The Lawless Kind (9 page)

Rink forced more speed from our rental, and I leaned past him.

‘Ears,’ I said in warning, a split second before my SIG cracked noisily. Rink didn’t flinch but already he must have been half-deafened by the nearby blast. He gritted his teeth and powered directly at the truck, even as I continued to fire through the shattered windshield. Below me I could hear Kirstie’s faint yelps with each empty shell that bounced across her shoulders. I watched where my bullets struck the other vehicle and tightened my grouping. Moments before I’d been reluctant to shoot; thinking the first figure was a cop. Now the rules had changed. I placed six rounds through the low corner of the windscreen exactly where a driver would be hiding behind the steering wheel. This time the truck shot across the shoulder at the side of the road and impacted with the cliff. The hood crumpled, the rear end thrown skyward, and a man was ejected from the bed, flailing in the air before he too struck the unforgiving rocks and moved no more. I doubted the driver had survived my bullets, and the likelihood was that any passengers would have been squashed when the cab was compressed to a quarter of its original dimensions.

Two vehicles were still pursuing us, and likely a number of armed and determined enemies, but now the road ahead was clear, and no way could they catch us. Not that I was ready to cheer just yet. I’m a firm believer in Murphy’s Law, and if anything could go wrong it probably would. There are too many variables to rely on luck remaining on your side. A tyre could blow out, the engine could seize, or another third-party element could enter the fray, and slow us enough for our pursuers to catch up.

Or Rink could hit a one-eighty skid so that we again faced our enemies, which was precisely what he did.

Ordinarily the tactic would be madness, but I wasn’t complaining. The only way we could be certain of escape from these determined attackers was to neutralise them and we couldn’t do that while running away. With a screech of rubber on blacktop, the car shot towards the two oncoming vehicles. I hit the release on the magazine and it fell in the spare front seat, rattling across the cooler box. Then as Rink accelerated I slapped a fresh mag in place and readied the SIG for action. The first truck’s gumball lights punched shards of conflicting hues across the cliffs that were now on our right. The third vehicle in their pack had overtaken the first, and was heading for us; illuminated by flashing lights were two men on the back who were holding long guns. One of them fired but the round was lost in the desert somewhere; then the second man opened up, which was more troubling. He was armed with a machine-gun and was rattling bullets at us on semi-auto. They walloped the front grill like a roll of thunder. The car shuddered with the impact, but kept moving.

Rink concentrated on driving. He had a gun in a shoulder rig, but to go for it now would compromise his control of the car. It was my SIG against a rifle and an MP5: not good odds.

‘Give me a weapon,’ Kirstie shouted. ‘I can help.’

‘You can help by keeping your head down,’ I shouted over the continuous roll of my gun as I rapidly squeezed the trigger. Within seconds the slide locked back and I hit the mag release and slapped in a fresh one.

I had starred the windscreen of the oncoming truck, but hadn’t got the driver this time. The men on the back fired at us, and I could hear their war cries over the roaring of engines and rattle of gunfire. Bullets shattered one of our headlights and tore chunks in the hood. Rink ducked and dived, avoiding bits of heated metal thrown through the open window.

‘Drop that motherfucker with the machine-gun or we’re dead!’

‘That’s what I’m trying to do!’

I leaned fully over the passenger seat so I had a clear view through the windshield, and loosed a close grouping of three rounds at the machine-gunner. Whether I hit him or not, I wasn’t sure, but he disappeared, ducking down behind the safety of the cab.

Then we were swerving around the truck and I caught the pale flashes of passing faces both inside and on the rear of the truck. Four men in total, plus the bogus cop. Our odds weren’t looking much better than before. We had to change things in our favour.

Rink pushed the car forward, steam now billowing out from under the buckled hood. I craned round, watching the truck driver perform a decent one-eighty turn. The gunners were up again and firing. It would take time to catch up with us, unless the damage to the engine of our car stalled it within seconds. Something under the hood was making a regular knocking noise, but then that could have been the bullets hitting the road beneath our wheels.

Kirstie struggled to move, but was jammed by my knees. She was reaching for her purse, and I had an idea she wasn’t looking for her lipstick. ‘Leave it alone, Kirstie. It’s more important you keep out of the way than join in the fight.’

She struggled free, snapping at me, ‘No one is going to stop me saving Benjamin!’

‘A bullet in your goddamn skull will,’ I snapped back, and I shoved her down, just as we came in range of the bogus cop. He was driving much slower, wary that we might try to ram him, and had poked the muzzle of the shotgun out of his window. Flame erupted from the barrel and lead peppered the rental. Something incredibly hot burned a furrow across my scalp and I knew that I’d been hit. Thankfully it was a glancing blow and the shot didn’t embed itself in my cranium. Still, it was as if I’d taken a punch to my forehead and white sparks flashed through my mind. Blood began pouring across my features. I questioned the validity of the man’s bloodline, cursing viciously as I batted blood from my eyes. Immediately I squared the muzzle of the SIG on the spot behind the shotgun and fired. My shots were wild and designed to halt a second blast from the shotgun. The driver hit the brakes, swerving on to the hard shoulder, then on to the soft sand: unfortunately he didn’t collide with the cliffs the way his first buddies had.

In our engine something shrieked, and more steam hissed banshee-like from under the hood. The car bucked as it began to lose power. Then it bucked again and the engine went silent.

‘Shit,’ I said against the new hush.

The other truck was barrelling up behind us; on the back the gunmen rose up and the machine-gun and rifle spat fire.

