like you haven’t figured out most of your plan so far tonight.”

  “At least we’re still alive.”

  The Kid was quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, his voice somber. “There is that.”

  • • •

  MAYBE TEN MINUTES later, Ian said, “Should we drop her off there?”

  The Mount Sinai Medical Center was coming up fast on our right, the massive complex bright in the dark drizzle.

  I looked at the girl beside me. She just sat there quietly, staring out her window. I hesitated, then shook my head.

  “Keep going. It’s best we get out of Miami Beach as soon as possible.”

  Ian kept the Yukon on the highway, taking us over the causeway headed into Miami.

  Less than thirty seconds passed before my phone vibrated. It was the Kid.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

  “I really wish you would come up with a better opening line.”

  “The APB on the Yukon? It was just canceled.”

  I glanced up and caught Ian eyeing me in the rearview mirror again. Only, I realized a second later, he was looking past my head out the back of the SUV. I turned slightly, my body flaring with pain again, and said, “Fuck.”

  In my ear, the Kid asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m going to have to call you back.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a cop directly behind us.”

  A second later, the police cruiser whooped its siren and turned on its flashing lights.

  18

  I shoved the phone into my pocket, found myself reaching for my gun. It was gone, no doubt lost in the explosion.

  I asked Ian, “How long has it been behind us?”

  “Not long at all. It came up really fast.”

  It was riding our ass now, less than ten feet away, its roof lights blazing with brightness.

  I stared out at the highway in front of us. The causeway was maybe three miles long, give or take, and we’d only gone about a mile already.

  “Give it all you’ve got,” I said.

  Ian whipped his head back at me. “Are you fucking nuts?”

  “Those aren’t regular cops.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The APB on the Yukon was just canceled. Now, give it all you’ve got.”

  Ian turned back to focus on the road. Both hands on the steering wheel, his shoulders tensed. Besides the few cars on the other side of the causeway, we and the police cruiser were the only cars headed west. He pressed his foot down harder on the gas.

  The red and white lights flashing behind us continued going for a couple more seconds, then all at once stopped.

  Ian said, “What the hell?”

  “Give me your gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Ian reached into his jacket and pulled out his piece just as the cruiser swung over into the left lane and picked up speed. I leaned forward, taking Ian’s gun, and saw the speedometer. Ian was already doing about ninety, which meant the cruiser coming up on the left was going at least one hundred.

  “Push it,” I told him, and turned slightly in the seat, watching the cruiser as its nose came parallel with our rear bumper.

  The passenger’s side window began to lower.

  And out of it, like an insect’s antenna, came a double-barreled shotgun.

  I said shit, or Ian said shit, or maybe both of us said shit at the same time. I grabbed the little girl’s head and pushed it down.

  The cruiser sped up even faster and ran completely parallel with us. I could see the two cops in the front, both men, looking at Ian in the driver’s seat.

  “Hit the brakes,” I shouted, and for some reason I expected Ian to ask me why, I expected to have to repeat myself, but he slammed on the brakes at once and the SUV started skidding, fishtailing, just as an explosion burst from the shotgun, spraying the front hood.

  The girl immediately started screaming, fighting my hand to raise her head back up. I held her down and double-checked her seatbelt. It was secure, so I unbuckled it and pulled her toward me as I moved into her seat. Ian’s gun in my hand, I lowered the window, the rain at once pelting my face and glasses.

  “Keep it steady,” I called up to Ian, who was now hunched over the wheel, his foot back on the gas.

  Up ahead, the cruiser’s brake lights flared, slowing down to try to meet us once again as we sped up.

  I leaned out the window as far as I could, keeping myself balanced with my left arm against the windowsill, my entire upper body out the window, holding the gun in my right hand.

  The cruiser was falling back fast and I didn’t hesitate, firing at the rear window and the wheels and the window again.

  The cruiser’s brake lights flared again, just as the rear window spider-webbed. A moment later it sped up, jerking itself into the center lane.

  To compensate, Ian started moving over into the left lane but I shouted, “Stay here! Don’t let them get on the girl’s side!”

  The Yukon wobbled a bit in the lane but then righted itself and we sped on, the police cruiser only yards ahead of us.

  “Ram it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Ram it!” I shouted, and I could feel the Yukon accelerate, lessening the distance between its front and the police car’s rear—until, suddenly, the SUV’s nose poked the back of the police cruiser. But it didn’t do much damage—it just sent the cruiser ahead a few feet, fishtailing too as its driver tried to gain control of the wheel, before falling back. Ian went to ram it again when something exploded inside the cruiser and the rear window shattered.

