Godric jumped into the car with Percy and they shot out onto the highway again. Bullets sprayed the asphalt around the car. Alf punched in Brita’s number.
She answered immediately. “What’s going on?”
“Percy and Godric are under attack. It’s Raia’s copter again.”
“Shit! Where?”
Alfric looked at the nearest mile marker and told her their location.
“Hold on…” Brita put him on hold for a moment, presumably to send help to Percy and Godric. When she came back online, it sounded as if she was running with the phone to her ear. “What about you? Did you get Pleasance back?”
“She’s with me. We’re in Dric’s car.” As Alfric spoke he pulled out onto the highway and shot across the median to the opposite side of the road. I’m heading into Indy. We’ll meet you at the tailor’s shop in the morning as planned.”
They’d gone only about a mile when the ominous whir of rotors sounded above their heads.
Alfric looked over his shoulder and swore. “That didn’t take long. Seatbelt!”
Pleasance pulled the seatbelt over her body and fumbled with it. Her fingertips still felt heavy and tingly from whatever had knocked her on her ass before. She fought to shake off the stupor she’d been operating under and ducked as a barrage of bullets peppered the car and the road around them.
Alfric swerved the car in wide arcs to limit the copter’s ability to target them. Pleasance bit her lip as they passed car after car filled with innocent people, some of them children. “Alfric we need to get away from this traffic. Somebody’s going to get killed.”
He nodded. “Hold on, I see some protection ahead.” He gunned it, pulling off on the shoulder to get around the traffic. For a long, terrifying moment the back tires swung dangerously on loose gravel and it looked as if they’d slide right off the highway and into the deep ravine at the side of the road.
But Alfric somehow got the car under control and they shot forward, passing the long line of traffic gathering as the business day ended.
Pleasance braced herself and gasped as Alfric suddenly jerked the little car left, reentering traffic through a space between cars that was only about two car lengths long. He kept moving left until the little car straddled two lanes.
Bullets pinged off the roof and hood. Cars on either side of them threw on the brakes and swerved away, creating a cascade of events that involved dozens of cars behind them. The sound of horns and crashing vehicles had Pleasance turning around in horror.
They suddenly found themselves alone in the middle of the highway, except for two big rigs roaring down the road, side by side, in front of them. The big tractor-trailer rigs seemed oblivious to what was going on behind them.
One of the rigs was a tanker, with flammable markings on its side.
In a flash of horrified understanding, Pleasance realized what Alfric had in mind. “OH MY GOD!”
Alf slammed the gas pedal to the floor and they surged forward, sliding easily between the two huge rigs and straddling the center line. “Are you flippin’ crazy?” She had to shout to be heard above the din of the two monsters on either side of them.
He kept his eyes on the road in front of him, his knuckles white on the wheel. “Maybe a little. But we’re safer here than anywhere else right now.”
Pleasance felt the color leeching from her face. “Yeah, if they don’t both decide to move toward the center of the road at the same time and squash us like a bug.”
Pleasance looked up and saw the copter hovering above them.
“They can’t shoot at us here. If they hit the tanker the explosion would blast them right out of the sky,” Alf informed her.
Pleasance nodded. There was a certain mad genius to his reasoning. She felt a little better for a moment. But then Alfric said, “Oh shit!” and her world turned dark again.
The helicopter shot past them and turned, dropping down to hover in front of them, about a mile ahead.
It was obvious what they planned.
A giant, deadly game of chicken.
“Brawk, Alfric, Brawk!!!!” Pleasance screamed. “They win. I’m chicken!”
Jake brakes shrieked on both sides of them, causing Pleasance to scream with alarm, and the trailers from both rigs started to swing dangerously on their hitches. The screech of metal scraping metal preceded a bone-jarring thud as the little car was slammed on one side, the impact sending Pleasance halfway across the car despite her seatbelt and plunging them into the other rig, which was swaying like a woman in a grass skirt on the other side.
