Defensive Action

by Jenna Kernan

He straightened and she did the same. The window before her was now a mosaic of tiny squares of glass. Wind whistled through four holes in the middle of each circular epicenter of disaster. But the sedan was gone.

  She pressed a hand to her heart, feeling it jackhammer. Turning in her seat, she saw that the driver’s window had folded in half, as if cleaved by an ax. Her side mirror dangled from a series of wires and the sedan was behind them on the shoulder.

  “Ha. Ha!” she crowed, pointing. “They’re stuck!”

  Her hysterical elation ebbed as the sedan’s red taillights flared. The vehicle moved back onto the road and turned.

  When she next spoke, she was surprised at the deadpan quality of her voice.

  “They’re following us.”

  Chapter Two

  Haley glanced back to the highway and the guardrail that cascaded past her window at dizzying speeds. Then she turned to the shirtless stranger, who was dressed in pants streaked with grease. Blood oozed from the road rash on his shoulder and she wondered if he was staining the upholstery.

  The ridiculousness of that worry forced a hysterical laugh from Haley. He glanced from the road to her and she covered her mouth to block out the worrisome sound of her panic-stricken giggle.

  He was clean-shaven with dark brown hair cut short enough for her to see the gash on his scalp above his ear. His sooty lashes framed deep brown eyes that took her breath away.

  “You okay?” he asked, scanning her with those arresting eyes.

  “I don’t think so.” She pointed to the blood that trickled down his forehead. “You’re bleeding.”

  His biceps flexed and his pecs strained as he turned the wheel. Haley’s ears buzzed, from fear, she told herself, but the tingling awareness that made her skin pucker was something else altogether.

  He had glanced at her for only an instant, yet she was breathless. His attention now on the road, she forced herself to look away from his athletic figure and the skin that glowed a healthy golden-bronze. Her attention landed on the speedometer. Was he going ninety miles an hour on this crummy, poorly maintained stretch of lonely highway?

  They spoke in unison.

  “That’s too fast,” she said, pointing at the dash.

  “Thanks for stopping,” he said, glancing to the rearview mirror. “Do you have something to clear away this glass?”

  Only then did Haley glance forward. How could he even see? The front windshield was a web of tiny bits of shatter-resistant glass held together by some clear film.

  “I don’t know. Golf umbrella?” She’d gotten it free when opening a bank account despite the fact that she did not golf and that it was miles too big for use on a city street. She had lots of bank accounts now, all over town.

  “Great.” He held out his hand. Duct tape still clung to the dark hairs on his forearm.

  She scrambled in the seat behind her, past the bags of groceries to the umbrella wedged beneath.

  “Is that food?” he asked.

  “Yes.” As if she’d travel four to six hours without food, a first-aid kit and a mobile-phone charger.

  “Do you have anything to drink?”

  She thought of the thermos half full of cold coffee and instead opted for something unopened. A moment later, she returned her backside to the seat holding the golf umbrella in one hand and a bottle of Snapple Grapeade in the other.

  He grasped the umbrella first in one hand and used the handle to pound. His muscles corded and relaxed again and again until he’d punched a hole the size of a basketball from the windshield before him. Now wind whistled through the cab.

  She held out the Snapple. He lay the umbrella between the seats and took the bottle, holding it for her to open.

  Haley tried one-handed, but of course couldn’t make the cap come loose. So she gripped his hand with hers and twisted, feeling immediately sorry because the heat of his hand and the long elegance of his cupped fingers made her insides tighten. The cap popped.

  The stranger brought the bottle to his lips and drank, draining the contents in three long swallows. Haley blinked in astonishment. Liquid clung to his lips and a droplet trickled over the shadow of a beard. He captured the escaping fluid with his pink tongue.

  A flame of unwanted desire flashed to life inside her. Haley swallowed hard and sat back in her seat clutching one arm around her quivering stomach.

  “Would you please tell me what is happening?” Had she just said please to the man who had hijacked her and her car? She squeezed her eyes shut. She had.

  “Kidnapped,” he said.

  Her hands went to her mouth. Her mother’s fears coming true. She was being abducted. “Oh, my goodness.”

  “Not you. Me.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “I’m an undercover detective and those guys are the ones I’m investigating. They made me. Now they’re bringing me out here to kill me and dump my body. That’s after they tortured me to find out what we know. Said they’d tear my teeth out one by one with a pair of pliers.”

  Her skin went clammy. She glanced behind them. They were being pursued by mobsters.

  “You have a phone?” he asked.

  She pointed to the wheel well at his feet. “No reception.”

  He made a scoop and captured the mobile, checking for a signal and then dropping the useless thing into the cup holder.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Haley Nobel.”

  “Well, Haley, I’m Detective Howard Insbrook.”

  What did she say now? Certainly not a pleasure because this was anything but.

  “Nice to... Hi.”

  He cast her an odd look.

  “Where you from?” he asked.

  “Born in Albany, NY, now living in Brooklyn.” She answered as if under investigation.

  “I work on a joint task force on organized crime out of Glens Falls,” he said. “What is it you do?”

