Hell on Wheels (25 page)

“I’m gonna need you t’hold on tight,” Nate instructed Ali as they wove in and out of Chicago traffic, Phantom squeezing between the cars that hadn’t already made room for the roaring beast of a bike. “Ozzie just called and told me the river tunnel is inop, so we’re goin’ in the front door hot and fast.”

“River tunnel?” her voice sounded scratchy, unused. Well, no surprise there, considering these were the first words they’d spoken to one another since Nate fucked up royally back in that despicable motel room.

Nearly fifteen solid hours of total, you’re-
such
-an-asshole silence where Ali didn’t deign to touch him save for the few instances when she’d had to brace herself as they leaned into curves. He’d never thought it possible to crave or…
miss
simple contact from another human being so much in his life.

“Oh, you mean the Bat Cave,” she said, answering her own question. “What happened?”

Man, just the sound of her voice made his heart rate kick up a notch. Maybe if he took the next corner real fast, she’d be forced to wrap her arms around him and then…no. Considering she was perched all the way back against the sissy bar, she’d likely choose to go flying off the back of Phantom rather than submit to laying a finger on him.

Damn. For a relatively intelligent guy, he sure could be a grade-A dumbass on occasion. That morning being a shiningly shitty example.

“Somethin’ about a problem with the hydraulics in the motor that runs the door back at Black Knights Inc.,” he told her. “We could access the tunnel via the terminating door in the parkin’ garage across the way, but then we’d be stuck down there for God only knows how long before Rebel fixes the problem and I don’t know about you, but the thought of sittin’ in that dank tunnel under however many gallons of fishy Chicago river just doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.”

Whoa. He was suddenly all Chatty Cathy? He wasn’t sure he’d strung that many words together since…well, since she’d held him safe in her arms and sweetly wheedled the story of Moscow out of him.

Maybe he was trying to make up for all the hours of silence today…or maybe he was just an asshole.

He figured
she’d
bet on the latter.

“Hmm,” she grumped, unaware of the turmoil of his thoughts, “I’ll agree with that, but I don’t understand why we need to go in hot and fa—Hey! You moron!” She shook her fist at a cab driver who’d nearly T-boned them while trying to push a light.

Wow, put the girl through a couple of days of high-level stress, dress her in black leather and give her a gun, and suddenly she went all
Xena: Warrior Princess.

The cabbie must’ve read her I-can-castrate-men-with-just-a-thought expression. He lifted his hands, the universal
my-bad
signal, and Ali growled. “Anyway, I don’t get why we have to go in the front door hot and fast. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

He could hardly believe they were having this semi-rational conversation after the way he’d handled things back at the Happy Acres. He’d behaved like such a douchebag, but dear lovin’ Lord, he’d never expected to wake from the reoccurring dream of Grigg’s horrendous death to Ali’s beautifully concerned face.

Talk about a dagger straight to his already shredded heart.

And because he’d been hurting, humiliated over having her see him when he was crying like a friggin’ baby and screaming his idiot head off, because the sight of her there, naked in his arms, looking at him with such compassion and sweet, sweet sympathy when he’d
killed
the one person in the world she loved more than anything only made him feel unimaginably guilty, he’d pulled out the prick card, played his hand like an ace, and said things he didn’t mean. Things sure to make her turn away from him so he wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that he was dying inside.

Shit.

Just the thought of the look wallpapered all over her face before he’d been forced to turn his back on her—or drop to his knees and confess everything—made him want to curl up in a ball and cry. It’d been a look of such surprise, such disillusionment, such…
hurt
.

Someone should just shoot him and put him out of his misery.

Oh, wait. Someone
had
shot him and that only
added
to his current list of This Is Why My Life Sucks.

“Nate?” she dragged him from his relentless thoughts. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Yeah,” he flicked a glance into his rearview mirror, one of the ten thousand or so peeks he’d made at the thing since this morning. “That was Ozzie callin’ this morning…” And, oh, great, that’s just what they needed, him reminding them both of exactly what Ozzie’s call had interrupted. “…Uh,” he cleared his throat and doggedly pushed ahead. “Anyway, that guy I shot at your parents’ house? The one you think is your mugger? Well, he’s known t’work with two accomplices. And if I’m not mistaken, the black SUV back there has been following us since we crossed the city limits. Don’t look,” he demanded when she began to do just that.