The smell of burning rubber filled their nostrils and Pleasance ducked as a big chunk of tire slammed against the windshield and pinged off, to tangle in the tires of the second rig.
They watched in horror as both trailers swung out toward the edges of the road and then started, as if in slow motion, moving inward again. They were going to slam together in the middle of the road and turn Godric’s little, red sports car into a large, red pancake when they hit.
Alfric slammed his foot on the brake and they skidded to a stop, the trailers slammed together just inches in front of their bumper. The rigs wobbled dangerously, spinning sideways together off the road and collapsing into a ditch with a horrible, wrenching sound.
Alf and Pleasance sat perfectly still in an eerie silence, broken only by the distant whir of the copter’s rotors. The chopper hung before them for a long moment, as if savoring their helplessness, and then started toward them.
“That’s it!” Alfric screamed. “I’m done screwing around with these assholes.” He climbed out of the car, taking the keys with him.
“Alfric! What are you doing?”
“Get out of the car, Pleasance. Run into those trees over there.”
She climbed out and ran around to the back of the car, where Alfric had opened the trunk and was pulling something long and slim out of the back.
“A rifle?” Pleasance’s voice shrieked embarrassingly. “Who carries a loaded rifle in their trunk?”
Alf dropped a cartridge into the rifle and slammed it shut. “Pretty much all of the Honeybun brothers…and our parents…and our cousins…our aunts and uncles… But it wasn’t loaded. It is now.” He glanced at her. “Go. I don’t want you anywhere near here when that chopper goes down.”
She looked at him as if he were a mad man. He really thought he was gonna bring that chopper down with a rifle. She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere, Alf. I’m staying here with you.”
He frowned. “Damned stubborn woman. Come on then.”
They ran to the side of the road and crouched down beside the tanker. The acrid smell of gasoline leeching from somewhere assailed their nostrils.
The chopper hovered in front of them over the road, waiting.
The door of the tanker’s cab suddenly shot open with a screech and a burly looking head popped out. “Get into those woods, sir!” Alfric screamed. “This is about to get ugly.”
The man climbed down from his cab with an agility that belied his physique and ambled toward the other cab. “Gonna get ugly!” he muttered as he passed them. “You’re gonna find out what ugly looks like if one of them bullets hits that tanker.” The driver wrenched the door to the other cab open and reached inside.
He pulled a petite woman out and helped her down to the ground. “You okay, Sadie?”
The woman nodded and glanced at Alfric and Pleasance. “What the hell’s goin’ on here?”
“Get into those woods over there, NOW! Please!” Alfric shouted at them.
They glanced at the hovering helicopter, shrugged, and took off running.
Pleasance watched in horror as the muzzle of what looked like a machine gun emerged from the side of the copter and swiveled toward the two retreating drivers. “Alfric!”
Alfric stood up and took aim. His first shot hit the chopper’s windshield, causing the chopper to wobble and lift its nose. Shots exploded from the chopper but they went high, hitting the tops of the trees alo
ng the highway.
Alfric waited until the chopper lifted and turned, trying to find a better angle to shoot at them. He took aim and fired, hitting his target perfectly. The chopper jerked and swung sideways, wobbling on its axis like a drunk trying to walk along the gutter. The pilot slumped forward over the instrument panel and the aircraft plunged hard and fast toward the ground. The chopper wobbled over the highway, dropping low and sliding sideways as the pilot fought to control it with a hole in his shoulder. He lost that battle. The chopper finally plunged backward and down.
The tail hit the road first and the nose crashed down a beat later. The skids held for a moment as the aircraft screeched down the highway, its unmanned rotors pulling it sideways. Then one of the skids finally crumpled, plunging the body of the chopper to the asphalt.
It slid for a moment longer, sparks shooting high into the air, and then ground to a crumpled halt and rocked to a stop.
