The Outsider (James Bishop 4)

by Dean, Jason

  He raised his automatic weapon and fired at the SUV. In the back, Strickland shouted something. Bishop winced as a stream of impact marks riddled the lower part of the windshield. He kept the wheel steady. The man kept firing. But now he was shooting low, aiming at the wheels and the undercarriage. The noise of the bullets making contact reverberated throughout the vehicle’s interior. More gunfire rained down on them from the left as the other two joined in. Bishop suddenly heard a harsh grinding noise under his feet he hadn’t heard before and just kept ploughing through.

  Then he was through the driveway entrance and on the street. They were out. Bishop pumped the brakes, wrenched the wheel hard to the left until they were pointed east and stepped on the gas again. The rear end started to fishtail to the right until he compensated and got it under control again. He passed the school bus and just kept going down Gulliver Street.

  ‘You all right back there?’ he said as he took it up to forty. Forty-five. Fifty.

  ‘Jesus,’ Strickland said. ‘Yeah, we’re okay. Where to now?’

  ‘The nearest police station.’

  Bishop had made a thorough recon of the area yesterday evening, so the various routes were still fresh in his mind. He knew every street around here. Every intersection. Three-quarters of a mile to the east was North 5th Street, which would take them to the downtown area of North Vegas. He knew the nearest police headquarters was on East Lake Mead Boulevard, about five miles south of their current location. But he didn’t want to take such a direct route if he could help it. No telling who might be coming after them.

  He visualized an alternative route. The next turn-off along Gulliver was for Longacres Street, a hundred yards up ahead on the right. The one he wanted for North Gramarcy Street was another hundred yards beyond that. He looked in the rear-view and saw a dark sedan suddenly screech into Gulliver from the intersection back at the house. It kept coming in their direction. A backup in case the hit team let them get away, had to be. It was moving too fast to be anything else, which meant they weren’t out of it yet.

  ‘There’s another car,’ Barney said breathlessly, looking out the rear windshield. ‘It’s coming after us.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Bishop said.

  The turn-off for Longacres was almost on them. Bishop made an immediate decision and tapped the brakes and yanked the wheel right. He swung the SUV into Longacres at forty miles an hour, straightened out and began to increase speed again.

  ‘Watch out,’ Strickland yelled from behind his shoulder.

  Bishop had already seen it. Up ahead on the right, barely twenty feet away, a car was backing out of its driveway onto the street. Bishop pressed down on his horn twice and veered around the vehicle without braking, barely missing the rear bumper by inches.

  ‘Asshole,’ Strickland shouted. An angry car horn answered him.

  Bishop kept going, checking the rear-view every other second. Waiting for that sedan. It was sure to have seen him take the turn. That grinding noise under the engine was also getting progressively louder. Bishop didn’t like that sound at all.

  Up ahead about fifty feet away was the three-way intersection he wanted. He needed to reach it before the sedan turned into this street and saw which direction they took. He stamped down hard on the gas, giving it everything he had.

  Seconds later, he reached the intersection and swung a hard left into Blackmore Avenue. The sedan still hadn’t made the previous turn. Bishop straightened out again and aimed for the intersection for North Gramarcy two hundred feet up ahead. They reached it four seconds later, still with no sign of the sedan. Bishop braked and looked left and right. Saw nothing. He turned right into North Gramarcy and took them back up to thirty-five. Single-storey houses passed by on either side. Their car was the only one on the street. But it wouldn’t be for long.

  Bishop decided it might be better to stick to these smaller roads. It would take longer, but there’d be far less chance of their being tracked by the enemy. Especially as they stood out in this vehicle. The bullet holes were kind of hard to ignore.

  Voices were coming from the police scanner and he reached down and turned the volume up.

  ‘… confirmed, Seven-Adam,’ a clipped female voice was saying. It sounded like the dispatcher. ‘Address is 234 Gulliver Street. Same witness also reports three or four of the perps have just escaped the scene in a black Toyota Highlander. No registration available at this time. Be advised they are reportedly armed with fully automatic weapons and are to be considered extremely dangerous. Handle with caution, and don’t take any chances. Helicopter surveillance is also on its way. ETA, six minutes.’

