by PT Reade
“Donnie, stop!” I called out.
He glanced up, saw me, and shook his head.
“Please,” I said. Dashing across the lot towards the fence. “I just need to know—”
My words were cut off by the roar of his bike, bursting into life.
He revved the engine once, twice, and then I watched as he gunned the throttle, sending a spray of gravel flying and launched the bike past me—just inches away—but it may as well have been miles since he was the other side of the fence.
“No goddammit!” I slammed my fists against the fence.
No way to cut him off on foot, but I couldn’t let him escape.
I turned back the way I came and once more burst into the kitchen. Again, the two cooks looked at me, this time with resigned head shakes I pushed into the main restaurant and ran between the tables. The same waitress from before had just collected her tray when I clipped her shoulder on the way past, sending her sprawling into a nearby table.
Sorry. Again.
Curses and threats on my life echoed through the air as I threw myself through the front door and out onto the street. As I hit the sidewalk, Donnie burst from the adjacent alleyway and gunned it down the road.
I raced over to the borrowed Indian, not ten feet away, threw a leg over and cranked it to life. I tugged on my helmet, twisted the throttle and fishtailed the back wheel out, turning the bike 180 degrees, and followed the fast-disappearing Donnie.
A horn blared nearby. Someone shouted. But my senses were laser-focused forward on the man tearing off down Bleecker Street. Nimble on foot, even quicker on a bike, he was quickly gaining ground.
The wind buffeted my jacket and whipped at my face as I tore off after him.
I’d been in my share of car chases, and they were rarely painless, a misjudged corner or a wrong turn and two tons of steel becomes your tomb. Pursuits were dangerous enough in a car.
A motorcycle chase was a first for me, though.
I just prayed it wouldn’t be my last.
SIXTEEN
The half-ton of steel and grease howled beneath me. It felt familiar and alien at the same time. Sensations from years ago came flooding back, while the sense of danger was all new.
I cranked the revs and pushed the motorcycle faster and faster. The 1300cc engine ate up the road. Ahead of me, Donnie was whipping between traffic and cutting red lights, his matte-black Harley newer, more nimble. I risked a glance down at my speed. The needle touched fifty—practically warp speed in Manhattan.
Donnie threw his bike into a hard right down Seventh Avenue and tore around a parked dump-truck, sending the city workers scurrying in all directions. I followed closely, weaving between the men and the truck. I flashed past a pair of evening pedestrians on the sidewalk, filming the spectacle on their phones, while others gawked and pointed.
At least if I died in a fiery explosion, some kind soul might put it on the internet; a morality lesson for all who followed. Don’t be like this guy.
Donnie took a left, then another hard right. I pressed the brake and throttled up once more. Ahead, Donnie whipped onto a side street and then did what I hoped he wouldn’t—he mounted the sidewalk. This road was quieter, but we made it no more than fifty feet before he clipped an elderly man—sending him stumbling into a parked car. I blasted my horn, trying to warn the other pedestrians. Heads looked up from cell phones, and people dived aside to avoid the pair of lunatic bikers weaving down the sidewalk.
I pulled the Indian onto the road and cranked the throttle, closing the distance with Donnie. He glanced over a shoulder and saw me.
“Stop this, Donnie!” I shouted. “Someone will get killed.”
He yelled something, but the voice was lost, twisted in the wind.
“I’m not trying to send you back, Donnie, I’m not even a cop anymore! Goddammit, will you just listen!”
Donnie shook his head, and the bike wobbled uncertainly beneath him. He grabbed the handlebars tightly and glanced up. A side entrance was approaching.
I prayed Donnie wasn’t that desperate. But fear gives a man wings … and stupidity.
The Harley turned hard once more, sending his chunky back tire scrabbling for traction. He threw the bike between two wooden barriers and sent a plume of sand flying as he entered the dirt track.
I swung my bike to follow, easing between the barrier and two surprised workers. They yelled at me as I raced into a vast construction site. In the center, a massive pit, fifty feet deep, was surrounded by digging machinery as colossal dump trucks trundled back and forth.
I leaned my bike hard to the left to avoid a JCB and then right to dodge a pair of men carrying a large metal beam.
In front of me, Donnie nearly lost his head when he blasted beneath an earth mover. Behind, police sirens mixed with the shouts of the workers. The Harley swung tight between two prefab construction buildings and tore towards the exit on the other side.
I gassed the throttle more, trying to catch up despite the uneven surface. The man I pursued weaved and jinked, sending his bike scrabbling for the open barrier on the other side.
Finally, the exit appeared and so did the bulldozer blocking it. The considerable truck was shoveling earth into something that might eventually become the ramp for a parking lot.
“Oh, come on,” I yelled.
We closed the distance, snaking the bikes back and forth in the deadly game of cat and mouse. The exit was just fifty feet away now. The dozer looked impossibly large.
Thirty feet.
Donnie, the lucky son of a bitch, swerved in time to avoid the truck and blew through the exit, but I, only twenty feet behind, was too late. I cranked the handlebars just in time and swerved. My front wheel hit the ramp, and the motorcycle caught air.
