“She wriggled out!” Sam said.
27
Backup
FRANK BRAKED HARD. The anti-lock brakes kicked in and pulsed. The front of the car angled down. The sliding door flew forward in its track and slammed shut. The van stopped, and Frank threw it in reverse and floored it.
Flor climbed to her feet.
He had to hand it to her—she was one tough old bird. She began doing an old-lady jog back to the driveway, her hands still duct-taped behind her.
Beyond her, the SUV accelerated toward them. The idiot hanging out the window kept firing. One of his bullets shattered the minivan’s back window, spilling glass shards into the van and onto the road. Another shot ricocheted off the ceiling and spidered the front windshield.
Frank continued in reverse. “Get the P90!” he ordered.
Sam reached between the seats to the back and picked up the submachine gun.
“Snug it up to your shoulder, more toward the center of the chest.”
Sam brought it up, aimed the gun.
Frank lined the back of the minivan up with the SUV, pressed the gas, and, for the second time today, played chicken.
“Fire right at the bottom of the grill of that SUV!” he shouted. “Fire at the bumper!” He knew Sam would shoot high. Everyone did when they were learning. So if he told him to aim at the ground, Sam might put a few into the cab itself.
Sam said, “Where’s the safety?”
“The selector’s right by the trigger. Push it down. But don’t go all the way; that’s full auto.”
The next moment there was a huge roar—a hailstorm-tin-roof-ear-blast; one long deafening drum roll of shots; fifty 5.7 millimeter narco killers singing out of the back end of the minivan, followed by a click.
“That was full auto,” Frank said.
“Crap!” Sam said.
All the rounds in one go. And half had probably been put right through the roof of the minivan. Except the SUV suddenly careened off the road. It bounded off the shoulder at speed, crashed through the barbed wire, and slammed into a massive ponderosa pine tree. The SUV crumpled with a crunch of metal and glass. The tree shuddered. A moment later a number of pine cones the size of shoes rained down around the vehicle.
“Cartwright,” Frank said. “You ride horses and shoot. Maybe you are the Lone Ranger.”
Flor was still running back toward the driveway. She was making good time.
Frank continued in reverse, aimed for her, and then he gave the van some gas. She was only one reflector post away.
But then two more cars full of goons with guns came roaring down the driveway and skidded out onto the road. They straightened up and headed right for him.
“There’s another magazine on the seat,” Frank said.
Sam shifted around. “I don’t see it. I don’t see it.”
Frank looked down. It was not there. All the accelerating and braking had flung it to the floor. “It’s got to be under the seats!” he said.
Sam dropped down and started looking around, meanwhile the cars were coming. One was a Mercedes. The other was the cola-glass Nissan.
“Pinto,” Frank asked. “Anymore vehicles?”
Pinto’s voice came in with the roar of the Cessna. “No, they all piled into the SUV and the two behind you now.”
“Roger,” Frank said and floored it.
The minivan’s motor whined in reverse. Frank aimed for the Nissan. Except the Nissan didn’t want to play. It braked next to Flor. The back door flew open. A guy got out. Flor jumped in. The guy shut the door behind her, and the Nissan reversed and spun around and headed back for the house.
A moment later the Mercedes and the minivan flew past each other. The guy who had gotten out of the Nissan pulled a semi-automatic pistol out of his pants and started firing at Frank and Sam.
Frank kept it in reverse. He turned into the driveway, fully intending to grab Flor, but saw three men with assault rifles down at the end, standing in a line across the road, protecting the place.
Obviously, not all of them had piled into the vehicles.
The men parted for the Nissan.
Frank’s heart sank. There went Tony’s get out of jail free card.
The men raised their rifles.
Sam was scrabbling around on the floor by the back bench. “Ha!” he said and came up with the second magazine. “Got it!”
The men on the road opened fire.
The bullets whistled around the minivan. They punched holes in the back. One zoomed into the interior and tore the magazine right out of Sam’s grip.
