She heard a high-pitched shrieking yelp, and risked a glance over her shoulder in time to see Trish losing her balance and tumbling to the ground. Chrome Teeth had recovered swiftly and managed to catch her, grabbing the black ponytail that fell over Trish’s shoulders and using it to savagely yank her off her feet. Laurel felt sick inside, hearing the other woman cry out as she collapsed.
Callous, rough laughter sounded behind her. “Get that skank, you asshole!” shouted the biker. Laurel bolted across the mouth of an alleyway and ran for the first building she saw—a glass-fronted convenience store, washed out by the harsh glow of fluorescent lamps.
She stumbled through the door, almost colliding with a spinner rack of comic books, and found the shocked face of an overweight man behind the counter. “You have to help me,” she blurted out.
But the man stepped back, raising his hands. “I don’t want any trouble,” he told her, terrified by her appearance.
The door rattled open behind Laurel, and she turned to see the big, hard-faced man enter, his lips drawn back in a cold smile. He glanced between her and the guy behind the counter, and licked his lips. “You think he’s gonna give you a hand, little sister?” She saw his name—Brodur—written on his jacket. “Naw. What he’s gonna do is turn around right now, ain’t ya?”
The other man looked at the floor, and sheepishly turned away, retreating into a back office.
Laurel slipped down one of the aisles, ducking low. She heard Brodur chuckle.
“Come on,” he called. “What you even running from, huh? You don’t even know. Got skittish and decided to make a break … To where? Where you gonna go?” He made a spitting sound. “Shit. We got work here for you people, you get that? You can earn. Who the hell else is offering that, huh? Answer me!” The last was a shout, as his tolerance for Laurel’s disobedience faded.
When Brodur came around the end of the aisle, he had a butterfly knife in his hand, gripped low and ready to inflict harm. Laurel was armed too, holding a heavy bottle of cheap fortified wine by the neck; she smashed it into his torso, the glass shattering, dousing the biker in sticky fluid and cutting his chest, the skin of his neck. Caught by surprise, he flailed, sweeping wildly through the air with the knife and missing as Laurel ran. Shouting and cursing, she heard him coming after her as she burst back through the door and ran heedlessly across the street.
Ahead of her, Laurel saw a sign like a stylized Indian tent and beyond it, shadows, overgrown bushes and a few parked cars. One of the only useful things her ex-boyfriend had ever taught her was how to hot-wire an ignition. Here and now, that might be the only lifeline she had.
* * *
Jack put down the shotgun and moved closer to the window to get a better angle on what was happening. The arrival of the bus had immediately drawn his interest. It seemed out of place, and the state of the vehicle made him suspicious. He very much doubted that Deadline was on any commercially run route … So what did this mean?
The bulk of the vehicle blocked off any view of what was happening on the far side, but he glimpsed another group of Night Ranger outriders congregating around the perimeter of the gas station. Figures moved around inside the bus, but he couldn’t make out any details.
Breathing silently, Jack strained to listen for any sounds that carried from across the road, but he heard only the occasional snatch of laughter or the mutter of engines, brought to him on the cool night air.
But then there was a sudden flash of motion and he saw a woman bolt out from behind the cover of the bus and sprint into the nearest building. A man chased after her, and Jack recognized him as the biker who had led the pack that stopped at the traffic signal. Brodur.
He tensed. The scenario was already playing itself out in his mind’s eye. Was he looking at a kidnapping going wrong, human trafficking, or worse? The bus had to be connected to the outlaw MC, but Jack had never heard of one-percenter gangs involved in those kinds of crimes. It wasn’t the usual modus operandi for such criminal groups, who typically kept to protection rackets or smuggling low-mass, high-value items like guns and drugs.
Barely a minute had elapsed before the glass door of the convenience store crashed open and the woman came charging out again. She was running like the devil himself was at her heels, and as she dashed across the street, Jack realized she was making a beeline for the shady parking lot of the Apache Motel. Brodur came staggering out after her, following at a more leisurely jog, as if he didn’t care to exert himself more than he needed to.
