BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (37 page)

As he made for the door, he noticed six chemical storage cylinders. The polyethylene tanks appeared full, neatly arranged beside a mixing vat and an assortment of raw chemicals and lab equipment.
The infertility chemical
, he thought. He felt a surge of relief. They’d arrived in time. The explosion would obliterate Battista’s plan.

He bounded out the door.

“Clear out fast!” he shouted over the com-net. “I bought us a few seconds but that’s all.”

The gunfire outside had died down. Both vans were gone. Becker raced after Tony and his family through the smoking roll-up door. On the way out, his gut wrenched tighter than a willy-willy when he noticed that both suicide vests were missing.

**

Using the back of the truck as cover, Lacey stopped to cock the heavy bow. She lowered the tip to the ground, placed her foot in the stirrup, and pulled back with both hands, just as her brother had taught her. It wouldn’t budge. She regripped and tried again, straining from the effort. Nothing.

“It ain’t safe out here,
chica
.”

Lacey jumped. The mountain that was Freddie had appeared out of nowhere. It was his job to cover the truck.

“I gotta stop a van,” she said, relieved to see him.

He arched a brow. “With that?” 

“No time for chitchat.” She unclipped a bolt from the quiver and handed him the bow. “Just cock it for me and keep up.”

She sprinted down the side alley. The echo of Freddie’s footfalls faded behind her. There weren’t many men who could keep up with her, running or otherwise. As she ran, she used the duct tape to modify the bolt. She slowed at the end of the last building in the row and peeked around the corner.

The first of the vans was a hundred yards away. It sped directly toward her along the tree line that bordered the north end of the industrial park. Gunfire erupted from the trees, the deep-throated crack of Papa’s shotgun among them. She heard the solid plunks of lead puncturing steel. The van accelerated through the gauntlet. Lacey worried that it would pass her position before Freddie caught up with the crossbow.

As the van neared, a lone gunman stepped from the trees. He stopped in its path, twenty yards ahead of Lacey. It was Street. He held an UZI in each hand and at the last possible moment, as the van bore down on him, he let loose on full auto. Twin lines of holes pockmarked the windshield.

The van didn’t waiver.

Neither did Street. He adjusted his aim downward. A shredded tire, the screech of metal on pavement, then the van lurched to one side, sparks flying, wheel catching on a cement parking block. The van launched into the air end over end.

Street belted out a defiant war cry. He skipped to one side, guns chattering in his hands as he emptied both magazines into the spiraling mass of metal.

Balls of steel
, thought Lacey. She ducked behind the wall just as the van exploded in a fireball that singed the hair on her arms. Freddie caught up to her, breathless. He handed her the bow and took up a cover position behind her. She loaded the bolt.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

“Shhh!” She held up a hand and cocked an ear. There was a distant squeal of tires, the throaty roar of a motor, a crescendo of additional gunfire. The second van, she thought. She checked the corner but it was nowhere in sight.

“Ask Marshall which way the second van’s heading.”

Freddie complied, not thinking why she didn’t ask herself. “West down the far alley. And that
hombre
is pissed. I’m supposed to bring you back to the truck.”

“Yeah, right,” Lacey said, already running. She flipped a middle finger over her head for the benefit of the Raven’s camera. She sprinted west down the alley that paralleled the van’s path. Eventually it would have to turn her way in order to get to the street that exited the park. Freddie fell behind.

She was thirty yards away from the next intersecting alleyway when the van raced across her path.

Shit!

Two beats later she slid into the intersection, dropped to one knee and sighted down the magnified scope of the bow.
I may not have the physical strength to cock this weapon, but I sure as hell can squeeze the trigger.

Lacey adjusted her aim upward to compensate for the vehicle’s acceleration. She let it fly. The modified steel bolt wobbled, but the force of the powerful crossbow was enough to true its flight. It embedded itself in one of the rear doors just before the van turned the corner and disappeared from view.

Chapter 67

One thousand feet over Los Angeles

T
he chopper wouldn’t move fast enough. Jake was five minutes out, but his friends needed him now.

“The second van’s getting away!” Marshall reported over the headset.

Dammit
!

“Go after them, Marsh!”

“How am I supposed to do that? I’m in a friggin’ taco truck!”

“Track ’em with the Raven.”

“Don’t you think I thought of that? I can’t, man! We scrounged the bird but the control console didn’t come with it.  My transmitter has a max range of five hundred yards.”

Once the van left the industrial park, it could head in a dozen different directions. One van, thousands of vehicles.

Becker’s voice broke through. “We gotta stop that van, boss. It’s carrying two suicide vests and I’m pretty sure they’ve got VX gas canisters on them.”

The com-net went silent. There wasn’t a tough guy around whose blood didn’t ice up at the mention of one of the deadliest biological weapons ever made. Jake’s words caught in his throat. “V…X?”

“Or a derivative. I got part of a label. I’m holding a tank filled with the stuff.”

Papa chimed in. “I got people running to their cars now but they parked so far away...” Jake’s mind scoured a hundred possible solutions. Only one made sense—they needed to call in the cops regardless of the jail time they’d face in the aftermath. Even then it could be too late to prevent the terrorists from finding a highly populated area.

“Wait a minute!” It was Lacey.

**

Five minutes later, Marshall and Becker were in the helicopter with Jake. “You’ve got to hand it to her,” Jake said over the intercom. “She always comes through.”

Marshall sat in the copilot’s seat. “I can’t believe it. Every time I think I’ve got her figured out, she pulls something like that.”

“Quick thinking. Taping her earpiece to that arrow…” Jake said. He banked the copter northward.

