“Okay, enough,” Deckert said, “I’ll be all right. You have to get after that asshole in the suit. Take the cab, I can hold these two.”
Deckert waved to the key cabinet underneath the cash register behind him. “Get the keys and move you slow-ass squid,” he growled. “Leave this mess to me.”
His friend was hurt but functioning. And Reaper knew that his family was in real danger. Reaper accepted the situation and dashed around the counter, slowing only long enough to grab the indicated set of car keys as he headed back to the garage.
But just as Reaper was leaving, he heard Musclehead, still in his pained voice, futilely scream at the unconscious Gun Weasel, “Get up. We’ve got to stop that crazy Marine from going after Arzee!”
Now Reaper knew who he was chasing—this Arzee character could expect a lot of pain unless Reaper found his family, safe and alive, soon.
Chapter Eight
Closest to the house door of the garage was Keith Deckert’s favorite vehicle. Even if he wasn’t able to drive it as he had in the past, he meticulously maintained the stealth hotrod he had built, keeping it ready to go at a moment’s notice. As Reaper dashed into the garage, hitting the garage door opener on the wall, he lowered the hammer on the Desert Eagle that he was still holding and stuck the big pistol into his pants pocket. Then he started pulling the protective tarp covering off the car as the door started to rise.
Removing the tarp revealed nothing more exciting-looking than a 1972 model Checker cab. The square, boxy front end of the cab, with its two pairs of headlights held in oval chrome metal frames at the upper corners, had the styling of a 1950s-era family sedan. The vehicle even had the white plastic roof light with the name CHECKER on it in block lettering. The whole body of the cab was bright yellow with a white-and-black checkerboard stripe running along either side of the body and doors. The outside of the vehicle was purely just a Checker cab, but a lot of the inner workings no longer were.
The car was a “sleeper.” What you saw was not what you got. Keith Deckert had built the Checker cab over years as a pet project. The only time the Checker was really seen in public was during what was called the Woodward Dream Cruise in the summer where the sound of the vehicle was a popular favorite.
Under the hood of the Checker was a 454 Chevy Big Block V-8 engine bored out oversize to 505 cubic inches and fitted with forged extra-strength pistons. The engine had large diameter custom-formed headers and a big single 2x4 Holley four-barrel carburetor giving it a base horsepower of 550. A precharger kept the engine’s oil up, lubricating the system and eliminating warm-up oil problems. The Checker could move out at top speed very soon after starting.
The power of the engine went through a rebuilt heavy-duty Turbo-Hydramatic 400 transmission with a Griner aluminum billet racing valve-body and a 3.73:1 differential gear on the rear axle. The suspension of the cab had been beefed up with extra control arms with solid bushings. A remote cutout in the exhaust system allowed the muffler to be bypassed by the driver at the flip of a switch.
With the muffler cutout operating, the roar of the engine could deafen people standing close by. More than just a noise producer, the cutout system added a few more horsepower to increase the speed of the cab. That wasn’t the only trick under the deceptive body of the Checker. The vehicle and engine had been fitted with a Holley Cheater nitrous oxide system (NOS).
In the trunk was bolted down a twenty-pound bottle of nitrous oxide. The gas bottle had a Holley NOS remote bottle control so the driver didn’t even have to open the trunk to turn on the main valve. Turning a switch on the dashboard would remotely open the gas bottle and charge up the system.
After Deckert had tuned the big Chevy engine and knew what he wanted, and what the V-8 would accept, he had fitted the carburetor with his choice of the metering jets that finally bled the nitrous oxide into the air/fuel flow. A remote key switch on the dashboard would arm the NOS system. Lifting the red safety cover and flipping the lighted blue toggle switch underneath it would open the electric solenoids that released the nitrous oxide into the engine.
With the nitrous going, the roar of the Chevy V-8 would sound like it belonged on the deck of an aircraft carrier as the exhaust cutouts would automatically open if they hadn’t already been set that way.
