by Tom Barber
‘OK, thanks for the head’s up.’ Nicky took back the fake ID created less than twelve hours ago, and with his heart thumping drove on through the roadblock.
He was almost a mile clear when he finally felt he could breathe again, his hands clammy with sweat on the steering wheel. But he’d passed his first test and feeling more confident, drove on out of Lee County and out of Virginia into Kentucky.
His first time wearing something other than prison jumps in almost twelve years, the first time back in a car and the first time in all those years breathing air as a free man.
How long all that was going to last was now down to him.
TWENTY SEVEN
Whoever out of Prez’s motorcycle club who’d brought the car up overnight had left the tank fully topped up, which allowed Nicky to get through Kentucky and up into Indiana before the sun went down. He stopped to refill at a gas station once he was over the State line, buying food and drink at the same time with some of the five hundred bucks, then parked up a few miles away in a supermarket lot to eat, making sure he was well away from any security cameras. He’d considered eating while he drove to save time but didn’t want to risk doing anything to catch the attention of any passing bored cop who had tickets to fill and didn’t like seeing a man with out-of-State plates doing something he could pull him over for.
His luck ran out however when, late in the evening, he was getting close to the Ohio border and the Chrysler scored a flat. Nicky pulled over to change the wheel only to discover there were no tools. Rolling slowly into the next town, his heart in his mouth when he’d passed a police car who had every right to ticket him for driving with only three fully inflated tires, he couldn’t find any place still open to change it. Stealing a new car would draw unwanted attention, so he was faced with the very unwelcome fact that he would have to wait until morning.
As he sat in the Chrysler in quiet frustration, tucked away out of sight down a side road while listening to the radio, his blood turned to ice as he heard his name mentioned as another escapee from Gatlin. His luck really had just turned for the worse; Janks must’ve been found almost a day and a half before Nicky hoped he would be. He knew Prez would be getting sweated by the prison staff and investigators by now too, although there wasn’t a chance in hell his celly would break.
He also heard that the Loughlins were the chief suspects in a prison bus ambush in West Virginia, and that members of law-enforcement had been killed as inmates on board the transport escaped. One of those freed was reported as Frank Lupinetti; Nicky had guessed that the ex-cop from C Block had to have been paying Brooks and Billy for protection inside Gatlin, but there must have been more than a few zeros on that amount of money for them to go to such trouble to free him. Lastly, he learned that the ambush had cost them their youngest brother. Whoever had put Craig down had just made two very dangerous enemies.
He tried to sleep, but only really managed to lean back in his seat with his eyes shut, keeping alert for any prowling squad car and unable to put aside the thought of the clock constantly ticking on towards 11am tomorrow morning. Hearing what the Loughlins had done already and the memory of that terrified laundry truck driver with the sliced-up neck was starting to sit heavily on his conscience. Nicky had known about the brothers’ planned escape through Wes’s revelations at dinner last night and used them for his own ends, but people had already been killed due to their actions. If the brothers made it to their home territory in the upper part of New York State, with the contacts they had, Brooks and Billy were going to be extremely hard to find. Nicky remembered from the news when he was a kid that the 1996 Olympics bombing suspect had hidden out in the woods in North Carolina for five years without being found; now Brooks and Billy had escaped from their cage, it would become a life or death struggle to get them back inside. Before this was over, it was likely a lot more people were going to die.
He felt the weight of that, but exhaustion won out and he finally dozed off. After snapping awake again just after 6am, he drove around the Indiana town until he found a place opening early and got them to replace the flat. The mechanic who helped him out was friendly and totally unsuspicious, and twenty minutes later Nicky was back on the road. He passed into Ohio without encountering any further roadblocks, but with the unexpected delay, time was running out.
As the morning sun came up and he made his way slowly through Labor Day Saturday traffic, Nicky tried Kat’s phone repeatedly using the burner cell left in the console of the car, but she still wouldn’t answer. Her phoneline most likely would’ve been tapped, but if she’d seen that he’d broken out of prison she’d know why, especially so close to his release. Maybe that could be enough of an incentive not to go ahead with the robbery.