The girl was blond-haired and young, and she desperately looked around as she ran onto the motel forecourt, searching the windows and doors for some kind of escape route.
Jack’s breath caught in his throat. For a fraction of a second, he saw Kim’s face there instead, his daughter fleeing like she was a panicked animal. Then he blinked and the moment was gone. It wasn’t Kim, but the fear on the woman’s face was very real. She faltered, almost stumbling, and vanished into the shadows near to where Chase had parked the Chrysler. Brodur walked steadily up the middle of the driveway, past the motel’s office without giving it a second look. He had that butterfly knife in his hand and Jack could see his shirt was ripped and discolored from what might have been slashing wounds.
Jack looked back into the room. Chase was out cold, dead to the world. The Remington shotgun was close to hand, but using it would commit Jack to going loud, and that would destroy what little chance remained of them staying undisturbed. He had the M1911 pistol in his waistband, but without a silencer that too would bring everyone running the moment he used it.
Across the street, the bus spat dirty blue smoke from its exhaust and rolled away, continuing on. Brodur’s associates stayed behind, milling around as they waited for the other man to return. Jack stood at the window, unmoving. He watched the biker slow to a halt and peer into the deeper shadows, head bobbing like a hunting dog looking for prey.
The girl had nowhere to go. From up here on the second floor, Jack could see that clearly. She had to be hiding behind the Chrysler or the battered F-150 pickup a couple of spaces over, but that concealment was really a trap. Brodur would be on her in a moment and then …
And then what, Jack? Nina’s voice ghosted through his mind again. If you go out there, if you get involved, you’ll blow this whole thing. Better if you sit back and let it happen.
He saw the way it would go down. Brodur would take the girl, and he would not be gentle with her. Jack knew the type, the kind of man that made him sick to share the same gender, who liked to use their fists on women because they believed it made them somehow stronger. The girl—maybe someone else’s daughter—would suffer. But eventually, she would go away and so would the biker, and Jack and Chase would remain hidden.
Down in the forecourt, Jack heard Brodur give a low, musical whistle, as if he were calling out to an errant pet.
* * *
Laurel froze when the sound reached her, and she felt her heart thumping in her chest. In her hands she held her jacket, taken off and balled up so she could use it to muffle the crash of glass when she broke the window of the silver car. Now she shrank back, catching the noise of heavy boots crunching on the tarmac as Brodur stalked closer.
She dared to peek around the curve of the fender and saw him sketched in black shadow. Laurel could smell the too-sweet odor of the fortified wine that had splattered over him in the convenience store, and what light there was caught the wicked edge of the knife in his right hand.
“Why do they always gotta run?” he said aloud, asking the question to the air. “Come on, girl. Get out here, take your medicine.”
The panic that she had managed to keep in check finally tipped the balance, and Laurel exploded out of cover in a scrambling run, throwing her jacket at Brodur with all her might, trying to distract him.
The biker batted it away with a grunt and then he was on her before she could get any distance, landing a punch that hit her hard in the kidneys. Laurel cried out and fell against the
grille of the parked pickup truck, her legs turning to rubber.
“I could have got you work at the ’Case,” said Brodur, using his knife to gesture down the street. “Now what’s going to happen instead, huh?”
“You’re going to step away and lose the blade,” said another voice, and Laurel saw a man with haunted eyes emerge from behind the pickup.
Brodur’s eyes narrowed. “That silver cage … you were in the back.” He grimaced. “Get lost, dickweed. You’re new in town, so maybe you don’t get it. This is MC business.”
“Step away and lose the blade,” repeated the other man, and there was steel beneath the words. “I won’t tell you again.”
The biker didn’t waste any more time talking; he swung around and went for the man with a guttural snarl.
11
A part of Jack Bauer—the conscious, calculating part of him—went away as the biker thug came barreling toward him. A different aspect of Jack slipped seamlessly to the fore, the part of the former soldier that was all trained aggression and instinctive violence.
