Path of Ranger: Volume 1

by RJ

  JB wasn’t rushing, it looked like he was listening carefully, but all that was on his mind was waiting for Markus to draw the gun. Markus paled, his face looked as lifeless as his eyes. He was mumbling something with his lips, silently. The panic attack blinded his mind, he looked aside as a distraction and swiftly pulled out his gun. He nearly managed to shoot, but JB’s bullet reached him first. His right shoulder was hit. Markus dropped the gun and grabbed the wound. The pain took all of him. He looked down at the pistol, tried to pick it up, but fell down on the knees instead. The sound of that massive gun went almost unnoticed, all they heard was an echo running through the dungeon.

  The wounded man dropped into the puddle of his own blood. The bullet hit the bone, the right side of his body was immobilized, but his feet never stopped moving even when he just lay there bleeding. Meanwhile, the thugs had brought Tyris there too. They put him on the knees close to Markus.

  JB stared at Tyris, his hand squeezed the gun so hard even the veins noticeably inflated. Everyone kept silent, no one dared to speak before the boss. But he remained silent on purpose, to make the traitors more nervous. The uncertainty seemed even more frightful than the direct menace of death. Nearly a minute they all kept standing that way until JB saw something in Tyris’ eyes. A realization that it was the end.

  “You, motherfuckers, betrayed me. Burn in hell.”

  It seemed that Tyris was going to say something, but all he accomplished was some slight lips shivering and dry uncertain sounds. He looked hypnotized, wasn’t able to talk or move. He got covered in sweat, the tears were running down his cheeks. And he kept shivering.

  “I would stigmatize them both and put in the trunk,” JB said to the people, still looking at Tyris, “but, as I said, it’s up to you to decide.”

  Two thugs picked up Markus, another two came out of the crowd to get Tyris. After the gang went on to deal with the traitors, JB finally had a chance to talk to the one of his people.

  “Beat them up. Hard.”

  “Don’t you want ‘em dead?” the man asked.

  “It's not up to us to kill 'em. You bring them to D-Kay after, trash them on his lawn,” just as JB was going to leave, he noticed that they were alone so he caught a moment to talk to Hakim about something else. “One more thing, Hakim. This is our last meeting. Make sure of Chris’ safety and your own.”

  “So that’s it? There is no crew anymore?” the black man raised his voice for everybody to hear him.

  JB looked at the crowd that suddenly stared at him.

  “Yeah! That’s it. Now each one of you has a second chance, don’t waste it. For those of you who still want to die out there, Big Dog would be more than happy to take you in, I think,” he finished ironically.

  The crew’s leader gave out his last order, he did everything he was supposed to. Nothing held him there anymore. He said goodbye to Hakim and all of those who still were around, then he moved on.

  All of a sudden Chris called him out from behind, “Is it time yet, B?”

  JB stopped, looked back at him and nodded smiling. He froze in solemn waiting, watching as Chris took out a remote with a single red button on it. These three had been waiting for that moment for a long time. The last phase. There was no turning back after. The black man pushed the button and the greenish gas started to come out from the wall sockets to erase everything it could get to.

  JB had a lot to think of on the way out of dungeon. His feelings were divided, on one hand he was glad that it was finally over, but on the other – he had imagined it differently. No matter what happened lately, they were his friends, he cared about them as his own brothers. And he sort of understood why they had done that. Nevertheless, letting it pass would have been a sign of weakness.

  The big guy cheered up and tried to switch his mind to the next phase, the escape itself. The last part of the plan seemed easy enough. Take the Escalade and get to the airport.

  Bridgers walked through the living room. The kitchen door was wide open. He looked inside, no one was there. Only the noise of a rabble echoed from the backyard to which kitchen led to. JB watched for a few seconds how the others were beating up Tyris and Markus, then he turned around and left. They got what they deserved, so JB was relieved from his anger. Finally, things went in their natural order, justice thrived. That brought a great deal of peace to him.