  Ian shouted, “What the fuck?”

  The police cruiser’s passenger had crawled over the front seat, was now taking the barrel of his shotgun and pushing all the shards of glass out of his way.

  “Right lane and brake!” I shouted, dropping the gun and moving over toward the girl, putting my arms around her and pushing her head into my shoulder, just as Ian slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right.

  At that same moment the cop fired, the shotgun spraying the hood and windshield, sending fissures thr
ough the glass. For an instant it felt like the Yukon was up on two wheels, and I was sure that we were going to flip, that this was how we were going to die. But then all four tires met the highway once again, skidding over the pavement until we were completely stopped.

  The girl was screaming into my shoulder, kicking her feet, and Ian was saying something up front, but my ears were ringing again and pain was streaking through my body and for an instant I had the light-headed sensation that I was about to pass out.

  Up ahead, the cruiser’s brake lights flared as it made a hard and sudden U-turn.

  Ian groaned. “What the hell?”

  The police car was maybe one hundred yards away, its headlights glaring back at us. Not moving, not doing anything but just sitting there.

  I said, “I think he wants to play chicken.”

  Ian jerked his head back, his eyes wide. “You’re kidding me.”

  I glanced behind us, could see distant headlights further down the causeway. We had maybe a minute or so before they reached us, and then what was going to happen? More than likely innocent people were going to die, and I wasn’t about to put those extra souls on my conscience.

  I turned back around. The highway stretched between us and the police cruiser, the rain falling through the heavy glare of our headlights. Not far beyond it, the causeway ended, an off-ramp taking drivers toward some destination on the mainland.

  I buckled the girl in tight to the seat, then buckled myself in. I said, “Do it.”

  Ian just stared at me like I had five heads.

  I told him what I wanted him to do, and he stared at me a moment longer, then turned back around in his seat. He took a long deep breath, staring out through the rain and spots where the shotgun had blasted.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said, and slammed his foot down on the gas.

  The Yukon jerked forward, its engine roaring, the needle on the speedometer climbing higher and higher. At the same moment the police cruiser jerked forward, coming right at us. The girl continued screaming into my arm, she kept kicking her legs, but I held her as tightly as I could, watching through the windshield as the headlights got closer.

  The distance between us and the cruiser grew smaller and smaller by the second. Ian kept both of his hands on the wheel, his foot on the gas, pushing the SUV for all it was worth. A moment before we reached them he lifted his foot from the gas and started veering off toward the left, then all at once hit the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right, punching the gas. It was tight, but the cruiser took the bait, already moving toward the left, hoping to hit us head on. By then we’d already made the switch and the side of the Yukon scraped against the side of the police cruiser, creating the loudest screech of metal against metal I’d ever heard, and then we were around them, pointed straight for the exit.

  “Yee-haw!” Ian shouted, glancing back as we sped down the ramp. I found myself glancing back too, watching as the police cruiser’s taillights flared angrily again, its driver attempting another hard and sudden one-eighty. The girl was crying out beside me and I turned back to her, briefly placed an arm around her shoulder, then looked up toward the front of the SUV, realized all at once that we were doing maybe sixty or seventy miles per hour and there wasn’t much room left on the ramp and that Ian still had his attention on the cruiser behind us.

  “Ian!” I shouted, and he swung back around, but already we’d run our course on the ramp. There was hardly any more room left. Ian slammed on the brakes frantically, desperately, jerking the steering wheel first left and then right, and once again it felt like the Yukon was up on two wheels, just hanging there as if by a thread, before suddenly we were tipping onto our side, metal scraping against pavement.

  Then darkness.

  19

  The darkness didn’t last long.

  I could feel something warm on my face, something wet. I opened my eyes but saw only black.

  My first thought was: I’m blind, but then realized a second later that it was blood in my eyes.

  A groan sounded out somewhere in the black, and I blinked again, and again, and again, until I was able to make out shapes. A moment later the world began to take on substance and I saw the back of one of the seats in front of me, less than ten inches from my face. I blinked again and tried to move, but my entire body roared with pain, every muscle and nerve and joint screaming at me to please stop.

  “Ian?”

  My voice was a kind of gurgle. There was no answer, so I tried moving again, ignoring the pain, the numbness, the sudden realization that both Ian and the little girl might be dead.

  They weren’t.

  I could see both of them moving, through the thin layer of blood coating my eyes. The girl was squirming in her seat, crying, while Ian was somewhere up front, the shape of his head moving back and forth.