“Do you really think they’d try for us in broad daylight?”

Broad daylight? God love the woman, but she was innocent as a baby. “It’s sunset and we’re currently headin’ west, which puts the sun directly in our eyes, effectively blindin’ us. We’re at a tactical disadvantage.”

He felt her arm move as she reached for his reserve weapon. This morning, she’d asked for the little Colt. He’d lifted a brow but complied with her request, only to watch, quite mesmerized, as she again press-checked the chamber before shoving the piece into the waistband of her jeans.

And why watching her pink-tipped fingers fondle his weapon gave him a hard-on was anyone’s guess. It was probably something he should discuss with that psychiatrist whose card was shoved beneath his mattress.

“Don’t pull it,” he warned her now. “The last thing we need is to get hauled to the clink by the CPD for carryin’ an unlicensed, concealed weapon.”

“I won’t pull unless I need to,” she assured him, her voice remarkably steady considering.

“I gotta connect with headquarters,” he told her. “So I’m gonna switch over, and you won’t be able to communicate with me through the mic until we’re safe inside the compound. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” He heard her swallow, and the dry, clicking sound was the only indication she gave of her fear. The damned woman looked like a creampuff but was turning out to be tough as nails.

Before he thumbed the speed dial on his phone, he had to get one more thing out there. “Ali?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

Silence. He probably shouldn’t be too surprised by that.

“I, uh, I just wanted you to know,” he finished lamely, then pressed two on his phone, listening to the series of clicks and beeps that established his secure connection once he stated his password.

***

Dagan ran across the bagel shop’s roof and dropped down behind the giant, industrial, air-conditioning unit. The damn thing sounded like a jet-engine, but he wasn’t going to need his ears for the next few moments, because he’d heard everything he’d needed to hear just before he’d scrambled up the old iron fire-escape and hoisted himself onto the sticky tar roof across from Black Knights Inc.

Namely, he’d heard the unmistakably throaty grumble of Ghost’s monster of a motorcycle.

“Why the hell aren’t you using the bolt-hole, you stupid ass?” he growled as he flicked the safety on his Glock.

Fifteen lousy rounds.

That’s all he had because he’d left his extra magazines in his go-bag inside the SUV parked down the block.

Stupid, stupid.

But not as stupid as Nathan Weller coming in the front door of Black Knights Inc. when he had a perfectly good, totally anonymous back door he could safely utilize.

Dagan had been reaching for his cell phone, about to make an anonymous phone call to the boys at Black Knights Inc. to inform them of the two shadowy figures lurking around the edges of the Knights’ compound, when he’d heard the guttural roar of that badass bike.

So now, instead of one easy-peasy phone call, he was forced to hustle into a covering position with fifteen lousy rounds.

***

Nate was coming down the street like a bat out of hell. Luckily, there was no traffic on the road or he’d have probably scared the crap out of the other drivers.

He gave Manus in the guardhouse a thumbs-up and the big wrought iron gate was just beginning to swing slowly open when the hairs at his nape snapped to sudden attention. Warning Will Robinson! He barely had time to reach for the handgun in his waistband before utter chaos exploded.

Literally.

The guardhouse nearly disintegrated before his very eyes, riddled with bullets that shattered the glass and shredded the wooden structure.

Sonofabitch! Manus!

He heard Ali’s terrified scream even though he was no longer connected to her through the helmet’s headset, and—dear God forgive him—but he spared no second thought for Manus Connelly.

His only concern was Ali.

Cutting the front wheel sharply, rubber screamed and foul, acrid smoke billowed up to obscure his vision as he planted his biker boot onto the pavement hard enough to break the bones in his ankle. Luckily, the stiff support of the boot kept that from happening, but…

Shit! The rubber on his sole quickly heated and melted as he did his level best to control the monster bike in its heavy, awkward skid. Every muscle he had strained to the limit as he wrestled with around a quarter ton of custom-made steel.