  The gangster went outside from the front door. Looked around. Nothing caught his attention. Sunlight vanished with the dusk, yellow streetlights lit the surroundings. JB went down the ramp to get on his motorcycle. Suddenly, in about twenty yards from him an old gray sedan darted off towards him. The wheels were squeaking, burning up rubber, and a cloud of smoke raised behind them. The car ran near him instantly. He couldn’t even react yet, but it was already too late. The windows went down, JB made a try to outrun it to get behind the house. The effort was useless. Two men in ski masks showed themselves, both pulled out automatic rifles.

  Bridgers barely made a few steps when bright yellow flashes of firing guns blinded him. Those couple of seconds of being under assault felt like an eternity. The road was covered with shell casings. The gangster was thrown towards the house, for a brief moment he thought that he died. Even after the firing stopped, he still heard the echoes inside his head. Soon he realized that the car passed far away.

  Taking that hit felt terrible. JB tasted sickness, he nearly threw up all his insides. His body was burning in pain as if he would be torn apart. Everything mixed together in such a short time. The pain bandwidth lowered to block the confusion. His mind snapped back to balance. Bridgers realized that the menace passed, he couldn’t move yet, but he was sure that all of his organs were fine, the vest stopped all of the bullets. Rear gangsters were good shooters, JB was lucky that these two were not those.

  In just a few seconds, he already held a gun of his own. He pushed up against the ground with the fingers of the left hand and with the pistol’s muzzle in the right. The vehicle reached the end of the street by that time, but the gangster still could see it. JB ran around the house for his bike. Other thugs showed up from the back yard. Confused by the firing they stared at their boss.

  “B, are you alright, man?” one of the gangsters asked.

  “After them!” JB shouted when getting on the bike.

  “How many boys do you need?” the gangster asked.

  “Just one whip,” he finally looked at them. “What are you waiting for?! Go!”

  There was no need for delay anymore, after receiving an order the men went to the Caddy parked nearby. JB put on his helmet, turned on the engine, and rushed forward, not waiting for others. The vest pressed on his chest hard because of the bullet deformations, but he still was afraid to take it off. Those probably weren’t the last shots that he might take that night.

  A sick cloud appeared from the motorcycle’s rear wheel and the vehicle stormed through the road insanely fast. In a matter of seconds, he reached the end of the block to turn after the runaway car. Four other gangsters followed JB.

  Riding on the road he didn’t know exactly where that car headed, it wasn’t in his sight anymore, but JB had a good idea. His gut told him to stick to the path to D-Kay’s territory. Another block passed. After taking a turn, he saw a lone vehicle about a hundred yards ahead, his target. JB’s speed was already much faster than his foe's, so he didn’t elevate it more. An old abandoned motel showed up at the end of the street, it was likely to be empty. If anywhere was a perfect place to finish the chase, it was there.

  The furious gangster was racing on between lanes, the car came to the next turn, it had to be stopped that moment or never. JB took out the gun, aimed as accurately as he could, he had only one chance and he knew it. The gangster pulled the trigger. He didn’t care about the speed or the risk of losing control over the motorcycle, all that concerned him were his aim and his pistol.

  Two bullets went out of the muzzle. Right after shooting JB grabbed back the handle with both hands, just that very mo
ment he realized how lucky he was not to go off the road. The bullets flew through the air that glossed with white dust, going lower and lower, almost touching the ground. They almost fell down, but not quite, their target was reached. One bullet hit the tire, another went through the wheel itself, cutting the connection between the disk and the axle. The left rear tire of the car blew up and went off the axle, then jumped aside. The driver lost control of the vehicle. The gangster exhaled with relief when he saw as the car zig-zagged on the road and streamed to the hotel's parking area, where it hit the cable pillar and crashed at the building’s corner. The broken pile of metal released a sizzle and let out a white steam as a last breath of a dying mechanism.