  What the hell? Bishop found himself slowing as he listened closely.

  Another voice, this one male, said, ‘Ten-four, Dispatch. En route now. Currently at the plaza on East Centennial Parkway, about to turn into North Gramarcy. Twelve-Adam’s behind me. And don’t worry, we definitely won’t be taking any chances with these guys.’

  ‘Shit,’ Bishop said and hit the brakes, bringing the Toyota to a sudden stop. ‘East Centennial’s just over half a mile ahead of us. We’re on a collision course.’

  ‘Hey, what are they talking about?’ Strickland said. ‘We’re the victims here, not the perps. What the hell do we do now? Turn ourselves in? What?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Bishop said, thinking fast. ‘That cop sounds a little too gung-ho for my liking. The kind who shoots first and asks questions later.’

  ‘But what can they do to us?’ Barney said. ‘We’re in an armoured car.’

  ‘Maybe so, but that’s not the only reason to avoid them.’

  Bishop studied the houses on either side of the street. The one just behind them on the left had a narrow driveway that ended in a carport at the side of the house. Driveway and carport were both empty. He could only hope the occupants had already left for work. It would only be for a few minutes anyway. He reversed a few yards until they were adjacent to the open gate, turned the wheel left and calmly steered the Toyota down the driveway until they were under the shade of the carport roof.

  Bishop set the handbrake, but left the engine idling. He watched the rear-view. The cops would be racing past in a matter of seconds. He hoped they’d race past. He could already hear sirens approaching.

  Strickland leaned forward. ‘What the hell are they talking about, armed and dangerous? We’re the victims here, like I said.’

  ‘That witness the dispatcher mentioned,’ Bishop said without turning. ‘If he’s one of the shooters, and I think he is, we’re being set up. That’s why I don’t want to let the cops take us just yet. Even if there’s no shooting, they’ll arrest us and call in with their current location, and you can bet your ass the perps will be listening in on their own police scanners. There’s that black sedan, don’t forget. Maybe that courier van, too. Who knows how many more vehicles they’ve got on the streets searching for us? Once the cops call in that they’ve caught us, they’ll simply converge on their position and take us and the cops out in one go. They’ve just wasted a bunch of US marshals to get to you. What’s a few more cops?’

  ‘The siren’s getting louder,’ Barney said.

  ‘Get down,’ Bishop said, lowering himself enough that he could still see using the side mirror.

  Seconds later he saw a black and white whip by, the light bar flashing red and white as it went. Then a second one hurtled past immediately after it. The sirens gradually grew muted as they sped away. Bishop stayed where he was for a few more moments, watching and thinking. Mostly thinking.

  Because getting them to police headquarters wasn’t going to work anymore. Five miles was too far to travel without being spotted by either side. Especially in a bullet-ridden SUV. And to make matters worse there’d also be aerial surveillance within the next five minutes. They still had the police scanner, but he didn’t dare use it to call for help, not with the perps listening in. And Bishop had left his cell phone back at the house, which meant they were completely on th
eir own for now.

  But one thing was for sure. They couldn’t stay here. A nosy neighbour might be reporting their presence to the police right this second. They needed to move, fast. And they really needed to get out of the city altogether if possible. Go to some other town and make contact with the feds from there. Vegas was far too hot right now. But where?

  Bishop mentally ticked off the available options using the road map in his head until he was left with the one they’d least expect.

  He quickly reversed out of the carport and yanked the wheel left until they were pointing in the direction from which they’d just come. In the rear-view mirror he noticed a middle-aged guy in a red tracksuit about twenty feet behind them, just jogging on the spot as he stared at the SUV. No doubt curious about all the bullet holes. Bishop was about to hit the accelerator when he remembered the GPS tracker that Delaney had mentioned. Hidden in the armrest, she’d said. Probably a good idea to get rid of it now rather than later. With the engine idling, Bishop looked down at the leather armrest set into the door panel at his side and tried dislodging the thing with his bare hands, but it wouldn’t budge a millimetre.

