The Thousand Dollar Escape

by J. T. Brannan

  I wasn’t sure if a full evacuation would take place, or if the chief would countermand the alarm; but it would certainly add to the confusion, and I fired off a couple of more rounds toward the corner of the corridor, turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.

  As I reached the end and turned the corner, the handgun was up and aimed. With seven rounds fired, I was down to eight left in the pistol’s magazine, and I just hoped that would be enough to deal with whatever I found there.

  But as it turned out, the coast was clear – it was just another short corridor, a couple of rooms off on each side – with no cops to be seen anywhere.

  What was more, I recognized the door at the far end – it led back to the cells where I’d stayed.

  Where Samantha Carson was staying.

  I was already moving; I hadn’t managed to give the woman the fatal kind of divorce that she deserved, and so I was going to try and do the next best thing.

  Get her the hell out of there.

  I burst through the door to the cell block in a low crouch with the handgun aimed out in front of me.

  I had no idea what to expect there – it could have been anything from another empty corridor, to a full Tulsa PD SWAT team waiting to take me out.

  As it turned out, it was something in the middle.

  The word from the chief obviously hadn’t gone out to everyone yet, and the police officers over on this side of the building were taking the fire alarm as genuine and were evacuating the cells.

  As I remembered it, there was only one cell occupied – that of Samantha Carson. And sure enough, there was a single door open, two officers waiting outside; and a moment later, two more emerged – the same ones who had given me a little going-over in my cell earlier – holding the woman between them.

  They were all armed, but no guns were drawn yet, and I decided to capitalize on the situation as fast as I could, before they had a chance to react.

  ‘Hey!’ I shouted out, and all five heads snapped around toward me at the same time.

  Hands instinctively went for holsters, but I was racing toward them with my own weapon already pointing at them. ‘Leave those fucking weapons!’ I yelled at them. ‘Hands in the fucking air!’

  They reacted by jerking their hands away from their holsters, but they didn’t reach for the sky; instead, the two cops with Mrs. Carson pulled her toward the big swing doors at the rear of the hallway as the other two moved in between us.

  And then I was there, right in front of the first two as Sam was ushered through the swing doors by the others, and I whipped the barrel of the Smith & Wesson into the face of the nearest guy.

  As he dropped to his knees with a cry of pain, my foot slammed into the second cop’s knee, destroying the ligaments and tendons; and as he sagged, the pistol whipped round again and hit him straight in the temple.

  I left the two semi-conscious cops behind me and raced after the chief’s wife, making the doors in record time but then pausing, all too aware that the other two men had now had enough time to draw their weapons and be lying in wait.

  I remembered that there was a corner directly after the doors though, and figured that if they were waiting, they would be around that corner and further down the next corridor – the one that housed my own cell.

  I carefully glanced through the porthole window of the door nearest to me, and saw that it was clear. I opened the door and edged through, keeping it quiet so as not to alert the cops.

  I could now hear footsteps retreating down the corridor, and realized I was running out of time; and so I spun into the hallway, ready to respond to whatever might be there.

  My eyes picked up the threat immediately – one of the cops halfway down the corridor in a kneeling position, two hands on his pistol pointed toward the corner I’d just turned – and my body responded, rolling across the floor as the shots ripped up the walls and tiles around me.

  I came out of the roll and fired twice, hitting the cop high in the shoulder and knocking him down hard.

  The second cop was at the far end now, dragging Mrs. Carson with him.

  Knowing they were too far away to catch, my reaction was nearly instant, snapping off another two quick shots that hit the cop in the ass and the hamstring. He screamed in pain and collapsed to the ground, pulling the chief’s wife down with him.

  I might have felt bad about shooting the men if they’d not beaten me up earlier; as it was, I felt pretty good that they’d got what was coming to them.

  I started running, dropping Carson’s nearly empty gun and picking up the first cop’s weapon as I went, and by the time I got there, the woman had wrenched free of the injured guy’s grip and was staring at me in wide-eyed shock.

  ‘You –’ she started, recognizing me from the scene outside her apartment but unable to reconcile that with seeing me again, here and now.

  I didn’t let her finish the thought, just pushed through the double doors to check the next corridor was empty.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘it’s clear. Grab that pistol and come on.’

  There was a pause as she weighed her options, then I saw her look down at the screaming cop’s discarded handgun, reach down and take it.

  Okay, I thought to myself. We might just have a chance.

  If she’d refused to pick up the weapon I might have questioned if her heart was in it, but – for now at least – I was reassured.

  I calculated things quickly as we raced through the doors – two cops down in the last hallway, four locked in the interview room, two that had come at me from the other side, and Carson. That was nine, with three of those still a threat.

  But where were they? Did that side connect to this one? And how many more cops were in this building?

  And where the hell was the way out?

  I heard the sound of running feet coming from nearby, and saw a stairwell that went down. In all the confusion – and in the absence of any windows that let out onto the outside world – I’d forgotten that we were on the second floor.

  I looked around quickly, but Samantha Carson was tugging my elbow, pulling me right. ‘This way,’ she said urgently, and I followed.

