Cut and Run 09 Crash & Burn (44 page)

“Are you threatening an officer of the law back there?”

“No, sir,” Ty said, elongating the syllables until the simple words sounded like yet another insult. “I’m just telling you. The people who put that alert out on us? They’re not exactly wearing patches with the thin blue on them, you feel me?”

“I don’t think he feels you,” Zane offered.

Ty suddenly looked alarmed. “I hope he won’t feel me. My heart belongs to the TSA.”

The cops went back to ignoring them, and Ty and Zane met each other’s eyes. Zane frowned and ducked his head toward Ty’s hands, and Ty winked. He was scratching at his wrist with his fingernails, and to Zane’s horror it looked like he was actually raking off skin in swaths, leaving little curled bits of it on the seat behind him.

Then the scratching revealed something dull and gray beneath, and Zane realized it was a key under some type of synthetic skin.

“You fucking beautiful bastard,” Zane murmured. There was Ty’s plan. Get loose and steal the cop car.

“Can I use the flashy blue lights?” Ty drawled. He got hold of the key between two fingers, grinning widely. Zane was still gazing at Ty’s pleased expression when the impact came, throwing them both sideways, knocking the key out of Ty’s grasp and sending the police cruiser and all its occupants into a sickening spin.

Nick was leaning between the front seats, watching as a GPS dot blinked on the tablet in Julian’s hands. It was showing their location and the location of the LoJack system on the PD unit that had picked up Ty and Zane at the airport. They were closing in.

“Where’d you get that?” Nick asked.

“Best Buy,” Julian answered flatly.

Nick gave him a sideways glance, but Julian was frowning at the screen.

“Take this next left, then gun it,” Julian told Preston. “We can cut them off.”

Preston smirked as he weaved through traffic at breakneck speed. “Yes, sir.”

He took a hard left across the oncoming lanes that made even Nick want to cover his eyes, and then the Excursion screamed down a one-way street that was definitely not meant to be traveled in this direction.

Nick ducked his head. They roared past stunned drivers trying to get out of the way, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the road. It was like some sort of morbid dance, the way the man drove. Nick found himself wanting to geek out a little about it.

Preston yanked the emergency brake, turning the wheel smoothly as they took a hairpin turn onto another main thoroughfare, and Kelly tumbled across the bench seat into Nick. His ribs burned and he gasped, holding on to them.

“Sorry,” Kelly whispered.

Nick just shook his head, unable to speak though the pain.

“Dude!” Digger cried from the back.

“I think I’m going to yark,” Owen added pitifully.

Nick and Kelly both edged closer to the front, away from the backseat. They remembered the last time Owen had been in a helicopter a little too vividly.

They came up on an intersection, and Nick pointed ahead of them at the white, green, and yellow Miami-Dade police cruiser. “There they are.”

They were just in time to see a big, black Denali, with its reinforced grill guard, lumber through the intersection and plow into the front driver’s side of the cruiser.

“Welp,” Preston said as he slowed the Excursion.

The Denali sat there, crumpled and steaming, as the cruiser spun away and threatened to tip. Four more black SUVs were closing in on the intersection, and Nick fumbled for the door handle. “Stop those fucking cars from reaching that cruiser,” he ordered, and they all toppled out into the street.

The police cruiser rocked up on two wheels, creaking and groaning as it threatened to tip. Zane slid toward Ty until the seat belt stopped him, choking and cutting into him. He ducked his head and curled, but the handcuffs prevented either of them from shielding their heads or faces as the car rocked back and slammed onto its tires.

Ty gasped, fighting the seat belt, fighting his handcuffs. The two cops in the front of the car were both either unconscious or dead.

Zane coughed and gagged, struggling to right himself. “What happened?”

“Car rammed us,” Ty answered. He was short of breath, taking in the chaotic scene outside the window. He finally managed to hit the release with his elbow, and the seat belt popped free.

Zane’s arms were stuck in the mangled cavities behind the backseat meant to allow handcuffed prisoners room for their hands, and he had to fight out of it, ripping at the skin of his arms to get loose. He slid his hands under his ass and legs until they were in front of him. The key Ty had just managed to free from the synthetic skin on his arm was nowhere in sight.

Zane scooted closer to the window. The car that had hit them was a black Yukon Denali, and it was sitting like a wounded leviathan about fifty feet away, blocking the quiet intersection.

“Oh shit.”

“What?” Ty asked. He was still struggling to get out of his cuffs. “What is it?”

“It’s them.”

The driver of the Denali stumbled from the SUV. He turned, straightening and chuckling when he saw they were trapped.

Even if they got out of the handcuffs, they were still locked in the back of a police cruiser. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Unless of course the NIA wanted to question them first, in which case it would be like torturing fish in a barrel.

The driver stalked through the debris, heading for Zane’s side of the police cruiser. He pulled a gun from his jacket. Ty turned in his seat, lying flat and kicking at the window.

“Ty,” Zane gasped.

Ty didn’t stop. A tiny crack appeared under his heel.

“Ty, I love you,” Zane said quickly. “I love you. If we don’t get—”

“No!” Ty shouted. He kicked furiously at the window. Zane could see the impact jarring his ankles. “We’re not dying today, Zane, not like this.”

“Ty!” Zane cried when he looked back out his window.

“Not like this!”

Zane gripped Ty’s hair and yanked so he’d look out the window. The driver of the Denali was right there, the gun in his hand and a tattooed, bandaged arm wrapped around his neck. His face contorted as his body arched and flailed. He gritted his teeth, shouting and trying to point the gun behind his head, but then the arm around his neck jerked, breaking his neck and draining the life from him.