With that in mind, instead of going to her apartment in Clark-Fulton which he knew would be under surveillance by now, he drove through his home city towards the intersection where she’d told him the hit on the truck was planned, remembering the familiar streets from his youth and not needing a map.
But as he approached East Superior where she’d said this was going down, the sudden outburst of gunfire told him he was too late. Kat had naively promised him no-one would get hurt; but that sound of gunshots followed by screaming immediately made it clear that something had already gone badly wrong.
When he followed the noise and pulled up to see her slumped against a mail bin a block away from the avenue, Nicky also saw a loaded black bag beside her and two separate units of Cleveland police officers engaging with each other down the street. Looking around to gauge the threat he was about to face, he saw another man holding a pistol double-handed crouched behind a car across the street from him, pieces of it being blown off as it took shotgun shells and rifle rounds.
The scene was chaotic and confusing, but as Nicky got out, intending to run over to Kat and extract her, he looked towards the direction of gunfire again and froze for a second in shock.
The three men firing at both the blond man taking cover behind the car and at a police cruiser were Brooks, Billy and Lupinetti, the two brothers dressed in police uniforms.
What the hell were they doing here and wearing those clothes?
Nicky didn’t waste time trying to work it out yet, but started running towards Kat instead. ‘Nick?’ she coughed weakly as he reached her. Even wounded, she looked as stunned at seeing him as he’d felt seeing the Loughlins.
Instead of answering, he swept her up and carried her back towards his car, the bag hooked around her shoulder knocking against his leg as he ran.
After they’d swapped out their car for the one they’d taken from a bodega owner, Nicky had driven them through the eastern suburbs trying to work out what to do next when he seized on an opportunity that presented itself. He was driving slowly, not wanting to attract any extra attention with Kat writhing and whimpering in agony on the back seat, when he saw the garage door for a property on his left start to open; he pulled over to watch as a car moved out and started to head off down the street.
Hoping and praying the driver wouldn’t look in the rearview and seeing there was no-one else around, Nicky quickly drove forward and turned into the drive just as the garage door was starting to lower. He accelerated and managed to get underneath as the door bounced against the car’s roof and then closed behind him. He didn’t know how long the driver was going to be gone, if there was anyone else in the house or if he’d been seen sneaking into the garage by a neighbor, the decision to hide in here taken on sudden impulse. But he needed a moment to see just how bad Kat was hurt and knew the cops would be out in force, prowling the streets. At least for the time being they were out of sight.
As she lay on the backseat, gritting her teeth while twisting and contorting in pain, Nicky got out, opened the back door and reached over to lift her sweater. He saw from the car’s interior light that she’d been hit on her right side and figured from the damage that at least one rib had to be broken; if it was, that brought the additional, serious risk of it p
uncturing her lung.
He used the rudimentary equipment in the first aid kit he’d taken from the bodega to try and stop the bleeding, but knew she urgently needed expert treatment. How he was going to get that with the cops looking for them seemed impossible.
‘You…broke…out,’ she gasped, managing to get the words out through the pain.
‘I came to stop you. I told you this was a bad idea.’
‘How did you…?’ She gave up finishing the question, in too much pain, but he knew what she was asking; he didn’t reply, instead taking out the cell phone left for him by the Georgia bikers and calling Prez. He wasn’t answering either.
‘I need your help, old man,’ he whispered quickly on a voicemail. ‘If they didn’t throw you in the SHU with Janks yet or find your phone, call me back soon as you can.’
‘You...you only had a few days….left,’ Kat whispered. Nicky squeezed her arm then realized he hadn’t checked the bag she’d taken with her from the robbery. He moved over and opened the zipper, seeing a closed deposit box inside.
He looked back at her, seeing she was watching him. ‘Thought I…couldn’t do…it,’ she said, before coughing again and arching her back.