  She hesitated. “Uh, I’m a computer programmer.”

  “Who for?”

  “Independent. I take on contract work, here and there. Work from home. You know.”

  Her latest gig was an important client, the US Department of Homeland Security, but she wasn’t telling him that. She had a clearance level and everything. Unfortunately the job included not telling friends and family exactly what she was up to.

  “Hmm,” he said and his gazed flicked to the rearview.

  The sedan was just behind them. He swerved and braked, causing the other vehicle to appear to rocket up beside them. She glimpsed the passenger clearly through the collapsed window. He was pointing a handgun at them but their pursuers zipped forward until Haley’s front fender came parallel with the mobster’s rear door.

  Detective Insbrook turned hard into the side of the opposite car as he punched the gas.

  She pressed both palms to the ceiling upholstery and screamed but the sound was lost over the shriek of metal raking over metal.

  The sedan turned before her rental car, pushed into an involuntary spin that sent the opposite vehicle careening by her passenger-side window and into the guardrail as they whizzed on.

  “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “The academy,” he said.

  She craned her neck to see the pursuit vehicle piled against the guardrail, the hood crumpled like a crushed aluminum can.

  They wouldn’t be able to see over that hood, even if the car was drivable. She turned back to him.

  “I don’t think they can come after us now,” she said.

  “But they will. And soon.”

  The relief sizzled away like fat dropped on a skillet and she pressed herself back into the seat. Her stomach hurt.

  He drove with one hand now, and she saw the other was black and blue, as if someone had beaten him with a stick or a pipe or a sock with a roll of quart
ers or one of those...

  Her phone chirped as it came back online.

  “Rerouting,” said her phone’s navigation program. She snatched it up and saw she still had no service, but the GPS system was working.

  “Huh. We’re only five miles from the camp,” she said. She had been heading in the right direction after all.

  “You own a place up here?”

  “No.” She stared at her phone. “I’m enrolled in adventure camp for a week.”

  She glanced from the screen to him. He squinted at her, as if trying to determine if she was kidding.

  Her dad thought the wilderness experience would stir her emotions and bring back the girl he had known, but that girl was gone. Dead gone.

  “We can’t go there,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “They have your plates.”

  “It’s not my car. I rented it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. These men can trace it to you.”

  Fear filled her belly like chips of ice. If her work hacking systems taught her anything, it was how ridiculously easy it was to gain useful information.

  His gaze flashed to the rearview and his jaw clenched, making the muscles there bulge. She knew what he saw. A turn of her head confirmed her fear. Behind them was a pair of halogen headlights.

  “Is that them?”

  He inclined his head and scowled at the road ahead.

  “They’re gaining,” she said.

  “Four cylinders,” he grumbled.

  She’d been offered an upgrade but she’d turned it down.

  The lights blinded her, illuminating the cab as the sedan closed the distance between them. The impact of the sedan slamming into their bumper sent Haley heaving forward. She was prevented from striking the dashboard by the cinching of her shoulder restraint. The Taurus skidded off the road, pushed by the sedan. Headlights skittered over a wall of pine-tree trunks. She had one instant to hold her breath and close her eyes before impact. The metal pounded the solid wood, collapsing as both front and side airbags exploded against her.

  Chapter Three

  Haley blinked her eyes open. Everything was white. She punched at the inflated airbag that gradually deflated. A fine dust swirled about the cabin, bright as chalk dust in the glow of the overhead cab light. She turned her head toward the driver’s seat and her neck gave a sharp pang.

  “Ouch,” she whispered to no one. She blinked at the empty seat beside her and the open door. Where was Detective Insbrook?

  She couldn’t open her door. Finally, she unfastened her safety belt and wiggled across the console to the driver’s seat. For once it was an advantage to be only five feet tall.

  Haley pressed the starter button but heard only a click. The smell of gasoline aroused her dulled senses. She had to get out of the vehicle. She planted one foot on the floor mat and it rolled off something metallic. Glancing down she found her thermos. She gathered it up and then thought to collect her purse. Her mobile phone was no longer connected to the charger and her initial search yielded nothing. That was when she heard the first gunshot.

  She hunched and half fell, half crawled out of the compartment, landing on hands and knees. The wet loam of pine needles immediately soaked the denim of her jeans and the ground felt soft and prickly, all at once. She scented moist earth and pine. Her voluminous purse fell forward, sliding under her chest and dragging on the ground before her.

  What was happening?

  She saw him then, the detective, crouching at the front fender holding her golf umbrella in two fists like a batter waiting for a pitch. Into her view stepped a pair of legs draped in cuffed trousers. The person wore the sort of expensive lace-up leather shoes she associated with Wall Street types and politicians. The fine brown leather was never intended for this sort of terrain.

  She glimpsed the bottom of a dark wool overcoat and then Insbrook straightened and swung the umbrella. The blow hit the man’s arm as he fired a shot into the side of the Ford near Haley’s head. As the two locked together and grappled for the weapon, Haley scuttled on all fours in the opposite direction.