  JB stopped near the sidewalk, a few yards from the crash. He jumped off the bike and looked around, there were people staring at him from the windows of surrounding buildings. He took off the helmet, despite the air, despite that he was under watch. On his slow walk to the smashed car he saw a gas leaking from the tank, gathering into a puddle near the vehicle. He could not see much inside because of the thick smoke. Still, JB noticed some movement behind the air bags. Someone there was still alive. Bridgers was not going to ask survivors any questions, he just wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be any survivors.

  The backup car stopped near his bike, no man went outside. Yet, they were ready to give the boss a hand any minute.

  JB noticed a sparkling electricity cable lying near the broken pillar. He slowly walked backward and negligently shoved the cord towards the pool of gas with his foot. In a few seconds, some of the sparkles fell into the gas puddle. JB didn’t watch anymore, he turned his back to those who wronged him. In a matter of moments, the car got absorbed with flames, the screams from inside were not louder than whispers to the gangster’s ear. He got on his motorcycle and went on.

  The sirens sounded from far away. Police, firemen, ambulances, any possible service would soon would be there, although the last one would not be much use to anybody.

  JB turned the bike around, when passing the backup car, he dropped the gun to one of the guys through the window. The other gangsters left the crime scene right after him.

  The police were closer and closer. Jerry couldn’t go to the base, neither he couldn’t go home, that option would be even worse. The gun was taken care of, but he was driving an unregistered motorcycle. So he had to get rid of that as well, as soon as possible, and disappear from the neighborhood. He turned abruptly to the narrow alley, where he passed trash containers, some boxes, and other junk. Any path was safe where the cops couldn’t go through. JB needed to get to the pier where he could dispose of that motorcycle for good.

  The destination was not too far, just a few more blocks. Bridgers reached the crossroad with the road that was leading to the pier, he just had a couple minutes left to the finish. Suddenly two police cars appeared behind him.

  “Stop the vehicle!” a loud voice sounded from the speaker. “I repeat! Stop! Now!”

  It went all over JB’s mind how they managed to get there so fast. It was like they knew where he was, the conspiracy paranoia got to him as it happened quite often lately. The motorcyclist stepped on the gas some more to elevate that insane speed even higher. He won some distance on the next couple blocks and went on to the seafront. Then he turned to the pier, switched lanes to the opposite one and increased his speed as high as he was able to. Several military class transportation vehicles appeared in front of him, so he had to bypass them with an extreme maneuver, which ended with riding on the sidewalk. Usually, there were lots of people at the pier during the evenings, but that night it was full of them. But Bridgers didn’t stop. Counting only on a dumb luck, he flashed through the crowd.

  At first, JB didn’t understand why so many people were there since the curfew was on, but soon he saw the ferries that were sailing near the coast to evacuate the people. Although they were an obstacle for him to get through, he found in them an excellent cover to get away from the chase.

  The last turn he took led him to the pier itself. It was the finish line. The road's end laid in about fifty yards ahead. JB was signaling as hard as he could for people to get out of his way. It was it, he pushed the gas for the last time, then he stood up on the foot pegs. The rest of the road in front of him was clear. Bridgers made a keen throw backward and leaped off the bike. The vehicle darted off the pier into the water. The big guy fell to the hard ground from where he kept rolling and rolling till his body was out of the initial velocity. All confused, beaten up, and covered in dirt and blood, he tried to walk it out. He wasn’t sure about what happened to the bike, where it landed. Every thought of his was all about getting out of that place.

  An angry crowd gathered around the gangster, they were watching and whispering, but no one dared to come close. The talking and whispering were gradually transforming into disturbance and indignation. Some of the people were shouting at JB, but he couldn’t hear a thing, his head had taken a hard hit and the hearing was still blocked by an inner ringing. Soon he started getting back to his senses. He raised up on the feet. The ringing and vertigo were passing with each next second. The crowd’s attitude didn’t worry him much. But when his hearing returned he noticed that the familiar sirens were getting closer. The police cars were already on the waterfront; the gangster didn’t have much time. He ran along the pier to mix with the crowd, but it was impossible while he looked like he did.

