Committed (23 page)

“You guys have no way out of this,” Beth said.

“Bitch, you’re the one with the gun to your head,” McCoy said. She looked back at Agent Kronke. “Open that damn door before your bitch cop here is dead.”

“Take the shot, Kronke,” Beth said.

“You shoot, I shoot,” McCoy said.

“Take the damn shot!” Beth yelled. In an instant, Beth’s right hand jammed backward, pushing the barrel from the back of her head.

I heard a shot from Molly McCoy’s gun, followed by Kronke firing twice and the boom of a shotgun. The sound of shattered glass hitting the floor of the house came before another shot from Kronke as he ran past me toward the patio he’d fired upon.

I turned back to Beth, who’d spun herself from the choke hold so she faced McCoy. It looked like Beth had control of the weapon. She yanked down on the gun barrel and broke it from McCoy’s grip. Then she delivered an elbow to McCoy’s jaw and shoved her backward. Beth planted a front kick to McCoy’s chest that sent her through the doorway onto her backside on the patio.

“I got her. Get Frane,” Beth said.

I ran toward the blown-out patio doors on the far side of the house, hearing a single shotgun blast as I neared them. I took the steps to the ground level as quickly as I could and looked left and right but saw no one. Two gunshots rang out, and I got a bead on their direction. I ran from the side of the house back toward the front and through the bushes along the driveway.

Agent Kronke sat up in the grass with his weapon pointed back toward the street. I ran to his side and immediately saw blood.

“Where are you hit?” I asked, crouching next to him.

Blood was soaking through both pant legs. He planted a hand in the grass and tried to push himself up to his feet.

“Just stay put,” I said. “I’ll get you some help.”

“I’ll be fine. He was seventy yards away when he hit me with a little buckshot. He went for the street that way. I tagged him once or twice, at least.”

“Where’s the lieutenant?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find him. Go. We’ll catch up,” he said.

I ran toward the street up ahead, keeping my weapon up and at the ready. Over the sound of my pounding footsteps, I heard a motor fire and tires chirp. The vehicle appeared, a newer gray pickup truck. I reached the road and brought my sights on it. The truck increased speed toward me and veered in my direction. I held my ground and took aim. As soon as the truck got within distance, I fired, putting two through the driver’s side of the windshield, but the truck continued to advance. The passenger-side window was lowered, with something protruding from it. I backed from the edge of the street and continued firing. At twenty yards away, I recognized what was sticking out from the passenger window—the barrel of the shotgun.

I hit the grass, belly first, as the truck swerved toward me. The boom of the shotgun filled my ears, immediately followed by the sound of buckshot ripping through the bushes behind me. I brought my knees under me and ran back to the road’s edge just after the truck passed. I brought my sights up and put three bullets through the truck’s back glass. The truck swerved but continued. As the truck shrank in the distance, I took aim on a rear tire and unloaded the rest of my magazine. The truck slid around the corner and disappeared from view.

“Shit!”

I heard squealing tires down the driveway. I jogged up to the entrance and saw the white Chevy Suburban rocketing through a cloud of smoke, heading in reverse toward me. The truck slid to a stop beside me, the passenger-side window down.

“Get in!” Beth shouted.

I pulled the passenger door handle and jumped inside. Beth spun the tires backward out of the driveway and jammed the truck into drive.

“Where’s Kronke?” I asked.

Beth yanked the wheel right and slid around the corner. The truck fishtailed before gaining traction and shooting straight ahead.

“Kronke came back to the house right as I was taking McCoy downstairs. He was going to come meet you at the street with the truck, but then we saw the lieutenant in the back of his car. He said he’d get the lieutenant out and attended to, get McCoy in, and they’d radio for backup.”

“Attended to?” I asked.

“Whishaw was attacked.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“He was moving in the back of his car, but I don’t know. I saw blood.”

I didn’t respond.

Beth slid to a stop at the stop sign at the end of the street. We looked left and right.

“There.” I pointed up the street to our right.

About an eighth of a mile away, the pickup truck was weaving between cars where the frontage road went up a hill to the controlled intersection and freeway on ramp.

“He’s trying to get to the interstate,” I said.

Beth cranked the wheel right and floored the gas.