  From behind the tangle of pine and crumpled front fender came the men grunting, coupled with the thud of them falling against the mangled auto and then the ground. She pressed her hands to her ears and then realized she still had her index finger looped in the handle of the cup fixed to the top of the metal thermos. A quick glance back showed her that the detective held her knife in a hand clasped by his attacker, who held a pistol in a hand captured by the detective. What neither of them saw was the third man, who made his way forward from the sedan to stand behind the wrestling pair with a raised handgun. He was similarly dressed to Insbrook’s opponent, had light brown skin and seemed to be waiting until he could get a clean shot at the detective, currently on his back on the ground. He sidestepped the grappling pair until he stood just beyond the pine tree where she crouched.

  Haley’s heart seemed to have moved to her throat and each beat ached. She pressed herself to the tree trunk, using its solid support to help her rise. Then she weighed her options. If the second man turned now, he’d shoot her dead. She glanced to the forest. She could just run into the woods. Find a place to hide. He might hear her and come after her. That thought made her throat ache even worse. Could she hide in the darkness until the men were dead or gone?

  She closed her eyes as she fought against the urge to help Insbrook.

  Don’t be stupid. You’re not a cop. You’ve never even seen a gun.

  But they were going to kill him. She knew it in her heart. They would shoot him down and then they would find her. What if he had a family, children? What would happen to her mom if she lost her only surviving child?

  Haley drew in a deep breath and clamped her jaw tight. Her sister had fought for her life. Haley would do the same.

  She gripped the thermos in two sweating hands and crept along the opposite side of the rear bumper, inching toward the tall brown-skinned man still trying for a shot at the detective.

  The metal exterior of the thermos felt cold in her hand as she hoisted it high. She had a moment’s hesitation as she stared at the stubble of his shaved head and the large shiny patch at the crown where hair no longer grew. It was enough time for the man to sense her there. He turned his head. She was out of time. Haley rose up on her tiptoes and swung. Her right hand clutched the thermos and her left gripped her opposite wrist. The sound at contact and the reverberation hit her simultaneously. Blood spurted from the gash she created in his scalp with the bottom edge of the bludgeon.

  “Oh, gosh!” she said as the man completed his turn and sank to one knee. He used his free hand to reach up to the top of his head and pressed it over the wound. Then he drew it away and stared silently at the blood that smeared his palm. He never looked at her. The gun dropped from his hand and she snatched it up by the barrel.

  She glanced toward the detective to find he had his legs wrapped around his opponent’s neck and held one of his own ankles to increase the force of the choke hold. The man gasped and struggled, his purple face illuminated in terrifying color by the cab light.

  Haley staggered back two steps as the man went limp.

  “Get their keys,” said the detective.

  She shook her head and continued to look between the bleeding man, now on hands and knees, and the big one who lay motionless beside the car.

  “Is he...?”

  “Choked out. Now hurry.” The detective was already searching his opponent, coming up with a wallet but no keys.

  The amount of blood issuing from the head wound she had caused made her queasy. But she tucked the thermos under her arm, crept forward and used her free hand to reach into one of the large side pockets. She felt a wallet and reached past in search of the keys but found nothing. Withdrawing her hand, the wallet fell to the ground and flopped open. The badge and ID were unmi
stakable. DEA was printed in large blue letters and the gold shield looked very official. Not a wallet, she realized. It was the identification of a representative from the Drug Enforcement Agency of the United States. And she had just clobbered him over the head and taken his gun.

  She gaped up at the detective, if he were a detective.

  “Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm and hustled them toward the agents’ car.

  She pulled back and shook her head. What if they were trying to apprehend a criminal and she’d brained one of them?

  “There’s one more,” he said, pressing her down behind the front of the car. “Wait here.” He pointed at the ground and, as if she were his hound, she sank to her knees.

  He gripped his enemy’s gun and disappeared from her sight.

  Haley heard the sedan door chime and then gunfire. Four rapid discharges. Pop-pop-pop-pop, like a string of firecrackers. Then came a thud.

  She bit down on her fist and waited.

  Run, you idiot.

  But her legs would not lift her and her knees clanked together like the Tin Man’s in The Wizard of Oz.

  “Come up,” he called.

  Haley lowered her hand and rose. Then she ran in the opposite direction toward the woods. He had her around the waist before she reached the beckoning darkness of the tree line. He hauled her off her feet. One iron arm gripped her about the waist.

  He ignored her struggles as he carried her past the two still figures. A third lay beside the open passenger door that now held four bullet holes. The driver lay facedown, red head turned to the side. One eye stared vacantly out and his mouth gaped. There were four holes in the back of his jacket.

  The door chime had ceased and all she could hear was the blood pounding in her eardrums.

  “Is he...?”

  “Get in,” he ordered and set her on her feet.

  She took a step away from him. He captured her wrist, the one holding the bloody thermos. There could be no mistake now. He’d killed this man. Detectives did not shoot people down and then run.

  “I don’t have time to argue.” He opened the passenger door and shoved her inside. It was then she realized she had the DEA officer’s gun, but was still holding it upside down.