  “Ian?” I said again, my hands finding my face, wiping the blood away. I realized my glasses had fallen off, but still I could see better now, and with the seeing a new kind of realization hit me that the SUV was on its side.

  This, I understood, was mainly the cause of the new pain and numbness circulating throughout my body. My seatbelt had done its job fairly well, keeping me in place, though it had dug deep into my stomach, kind of suspending me in midair. The same thing must have happened to the girl. Up front, though, it was impossible to tell what was going on with Ian.

  “Ian,” I said once more, trying to get my voice to rise above the girl’s sobs.

  A groan answered me, a terrible sounding groan that could have meant so many different things.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried moving my hands again, only they didn’t seem to want to move. I had to work at it for a couple of seconds before first one hand touched the buckle of my seatbelt, followed by the other hand, and they worked at that for a while before I understood there was too much pressure being exerted by my body, that it wasn’t going to release until I took a lot of that pressure off.

  “Oh fuck,” Ian breathed up front, or in the back, or on the side—the way the Yukon was positioned, it had really messed up my sense of direction.

  “Ian,” I called. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  With each emphasis of the word his head jerked back and forth, the motion so quick and sudden I had the crazy idea it would somehow tear away from his neck.

  The girl’s sobbing seemed to have died down now, or maybe something had gone wrong with my hearing. I glanced up, saw her more or less tied to the seat, her arms and legs flailing about as she tried to grab onto anything for support.

  I took a long, deep breath—a breath that caused a thousand needles to pierce into my chest—and attempted to release the seatbelt once again. This time it worked. The seatbelt unlatched and I fell, my legs and knees striking the side of the SUV, which had now become the floor. Then I was crouching, wiping at my eyes again, at my face. I gently touched my forehead and could feel the tenderness there. I took a step and heard the tinkle of glass shards, figured that during the crash the windshield—not to mention the side windows—had imploded, sending the shards right in my face. All said and done, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

  The driver’s side of the SUV was the side now resting on the ground. It made it so we would have to crawl up to the passenger’s side to get out. Either that, or kick out whatever shards remained of the windshield and crawl out that way.

  The girl was still kicking and flailing her arms. I held out my hands to her.

  Shh, I said, or tried to say, placing my hands on her arms, on her shoulders, trying to get her to settle down. Her dark green-tinted eyes stared back at me, helpless.

  Ian groaned again in the front, mixing a string of curse words together, but I barely heard him. I kept my attention focused on getting the girl down. She had stopped kicking and flailing, was now just hanging there. I stepped up and tried to grab onto her body, hold her up as I worked with the buckle of the seatbelt. A few seconds later I had it u
ndone and then was carefully pulling her out of it.

  “There we go,” I said to her, trying to smile, trying to act like everything was fine and dandy.

  The girl said something in her native tongue, what sounded like just one word, and though it may have meant a countless number of things—I’m scared, Get the fuck off me, I like Kool-Aid—I wanted to think that word was Thank you. Even then, hearing her say it, the word fighting through the blood pounding in my ears and the pain streaking through my body and Ian’s nonstop groaning, that was what I believed she’d said.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, still smiling, still with blood on my face. Then I glanced up.

  The window of the door a few feet above my head was closed. Through it was the dark sky, the soft pattering of the drizzle. It’s strange, the way nature will continue unabated, no matter what kind of tragedy strikes us here on the earth. Someone will get hit by a car, a plane will crash, fifty people will be killed in a bombing, and the rain will continue falling like nothing has changed, the wind will continue blowing like everything is fine, and the world will keep spinning no matter what.

  I set the girl down, so she was standing on the glass shards. There wasn’t much room and I was aware that her body was touching mine as she turned around in a circle, trying to figure out where to go next. I noticed my glasses on the ground too, right by her feet. I did my best to bend down, grab them, place them back on my face. Then I turned toward where Ian was still strapped to his seat.

  And at once I could see what all the groaning was about—how when the Yukon had finally stopped, the front end had smashed into a tree and crumpled Ian’s left leg.

  “Shit,” Ian was saying, or groaning, or whimpering. He sensed me close by and looked over. I could see the pain and weariness in his pale face. For some reason it reminded me of Carver’s face while he lay dying on the blue carpet speckled by the seashells, his chest dark with blood.

  “I think it’s broken,” Ian said, squeezing the words out through clenched teeth.

  “You think?”

  “I know.” He tried moving it, cried out instead.