“McCoy is in our custody?” I asked.

“Cuffed and left with Kronke.”

I ripped my phone from my pocket and dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the female dispatcher asked.

“My name is Agent Hank Rawlings, FBI. I’m currently in pursuit of a gray late-model pickup truck. The driver is Nick Frane. He’s wanted for multiple homicides. I need any available law enforcement to my location.”

Beth weaved back and forth between some slower cars and those turning into businesses off the frontage road on our right. We were gaining ground on the pickup with each passing second. Beth made gratuitous use of the horn as she maneuvered. I kept my eyes on the pickup truck until it disappeared over the crest of the hill the intersection was on.

“Your location, sir?” she asked.

“Just a second,” I said.

Beth held the horn down as we crested the hill and drove around cars waiting for the light to turn green. “I see him.” She floored the gas again.

I spotted the pickup truck just down the hill, where the on-ramp merged into the interstate. “We’re entering interstate fifteen, heading northbound from”—I glanced to my right and caught the sign for the street the overpass was on—“Vaughn Road. We’re in a white Chevy Suburban, government tags.” Beth gained more ground on the pickup.

My line of sight shifted from the pickup truck to the other vehicles on the interstate. While I wouldn’t call it “traffic,” there were enough cars to be a potential problem. The truck clung along the shoulder, past where he should have merged. As we got within five or six car lengths, I could see bits and pieces of tire flying from the rear of the pickup.

“He’s got a tire out,” Beth said.

“One of my shots must have hit.”

Beth continued to advance.

Frane swerved into the rear of a car he was approaching, sending it sideways in the interstate. Frane’s pickup passed the car as it slid. Beth stepped on the gas to get ahead of the car, which came past the rear of our truck and planted its nose into the cement barricade behind us. Beth’s and my attention went from the sliding car back to Frane, ahead of us.

The brake lights on his truck went solid red, and we rear-ended him. My cell phone flew from my hand, bounced off the dash, and hit the floor. I reached down for it and heard five or six pops, which were accompanied by metallic-sounding slaps and cracks of bullets splintering glass.

“Shit!” Beth yelled. “Stay down!”

Beth yanked the wheel to the right and bounced us off the concrete barricade at the interstate’s edge to the sounds of metal crushing and scraping. Then Beth and I lifted our heads. My eyes followed a row of bullet holes up the hood of our truck and into our windshield.

Frane had put a few car lengths between us, so Beth sped up. Other motorists slowed and moved to the far-left lanes. Frane leaned out his window, looking and firing back at us, but none of the shots hit us. I looked back at the other motorists on the interstate—most had pulled to the far left and were out of harm’s way. Frane fired two more shots, one of which ripped through the driver’s-door mirror of our Suburban. Then he threw the gun out the window and sped up.

“That tire isn’t going to last much longer,” I said. “The truck will throw it, be down to the rim, and spin out.”

“Which could put him directly into other motorists,” Beth said.

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw police cruisers’ lightbars flashing in the distance. “Go for a pit.”

Beth sped up and got us in position. She brought the nose of our suburban perfectly into the left rear quarter panel of the pickup. Beth slowed as the back of his truck swung right and made contact with the cement barricade. The truck Frane drove fishtailed, regained traction for a moment, and then made a hard left across all three lanes of the interstate in front of us. I watched his truck bounce down into the grass median separating northbound and southbound traffic.

“Did he lose it?” Beth asked.

The truck was keeping a steady course for the other side.

“No,” I said. “He’s going for the oncoming cars.”

I looked behind us. Two patrol cruisers were a few car lengths back. I imagined they were on their radios with additional backup and possibly air support. We moved to the far left lane and kept pace with Frane. The two patrol cruisers followed. The pickup truck bounced up from the median toward the first lane of oncoming traffic. The rear of the truck slid before grabbing. Frane picked up speed and barreled down the interstate’s shoulder, against traffic. He swerved into the first oncoming lane, narrowly missing a car that slid sideways and plowed grass into the median. I didn’t know if he’d intentionally swerved at the car or was struggling to control the truck.

“Get over there behind him.”

“Are you serious?” Beth asked.

“He’s going to kill someone. We need to wait for a gap in the cars and try another pit.”