It was a lot more than sound that resulted from dumping nitrous oxide into a carburetor and an engine system tuned for it. For a maximum of thirty seconds, the engine would suddenly have 250 extra horsepower. The top speed of the Checker was over 130 miles an hour with the tricked-out V-8. Pushed by 800 horsepower, the Checker would top out at over 160 miles an hour as it accelerated from the nitrous. The Checker became a huge, blunt steel missile.
The weakness of the system was that the vehicle just couldn’t maneuver well. At speed, the cab had a huge turning radius, and even then it risked flipping free of the road surface. In a straight line, the vehicle was in its element. The main limiting factor of the Checker was that it couldn’t push the air out of its way any faster.
Opening the door and climbing into the cab, Reaper pulled out the Desert Eagle and tossed it down on the seat next to him. He pulled up the seat harness with its double shoulder straps and locked it in place around his waist. Sticking the key into the ignition, he fired up the big engine and it caught on the first crank.
The interior of the garage echoed with the sudden roar of something that was definitely not your average car engine. The sound quickly settled into a muted rumble as the muffler of the exhaust system suppressed the sound of the engine. Stopping for a moment, Reaper used both hands to disconnect the NOS safety key from the key ring. Sticking the key into its socket on the dashboard to the right of the ignition key, Reaper turned it and the light came on under the NOS switch. The red safety cover of the nitrous switch now glowed like a spot of blood on the dashboard, the lettering that said ARMED easily visible.
Reaper quickly backed out of the garage and started after the Corvette. The expression on his face was one of grim purposefulness, one you would not want to see if you were the reason for it in the first place.
Being way back in the country now worked very well in Reaper’s favor. There was only one way back to the highway, the main road to Detroit. The chance that the Corvette had turned north was minimal. The only thing for miles in that direction was more open country and then Port Huron thirty miles away. To the east was the Huron River and Canada on the other side. But the Corvette had Michigan plates on it. Reaper followed his instinct and turned in the direction of the highway.
Having lived in the city for most of his life, Arzee did not spend much time in the country. Having grown up in the dirt and squalor of the industrial areas around Detroit, he hated the dirt fields and mud of the country. He did find the open rural areas had one advantage that appealed to him. While traveling over the country roads, Arzee had been speeding, but not by very much.
He barreled through a long S-curve in the road and felt the Vette stick to the ground like it was running on a track. Traffic seemed to be nonexistent on the well-maintained long country road. There was a huge stretch of marshland to his left and just the occasional farmhouse, barn, or outbuilding breaking up the trees and fields to his right.
Coming out of the turn, he was looking down a several-miles-long stretch of empty road that had no stops, turns, or traffic, very little even in the way of crossroads except for one every mile or so. It was a big temptation to let the classic Corvette stretch out a bit, a temptation that Arzee indulged himself in.
The 350 cubic inch V-8 under the long, low hood growled louder as Arzee fed more fuel into its four-barrel carburetor. Two-hundred horsepower pushed the streamlined sports car down the road as the speedometer swept past sixty miles an hour, on its way to seventy.
Arzee was a few miles from the gunshop and well satisfied with the way things had gone. Paxtun had told him that Reaper was an ex-Navy SEAL, as if that was supposed to frighten him. Reaper may have helped force Paxtun out of the service
, but that hadn’t meant anything to Arzee when he met Reaper. Sure, the guy looked like he could be a hardcase, but you didn’t always judge things just by looks. This tough SEAL crap was just a bunch of Hollywood hype and TV bullshit. When it had come right down to it, Reaper had just stood there and done nothing while Arzee had told him exactly what was what and how things were going to be done. So much for tough looks.
As far as Arzee was concerned, it didn’t take much in the way of brains to pull a trigger for the military, and Arzee had little respect for those men who had joined the Army, Navy, or whatever rather than try to make it on the outside as he had.
The plan Arzee had put together to secure the guns and maintain a tight leash on Reaper looked as if it would work fine. If Reaper went to the police and complained about his family’s disappearance, he would have to convince the officers that his wife had been kidnapped, and that might take some doing.