  He said, ‘Barney, you still got your multi-tool with you?’

  ‘Uh, yeah. Why?’

  ‘Let me have it for a moment. There’s a GPS tracker in here we need to get rid of.’

  Barney pulled out his multi-tool and handed it over. Bishop extracted the small one-inch knife and inserted the blade in the thin space between the armrest and the hard plastic of the door. After about fifteen seconds of jiggling, he felt the armrest start to loosen, so he removed the blade and used his fingers to pull it out the rest of the way. And lying in the space underneath there was a sleek-looking device that resembled a small, wireless, external hard drive. A pinhole-sized green LED light at the top showed it was currently active.

  He pulled the device from its hiding place and pressed the switch to lower the window.

  From the back, Strickland said, ‘I been thinking, Bishop. Why don’t you just let the two of us out of here, huh? I’ll call the feds from one of these houses and—’

  ‘Forget it,’ Bishop interrupted, and tossed the tracker out the window where it landed on the sidewalk. ‘There’s no way I’m letting either of you out of my—’

  He suddenly stopped when he saw the jogger had moved closer to the SUV, so that there was now only five or six feet between them. The guy had his arm outstretched and was aiming a cell phone in their direction, obviously taking a photo.

  ‘Shit,’ Bishop said, and quickly raised the window again, hoping the guy hadn’t caught his face, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. They were out of time and needed to move right now. He released the handbrake and stamped hard on the accelerator. They sped away.

  Strickland said, ‘So what now?’

  ‘Now we go off-road,’ Bishop said.

  SEVENTEEN

  Bishop slowed as they got to within fifty feet of the Beltway up ahead. They were currently driving across the rough terrain of the Mojave Desert, having left the smooth asphalt roads of North Las Vegas five minutes before. Nobody was following them. Yet.

  ‘That noise is getting worse,’ Strickland said. His voice came out shaky as he was rocked back and forth from the rough ride.

  Bishop said nothing, but Strickland was right. Each time he turned the wheel that grinding noise recurred, a little louder than before. Whatever it was, it had started back at the house. Amazingly, three of the pneumatic tyres were still intact. The fourth had been shot out, though the polymer ring backup was working just fine so far. But something was damaged down there. Bishop had a feeling the undercarriage hadn’t been as well protected as Delaney had thought. And if it was the front axle shaft that was damaged, as he suspected, then it could likely snap at any time, especially on rough terrain like this.

  On the plus side, there was very little traffic using this section of the Beltway up ahead. A coupe and a sedan were approaching from the right. Once they sped past, Bishop couldn’t see anything else approaching for at least half a mile in either direction.

  The time was now.

  He stamped on the accelerator and raced towards the highway up ahead. They climbed the slight incline and then they were driving across the almost empty four-lane highway. In less than a second they reached the other side and were back on rough desert again. Bishop kept them going in a northerly direction. Just over a mile north of the Beltway, he knew there were some old mining roads that ran parallel to the highway for another four miles. They weren’t much more than dirt tracks, but smoother than the terrain they were currently on. And four miles was four miles.

  Bishop kept driving towards the mountains in the distance, avoiding sagebrush where he could, until he spotted the old mining road he was looking for. He veered right, joined the track and kept going east. Almost instantly the ride became a lot smoother. They weren’t being jostled about anymore. Bishop hoped there’d be less strain on the front axle too.

  ‘That’s much better,’ Strickland said. ‘So what happens now, Bishop?’

  ‘We keep heading north-east, staying parallel to US 93 as much as possible. We’ll travel alongside the old Union Pacific line for a few miles since it goes in the same direction and the terrain won’t be as rough. Then we’ll get on US 91 before joining up with the I-15. After that we make for the nearest decent-sized town and hole up for a couple of hours until the heat’s died down. Then we call the feds and get them to come pick us up.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Strickland said. ‘Hey, back at the house, what happened with Delaney? I didn’t see her. Did you?’