  People were watching the big guy running, none of them knew what was happening, but the interest grew. JB took off his jacket right on the run to dump it into the water, he did the same to the bloody t-shirt. All that had left on his torso were a ragged bulletproof vest covered in bullet dents from and a white singlet under it. He opened all of the clasps and instantly felt an enormous relief in the chest. It felt as he got rid of a colossal weight that was pressing on him forever. The used means of protection followed the other parts of JB’s outfit.

  The policemen who were chasing JB arrived at the pier, four uniforms appeared from those two cars. They looked at the confused crowd, but the suspect wasn’t there anymore. Two of them went closer to the people to look around, ask some questions. Another two were searching those spots where JB dumped his clothes. Their efforts didn’t pay off: the suspect was gone, same as his motorcycle, the vest, and the clothes. Everything had drowned.

  The cops were perplexed and angry. Just a few minutes before they were chasing the guy, and soon after he disappeared from the pier, which had a single exit controlled by them. After some more time of unsuccessful search, they gathered near their cars to have a discussion. The talk didn’t last for long, soon three law servants went back into their vehicles. The last one walked aside, he made sure of his solitude and pulled out a cell to make a call.

  There were lots of yellow cabs around that area, in fact, most of the cars were. So it wouldn’t be hard to find a shelter inside one of them, like JB did. It wasn’t cheap though; the taxi driver took a thousand dollars to keep him safe. From there, the gangster gained a good point to watch the policeman who was talking over the phone. He recognized the guy, it was one of the locals, Officer Mentenny. The gang had an agreement with this exact law servant that meant to protect them from police intrusion. Yet he didn't.

  One more time JB got lucky to avoid what was coming to him. He stopped watching the cops and turned to the cab driver.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where to?” the wheelman asked.

  “Just drive. Hurry up.”

  While they were riding along the coast, JB saw a whole convoy of law enforcement vehicles rushing towards the pier. The sirens ruined once peaceful streets. Adrenaline still pumped in the veins, which was bringing some insane ideas to his mind. The shadow of a revenge wish kept coming back to him over and over. But he almost died twice during last hour. His chest burned in pain after the shooting and his limbs suffered after the fall. He had enough adventure for one day. It was time to let go. He looked back one more time to make sur
e that there nobody followed them. It seemed fine. By that time, they went far away from Lower Compton.

  JB gave an address to the driver and they slowly kept rolling on that empty road.

  The night streets led JB to his home. The yellow cab parked in front of the house. The big guy paid the driver what had been promised and left the car. The cab moved on.

  Bridgers didn’t plan to go inside the building, just straight to the garage to take that Caddy with the cash. He looked terrible: all dirty, bruised, with damaged clothes and dry blood everywhere on them. The shower would be a great use for sure, but he thought it might be dangerous to stay there for a long time. He felt quite well, in general, the cocaine and adrenalin sunken into his blood partially blocked the pain. Still, he had to take care of himself. It was time to clean up.

  Soon after coming into the garage JB reached the Escalade. Suddenly that strange, suspicious feeling got to him again. He stopped near the car, looked around. He was defenseless and he knew it.

  If someone were following him, it would be best to deal with it right away, but he couldn’t kill the intruder where he lived. Moreover, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, there was enough blood for one day. The best way was to take a car and lose the tail, JB thought. Nevertheless, he wasn’t sure if there even was a tail or just his own imagination.

  Putting himself together, JB took a spare key from under the truck since the main one had drowned along with the jacket. He unlocked the vehicle, went to the front passenger door, opened it, and reached inside to take a small metal box under it. Another “Desert Eagle” firearm was inside, just like the old one. There were four fully loaded magazines along with the gun. JB hurried to charge the pistol and shoved it behind his back. An extra bullet went to stay on the seat by and the box – under it. Before leaving the car, JB bent towards the steering wheel to turn on the engine. Then he moved to the rear door, where he found his brand new bulletproof vest and rushed to put it on. As soon as he was armed and protected he felt a great relief, as if he became complete again.