He didn’t answer.
*
Now five hours later, Nicky was in his fifth State in less than twenty four hours, but most importantly, was out of Ohio and the police heat cooking the entire area. The Cleveland chapter of the motorcycle club Kevin Rainey was a member of had turned off I-90 after riding on long past the roadblocks and were now pulling into a scrapyard down a track in the Pennsylvania wilderness, the place surrounded by tall trees, bushes and miles of woodland.
Riding his borrowed bike with a sidecar attached, Nicky followed them into a large clearing in the scrapyard which was clearly serving as a makeshift campsite tonight. There was a big bonfire already going, chairs and beer coolers scattered everywhere with another forty or so bikes already parked up. As the Cleveland MC roared in, they were greeted by members of what Nicky saw was the Pittsburgh chapter, seeing their cuts and allegiance on their worn leather jackets.
The place was humming with guys revving bikes, smoking weed or drinking booze, rock music playing from speakers somewhere. Taking off his helmet, Nicky swung his leg off the bike and went to Kat, removing her helmet too. Prez had called him back an agonizingly slow half-hour after Nicky had contacted him from the garage and told him to get to a cross-street four blocks away. A car idling by the curb had picked them up and taken the pair to an underpass where members of the Cleveland MC chapter were waiting. Prez knew Nicky had ridden motorbikes in his time and they’d had one with a sidecar ready, along with the helmets and jackets. Nicky had been informed they were heading out of the city on Interstate 90 and a short time later was riding with them, camouflaged in the middle of the group of bikers.
Nicky took off the loaned shades and leather jacket he’d been wearing. He removed Kat’s too and unzipped her jacket. Her face was screwed up in pain, dried blood having stained her shirt, the bag at her feet covered by a blanket.
‘It hurts so…much, Nick,’ she groaned, before coughing. ‘Oh God.’
‘Get her in the office, now,’ Nicky heard a woman say; he turned to see who he later learned was the Cleveland president’s wife standing there watching him with two other members of the MC. She had hair a similar shade of red to Kat’s, tattoos on both arms up to her neck and was also a good fifteen years older. ‘The boys by the fire see her, you got more problems,’ she said, glancing back towards the Pittsburgh chapter across the scrapyard.
They helped Nicky get Kat out of the seat and carried her over towards the office for the business. There was a couch inside and Nicky threw the blanket down before helping lie Kat onto it, who was now only semi-conscious. The biker’s wife checked Nicky’s basic bandaging under Kat’s shirt.
‘Leave her with me,’ the woman said, before seeing the Gatlin fugitive hesitate. ‘I trained as a nurse. We just risked ten-to-twenty helping you get over the State line, guy. I’m not gonna do anything to your girl. If we wanted a bounty, we’d have sold you out by now.’
He moved back outside somewhat reluctantly but kept away from the gathering near the fire, not wanting to draw the attention of the Pittsburgh chapter. He didn’t know if news of the Gatlin Four and the truck heist in Cleveland had reached these parts yet, but once it became clear Ohio State Police couldn’t locate him and Kat, the search was going to widen and their faces would be everywhere. Turning Nicky and Kat in could help a motorcycle club in many ways, like getting outstanding warrants forgotten or time clipped off sentences for friends currently locked up inside. Nicky trusted Prez with his life, but he didn’t know how much sway his celly still had with the club after his fourteen years behind bars. Nicky had Kat’s handgun tucked in the back of his waistband, but six shots weren’t going to do much against two MCs worth of bikers carrying guns.
He decided keeping his head down and staying out of sight near the exit road was the best move right now. He then realized the bag from the heist had been left in the sidecar and hurried back to retrieve it. To his relief, the holdall was still there, and he lowered it to the ground behind the bike before opening the zip. The deposit box inside was still closed and way too heavy for what Kat had told him was meant to be inside. He looked around but the party was noisy and no-one was paying him any attention. He found a torque wrench in the bike’s tool kit and broke the lock open after several blows.