  ‘I saw her.’ Bishop said, unconsciously recalling those final few moments as her life seeped out of her. Despite their limited time in each other’s company she’d played a pretty significant role in his life, and he had a feeling he’d be reliving that scene for quite some time yet. ‘She didn’t make it. None of them made it.’

  ‘Shit. I liked Delaney. She was all right.’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  Less than half an hour later, they were heading along US 91 at a steady fifty. Bishop had stuck to the mining road for as long as possible. When that came to an end, it was more rough terrain until he saw the old railroad line and then he stayed close to that for another four miles. Then when that crossed paths with US 91, he’d transferred over to the old highway. It wasn’t used much anymore, just a few trucks or pick-ups every now and then, occasionally a sedan, which made it perfect. For a while anyway. They’d soon have to join up with I-15 if they wanted to keep in this direction, but that wasn’t for a few more miles.

  Nobody was saying anything. Bishop watched the uneven landscape all around them as he drove. One minute it was rising hills to the left and sharp banks to the right. The next it was flat land, closely followed by deeply sloping ditches on both sides. Changeable was a good word for it. And always the ever-present telephone lines running alongside the road.

  They were travelling along one of the flatter stretches when Barney said, ‘Hey, Dad? I don’t … I don’t feel too good.’ His voice sounded very faint.

  ‘Barn? Hey, what’s wrong?’

  In the mirror, Bishop saw Strickland press a palm against his son’s forehead. Barney did look a lot paler.

  ‘Feel hot and dizzy,’ the boy said. ‘And sick. And … and I keep seeing black spots everywhere. I think … I think …’

  Barney’s eyes closed and he simply fell back against the rear seat like a rag doll. Strickland held him up and gently patted the boy’s cheeks. ‘Barn? Hey, come on now, wake up. Don’t scare me like this, buddy. Barney?’

  ‘He’s fainted,’ Bishop said.

  Strickland turned to him. ‘Huh? Fainted? From what?’

  ‘A combination of stress, fear and mild dehydration probably. He’s a tough kid, but he’s only twelve years old and he’s just survived a major assault by a team of heavily armed killers. That’s enough to wipe out most adults. I’m surprised he’s
lasted this—’

  At that moment the grating noise suddenly doubled in volume until it was almost deafening. At the same time a harsh vibration reverberated through Bishop’s feet and up into his legs. He tried jiggled the steering wheel but got hardly any response.

  ‘Uh-oh.’

  ‘What was that?’ Strickland yelled over the noise.

  ‘The front axle going,’ Bishop shouted back. He revved the engine a couple of times. He could hear the axle still spinning, but nothing was happening except the vehicle was slowing down. Already fifty miles per hour, and decreasing steadily.

  ‘All we’re doing now is grinding metal,’ he said. ‘I need to get this thing off the road while I can.’

  Bishop stuck the gear into Neutral, switched off the engine and wrenched the wheel to the right as far as it would go. Gradually, the vehicle began to go in the direction he wanted, but it was a hard struggle. They left the road and entered the desert again. The vehicle was rapidly losing speed now. Forty miles an hour. Thirty. Twenty. Then they descended a mild incline before the landscape evened out again. After another forty feet the vehicle finally came to a complete stop. There was no cover at all, but with any luck the slight incline would mask it from casual road traffic.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ Strickland said. ‘Looks like we’re walking.’

  Bishop unstrapped his belt and opened his door. ‘Without water, in the desert? I don’t think so. We have to try and hitch a ride if we can. And don’t try and wake Barney up anymore. We’ve got more chance of getting a lift if they see we’ve got a sick kid with us. Come on, let’s go.’

  Bishop got out of the Toyota and checked his watch. 08.04. Still early, but it was already heating up. And no shade, either. For the boy’s sake, he hoped they wouldn’t have to wait around too long. He helped Strickland pull Barney out of the car, then waited as Strickland placed one hand under the boy’s back, another under his knees, and hefted him up. They headed back towards the road.