Control stopped being as issue when a string of hot bullets blasted through his rear fender. The big tire beneath exploded, and he had no choice but to lay down the bike and hope its bulk plus the bulk of his own body would be enough to protect Ali from the hail of gunfire.

She was still screaming when he forced her to the ground beneath him. Trying to use Phantom as meager cover, he used one hand to shield Ali’s helmeted head and the other to raise his weapon and…

Where the hell
was
that sawgunner?

He expected to see the black SUV, but it was nowhere in sight. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d let his paranoia get the better of—

He ducked when a bullet slammed into the motorcycle’s steaming engine, sounding louder than a damned train wreck.

They were sitting ducks out here in the middle of the street, just asking for a terminal case of lead poisoning. Even the heavy steel of Phantom’s chassis provided little cover when going up against a man with an AK-47.

He recognized the
rat-a-tat-tat
of that Russian special. He’d heard it often enough in so many of the shitholes he’d worked all over the world.

Another round glanced off the handlebars with a loud
ping
, and he was able to get a bead on the trajectory.
Finally
.

Lifting his head, he zeroed in on the dark shadow of the guy with the machine gun turkey peeking around the corner of the deli down the block, and just like always, the rest of the world faded away.

He wished he had ol’ Sierra and her optics, but that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t only that he didn’t have the time to assemble her, he didn’t dare move from his protective position over Ali—who was squirming beneath him, trying to lift her head and his reserve weapon at the same time, the stupid, wonderful woman.

No matter. He was nearly as good with a pistol as he was with a rifle. He slowed his breathing; his heart rate immediately followed.

Calm
is
king,
Grigg had liked to say, and it was certainly true when faced with overwhelming odds and a foolish woman who was
still
trying to wrestle out from under him in order to join in the battle.

Xena: Warrior Princess
indeed.

A bullet whizzed by his helmet, so close he felt the heat from the displaced air against his cheek, and then time stopped. The Hogue soft rubber grip of his Para Ordinance CCW .45 melded with his palm as his steady trigger finger slipped away from the trigger guard. A fraction of a second later, perhaps a heartbeat more, he automatically accounted for distance, bullet drop, and Kentucky windage, and then there was nothing left to do but squeeze.

The .45 round left the barrel with a loud bark, and the mad sawing of the machine gun sputtered to a choking stop.

Yep, the guy was likely to have a bit of difficulty continuing to operate that Kalashnikov with a hollow point entering one inch below his right eye and taking out most of his gray matter upon exiting the back of his skull.

In the resounding silence immediately following the sawgunner’s death, Nate could hear Ali cursing over the ringing in his ears. “Let me up, damnit! I can help!”

He almost smiled.

“Stay still,” he advised her gruffly, not taking any chances as he quartered the area. He must be crushing her, but a few bruises and some road rash were a whole helluva lot better than a bullet…much easier to recover from.

When his eyes fixed on what was left of the guardhouse, he swallowed back the bile that rose to the back of his throat.

It’d be a miracle if Manus were alive.

He didn’t want to move from his covering position over Ali, but he had to at least go and check on Manus. The guy was a Knight—by proxy, at least—and Nate couldn’t just sit if there was a chance he could help the man.

“I want ya to stay down behind Phantom,” he instructed Ali, still searching the surrounding buildings for the sawgunner’s partner. “I’ve gotta go check the guardhouse.”

He didn’t wait for her reply, just lifted himself from her prone body and—

A bullet plowed into the pavement by his left leg. Hot cement exploded into biting little shards upon impact.

That
was no machine gun. Oh, hell no. That was a bolt-action rifle. A pretty good one by the sound of it.

“
Sonofa
—”

He dropped back down on top of Ali, swinging his weapon in the direction of the shot. Then something across the way caught his eye.

There was a man with a handgun held out in front of him running along the roof of the bagel shop. The dude was skylining himself like crazy, and it would’ve been a piece of cake for Nate to put a bullet in him, but the guy wasn’t aiming for them.