by Eric Bernt
“You should be coming up on them any minute. New Jersey license plate Bravo-one-seven-Delta-Charlie-Mike.”
Inside her safe house basement operations center, Caitlin had a real-time satellite view of the van, which Hogan had given her access to. The American Heritage Foundation tracked every one of its vehicles via satellite, not unlike FedEx or the US Postal Service. What would become clear to her shortly was that any technology the foundation had at their disposal, she now had, too.
Butler glanced at Skylar: “Eleanor, I’d like to introduce you to Skylar, who’s in the car with me.”
“Hello, Skylar, how are you feeling?”
“Better, thanks. Uh, how are you?”
“I want you to know how sorry I am about what happened to you and Eddie Parks. It’s inexcusable. I’m determined to prevent it from ever happening again.”
Skylar’s eyes widened. “Thank you. That’s very decent of you. I hope I get to meet you someday so that I can thank you in person.”
“I hope so, too.” There was a hint of guilt in her voice.
Butler knew what Eleanor was saying. She meant if they both lived through this, that is. He had been in her position in his previous life as a Ranger, where operations he was part of had placed innocents at risk. It happened regularly back then. He remembered carrying a tremendous sense of responsibility during each event and a heavy burden afterward when collateral damage was left behind. It had a lot to do with why he had retired from that life to become a cop.
He spotted another white van seven vehicles ahead of them in the fast lane. He sped up slightly to get close enough to make out the license plate. He squinted, turning his eyes into zoom lenses as best he could. He read the plate twice to confirm that it was the one they were looking for. “Eleanor, I have eyes on Jersey plate Bravo-one-seven-Delta-Charlie-Mike. I’ll call you back after we have Parks and the device in our custody.”
“Good luck.” She hung up.
He pointed to his bad-day bag, on the floor between Skylar’s feet. “There are two handguns in the bag between your legs. I need you to hand them to me.”
“Are they loaded?”
“Yes. Have you ever handled a firearm before?”
“No.”
“Don’t touch the triggers and you’ll be fine.”
“Don’t touch the triggers. Got it.” She reached into his bad-day bag and withdrew two handguns. She held them upside down, her thumbs and forefingers on the handles, well away from the triggers, as she passed them to Butler.
He tucked one between his legs and placed the other in his lap. They were now five cars behind the van. “What are the odds the driver of the van knows what you look like?”
“If I had to guess, it’s a member of the Harmony House security staff, so the odds are good.”
“Whoever it is, they won’t be alone.” Butler was rapidly running through several tactical scenarios that would accomplish their goal with the least risk. He could be patient and simply follow them, but if they had any of the training he had, they’d eventually spot him. In that case, they would run. A high-speed chase would only put Eddie in even greater danger. They might also just put a gun to Eddie’s head, and that wouldn’t be any better.
Right now, he had the element of surprise, which was never to be underestimated. It was a tactical advantage he intended to capitalize on, so the question then became one of approach. How could he get close enough to the van without drawing attention to himself, incapacitate the bad guys holding Eddie captive, stop their vehicle, rescue Eddie, and do it all without harming any innocent civilians by causing a massive pileup? “We can’t let them see you.”
“Should I duck down?”
“When I say so.” They were now three cars behind the van. Butler was focused on the rearview mirror, looking for something. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Look in the side-view mirror. You see that big rig in the outside lane passing everyone?”
She did as he instructed, and had no trouble seeing it in the right lane. “Yes.”
“He’s going to be our blocker.”
“You mean like in football?”
“Exactly.”
“Does he know that?”
“He will soon enough.” Butler changed lanes into the rightmost of the three, directly in the path of the speeding yellow big rig. The trucker didn’t seem to appreciate Butler’s maneuver and tailgated him by only a few feet until finally swerving around him to the left, into the middle lane. As the big rig accelerated, so did Butler, who kept right alongside him at seventy-five miles per hour. Then eighty. And eighty-five.
