The Shadow File (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 4)

by A. C. Fuller

  The third option was to give up, to stop the car and let them take me. Chances were, they'd kill me on the spot. They'd probably already killed Innerva. Only thing left for them to do was to clean up the mess.

  Greta and I were the mess.

  "Alex, you see those cars, right?" I almost laughed when she said it, because what else can you do at a time like that? Then she said something much more useful. "That patch there?"

  She was pointing at a small patch of long grass about a hundred yards ahead, a few feet off the road. It jutted into the brambles, and the grass was so long that it almost looked like part of the hedge. It was about four feet wide and ten feet long, and I knew right away that it was our only shot.

  At our current speed, I would have passed the patch of grass before the two SUVs, so I slowed the car to about ten miles an hour. I tried to slow the car gradually, so they would assume I was stopping. The SUVs continued at the same speed until we were about equidistant from the patch of grass.

  Then, I floored it. The car was no racer, but it responded. Twenty miles an hour, then thirty, then forty. By the time I hit fifty, it started rattling and shaking like it hadn't been driven that fast in years.

  The SUVs sped up, too, and I could only imagine what they were thinking and saying inside. I didn't like what I imagined.

  About twenty yards from the patch of grass, we hit fifty miles an hour and I got my first look at the men in the SUV. I didn't recognize them, but their granite-jawed faces and generic looks made me sure they were with Amand.

  The man driving had short black hair, pale skin, and black sunglasses, but I'd barely registered this when another man leaned out the passenger side and started firing.

  The first two shots missed our car completely. I heard them as a rapid pop pop but couldn't see where they landed. My guess was that he was aiming for our tires because it didn't seem likely that he'd be a bad enough shot to miss the car entirely, even going fifty on a bumpy road.

  We were only about forty feet from a head-on collision when a bullet hit our windshield. It struck the top right, where the windshield connected to the metal frame of the car, and sent a long crack skewing down toward the center.

  I lowered my head as far as I could without losing sight of the road, and inched the car to the right, scraping the brush on the side of the road.

  When we were no more than twenty feet apart, the driver swerved to his right, slamming on the brakes at the same time and careening into a tangle of branches.

  At the same time, I spun the wheel to the right, taking up as much of the shoulder as there was. Branches scraped and shrieked along the side of the car and Greta jumped over into the center by the gear shift.

  A few feet later, the patch of grass emerged and I swerved further right as the other SUV veered right to avoid clipping us. Swiveling the wheel left as hard as I could, I entered the road again, but I hadn't cut out of the patch fast enough and the side of the car struck a tree stump concealed in the bushes.

  Greta's door pressed in toward her, but only a few inches, and the bump from the tree shot us back onto the dirt road, where I stepped on the gas as I took in the scene in the rearview mirror.

  The first SUV was smoking and I saw a door opening. I wasn't sure, but I thought it hit a tree. The second SUV was speeding down the road toward the farmhouse. The road wasn't wide enough to turn around in, and this would buy me at least a minute.

  We hit the section where the dirt road became paved again and came to the first turn a hundred yards later. I slowed for a second, watching to see whether the car would park at the house. I wondered whether they'd try to take Grandma Martinez. But they didn't.

  As I took a soft left, I saw one of the SUVs coming after us, kicking up a storm of dust behind it.

  28

  "What the hell?" Greta yelled as she spun around, looking for the SUV. "What the actual hell!"

  The SUV was temporarily out of sight because I'd turned on a two-lane road, but it had been in the rearview mirror. So I knew they'd seen us.

  "Those weren't Cuban police, were they?"

  "Doubt it," I said. "They wouldn't be driving cars from this century. And they wouldn't have shot Innerva."

  This rocked Greta, and she slumped back in the seat. "I don't understand. I thought she said she'd arranged it."

  "She had."

  "Are you sure she's dead?"

  I was pretty sure, but I didn't want to say so. "I'm not certain, but…they shot the police as well. The police she said she'd arranged to meet with."

  Greta went quiet and I could see that she was tearing up. "So the Cuban police sold her out to Amand's thugs?" she asked softly.

  "Probably. But then someone shot them, too. I couldn't see who was doing the shooting, though. Two officers who looked Cuban were walking toward Innerva in front of the house, and they both went down. Then they shot up a police car, and a couple more officers in it." I went quiet for a minute, as the weight of it hit me. "Innerva. Delfino and Seleste. Plus four officers."

  "You didn't tell me about Delfino and Seleste."

  "Innerva confirmed it." I struck the steering wheel with an open palm. "Damnit!"

  "Alex, we have to focus here. Figure out what's going on. So you think the police led the men in the SUV to Innerva, then got double crossed?"

  "It's possible that somehow Amand's men followed the police without them knowing, but I doubt that. I'm pretty sure we weren't followed on the ride with Delfino and Seleste. So the most likely thing is that somehow they traced Innerva to the address next to the restaurant, took out Delfino and Seleste, then came for us. When they lost us, they probably got in touch with the Cuban police and struck a deal. Innerva's cousin sold her out, then they turned on the police to cover up the mess. They'll probably try to pin it all on Innerva."