Brodur charged like he was an angry bull, and he had the body mass to back it up. The man was densely muscled and quick on his feet, but he had the rough technique of a street brawler, doubtless learned the hard way through dozens of bar fights and roadside dustups. By contrast, Jack’s fighting method was all about lethality, and the application of maximum force with minimum hesitation. Neither of them could be considered a defensive combatant.
Brodur led with the butterfly knife, but he was clever with it, slashing at the air to drive Jack onto his back foot but never extending enough to risk overbalancing. Each slice was a miss, but he wasn’t aiming to cut him, not yet. The biker was trying to limit his movement, make it so Jack couldn’t slip out of his range before he got close enough to pin him down.
Anyone else would have automatically retreated before the dance of the keen blade, but Jack did the opposite. He closed the gap with Brodur before the biker could change his tack and brought up his forearms to parry the blows, knocking the other man’s feints away, breaking the pattern of his assault.
Jack’s assailant snarled and spun the knife in his hand, turning a cutting motion into a reversal that would bite into the outside of Jack’s forearm and go deep. He wasn’t smart enough to avoid telegraphing the move, though, and Jack caught his wrist before he could complete the twist, stopping his advance cold.
Brodur put both hands behind the blade and forced it toward the other man’s face. Jack responded in kind, and for a second the two of them were locked against one another, muscles in their arms bunching as they fought with sheer force to direct the blade toward their opponent.
It was hard for Jack to keep his grip steady, and he could feel the inexorable slip of the weapon as he lost ground. Brodur was heavier than him, stronger with it, and pound for pound he had the muscle advantage. Jack could hold him for a few moments, but not indefinitely. Close now, he could see that Brodur’s pupils were clearly dilated, and he guessed that the biker was under the influence of something. That could make him unpredictable, irrational, more dangerous.
Even as the thought occurred to Jack, Brodur suddenly jerked forward and butted him in the head. The blow was poorly executed and it hit off the mark. Had it been dead-on, Jack would have been dazed and reeling, open for a follow-up stab that could have opened his throat. As it was, he was only shocked backward a step, losing his block.
Shaking off the pain, Jack saw Brodur wheel around as something flashed at the corner of his vision. It was the woman, enough of her wherewithal recovered that she was making a break for it.
The biker didn’t want that. His other arm shot out and he batted her back. The woman took the blow full force in the chest and she spun away, colliding with the flank of the high-sided F-150 pickup.
Jack used the moment of distraction and came at his opponent. Going low and fast, he landed three strong punches along the line of Brodur’s ribs. His arm moved like a piston, each hit a brutal one.
Brodur let out a strangled bark of pain and came back at Jack, once again leading with the butterfly knife. But Jack had the measure of the man now, he anticipated the paths of the biker’s attacks. Brodur didn’t have the training or the skills to mix up his game, he was reliant on might and viciousness. That was Jack’s edge, and he played it hard.
The blade came up and across. Jack caught the advance cleanly between the angles of his forearms with a fast counter that broke the bones in the biker’s wrist. Brodur bellowed as the butterfly knife dropped to the ground and bounced away, but rather than falter, the pain seemed to stoke his fury even higher.
Whatever was in his system had to be making the busted wrist seem distant and unimportant. Brodur’s other hand, a big meaty paw grimy with engine oil, enveloped Jack’s face and tightened. The biker was trying to crush his skull, thumb pushing into the orbit of his left eye, fingers compressing the bones of his jaw. Jack lost his balance and fell against the hood of the Chrysler. He was starting to regret his decision not to wake Chase from his deep sleep.
Then in the next second the suffocating hand was gone and Brodur was cursing a blue streak, turning in place, snatching at his back while his ruined hand dangled uselessly at the end of his other arm.
Jack saw the blond woman backing away, horrified by what she had just done. The full four inches of the butterfly knife’s stainless steel blade were buried in Brodur’s shoulder, through the leather of his jacket and into the meat of him.