The gun fell from his hand, and his body dropped out of sight. Nick was standing behind him, breathing hard and sneering down at the dead man.

“Fuck, man, you have the best timing ever!” Ty shouted as he struggled to sit up again. He leaned over Zane’s lap, pressing both hands to the window.

Nick knocked on the glass. “You assholes can’t even get arrested right.”

“You beautiful fucking bastard,” Zane whispered.

“Get us the fuck out of here, Irish!”

Nick tried the door, but as Zane had expected, it was locked and probably jammed shut. Nick knocked the shards of glass remaining from the window of the front door and leaned through to check the driver’s pulse as he reached in for the car keys. “He’s dead,” he told them, then searched the man for the keys to the handcuffs.

“Come on, Irish, double-time it, man,” Ty urged.

Nick fit the handcuff keys through the wires so they could get themselves loose, then pushed the unlock button that should have released the back door. Nothing happened.

The squealing of tires drew Zane’s attention to two more black SUVs tearing up the sidewalk several blocks away. The traffic from the wreck and the crowded, chaotic streets were slowing them down, but they would be here in minutes. Gunfire went off somewhere, which meant Nick wasn’t here alone. They had a chance if they could get out.

“Come on, O’Flaherty!” Zane shouted. He banged on the glass.

Nick fumbled with the keys and came back to the door. Ty watched him, leaning over Zane’s lap. Zane caught sight of movement behind Nick and shouted at the same time as Ty banged a warning on the glass.

Nick turned and blocked the first slash of the man’s knife with his forearm. He swung with his left, wrapping the man up and kneeing him in the kidney. Then he pounded the man’s face. Nick’s gun clattered away from them, and they grappled until Nick finally got him in a choke hold. He held on long after the man had lost consciousness, ensuring he wouldn’t wake up.

Nick let him drop to the ground, then took one step toward the car before someone grabbed him from behind.

“No!” Ty cried. He banged on the glass, futilely pulling at the handle. “No!”

Nick’s body contorted and his mouth fell open as a knife drove into his side. The attacker twisted it, and Nick screamed.

Ty echoed the anguished cry and threw himself against the opposite window, slamming his fist into the already cracked glass over and over in a desperate bid to get free. He left the glass bloody, but couldn’t get out. He jostled Zane when he returned to his side, tears streaming. Nick was on his knees, head bowed, still being held around the neck by the man with the knife. His attacker yanked the knife out of Nick’s side and plunged it in again.

Nick screamed again, his back arching, his eyes tightly shut. But he reached into his boot as he arched his back, and came out with a dagger, flipping it in his palm and jamming it into the killer’s throat.

Blood spurted, and both of them fell to the ground.

“Jesus Christ,” Zane whispered.

He and Ty pressed closer to the glass. Nick was still on his knees, holding to the wounds at his side. The black SUVs were drawing near, full of more NIA agents with guns and knives who no doubt wanted to ask them some very pointed questions. Sidewinder was retreating under fire to a big red SUV in the middle of the street.

Nick began crawling for the cruiser, keeping low as the rattle of gunfire from further down the street got closer. His fingers reached the gun he had dropped during his tussle. He collapsed in the debris, holding to the handle of the knife in his side. He met Ty’s eyes through the glass, then reached out with a trembling, bloody hand and aimed the gun he’d taken off the first agent he’d killed.

Ty nodded hastily, grabbing Zane by the shoulder. “Get down, down!”

They shielded each other, flattening in the floorboard of the cruiser. The shot was deafening, and glass sprayed them as the window collapsed in a nearly solid sheet, freeing Ty and Zane from their impromptu prison.

Zane shoved at the remaining shards, and Ty crawled over him to get out of the car. He thumped gracelessly to the ground, then scrambled over to Nick, heedless of the debris shredding his hands and knees, favoring his shoulder as if the wreck had dislocated it. Zane hurried out of the cruiser.

Ty grabbed Nick to help him up. Nick tried to get to his feet, but he collapsed in Ty’s arms; and Ty fell to his knees again, holding Nick to him. Zane cast around for the gun Nick had dropped.

Nick stared up at the sky, taking shallow, quick breaths. Tears trailed from both his eyes. He focused on Ty and nodded. “Okay.”

“It’s okay,” Ty whispered. His fingers tightened in Nick’s shirt, cradling him in his lap. “We’ll get you all patched up and you’ll be fine. Zane, help me!”

Zane knelt at Nick’s other side, shaking his head as he placed a palm over Nick’s chest. He was alarmingly cold. Even his clothes were cold. The gunfire was closer, and Ty hunched defensively.

“Run, Ty,” Nick murmured.

“We’re not leaving you here.”

Nick’s mouth barely moved when he spoke. “I’m already dead, babe. Go.”

“No!”

Nick closed his eyes. “See you on the other side, brother.”

“No,” Ty hissed. He shook his head, wrapping Nick’s arm over his neck so he could deadlift him into a fireman’s carry.

Zane gripped Ty’s shoulder to halt him. His hand was covered in Nick’s blood. “Ty, you can’t move him, it’ll kill him!”

Nick had gone limp, and his weight seemed to be too much for Ty’s injured arm. He couldn’t lift his friend. He sank back down, holding tighter to Nick as he laid him on the hard asphalt.

Zane watched, speechless, trying to decide what to do. Ty shook his head again, fighting back tears.

“We have to leave him, Ty,” Zane urged brokenly.

Tires screeched as a set of black SUVs trapped the red one in the intersection. The driver gunned the red Excursion, and it plowed through the smaller vehicles, disappearing out of sight. Sidewinder had been forced to retreat. Ty and Zane were on their own.