Chapter 12

The cliffs were our best hope of refuge, but at that moment we were rolling on tyres alone, and though Rink angled off the road we only made it a few yards before the front sank in the loose sand. Rink piled out of the door, pulling his gun from his shoulder rig, while I grabbed hold of Kirstie and yanked her up.

‘OK, get your gun. Things have changed now.’

Kirstie snatched her purse, and I was already ducking out of the door. Our saving grace was that we still had the car side on to the approaching gunmen, but that advantage would last seconds only. I helped Kirstie out, then pushed her down behind the wheel, to offer some protection: the car’s body wouldn’t halt a round, and Rink had already claimed the spot behind the engine.

I took a quick look over the trunk, saw the truck had slowed and the men on the back were searching for targets. Beyond them, the bogus cop had abandoned his vehicle and was jogging towards the fight. But that was all I got of the scene; I snatched my head down as bullets caromed from the roof of the car, spinning wildly away among the nearby cliffs. A second later, Rink returned fire across the hood, and his bullets banged loudly as they struck the truck. Brakes screeched.

Kirstie was scrabbling through her belongings and came up holding the gun she’d chosen from the stash we’d brought with us. It was a Glock 19, a good fit for her hand. I watched her slip the clip out, check her load and then slap it back in place, before racking the slide. She knew her guns. But it was one thing shooting paper targets, quite another a living thing. Particularly when the living target was shooting back. ‘Your safety’s the most important thing, Kirstie. Only use your gun if you’ve no other option.’

Rink glanced our way.

‘We’re sitting ducks here. We gotta make it between those boulders back there. Go now. I’ll cover you.’

I didn’t wait. Propelling Kirstie before me, I headed for a fissure between the rocks. Bullets smacked the back end of the car, but already we were out of their line of fire and safe but for ricochets. By the time our attackers found a bead on us, I’d already pressed Kirstie down behind some boulders at the mouth of the narrow canyon.

‘You OK?’

‘I’m fine. But you . . . oh, my God! Your face looks horrible!’

‘Now you’re beginning to sound like Rink.’ She didn’t get the joke. I wiped the trickling blood off my features. ‘It’s nothing. Scalp wounds bleed like crazy, but I’m fine.’

To prove my point I bobbed up and fired half-a-dozen rounds at the truck and the men now crouching behind it. I didn’t get a hit on one of our attackers, but that wasn’t my purpose. Rink sprinted over and joined us while they kept their heads down.

‘Fuckers are too determined for thieves,’ he said, as he found a place from where he could return fire.

‘They have to be my ex-husband’s people,’ Kirstie said.

I shook my head. Something about the scenario was troubling me. I didn’t think these men had anything to do with Molina, or Benjamin, because there was no way they could’ve known where to launch an ambush on us. Besides, Molina would have sent more capable killers than these. There was something else happening here, but I agreed with Rink that they were too committed to be mere opportunistic thieves. They’d already lost more than they could ever achieve from continuing the attack. Perhaps they were so angered by the deaths of their friends in the first truck that the fight had grown personal.

More bullets chattered against the fissure walls, and the time for worrying about motive was over. What did it matter? They were attempting to kill us, and knowing the reason for that didn’t amount to zero weighed against the need to stay alive.

Leaning out past the rocks, I checked their positions. The four men were down behind their truck, bobbing up and down like whack-a-moles on a funfair while they took pot shots at our position. I ignored them in favour of checking where the fake cop had gone. The son of a bitch had laid the trap, but now that things were becoming unhinged, he was heading back for his abandoned vehicle. He turned briefly and the moonlight flooded his features, giving me a first look at his face.

Two things struck me.

He was no Mexican.

And I recognised him.

A bullet cut a chunk from near my shoulder, and I ducked down. By the time I looked again, the fake cop had clambered inside his truck, and his face could no longer be seen. He reversed on to the road and took off in the opposite direction. His friends fell silent, wondering where the hell he was going, but their confusion only lasted a few seconds. The sound of another engine had joined the fray, and I was relieved to hear that our back-up was almost upon us. To help Harvey and the others gain a safe position where they could offer protection to our flank, both Rink and I began firing at the truck. Curses rang out loudly, all in Spanish.

The machine-gunner made another attempt at finishing us off, and we had to stay down until he’d expended the thirty-plus rounds in his magazine. But as his gun fell quiet, we took more pinpointed shots at them. His wild shooting had served a two-fold purpose: yes, he was trying to kill us, but it was also to cover his buddies as they got back inside the truck. Three of them had squeezed inside the cab, while the one with the machine-gun was in the process of climbing on the back. Rink shot him, a bullet through his left thigh. It hit only a second before mine took a sizeable portion of his skull. He performed a slow-motion tumble off the back of the truck like the bad guy in a Western movie swan-diving off a saloon roof.

Those inside the truck had had enough, especially now that they were outnumbered. They took off at speed, leaving their dead gunner lying on the asphalt in a widening pool of gore. His MP5 must have fallen on the bed of the truck as he’d toppled off. We studied him from our concealed position.

‘I winged him so we’d have a live prisoner,’ Rink said.

‘Tell the truth. It was just poor shooting.’

Rink snorted out a laugh.

‘Would’ve been good to find out what the fuck that was all about.’

‘Maybe,’ I concurred. ‘But he was still capable of shooting, so I prefer him this way.’

It would have been handy to have a live prisoner. There was something decidedly odd about the attack, and answers from an injured man would’ve been welcome. However, what was done was done and not worth moaning over.

‘Maybe we’ll find something interesting on his body.’

‘Go for it,’ Rink said. ‘You shot him, made all that mess, feel free to be the one to check through his clothing.’

‘Since when were you so squeamish?’