There were neat rows of banded cash in the box. Lifting a few out, he found the bills were covering some smaller boxes; he opened a couple to find they contained expensive-looking jewelry. He did a quick count and it looked like there could be at least half a million dollars in money, but guessed the value of the jewels eclipsed that many times over.
Digging in further, he found another eight jewelry boxes, but instead of feeling jubilant, he swore quietly.
This wasn’t what Kat had been after.
‘You hear what they were talking about?’ the Gatlin captain asked the CO who’d been standing closest to Reyes and his visitor as they studied the footage from the meeting that had taken place two days previously when Kat had visited Nicky that Thursday afternoon. The shot was in color and good quality.
‘Nothing interesting,’ the CO replied. ‘Why I walked off to listen to some others. Conversation sounded like she’d smoked too much weed on the ride over.’
‘She doesn’t look stoned. Check out her behavior. Girl looks nervous as hell.’
Marquez had just arrived at the control room from the hospital, wanting to see if the prison had any final news on Lupinetti before she left town, and overheard the brief exchange. She’d glanced at the screen before hearing the captain’s question and noticed Brooks Loughlin had been sitting pretty close to Reyes at the next table.
She’d also noticed he was focusing all his attention on a worried-looking Nicky and fidgety Kat O’Mara.
Not on his visitor.
‘Won’t take too long for the cops to guess I could be hiding out in an MC,’ Nicky told the Cleveland chapter’s president, the man having walked away from the party across the yard with a beer in hand. ‘Kev Rainey’s been my only celly at Gatlin. The guards know we’re tight.’ Nicky pulled a $5,000 stack from his pocket and offered it to the biker; payment for his help. The burly president took the money, flicking his fingers through the wad to count the bills. Nicky noticed the man’s eyes then switched to the bike; looking for the bag, he guessed. ‘Why’d you do this?’ he asked the man.
‘Rainey’s a legend in the club. Took a fifteen year federal gun charge alone to save three chapters’ worth of guys going down with him. He wanted you helped out and we were coming this way anyway.’ The huge man drank deep from the large tallboy of beer before grinning. ‘And I like getting one over on the feds. They’ve been on my ass since I was old enough to piss standing up.’
The man’s wife exited the scrapyard’s office and walked over to them, wiping h
er hands. ‘She’s in trouble,’ she told Nicky. ‘Bullet’s deep in there and I can’t get it out with no anesthetic. She starts screaming, the Yinzers might work out who you are pretty fast.’
‘We’ve gotta do something about the pain.’
‘One of our boys has some oxy. I’ll get some off him and dope her up.’
‘We’re gonna be here till tomorrow,’ the president told Nicky. ‘Time the sun comes up, you and your girly will be gone. Don’t care where you go or how you get there, but we never helped you. When you get caught, you and her managed to get outta Ohio by yourselves. Understand?’
Nicky nodded. ‘Get the girl to a doctor or she’s never gonna make it to wherever you’re trying to go,’ the man’s wife added. The Cleveland president put his arm around her shoulder, then they turned and walked off, the biker stopping by a cooler and collecting a drink for her as they passed.
When you get caught, Nicky thought, the biker’s words repeating in his head as he watched them walk away.
The man hadn’t even bothered to say if.
TWENTY EIGHT
At 7pm later that day, Archer showed his badge to an officer standing outside the Lakewood suburb gun store which the two Loughlins and Lupinetti had raided earlier, then ducked under the police tape and walked in. Richie of Cleveland PD was standing behind the counter, having called Archer twenty minutes ago inviting him to join the Robbery/Homicide squad here.
‘Should’ve thought to put owners of places like this on alert,’ Richie said, as Archer thanked the lieutenant for including him before taking a look at the scene. A small arsenal of firearms had been laid out on the counter and behind the selection, big gaps could be seen on the shelves where boxes of ammunition had been stored. ‘After the shootout off Superior, might’ve guessed they’d be needing to resupply.’
‘We know it was our boys?’