  Being the chief’s wife, she would know her way around here a lot better than I did, and – in any case – she was leading us away from the stairwell and whoever was racing up it, so she got my vote.

  We snapped around a bend, and I saw immediately what she was heading for – a steel fire exit door just ten feet down the hall.

  I nodded my head and we sprinted toward it together; but as we reached it I realized it wasn’t a fire escape but a service door, and instead of a push-bar there was a handle. I got there first and reached for it, but it was locked.

  Damn.

  ‘Look out!’ I shouted, and the next moment the hallway was filled with the sound of gunfire as I unloaded at the lock.

  As the metal got torn up by the powerful rounds, I aimed a kick at the door and smashed it wide open, bright daylight hitting us from beyond.

  We passed through the doorway onto a small balcony, the daylight hurting my eyes as they strained to adjust.

  The balcony was barely five feet deep by twenty feet across, and the vast majority of it was taken up by two huge air conditioning units and the pipes that came off them. Beyond, there was a white metal railing, and beyond that, a fifteen-foot drop to the concrete street below.

  I could hear shouts coming from behind us, and I immediately decided what to do.

  But could we do it in time?

  Chapter Five

  Only a few seconds had passed before I was spread-eagled on the balcony floor, both arms through the railings – one would have been better, but my damn wrists were still cuffed – holding onto Sam’s hands as I lowered her as far as I could to the sidewalk below.

  She was shook-up, nervous and scared, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her – it had been a wild and confusing day for her, and now she was having to escape from the second floor of her husband’s police station.


  She looked down at the ground – still a drop of five feet or so below her – and then back up at me, eyes wide. ‘I can’t do it,’ she breathed.

  I kept my gaze on hers, trying to ignore the noises from behind me. ‘Yes you can,’ I said firmly. ‘You don’t want to stay here, do you?’

  I saw the change in her eyes, and she nodded her head and let go, collapsing to the sidewalk below her.

  She grunted but I didn’t have time to check on her – instead, I was jumping back to my feet, hauling myself up onto the railings and leaping from the balcony.

  I propelled myself through the air, desperate not to hit the tarmac fifteen feet below me.

  My stomach lurched as I plummeted to the earth – nothing like a parachute drop, but noticeable – and for a moment I worried that I hadn’t got enough forward momentum to make it to the car hood I was aiming for.

  But then I was there, crashing down onto the bright white hood of the big Ford pickup truck parked in the bays just a few feet out from the station walls.

  I gave at the ankles and knees, absorbing the impact, and a moment later I was rolling off the side, once more checking for options.

  My eyes took in several factors at once, most of them bad.

  Fire exit doors at ground level were being thrown open, cops and civilian office staff alike streaming out onto the sidewalk, presumably still thinking the alarm was for real.

  At the same time, a whole bunch of cops raced out onto the balcony, guns drawn, and I noticed that Don Carson – face bloody and half-broken – was first among them.

  I also scanned the nearby vehicles, knowing that I didn’t have time to hotwire any of them but checking to see if any had drivers in, so that we could make a quick carjacking.

  No such luck.

  The first shots from the balcony came then, tearing up the ground around us and peppering the white pickup.

  They were panicked shots, barely aimed, but I knew that more accurate shots would follow. I noticed cops on the sidewalk reacting too, drawing their own weapons in response.

  Shit – the world was about to go to hell in a handbasket, and we had nowhere to go.

  I pushed Sam behind me, taking the pistol off her as she passed by and depressing the trigger a fraction of a second later, aiming the shots high toward the balcony to force the most immediate threat – the people shooting at us – to take cover, and then to the crowd on the sidewalk, just a couple of rounds to slow down the cops among them.

  And then I turned on my heel, grabbed Samantha by the elbow, and started running.

  Our transport out of there was dead ahead, something I’d noticed out of the corner of my eye just before the cops started shooting.

  It was a bright red and chrome fire truck, a pumper which had started to pull out of the block across the street from the police station – whether due to the fire alarm I’d set off, or something else altogether, I didn’t know or care – and it was going slow as it left the garage and turned onto the street.

  I let go of Samantha’s elbow and raised the gun toward the truck’s cab as we ran, all too aware that the cops behind us would no doubt start shooting again within the next few seconds.

  I had to make those seconds count.

  Acting on instinct – understanding this was the time when the cops would start shooting – I whipped round and let loose with a couple more rounds of my own. We were at the turning fire truck a moment later, and I wrenched open the door and aimed the pistol at the three firefighters there.

  ‘Get out!’ I yelled, but I could tell that the guy on the passenger side nearest me wasn’t going to capitulate easily. His body was twisting in his seat to confront me and – although I had no wish to shoot a firefighter – I didn’t have time to mess around.

  I pulled myself up into the cab, grabbed the man with both hands and hauled him right out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. There were two more men inside – another passenger and the driver – and I launched myself at the first man, tackling him deeper into the cab. ‘Get in!’ I shouted after Samantha, as I hit the guy in the jaw with the handgun, dazing him. ‘And shut that door!’