It was far more likely that the authorities would think Reaper had done in his family himself—the idea of a rogue ex-SEAL committing such a crime wouldn’t be hard to swallow. The phone call the wife had been forced to make to the local police saying she was in fear of her life would reinforce that idea.
When Reaper supplied the guns they wanted, their firepower should be enough to satisfy Ishmael that Paxtun’s organization was doing all that it could to support their Islamic brothers in their struggle. If the guns were recovered down the line after Ishmael had used them, they could only be traced to Reaper—who would have already committed “suicide” in his remorse over killing his wife, and then his business partner. At least that would be the way any carefully planted evidence would point.
The problem about the lost weapons looked to be under control. Arzee was very glad he had found the information about Reaper’s family and was able to put it to immediate use.
His men would be leaving the gunshop about now, if they weren’t already gone. Arzee expected little trouble from that quarter. The hardware would be secured. He was certain that Reaper and his partner would work their asses off to turn out more of the exotic shotguns over the next three days—just as they had been told to.
From what Paxtun had said, Chief Reaper’s weakness for children and families had been demonstrated in Bosnia. The kids there hadn’t even been his brats. With his own wife and child being held hostage, he couldn’t risk any harm coming to them.
Arzee was quite proud of the way his plan had unfolded. There would be loose ends, but those could be made to disappear. With Reaper as a cutout, any investigation leading to him would stop there. What specifically was to be done with him, his friend, and his family could be decided later after his usefulness was at an end.
The S-curve wasn’t much more than a quarter mile behind Arzee when he noticed another vehicle coming up behind him in the rearview mirror. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t a cop car unless he was passing by Mayberry out here in the sticks. His radar detector hadn’t gone off and it didn’t look like any cop car he had seen outside of an old movie or TV show. It was some kind of boxy, vintage design, with a front grill like an old Plymouth or something. Still, the old beast was catching up to him. He’d let it get closer and figure out what it was before bolting away in a real performance car.
When he looked in the mirror again, Arzee could see that the old car was noticeably closer. He could make out some details now and was astonished to see that it was a cab of all things that was catching up to him. His surprise caused him to let up on the gas, slowing slightly, allowing the cab to close up even more.
Just what was a cab doing way out here? Some farm clod needed a ride? That was going to be some fare. This was not the area where you could expect a cab to just be passing by. The driver must have had the gas pedal pushing through the floorboards to be catching up to the Vette the way it was.
Then the cab was close enough that Arzee could make out real details, and what he saw caused his blood to freeze. There was a sudden buzzing in his ears as his blood pressure skyrocketed and his skin itched from muscular reaction. Behind the wheel of that cab was Reaper! And his expression made him look like death itself was driving that horrible yellow car.
Arzee was suddenly so scared that he whimpered a little, though he couldn’t hear himself do so. In fact, he would have found it almost impossible to make any coherent sound given the fact that his mouth and throat had suddenly gone as dry as a sun-pounded beach in August. He pressed down on the gas pedal, trusting in the power of his classic car to run away from the devil in a box that was right behind him. Slowly, he started to pull away.
Chapter Nine
Reaper watched the Vette start to accelerate. Whatever was under the hood, it was a sure thing that the Vette could outmaneuver the Checker. For the moment, the straight stretch of road they were on took away that advantage. Now they were in a race that the Checker could win—if he could stop the speeding sports car.
Reaper reached down to the seat next to him and put his hand on the Desert Eagle. For a moment he considered opening fire with the big pistol, which he had confirmed was a .44 magnum with a fresh round in the chamber. The Vette was low and fast, but Arzee wasn’t moving around the road much at all. He was just trying to outrun the Checker. His mistake.
The fiberglass body of the Corvette Stingray wouldn’t offer very much resistance to the 240-grain jacketed hollow points loaded in the Eagle. They would barely be slowed as they smashed through the body of the sports car. Of course, that was also the problem. If Reaper misaimed or one of the magnum slugs was deflected off a metal component, he could end up hitting Arzee. And that could cost him the only solid source of information that he could be sure knew where his family was.