  We passed a farmhouse that looked a lot like the one we'd dropped Grandma Martinez at. Some kids ran in the yard as a young man led a cow out of a barn. I'd been checking the rearview mirror and hadn't seen the SUV, but I knew they were back there.

  "What should we do?" I asked. "We got lucky before, but we can't outrun them."

  "Plus, we're going to get pulled over by real police any minute, and we have no reason to believe they wouldn't hand us over."

  We drove in silence through the Cuban countryside for a few minutes, past fields and farms and the occasional old farmhouse. I drove as fast as I thought I could get away with, and I assumed that the men behind us were driving faster.

  Finally the black SUV appeared in the rearview mirror. It was cresting a small hill that led into a long, flat stretch of road. I watched for the second one to appear, but it didn't.

  Greta saw my look and turned back. "Alex, they're—"

  "I see them."

  I nodded toward the horizon, where low hills started rising out of the farmland. "Maybe there will be somewhere to lose them there. A turnoff…something."

  "Go faster," Greta said. "Better to take our chance with local police than those guys."

  I floored it, but the car only made it up to about 120 kph, or around 75 miles per hour, before it rattled so hard it felt like the nuts and bolts would start popping off. Combined with the whistling from the crack in the windshield, I was worried that the whole car would spontaneously fall apart, leaving me sitting on the street and holding the steering wheel like in some old cartoon.

  I checked the rearview and saw that they were gaining on us. Despite the fact that I was flooring it on a slight downhill, our car was topped out at seventy miles an hour. They'd catch us within minutes.

  We passed into the low hills and followed the road on a slow arc to the left, where a river appeared, running parallel to the road

  "There," Greta said, pointing at a sign off to the right.

  La Jaiba: 5 KM

  "If we can make it there," I said, "maybe we take our chances with the local police. We drive around like crazy until we see an officer or a police car, then hop out and yell 'Mafia' and point a
t the SUV. The fact that we're in a local car and they look like mafia or American agents should help."

  "But if the local police sold out Innerva to them…"

  She didn't need to finish the sentence. I knew as well as she did that it was a terrible plan. Our only hope was that the local police in La Jaiba didn't know who the men in the SUV were. That they hadn't gotten to them. That they'd keep us safe long enough to get these guys out of our life.

  But sometimes a terrible plan is the only plan.

  The problem was that the men in the SUV didn't plan on letting us make it to La Jaiba. They must have read the sign, too, and gone through the same thought process I did. My guess was that even though they'd be willing to kill us in a populated town, they'd much rather handle their business out here where no one would see.

  We were ascending a small hill and the car began wobbling like a runner at the end of a marathon before collapsing over the finish line. I pressed the gas pedal into the floor, but it was no use. They were gaining on us.

  Just over the hill, I saw a long, two-lane bridge that looked like it had been built in the days when horses and buggies ruled the land. The metal posts were rusty and the concrete cracked and veiny.

  The SUV came over the hill and I saw TJ in the driver's seat. Dex was next to him, one arm out the passenger side window like he was ready to lean out and start shooting.

  But he didn't start shooting. As we veered right toward the bridge, they sped up even more until they were ten feet away from us, then five. On a straightaway before the bridge, I floored it again. The windshield rattled and Greta reached up to steady it.

  TJ and Dex were right on our tail as we entered the bridge. They swerved into the left lane to try to pass, but I made it over far enough to block them. Their front bumper dinged our back bumper, causing me to fishtail slightly, but I'd kept them from pulling alongside.

  I checked the mirror and they were about ten yards behind us. I was worried that they'd start shooting, but instead TJ floored the SUV, like he was trying to ram us from behind.

  That's exactly what he did. Their front bumper rammed the back of the car, jolting us forward slightly. Out of anger more than intelligence, I hit the brakes. The SUV couldn't slow fast enough, and hit us again, but this time it didn't separate. After the initial bump, I sped up, but the car didn't respond the way I expected.

  I floored it, but couldn't get any separation. I tried to veer into the left lane, but the car didn't respond as I expected. It was slower, like a giant weight was attached to the car. "Our bumpers are locked or something," I said.

  I looked in the rearview mirror as Greta turned around. "Alex," she screamed. "Gun!"

  "Duck," I yelled, and she did, just as the first shot shattered our rear window.

  I felt the car speed up again, and for a second I thought we'd come unstuck from the SUV. Then I heard the high-pitched snarl of its engine and realized they'd decided to take advantage of the situation. They were gunning it, pushing us in front of them. They were going to force us into a crash, our clunky old sedan sandwiched between them and whatever solid object they aimed us at.

  I ducked and could no longer see the road, mind racing. When it came up empty, I let my instincts take over, spinning the wheel to the left as fast as I could.

  With the extra momentum from the SUV pushing us, the turn became a wild skid. I heard the screech as their tires scrabbled for traction. Another shot rang out at the moment we smashed into the rusted old guardrail on the bridge, and flew right through it.

  Greta and I slammed forward against our seatbelts as the car lost its speed. For an instant, it was as though we hung stationary in the air above the river. We started to fall, then stopped mysteriously, dangling for a moment and looking down at the water through our half-busted windshield.