Shit.
The bike launched, and for a brief few moments, my world was weightless for the second time since the explosion. The ramp was three feet, maybe four at most, but this was no motocross bike. A stout old cruiser like the Indian was not built for impacts. The half-second seemed to stretch to eternity before the ground rushed up to meet me.
My bike hit the concrete with a crunch and a shower of sparks. The suspension bottomed out and every bone shuddered like it wanted to escape my body. The engine roared. The wheel wobbled, threatening to toss me into traffic. Pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out all other sound.
I hammered on the brakes as fast as I dared, earning a screech of tires and brought the machine to a full stop just outside the construction site, breathing hard.
It was a lucky escape, but luck can run out fast. Chasing Donnie like this would get us both killed. So, I stopped and slumped over the handlebars, regaining my breath.
The Harley tore off down the street. Glancing over his shoulder in victory, the smug bastard flipped a finger at me, before disappearing down a side road.
A part of me fumed that the little weasel had beaten me, but I pushed the anger down and took a slow breath. Donnie was a seasoned rider, while I hadn’t ridden a motorcycle in ten years. His bike was newer and more powerful. I never stood a chance.
I was never going to beat Donnie.
But spooking him had worked just fine.
SEVENTEEN
It took twenty minutes of careful riding before Donnie Lewis finally eased his bike to a stop. Once my pursuit eased off, he had relaxed, and made a much more leisurely pace through the Midtown tunnel, across the Long Island Expressway and headed into Queens.
I knew because I had followed him the whole way.
I’d never been the fastest rider, or the most gifted. But I’m a persistent bastard at times. I’m also good at tailing someone unnoticed—not an easy feat on a classic motorcycle that sounded quite unlike anything else on the road. I maintained my distance, cut across side streets and ducked into the lengthening shadow of trucks and buses as lights turned to red. Twice I feared Donnie had spotted me, but my luck held.
I knew we couldn’t maintain the deadly game of chase across Manh
attan. Instead, I decided to let the idiot make his escape and follow from a distance, hoping, praying he stopped somewhere soon.
Now, as I eased on the brake, earning a faint squeal from the front wheel, I spotted my target. Donnie had pulled his Harley into the parking lot of a ramshackle bar in north Jackson Heights. The squat building slouched next to a flyover and looked more like a converted gas station than a place for drinks. Not that it had stopped me before. Clubs, diners … hell, give me a whiskey at a kid’s bar mitzvah, and I’d drink it.
Loud music pumped from inside, and shady-looking characters hung around on what might once have been a front deck. The bar was called merely ‘The Dog House’ and the black wood paneling with crude flames painted up the sides told me everything I needed to know. Noisy, raucous and full of people—perfect for entering unnoticed. Aside from a couple of nearby parked cars—an old Chevy and a black SUV—the entire street was ruled by motorcycles.
This was a quintessential biker bar. Perhaps the biker bar I needed, the headquarters for The Hounds of New York City.
Now, standing in the shadow of a derelict building in Queens, I noted the twenty or so other bikes outside the bar, but my eyes were drawn back to the Harley and Donnie. Only I was becoming less sure about the last part.
Black leather pants stretched over slim legs that reached up to curve into a shapely back. The movement too, was purposeful but full of grace. Smooth and intentional. I’d never noticed it before; now I couldn’t help but notice it.
When Donnie reached up to remove the helmet, my eyes widened as my suspicions were confirmed. A cascade of red curls tumbled from beneath, rolling like waves across the black leather of her shoulders and in the brief moment when she turned in my direction I caught a flicker of dazzling green eyes, blinking out from the shock of curls.
Not having had time to study the police file, and being associated with a rough biker gang, I’d assumed Donnie Lewis was a man. Now, as she cast off her jacket to expose a simple black vest and arms covered in tattoos, I took in her confident movement and svelte figure. She was beautiful, in a don’t-screw-with-me kind of way. Her face was slim and pretty but hard. Like a woman who’d been born with good genes, but life had worn her down.
One of the other bikers obviously thought along similar lines; only he hadn’t read the warning signs etched in her body language. There’s a lot you can figure out about a woman without even speaking, and from the way Donnie thrust her hands into her pockets and moved forcefully towards the entrance I could tell she was not the kind you should interrupt.
Sure enough, when one of the other men stepped up to her, a leer on his face and a swagger in his step, she erased both in a quick lift of her knee. The man groaned loud enough for me to hear it from across the street. He tumbled like a felled tree, clutching his groin. Far from stepping in to help, the other bikers burst into rapturous laughter.
So much for brotherly love.
She climbed the short steps to the entrance before the main door swung open. Expecting another drunken biker, I awaited the inevitable groin strike once more, but this one was bigger than the others. Graying hair slicked back, a cropped silver beard and an expression that could cut glass. He was older than the rest of the gang, maybe in his sixties and tall. He fixed Donnie with a cautious look before they hugged awkwardly. He gestured her inside before shouting something at the gathered crew on the steps.