  She did as I asked just as the rounds started to hit the metal skin, but the door was closed in time and the truck was still turning, heading up the street away from the police station, and the bulk of the vehicle was now between us and the shooters.

  I raised the pistol again, aiming at the driver over the first guy’s sagging body. ‘Get out!’ I tried again, but this guy wasn’t going to make it easy either, and made a grab for the gun.

  His foot was still on the accelerator though, and as I grappled over the pistol, Samantha screamed.

  We both looked up and saw why – the truck was pulling out at an angle across the street, heading straight for the sedan coming the other way.

  The firefighter let go of the pistol and grabbed the wheel, pulling us back into the correct lane; but grateful as I was, I was through playing and – dropping the pistol to the seat as I reached up to grab hold of a roof rail – I jumped over the first guy and double-foot kicked the driver right out of the cab, door crashing open with the impact of his body.

  I clambered across and grabbed the wheel before we could careen across the street again, risking letting go for a moment as I reached with both hands to close the door.

  I settled into the driver’s seat, once again letting go of the wheel to issue a little elbow to the side of the remaining firefighter’s head. He’d started to come out of his drowsy state, and I figured he’d be better off asleep.

  I pushed the right pedal to the floor, the truck picking up speed as we hurtled down North McKinley Avenue.

  ‘Samantha!’ I yelled. ‘Grab the pistol and shoot these damn cuffs off me!’

  Mrs. Carson was trying to desperately to catch her breath in the far seat, and might well have been starting to suffer from panic, even shock; but after a few moments she found the pistol and – after a few more moments – aimed the barrel toward the center of the cuffs and pulled the trigger. I’d raised them above the steering wheel for the shot, so that she wouldn’t damage the controls, and as soon as the high-velocity round shattered the steel links, my hands were back down on the wheel.

  The windshield didn’t make out too well though, the round cracking it badly after first hitting the cuffs, but the controls still worked, and that was the main thing.

  The impact and vibration from the shot had hurt like hell, but at least my hands were free again; I could even move one to the gear lever, shift up, and finally stop the engine from destroying itself.

  Samantha was retreating back into herself again, but she’d done as I’d asked.

  But more than that, she was still alive; and that would have to do for now.

  Chapter Six

  North McKinley Avenue didn’t run far south from the fire station – we were at a junction with East Second Street in less than a minute; and although the road continued ahead across the junction, I could see it terminated with a dead-end only a couple of hundred feet further on.

  In my mirrors I could see that police cruisers were already starting to follow, and I decided not to brake for the junction but to keep my momentum going, wrenching the wheel to the left, turning east onto East Second.

  ‘There!’ Samantha cried out next to me. ‘Isn’t that your dog?’

  I looked in her direction, saw the unmistakable figure of Kane sprinting across the road toward us, and hit the brakes, sending the fire truck into a squealing stop halfway across East Second.

  ‘Open the door!’ I shouted back to her, but she was already on it, pulling the lever and throwing the door wide open, and a second later my big furry friend had leapt inside the already crowded cabin, panting heavily and licking Samantha’s face.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ I said, overjoyed to see him but already hitting the gas and aiming the big truck east down the street, all too aware that stopping had cost us time we could barely afford.

  But Kane
was worth it.

  Samantha reached over the big lug and pulled the door shut. ‘Couldn’t you have found anything bigger?’ she asked with a smile, and I was happy that she could still see something to laugh about.

  ‘I left the Chihuahua at home today,’ I joked back, checking the roads around me. I’d seen the Sand Springs Expressway ahead of me on McKinley, although there was no way of getting to it from there, and so as I weaved the big truck in and out of the light traffic – sending one or two cars off the road as I went – I kept looking right for another way onto the highway.

  ‘Look for an exit,’ I shouted to Samantha – still struggling to find space now Kane had joined us – over the sound of the strained diesel engine as we passed garages and diners, stores and parking lots.

  I could hear sirens closing in and checked the mirrors again; four cruisers were hot on our trail, catching up quick.

  ‘There!’ Samantha called out as we neared an intersection. ‘Turn! Turn!’

  I paused as the lights ahead turned red, then accelerated forward through them, yanking the wheel right in the direction Samantha was pointing, cutting in front of the other traffic heading along North Lincoln Avenue.

  Horns blared and people yelled, but I ignored them as I hit the gas and surged down East 29th Street.

  Behind me, I saw the squad cars struggling to pull out into the traffic, having to brake hard to avoid getting hit. With their sirens on, they managed to make the turn eventually, but the move had bought me some time; and I also noticed that it had been a good call by Samantha, this road led underneath the expressway and looked as if it would loop around to an on-ramp.

  ‘This’ll take us onto the highway,’ Samantha confirmed, recovered from her previous panic, at least for now. ‘East toward Tulsa.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘That’s where we’re headed.’

  I turned our own siren on and piloted the truck around the curving road, pleased to see the other vehicles moving out of our path, giving us a clear run at the highway.