  I heard the groaning of old metal from the rear of the sedan, along with an ominous series of cracks and pops. I looked back, looked up really, and saw that we were hanging from the front of the SUV by the twisted steel of our bumper. We weren't falling because their rear wheels were still on the bridge.

  And then they weren't.

  The fall seemed curiously slow. It doesn't take long to fall thirty feet, but I had time to see TJ and Dex looking terrified, to feel Greta's hand clutch mine tightly, to turn and see the green river water leap up and smash into us like a wall.

  29

  We hit with a force that crushed the windshield, half of which floated off to the side and half of which came into the car, carried by a torrent of water.

  Out the back window, I could see that the SUV was still on our bumper, pushing us down toward the bottom of the river. I caught a glimpse of Dex and TJ disappearing behind airbags in their front seat as our car filled with water.

  Then the panic started. The magic of waterboarding is that it creates an uncontrollable terror, the lack of breath and the absolute certainty you're about to die. I know this because Amand's people waterboarded me for two days.

  Now, as the water rushed in around me, I found myself right back on that table, legs and arms tied, hood over my head. For one hallucinatory second I wondered if there were any questions I could answer that would make the water stop. I would have answered those questions. I wanted to answer the questions.

  Unfortunately, the river wasn't curious about anything, and water filled the car before I could begin thinking coherently. And the first thing I did was the exact wrong thing to do. I tried to breathe.

  Not one of those last-gasp-before-the-water-covers-your-head kind of breaths. I found out later that Greta had taken that kind of breath. I took a shallow, ill-timed breath right as the water hit my face. I breathed in the muddy water and choked on it. I tried to spit it up, but it filled me and, as we were now completely under water, there was nowhere to spit it out.

  The car was drifting toward the bottom of the river, and I was barely conscious when I felt Greta's hand. I opened my eyes, but couldn't see anything in the muddy water. When I felt a tug from in front of me, though, I figured she'd somehow made it out of the car.

  I tried to go with the direction of the tug, but my seatbelt was still on. After tugging at it for what felt like minutes, the belt released and I wriggled myself out. Feeling around, I grazed Greta's fingers, then gripped her hand tightly.

  I felt myself floating upward, but all I saw was blackness. Greta squeezed my hand so hard that I lost feeling in it, unable to tell where I began and she left off. I felt weightless, unaware of anything except a gentle rising. And, for a moment, I wasn't sure whether I was floating up to the top of the river, or if I was dying.

  Then I saw light.

  Seconds later, my head emerged into the warm air. I coughed up water and gasped, half choking again as the water came up.

  Struggling furiously, I paddled with one hand as Greta pulled me with the other. Somehow, we made it to a muddy bank on the far side of the bridge.

  I crawled up far enough to get myself out of the water, then flopped onto my stomach, still coughing up water and unsure whether I could breathe in enough air to live to the next moment.

  "Alex, we have to get out of here," Greta shouted.

  When she stood, her feet sunk into the mud up to her knees. She tried to pull me up, but I didn't move. At that moment, I was too focused on trying to get air to even consider running.

  She grabbed my shoulder and tried to flip me over. "Alex!"

  "I can't," I said. "I can't run."

  "Then crawl," she said.

  I heard the suction-cup sound of Greta trying to walk up the bank. Thlock. Thlock. Thlock.

  From my position face down, I could see her about a yard ahead of me, and knew I had to try crawling. I made it a few inches, but each time I tried to press my knees or elbows into the mud to get leverage, I sank before I could make it far.

  "Alex, go a couple more feet. It gets firmer up here."

  I looked up and Greta's feet were above the mud on a lighter patch of mud. Next she bolted up the ban
k and grabbed a branch from a grassy area by the base of the bridge.

  "Grab this!" she shouted.

  I did, and with everything she had she pulled me. I pressed my feet into the mud, trying to feel for any little bit of solidity that would allow me to push ahead. We struggled for a minute or two before my elbows hit a patch of more solid mud, allowing me to pull myself forward and then onto my feet.

  My mind came back to me. A coherent thought. I looked back at the water. "They haven't come up," I said between gasps, the grit of the mud still on my tongue.

  "What?" Greta asked, still guiding me toward firmer ground.

  "Guys in…the...the thing. SUV." I realized I wasn't speaking as coherently as I was thinking. I tried to take a deep breath, but that triggered another coughing fit that ended in retching.

  When I'd gotten rid of what felt like another couple pints of muddy river water, I saw that Greta was looking at the broken railing on the bridge, and at the diminishing ripples and bubbles from where the cars had hit the water. "How long would you say it's been?" she asked.

  "Five minutes? I don't know. I...I think I lost consciousness at some point."

  Greta was leading me up a low bank, where the mud stopped and marshy grassland began. "I'd say seven."

  I stopped walking and surveyed the bank on both sides of the river, then scanned it for any sign of movement. The water was still.

  "I don't think they're coming up," I said, turning as Greta tugged at me.

  "Let's not wait around to find out."

  At the top of the bank, we joined the road on the far side of the bridge, Greta leading the way. As we walked, I looked back at the water every few seconds, happiness flooding through me every time I glimpsed its still surface.