“Whoa!” Sam shouted and held his hand.
“We need some help down here!” Frank said.
“What?” Pinto said.
Frank threw the minivan into drive and floored it. “I was talking to God.”
He careened back onto the road.
A bullet slammed into the side of the van. Another pinged off the engine block.
The van’s motor whined.
The guys on the driveway kept firing.
Frank was devastated. He was angry. If he’d just grabbed Flor right when he’d taken the horse’s halter, none of this would have happened!
“We’ve got company,” Sam said.
Frank looked in the rearview mirror. The Mercedes they’d passed on the road had turned around and was coming after them.
Sam fetched the magazine from the floor and tried to fit it into the slot on top of the gun. “I can’t get it it!” he said.
“Of course, not. A high-velocity round kind of has that effect on things. Can you get a round out?”
Sam struggled. “The thing won’t go down.” He banged it on the floor, but no bullets came out.
The minivan raced along the road. The guys in the Mercedes behind them rolled down their windows. They leaned out with their guns. They did not open fire. It appeared they were going to come along side, get close, trust the accuracy of point-blank range. A much better plan, especially if you sucked at shooting moving targets. Or maybe they wouldn’t come alongside at all. Just move up close to the back end and shoot through the missing rear window.
Frank had the gas pedal against the floor. The speedometer showed eighty mph. Then eighty-five.
“Pinto,” Frank said. “What’s ahead of me?”
“Nothing. That road runs straight for five or ten miles.”
“What are we going to do?” Sam yelled.
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “We need a gun.”
“We got Cheerios and a bunch of idiot rocks,” Sam said in disgust. Then he sat up straight. “We’ve got potatoes!”
“Vegetables aren’t going to do much at this point,” Frank said.
They were hosed. No question about it. Their only option now was to turn this thing into a demolition derby, but Frank had the funny feeling the guys behind weren’t going to cooperate.
Sam leaned over the back bench and fished out the big white PVC tube with his good arm. Then he fished around some more and came up with a can of spray. He said, “You ever been hit by a potato going 250 miles per hour?”
Frank looked into the rearview mirror. “I don’t believe I have.”
“Why don’t we see what an Idaho Russet can do,” he said and reached down between his feet and came back up with the brown plastic bag of potatoes that had been sliding around since Sam first picked him up.
Up ahead the pines petered out and gave way to pure prairie. Behind them the Mercedes was coming up fast. Frank glanced at his speedometer. They were going 100. It appeared that’s all this thing had in her on the flat.
They weren’t going to outrun the Mercedes. And this was far too fast for any aggressive driving techniques. In a very short time they were going to have to slow down. Frank said, “If you’re going to do anything, you’d better make it quick.”
Sam tore open the bag and fetched a potato out. He crammed it into the mouth of the tube. Then he unscrewed the top of another tube attached below the main one and pulled
out what looked like a long section of broomstick. He rammed the potato down with it, like a man loading a musket.
They sped down the road, the prairie fields flying past on both sides.
The Mercedes was only a few car lengths back and gaining.
Sam fiddled with the back end of the cannon, brought up his aerosol can.
“Lysol?” Frank asked.
“Nothing better,” Sam said.
He sprayed the Lysol into a hole, fiddled with something again, then brought the cannon up with his good arm and laid it across the back seat.
One of the goons hung out of the Mercedes passenger window with what looked like a Mac10.
Sam turned a little knob. There was a thump from the spud cannon. A moment later something hit the hood of the Mercedes and careened out into the field.
The goon in the Mercedes let loose with his Mac10. Bangs and bullets and a few that plowed into the back of the van.
“Freaking Betty Crocker!” Sam cursed.
“You need something harder!” Frank shouted.
“I’m on it,” Sam said, his voice full of anger.
Frank felt the steering get a bit squishy. One of those bullets had hit a tire; he was sure of it. He let off the gas. The guys hanging out the windows of the Mercedes had big grins on their faces. One of them flipped him off.