I was about to follow when my phone pinged. I shifted my balance and the weight of the bike as I scrambled for the hidden device, first accidentally grabbing the burner phone the messenger had handed me. On the second attempt, I grabbed my personal phone and found an email from Rey. I sighed, resigned to halting my pursuit long enough to read the message. It could be important. With only three in the loop, we couldn’t risk a breakdown in communications.
I learned the forensics team was still working the scene. They were grooming every inch in detail, looking for additional explosives and working with the EOD teams. Their presence meant Rey had to stay clear of the bomb site to prevent drawing unwanted attention, but he’d managed to pull some footage from the nearby security cameras from some Mom and Pop bodega across the street. The location of the camera seemed promising. I clicked on the link to watch the videos on the secure police server.
The grainy image was flickering and silent. Still, I made out the side alleyway that divided the new police building to the post office next door. The first two minutes were uneventful. Pedestrians strolled by, and traffic motored along naturally. I was about to power the video off when the blast suddenly erupted.
It was eerie to watch without sound, like an old silent movie taking a macabre turn.
The screen turned dusty white as debris clouded the air. The visibility was poor, but I could see rubble and glass, cars smoking and everyone running to escape the anarchy. Everyone that is, except two figures.
Partially shrouded by the chaos, the silhouettes appeared thirty-seconds after the explosion and walked purposefully toward where the blast had erupted moments before.
What the hell?
They were males, solid and stocky. The footage was poor quality, and the blast site was billowing smoke and dust into the air, making it nearly impossible to see anything in good detail. In a brief glimpse between the clouds, I paused the footage. Both men had something obscuring their face. Scarves or bandanas perhaps and some kind of eyewear. Goggles or sunglasses.
The picture quality was so bad it might just have been a glitch in the footage. A few random pixels out of place.
I restarted the video in slow motion and leaned closer. At the forty-second mark, both men pulled black shapes from their waistbands in a coordinated movement and disappeared down the alleyway into the fog. Body language was about the only thing I could be sure of from the footage. These men weren’t scared. They were confident. Working.
The rest of the video was tough to make out, as more panicked pedestrians and police began to respond to the blast and the falling rubble.
The dark figures didn’t show up again. For the briefest of moments, I thought I saw two flashes of light, half hidden in the alleyway but it might have been a reflection or more glitches in the footage.
I waited another uneventful thirty seconds and was about to close the file when my heart jumped.
A shadow emerged from the smoke, this one lean and muscular. It was apparently neither of the two men I saw earlier. He carried no weapon and seemed alert but relaxed. Another professional.
He paused for the briefest moment and glanced left, right then straight ahead. The shaven head, the square jaw, the face I would never forget. For the most fleeting of moments, I swear the son of a bitch was looking right at the camera—as though he knew I was watching.
Then he was gone, disappearing into the crowds and the chaos.
The footage was lousy, the smoke blocking any real recognition, but for that split second, when he looked right at me, I recognized his face. A visage seared into my brain by pain and memories.
Roland Teach.
EIGHTEEN
The shock of the show hit hard, as did the revelation it provided. Based as much on instinct as on the hazy footage, I knew the third figure had to be Teach. Everyone knew the man was dangerous—a trained killer—yet the two gunmen had approached as if there they had nothing to fear.
They were fearless because they thought he’d be dead.
My head spun. The bomb wasn’t planted by allies hoping to free Teach. It was set with the intention to kill him. The two goons were sent as failsafes to double-check the job, and maybe put a couple of bullets in the body to make sure. I wondered why but what bothered me more than the circumstances was the man’s ability to survive.
The urge to play the video again was powerful, but it had no more answers to offer. Slipping the phone safely into my pocket, I turned back towards the biker joint and took a deep breath.
I twisted the throttle gently, earning a grumble from the engine and crawled the bi
ke from the alleyway over to the parking lot. None of the surly men outside paid me any attention. So far so good.
I wasn’t exactly dressed the part, apart from my beat-up leather jacket, but I lacked the de rigueur facial hair that seemed compulsory. Besides, none of the people here knew me so I would have to tread carefully. I killed the engine, dropped the kickstand and swung a leg off the bike.
I stepped toward the entrance and wiped a palm across my forehead. To the west, the sun was melting into the horizon, filling the sky with liquid gold. But the air still carried the heat of the day, refusing to let go of its prize until darkness fully claimed the city.
My plan was simple: enter the bar unnoticed and confront Donnie privately. Find out about the mystery bikers and leave with no fuss.
But, as my foot hit the first wooden step towards the main doors, I realized my plan had gone to shit almost immediately. Nine men stood on the deck at the front of the bar. Two held beers in meaty palms, the others clustered in small groups laughing and joking … until they caught sight of me.
One by one, silence fell across the group, and eyes turned toward the outsider. One man to my right—the tallest—with a huge beer gut and long grey beard, placed his bottle carefully on the wooden railing and stepped slowly toward me. His companion, smaller with sunglasses and a leather jacket, did the same, falling in step.
My eyes swept left, only to find three more men moving slowly in my direction. One made no effort to hide the pistol tucked into his waistband. A creak of wooden floorboards told me at least one more was directly behind me.