The biker found purchase on the handle and he pulled it out with a wet gasp. “You filthy skank,” he spat. Letting it drop, Brodur reached for a hidden holster in the small of his back, feeling for it with his uninjured hand. “Playtime’s over, bitch!” His fist came back wrapped around a short-frame Smith & Wesson revolver, his thumb drawing back the hammer.
Bolting forward, his vision still blurry, Jack snatched at the discarded blade. It was covered in fresh blood, and it almost slipped out of his fingers, but then he had it firmly in his grip and he was crashing into Brodur before the biker could pull the pistol’s trigger.
The woman had the right idea, but not the right target. Jack used one hand to snake around Brodur’s throat and yank his head back, and the other—knuckles white around the handle of the butterfly knife—he slammed straight into the biker’s chest, feeling the tip of the blade skip off the edge of a rib and go deep. Brodur tried to scream as Jack stabbed him through the heart, but his voice died in his throat, becoming a strangled moan.
The big biker spasmed and his legs gave out, the light in his eyes fading. Jack let Brodur fall to the ground, blood seeping from the new wound in his chest.
“Dead,” gasped the woman. “He’s dead.”
Jack gave a weary nod. “Thanks for the help.”
Her face twisted in anger and she spat venomously in Brodur’s face. “Good. Bastard!” Then the moment passed and she seemed to remember where she was. “Who are you? Are you one of them?” She eyed the revolver where it had fallen and grabbed for it before Jack could react.
“I’m not with him,” he said, moderating his breathing. “We have to hide his body. If they come looking for this guy…”
“We?” she shot back. “I’m not part of this.” She looked around desperately. “I have to get out of here … I have to…” The woman’s voice trailed off to nothing. “Oh god. Trish and all the others, they’re still on the bus. Oh god oh god…”
Jack took a second to make sure that they hadn’t drawn any attention. They seemed to be in the clear for the moment, the fight having taken place in a shadowed corner of the motel parking lot out of sight of the main street. He wiped his hands down on Brodur’s clothes and then dumped him in the bed of the pickup, dragging a loose tarp across to cover up the corpse.
The woman watched him work, kneading the grip of the gun. “I’m Laurel,” she offered, finding her jacket on the ground and gathering it up. She wasn’t pointing the gun at him anymore.
“Jac
k,” he replied. “You’re not from here.”
She gave a derisive snort. “I don’t even know where the hell here is.” She looked out toward the street, and Jack could sense she was weighing her chances.
“You want to run, I won’t stop you,” he said. “But you’ve got to know the odds aren’t good on your own.”
Laurel looked back at him, and disgust crept into her expression. “So you’re gonna do what, look after me?” Other men had clearly used that line on her before, and with the worst of intentions.
Jack pushed aside how much Laurel reminded him of Kim and shook his head. “You go out there, they’ll catch you. They’ll make you tell them who killed that creep. And I don’t want anyone asking questions about me.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then the revolver went into her jacket pocket and Laurel gave him a measuring look. “You got anything to eat?”
* * *
“Yeah, that’s the fella,” said the waitress. Her name was Margaret and she seemed distracted, her gaze drifting away every few seconds to the small handful of other customers who still remained in the diner and the county cops who were milling around out in front of the place.
“You’re sure about that?” said Kilner, holding up Jack Bauer’s ID photo.
“I said yeah, didn’t I?” Margaret glanced between Kilner and Hadley. “He was a decent tipper. Look, I don’t wanna be rude or nothing, I mean I do my civic duty and all, but you boys are making my customers nervous.” She jerked a thumb at the diner’s sparse clientele. “Around here, the federal government don’t got the best of reputations, if you catch my drift.”
“Yes, I’m sure all those welfare dollars your state sucks out of Washington, DC, are a real burden,” Hadley replied briskly. “Look, ma’am, I don’t have any interest in the local truckers bucking their taxes by using agricultural diesel instead of regular.” He jabbed Bauer’s picture with a finger. “However good a tipper he was, this man is a wanted killer. Is that clear?”
24: Deadline (24 Series) Page 14