Laugh now, Frank thought.
Sam brought the cannon back down, grabbed another spud, then opened up a plastic ice cream bucket and pulled out something black and squarish about the size of a golf ball.
“Sam! We’re running out of seconds.”
“Just need a little bit of metamorphic,” Sam said. He jammed the rock into one end of a spud, shoved the spud in the tube, rammed it home. He slid the cannon back up across the back of the bench, fiddled and did the Lysol thing.
The Mercedes was now close enough for the gunmen not to miss their shots, but far enough back to avoid him if he slammed on the brakes. So he’d have to slam them, put it in reverse, and ram them. Total long shot. No way was it going to work.
Sam sighted down the tube.
The gunmen took aim.
Sam twisted his little knob. The cannon thumped. The potato with its rock warhead flew out the back end of the van and smashed into the windshield of the car right in front of the driver. 250 miles an hour of rock backed up by Idaho potato. The windshield spidered into a hundred lines. Turned completely white.
The driver jerked the wheel; the Mercedes swerved.
One goon fell out and struck the road at speed. The other hung on for life.
Now was a good time, Frank thought. A very good time.
He hit the brakes. Not completely, but just enough.
The Mercedes rushed toward the back end of the van. The driver tried to swerve to avoid the crash. He overcorrected, sideswiped the van. Frank gave him a nudge.
The Mercedes careened off the road. It went down the shoulder in a cloud of dust, fishtailed, then came back up again at a bad angle. It was going to T-bone the van.
Frank stood on the brakes with both feet, shoved the pedal to the floor. The front of the van tilted down; the anti-brakes pulsed. Sam came flying from the back seat with the spud gun and smashed into the console.
The Mercedes hit the asphalt ahead of them almost sideways. It had probably been going somewhere around eighty miles per hour. But asphalt doesn’t give like dirt and grass. The law of inertia exerted itself, and the Mercedes rolled. It bounced, caught air. A huge leap. Rolled again, tumbled, glass and plastic flying everywhere.
One of the passengers flew out a window, the force tossing him in a high arc, his legs and arms wide. He sailed forty feet above the ground, out over the road, over the barbed-wire fence, and into the field. He crashed to the ground at a fatal angle on his back and head that made Frank wince.
The car crashed down the shoulder, rolled again, and landed on its wheels straddling the fence.
Frank and Sam came to a stop.
Sam fell back from the console.
“You okay?” Frank asked.
“Holy crap,” Sam said.
“I’m going to go check it out,” Frank said. “We need to change the tire. Get the jack.”
“That guy in the field,” Sam said in shock and horror. “Did you see him, his back . . .”
“That man wasn’t wearing his safety belt,” Frank said. “You can get a ticket for that around here.”
“Holy crap,” Sam said.
“Nice work with the spudzooka,” Frank said.
“Holy crap,” Sam said again.
Both of them got out of the minivan. Sam took in the bullet holes and broken glass.
Out on the road, the guy who’d been the first to fall out was moaning, but not doing much else. Frank ran down to the Mercedes and looked inside. The airbags had deployed, but it hadn’t saved the occupants. The driver slumped over the wheel, his face a bloody mess. The one guy in the back who hadn’t been thrown was upside down. Frank looked for the guns, but didn’t see them. He turned. The guy in the field wasn’t moving. He wasn’t going to move. Not lying at that angle.
Frank took stock. Carmen had spotted twelve men. There had been two in the SUV that crashed into the tree. Four in the Mercedes. That meant the Goroza’s had six guys back at the house. And now they were all on their guard. All armed to the teeth. On the other hand, Frank had Sam, the spudzooka, and a whole sack of potatoes with optional rock warheads. Somehow he just didn’t think that was going to cut it. Even if Pinto turned his Cessna into a dive bomber and dropped pipe wrenches on their heads.
“Carmen,” Frank said. “Report.”
“José and Hector are on their phones.”