Marshall’s laptop was plugged into the instrument panel via USB. He shifted it to one side to shield the screen from the passing glare of the sun. “They’re headed north on Prairie.”

“Not many remote locations on that route,” Jake said.

“All we need is a short stretch,” Becker said from the backseat. He wound another length of duct tape—sticky side out—around an athletic sock that had two baseball-size bulges in it. A shoestring dangled from one end of the bundle. “Give me a hundred yards’ clearance from any civilians and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“There’s a golf course a mile ahead,” Marshall said. “But the on-ramp to the 405 Freeway is this side of it.”

“We can’t let ’em on the freeway,” Becker warned.

“Roger that,” Jake said. He clicked the transmit button. “Papa, how close are you?”

The former gang leader was in one of three chase cars filled with very angry bangers. “Three blocks back,
jefe
. We’ll be on them in thirty seconds.”

“It’s going to be close,” Marshall said.

“You need to block the freeway and keep them heading straight ahead,” Jake said. “We’ll backstop them after that.”

“Understood.”

“Don’t get too damn close, Papa. If those suckers flip the switch…”

He left the rest unsaid. This was nuts, Jake thought. So many things could go wrong. But if they could tie up this final loose end, they’d be home free. Sort of.

He watched the scene unfold through the windscreen. The van had stopped at the on-ramp intersection, its left turn signal flashing as it waited for a break in oncoming traffic. The chase cars had closed to within a few car lengths but intervening traffic separated them from the van.

“They’re about to turn onto the ramp!” Jake warned.

He heard Papa’s growl over the com-net. His El Camino leapt across the double line into a snarl of traffic. Cars swerved out of his way. Jake saw an angry fist pop out of a window and he could imagine the blare of horns. A panel truck broadsided a fire hydrant and a sudden geyser arched halfway across the boulevard.

The terrorists must have noticed the commotion behind them. The van jerked forward and braked twice as it attempted to nose through traffic. A bus skidded to a stop and the van broke through. But just before it made the on-ramp, Papa’s El Camino broadsided it neater than a border collie herding sheep. The ramp was blocked and the van’s nose was redirected back toward Prairie. With no other options, it raced ahead, leaving a trail of tire smoke in its wake.

Time to go to work.

Jake pushed the nose forward and dumped altitude as he flew past the van. The sudden negative Gs caused the laptop to float for an instant above Marshall’s legs. He clutched it to his chest, his eyes wide.

“Dude!”

Jake ignored him. This wasn’t his Pitts and—natural stick or not—it took every ounce of his concentration to work the unfamiliar controls. When the chopper reached a point just beyond the service entrance to the golf course, Jake spun it on its axis right over the pavement. It hovered face to face with the oncoming van.

They were close enough that Jake was able to see more than fear on the driver’s face. The man’s eyes narrowed and his white-fisted grip on the wheel didn’t waver. His passenger’s hands waved back and forth. He seemed to be yelling at the driver as he motioned toward an open service gate to his right. The two remaining chase vehicles approached from behind.

 At the last possible moment, the van swerved to its right and onto the service road.

Jake followed, keeping the van just under the chopper’s nose. The service road skirted a fairway. A golfer waved his club at them as they raced past.

“You’re up, Beck,” Jake said.

The side door slid open and wind rushed into the helicopter. Becker had one hand gripped around a safety strap as he leaned out the door with his bundle.

“Get me ten feet ahead of the bastards!” Becker shouted into the headset.

Jake complied. The van disappeared beneath the windscreen and Jake shifted the attack angle so he could still maintain visual contact. They aircraft crabbed forward just ahead of the van.

“Closer!” Beck shouted.

Jake nursed the chopper lower. His eyes darted in a triangular pattern from the van to his instruments to the copse of trees dead ahead.

“Four seconds, Beck.”

“I need five!”

Trees grew in the windshield.

“Two—one!”

Jake waited an extra half-second before yanking back on the cyclic. The heavy blades bit into the air and the chopper swept up over the trees. There was brief gut-wrenching jerk as the landing skid trimmed a branch on the way past.
Too close.
He banked into a steep climbing turn and glanced out the open doorway at the receding van. Becker’s special delivery package was stuck just aft of center on top of the cargo area.

“Boom,” muttered Becker. He held the shoelace in his free hand. Two grenade clips dangled from its end.

A beat later a massive explosion lifted the speeding van into the air and toppled it onto its side within a mushrooming fireball. All the windows had blown outward from the blast. No one inside could have survived. Several golfers sprinted toward the explosion, but they stopped and ran in the opposite direction when the two chase cars swept in with automatic weapons firing into the air to keep them from harm’s way.

“Call it in,” Jake transmitted.

“Already done,” Tony reported. He’d been listening in from the command vehicle. “Police, fire, and hazmat will be on scene in two minutes. Clear out and meet us at LZ.”

Jake turned toward the emergency helipad at the west end of Zamperini Field.

Things were finally going their way.

**

Seated at the command console in the taco truck, Tony signed off with Torrance PD before they could back-trace the 911 call. There was no advantage to broadcasting their involvement in today’s events. A firefight and building explosion in an industrial park? Bodies everywhere?  Followed by suicide bombers at a golf course? Christ, he and his friends would be tied up in the court system for years. Jobs lost. Lives ruined. So they’d gathered their three dead comrades—bangers who until now Tony could not have imagined he’d call friends—and split the scene before the cops arrived.

He propped his heels on a corner of the console. It was good to have his regular shoes on again. His feet still hurt like hell. His wife placed a hand on his shoulder and Tony allowed himself to relax for the first time in days. They exchanged a glance and a lifetime of feelings passed between them.