No, the pistol wasn’t going to be the answer, and Reaper lifted his hand away from it. Instead, he reached to the dashboard and flipped the switch that operated the muffler cutout solenoids. The exhaust pipes were now blowing straight out into the open air. The sound of the big V-8 roared out unabated. A flock of ducks in the marsh to the left jumped into the sky, flying away quacking and protesting the violent noise. The drop in back pressure inside the exhaust system gave the Checker more horsepower and increased its speed.
The reaction inside of the Vette was close to being the same as that of the ducks. There wasn’t any quacking, but Arzee was starting to feel a little panic. He could hear the sound of the Checker’s engine even over the roar of his own 350 V-8. That yellow beast was going to catch him. He would have to try to outmaneuver it.
Coming up in the distance, Arzee could see a road sign that showed he was approaching a T-intersection. According to the sign, another road would be going off to the right. If he could make the turn, the Checker couldn’t at the speed it was going. It would either have to slow down to make it, or it would miss the turn entirely and have to come back to it. Either way, it would put a lot of space between the two cars and give Arzee a better chance of getting away, or maybe even ambushing the Checker himself. It was going to be a desperate gamble, but Arzee knew his driving was up to the challenge.
Arzee allowed the Vette to drift over to the left side of the road. The extra space would give him a better chance of making the upcoming turn. The gravel shoulders of the road would be a danger, but that was something he knew so he could watch out for it. Just as he was committing himself to the turn, a horrible blasting roar sounded out from behind him when the Checker cut out its muffler.
Startled by the sound, Arzee made the mistake of making the Corvette fishtail slightly as he jerked at the wheel. That was his undoing as he started to lose control of the car.
The rear of the Vette swung to the right, and Arzee twisted the steering wheel to compensate. The rear of the sports car then swung back to the left, going past the hard road surface and slipping out onto the gravel of the shoulder. The wheel on the gravel lost traction and spun, increasing the sideslip of the Vette. Overcompensating, Arzee pulled the wheel hard over to stop his skid—but it was far too late.
The bac
k end of the Vette came back onto the roadway much harder than it should have. The car was now in a full spin and it was going to keep going until it lost speed or Arzee brought it under control. The side road Arzee wanted so desperately to take went past as the back end of the Vette skidded past it. The car was sideways across the road and still turning. It did a full turn and a half, finally coming to rest on the left side of the road, sideways across both lanes with the nose of the car pointed out to the marsh. Arzee was stunned, but he had the presence of mind to draw his weapon.
From underneath his jacket, Arzee fumbled trying to pull his SIG Pro automatic from his Galco Miami Classic shoulder holster. The handgun was hanging horizontally underneath his left arm and his hand finally grabbed the grip as his thumb popped free the safety strap. There was a reassuring feeling to the weapon and Arzee’s hand started to pull it from the holster. The ten rounds of .40 Smith & Wesson ammo that were in the weapon would take care of Reaper. And there were two more full magazines under his right arm to help if he had to reload. Then Arzee looked out to the left of the car, toward the approaching sound, and his own scream was lost in the noise.
The two cars were almost evenly matched as far as top speed went. Reaper knew the area and turns were coming up where the Corvette would have the edge over the powerful but heavy Checker. This race had to end fast so Reaper decided to play his ace in the hole. Reaching over to the dashboard, he flipped up the red safety cover over the NOS switch. Bracing himself, Reaper flipped the switch.
Solenoids popped open and, from the rear of the Checker, nitrous oxide flowed forward into the carburetor and the combustion chambers of the engine. Suddenly, it was like the big V-8 was running on rocket fuel. Originally invented in order to give piston-engined fighters during World War II a source of emergency power, nitrous had been almost forgotten during the age of jet aircraft. Racers had rediscovered the advantages of the additive during the 1970s. Now, there were speed records held by cars that had been running with nitrous oxide boosts.
Undeclared War Page 9