They were probably calling in reinforcements.
“Another man, he looks like a brother, is talking to Flor and the girl who was riding with her. Two guys are watching the driveway. The other sentry is up and watching the back.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “It’s way too hot to touch right now. But that could change in five hours. At three a.m. they might think they are safe. Carmen, you keep an eye out. Pinto, how much gas do you have left?”
The sound of the Cessna joined the call. “I’m good for a while. But you’ve got company.”
“How many?”
“One car coming south along your road toward the Goroza’s. It’s a cop, lights flashing.”
Frank thought about this. There was nowhere to hide along this stretch of road. So the cop would show up, freak, call in backup. Frank would tell him that there were armed men who had shot at him at the house down the road. The cop would proceed and tie up the whole house. He and the others would do a full search. He’d find AK-47s. Maybe other stuff. Who knew what was hidden in the house and vehicles?
But even if they took the Gorozas to jail forever, that wouldn’t get him Tony back.
“Frank,” Carmen said. “I see him. I see Tony!”
“At the house?”
“They’ve brought him out. They’re pointing to documents on the table, shouting at him. They’re handling him rough. He doesn’t look so good.”
Tony was at the house.
This changed everything. He wanted to shout hallelujah. “Roger,” he said. “Do you see Ed?”
“No.”
But Tony was there. And the police were just a few miles away. In fact, Frank could see the flashing lights now. Operation Tony was about to take a positive turn. “Sam, you need to call 911. Conference them in. You need to do it now.”
There was no response.
“Sam.” Frank looked back. Sam was on one knee behind the van, the jack and lug wrench lying on the asphalt. “Sam!”
But Sam did not respond. Anything at all could have happened when he slammed into the console. He might have broken a rib, punctured his lung.
The cop car was coming fast. Frank hurried back toward the van as fast as his leg would allow.
The cops reached the scene before he did. They never turned on the siren. Just braked hard. The
passenger door flew open and a young blond cop with a weak moustache jumped out with a shotgun and pointed it at Frank. “Get down on the ground!” he roared. “Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground!”
Frank held his hands up to show he wasn’t armed. “There are men with AK-47s just down the road. They tried to kill us.”
“Get down on the ground!” the younger cop shouted.
“Officer,” Sam said and crawled out doggie-style from behind the van. His face was a little pale. He was probably experiencing some mild shock.
The young guy swung his shotgun and pointed it at him. “Get down!” His freckled face was red.
Sam raised a hand in submission.
“On your face! Spread eagle!”
Sam lay down on the asphalt.
The older, heavy-set cop opened his door and slid out. He wore those prescription glasses that darkened in the sun and lightened indoors. They were a light amber, halfway between light and dark. “This is just procedure, boys,” he said. “No need for alarm. I’m sure you understand.”
Frank got a sudden bad feeling.
“You,” the big one said and pointed at Frank. “Get over next to him. Once we’ve secured this area, we’ll take your statements and sort it all out.”
Frank said, “There are six armed men down the road.”
The big cop nodded. “That’s what you said.”
“Move!” the young one shouted.
Frank did not like the big guy’s nonchalance. You see five dead people and a minivan shot to pieces, you don’t mosey about. He remembered what Carmen had said about trusting American police—how had these cops gotten here so fast? Frank’s bad feeling went from a breeze to a tornado with full-blown purple and black thunderheads. But Frank didn’t have anywhere to go. If he charged, the young guy would shoot him down for sure. And what was Sam going to do?
“Pinto,” Frank said.
The young one pointed at Frank. “I think that one’s going to cause too many problems.”
“You going to cause us problems?” the big cop asked Frank.
“No,” Frank said, looking for anything that he could use to cause a problem. But there was nothing, so he walked over to Sam, knelt down, and lay spread eagle on the asphalt.
The younger cop walked in to cover him with the shotgun, but he stayed far enough away to avoid any sudden moves.
Bad Penny Page 29