Alfric moved out from behind the tanker and walked down the highway after the copter, holding the rifle in firing position. In the distance, sirens shrieked toward them. Nothing moved in the cockpit of the chopper.
Nobody climbed out.
As a dozen Indianapolis police cruisers flooded the area, screeching to a halt behind Godric’s battered car, and cops jumped out, guns drawn, Alfric quietly lowered the rifle and set it down on the road, placing his hands behind his head and turning. “I need to speak to Brita Muldane,” he told the cop who arrived to cuff him.
Chapter Seventeen
Brita stared at them from across her desk, her eyes sparking with anger and something else. Something that looked suspiciously like amusement. “You shot a helicopter down from the sky?”
Alfric shrugged.
Sighing, Brita shuffled the mountain of paper in front of her on the desk. “You see this? This is the paperwork involved when you guys do shit like this.”
Alfric grinned at her, totally unrepentant.
Finally Brita smiled. “You Honeybuns will be the death of me some day.” She looked at the report on her desk. “The chopper was an Aerospatiale Gazelle. A French made helicopter. The Army model. Fully equipped with a HOT missile system and a twenty millimeter cannon.” She looked up at Alf, her eyes sparking with humor. “That aircraft would have cost Raia upward of a million dollars. He’s not going to be happy with you.”
Alf just shrugged.
Pleasance watched the interaction with wide eyes. She was still shaking from the whole episode. “Are those two drivers okay?”
Brita nodded. “They’re full of wild stories about Double O Seven, super spy over there. They seem to think he should be wearing red tights and a cape.”
Alf shook his head, glancing at Pleasance. “White’s really my color.”
She grinned. “What about all those other people?”
“No one was badly hurt. I can’t say as much for their cars though.” Brita cocked her head at Alfric. “You never told me, what did you and Percy find out from that poor guy in the hospital, who was, I might add, bleeding profusely through his bandages when you guys left?”
Alfric grinned and shrugged. “We tried to get him to tell us the names of the targets.”
“And?”
Alf shook his head. “We were trying to figure out if we could put together a water boarding situation but then you came back.”
Brita chuckled. But she stopped in the middle of it and frowned. “You are kidding right?”
Alf shrugged. “He did tell us things aren’t what they seem in the organization. He said Raia’s just a figurehead.”
“A figurehead? He’s not in charge?”
“Not really, according to your butt shot terrorist. Apparently, a guy named Qamra Tamarat is calling most of the shots.”
“Raia’s second in command? Interesting.”
Alf stood up. “Can we go now? You’ve kept us here all night and I’d like to try to catch a couple hours of sleep before we meet up at the tailor shop.”
Brita frowned. “You’re lucky you’re not sitting in jail right now, Alf. Especially since your boss has gone radio silent on us.”
Alfric put an arm around Pleasance’s waist, leading her toward the door. He tried to push the sudden feeling of apprehension away; it wasn’t like Emmett to just ignore a communication from the police. He fully expected the man to refuse to vouch for him…but ignoring a summons was quite another story.
Emmett Clark must be mighty pissed at him.
“Merde!” Jon-Luc Raia threw his Blackberry toward the wall and stood to stalk back and forth across the room. His mood hadn’t been good for a couple of days. Honeybun’s antics had forced them to run and they were currently packed tightly into his vacation cabin in Brown County.
Qamra Tamarat sprawled in an upholstered chair before a roaring fire, his cold, dark gaze fixed on the fire and his lips twisted with disgust.
Raia stopped in front of Tamarat and fixed angry green eyes on the larger man. “What’s going on with your men Qamra? Have you completely lost control? One man…one very annoying man…took out a million dollar aircraft with a damned deer rifle!
Tamarat didn’t move; he didn’t even seem to be breathing. His dark eyes fixed on the small Frenchman’s angry face without blinking. If Raia hadn’t been so angry he might have recognized that the other man had assumed a ‘predator stalking prey’ attitude.