Beth put the wheels of the Suburban into the median and kept speed as we crossed. Our truck hit some ruts and bounced as it tore at the grass. Beth got two wheels up on the far shoulder, facing oncoming traffic, and sped up to close the gap, which had increased to ten car lengths. A pair of tractor trailers were approaching in the two far lanes. Nick swerved into the center lane of the freeway and pointed the truck toward the oncoming semis.

“Slow down!” I shouted.

Beth hit the brakes, bringing us back down to thirty miles an hour. I glanced right to see a sheriff’s cruiser speed past on the other side of the freeway, trying to get ahead of us. I looked back at Frane’s truck, which hadn’t veered off its course toward the semi. One of the rig’s air horns wailed. The semi in Frane’s lane split for the lane nearest us. Beth yanked the steering wheel right, sending us down into the median seconds before the oncoming tractor trailer flew past on our left. Frane never left his lane, seemingly prepared to go head on with the rig if he hadn’t swerved. I glanced back to see the semi, like the car before it, plowing through the grass median.

“We have to end this,” I said.

Beth gave me a hard head nod, got us back onto the shoulder, and sped up. We closed the gap again. The cruiser that had passed us on the other side of the interstate crossed the grass median up ahead and got next to Frane on the shoulder. Frane swerved to the right and brought his front right fender into the police cruiser’s rear—a pit maneuver of his own. The patrol car spun into the grass and whipped past on our right. The oncoming cars in the distance all looked as if they were pulling to the side. We had the gap we needed.

“Take him out!” I yelled.

Beth sped up and went for another pit. The rear of his pickup truck slid right and then snapped back, regaining traction.

“Again!” I said. “Push his ass off the road.”

Beth stepped on the gas and poked the front of the suburban into the first oncoming lane. She yanked the wheel right and kept the nose of our truck planted into his quarter panel. Frane’s truck’s rear end slid, and the front of his truck whipped around, back into the nose of our Chevy. Beth kept her foot in the gas. Frane’s rear tires left the shoulder, his truck being pushed sideways by ours.

“Brakes!” I shouted.

Beth locked them up. Frane’s truck continued its sideways slide through the median. I locked eyes with him right before the wheels on the far side of his truck caught. The next thing I saw was the underbelly of his truck as it launched from the ground in a roll. The truck made a full revolution before landing on its tires in the grass and barrel rolling through the median. Grass, dirt, glass, and plastic shards flew through the air. The truck came to rest on its roof a hundred yards from where we’d stopped. I yanked open the passenger door and advanced. Beth’s door slammed shut behind me. Two patrol cars pulled into the grass median from the other side of the Interstate, and the deputies exited. Someone appeared to be in the back of one of the cruisers. I rounded the rear of the truck toward the driver’s-side door. My gun sights stayed fixed on the crushed window opening. I heard moaning from the front of the truck and brought my gun to the area as I rounded the corner. Nick Frane sat flat on his butt in the grass at the front of the truck. His head was covered in blood, his eyes open, blinking rapidly. His arms hung down and rested on his thighs—his left one covered in blood from where he’d been shot by Agent Kronke, I assumed. His hand on his right thigh was resting on a pistol.

“Nick Frane, get your hand off of that gun!” I commanded.

He turned his head and looked at me. I stood ten feet away, gun bearing down on him. Beth came to my shoulder, her gun also aimed at Frane. A bloody Lieutenant Whishaw and another deputy were jogging across the median toward us.

“Now!” I instructed.

He lifted his hand from the gun and reached up to his face.

Lieutenant Whishaw, who had gaping lacerations across his forehead and hairline, and the other deputy stood on Frane’s opposite side, guns drawn.

Frane rubbed the blood from his eyes and then ran his hand over his bloody bald head. He let out a chuckle. “Oh, what the hell. May as well make this interesting.” In a single motion, he scooped the gun from his leg and turned it toward Beth and me.

We both fired—three shots each, hitting him center mass. I heard more shots from Lieutenant Whishaw and his deputy. Frane’s hand with the pistol dropped, squeezing off a single round into the dirt beside him. His body jerked, and a cough sent a mouthful of blood down his chin. His head fell left against his shoulder, and his body went limp. I kicked the gun from his hand. We sat silent for a moment.