When Tamarat said nothing, Raia completely lost it. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the arms of Tamarat’s chair, pushing his handsome and currently red-tinged face close to Tamarat’s. “You just sit there with a smug look on your stupid face while the operation folds around our ears. You can’t really be this stupid and inept can you?!”
Quick as a snake, Tamarat had a hand wrapped around the smaller man’s throat and, before Raia knew what hit him, Tamarat had him backed up and pinned against the large, ornate wood desk behind him. Raia gasped and flailed uselessly against Tamarat’s wide chest with his small, well manicured hands.
Tamarat lowered his face to within an inch of Raia’s. “Listen to me you inconsequential little French beetle. If this operation has been screwed up it hasn’t been by me. I told you we needed to take Honeybun out the first time I laid eyes on him but you listened to that worthless coward of a partner instead of me. This is the result of that bad decision. Do not even think to blame me for this mess.”
He released Raia but kept the Frenchman pinned with his body. “Now, we must kill Honeybun, the woman, and anyone else who gets in our way and finish this. I regret to inform you that you are going to get dirt on your pretty white clothes and blood under your carefully tended nails. The time for prevaricating and dithering is past. I will be in charge from here on out. Is that very clear?”
Raia’s face matched his pristine white suit and he looked as if he might pass out at any moment but he managed a nod.
After hanging over him for a few beats longer, Tamarat finally stepped away. “I am going to make arrangements to remove the threat to our operation. I suggest you contact everyone and move up the timetable for our final play. This time next week, I want to have the money in my hands and I want to be on a plane back to Dubai.”
If it was possible Raia’s face grew even paler. “But…what about me? You promised me ten million dollars.”
Tamarat all but sneered. “You’ll get your money, girly man. And then I hope never to see your sniveling face again.”
Raia waited until Tamarat left the room and then he dropped into the chair the man had recently vacated and straightened his tie with shaking hands. He fussed with his cuffs and worried at a new wrinkle in his perfectly tailored white slacks as he worked the problem over in his mind.
It was clear Tamarat had burst free of the tenuous hold Raia had over him and had become a problem. Raia would have to have him taken care of. His partner could see to that with little trouble. The only problem was that Raia had been unable to reach his partner of late. And whatever was to be done about Tamarat would have to be don
e quickly.
With a sigh, Raia realized he’d have to do the thing himself. Merde! Why couldn’t minions just stay in the little boxes where he put them?
Ambition was such an ugly thing.
He picked up the phone and dialed. After three rings, Cantara, Tamarat’s long suffering wife, answered the phone. Poor little Cantara had a secret. And Raia wasn’t above using Cantara’s pitiful little secret to his own ends.
Thank god for Arab pride.
“Hello my dear. It’s Jon-Luc. How is that beautiful little daughter of yours?”
The scaffolding swayed gently as the man in coveralls reached into his bag and carefully pulled out a lump of clay. He closed his eyes against the roiling in his stomach. He’d never really been all that good with heights. And there he was, swaying dizzyingly high above the ground on a moveable scaffold system. After a moment, he thought he could go on without spewing his lunch and opened his eyes.
He pressed the clay to the glazing at the edge of the huge piece of glass and sank the detonator into it. He checked to verify that he’d grabbed the right color detonator before moving to the opposite edge of the glass and repeating the process.
Glancing down, he smiled at the tiny, colorful figures scurrying around below. They had no idea what was coming their way. People saw what they wanted to see, and if they looked up at all they’d think they saw a window washer.
Ignorance was ever the terrorist’s friend.
Ignorance, and a staunch refusal to believe that anyone meant them harm. They were all bugs under his feet. And soon they’d be exterminated like the festering insects they were.
Shaking his head, he forced himself to focus on the job at hand. He had two more zones to do before he could climb down from the swaying platform. Swallowing the saliva that filled his mouth as he fought nausea, he put his head down and got back to work.
Life Liberty and the Pursuit of a Honeybun Page 14