The truck driver could see Butler in his side view and gave him the finger. Butler waved back, as if he didn’t understand the gesture. The truck accelerated to ninety. So did Butler.
He glanced to his left but couldn’t see beyond the truck. “Tell me when you can see the van.”
Skylar kept her eyes peeled on the inside lane behind them. “I can see it.”
“Duck down.” She did. Butler punched the gas, accelerating rapidly. The Impala was now going over one hundred miles per hour as it swerved in front of the big rig in the middle lane, and immediately proceeded to slow down again. Anyone who’s ever witnessed unadulterated road rage on the freeways of Southern California would recognize the dangerous game these two vehicles were playing. Usually, the combatants were of more comparable size; civilian drivers rarely chose to take on big rigs, for the same reason that lone velociraptors never battled a tyrannosaurus back when dinosaurs were the planet’s dominant species. Size matters.
The big rig came ever so close to rear-ending the Impala before swerving right to pass him for a second time. The trucker clearly expected their game to continue and almost seemed disappointed as the Impala continued decelerating. The trucker blared his air horn as a pronouncement of victory.
Butler’s eyes were now focused on the van in his side-view mirror. The white vehicle was several car lengths behind them. He rolled down his window. “Push down with your feet to brace yourself against the seat.”
Skylar did so, clearly scared. “Please make sure Eddie doesn’t get hurt.”
“I’m doing everything I can.” He continued slowing down. The van was now only one car length behind them. Neither of the two men in the front seats seemed to be paying any attention to them. So far, so good. “After we stop, slide over and drive.”
“What?” she replied with alarm. “When are we stopping? In the middle of the highway? Where are you going to be?”
Focused on the job at hand, he did not answer. He gripped the gun firmly in his right hand and held the steering wheel with his left. He allowed the van to pull alongside them. Butler kept his eyes directed ahead until he suddenly turned to his left and aimed his gun through the open window.
CHAPTER 29
INSIDE THE WHITE PACKAGE VAN
I-495 SOUTH
June 1, 5:36 p.m.
Packard and Clementine had briefly noticed the Impala playing chicken with the big rig ahead of them. It was hard not to notice, but neither paid much attention to it. Civilian drivers were stupid. Whoever was driving the old Chevy was an idiot to be messing with an eighteen-wheeler. As they pulled up alongside the Impala, both glanced over to get a look at the driver with bigger balls than brains.
Unfortunately for them, that was exactly what this other driver had wanted them to think. To underestimate him. Right until they were both looking down the barrel of his weapon.
In the back of the van, Eddie had no idea what was about to occur. He was lost in his own world of happy memories. In particular, the sound of his mother’s voice, which he’d only recently heard for the first time, thanks to his echo box. He remembered every syllable of every word of the beloved hymn she had sung that day in church just over three decades ago. Few people knew that “Amazing Grace” had been written by a reformed slave trader, John Newton, who then took up the abolitionist cause.
Eddie remembered how happy he felt to see his grandpar
ents in the church as they listened to the beautiful echoes of his mother’s voice, and how they had cried happy tears together. He had never cried together with anyone before, especially not happy tears. It was a feeling that gave him a warm sensation all over, which he didn’t fully understand, but the memory of it was reassuring.
Eddie’s happy memories were suddenly cut short by the sound of four gunshots in quick succession. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Other than on television, he had never heard a weapon being fired. Real ones were much louder. And piercing. And frightening. They hurt his ears tremendously. So did the SHATTERING glass and the SCREECHING metal.
However, that was nothing compared to the other types of physical pain he was about to endure.
Butler’s first bullet had punctured the torsos of both his targets and was the only one he really needed to have fired. The passenger, the closer of the two, was hit squarely in the chest. Two valves of his heart were shredded. He died instantly. The bullet must have changed angles as it exited his body, because the driver was hit in the hip, where the bullet lodged. He could no longer operate his right leg, which explained why the van slowed down so rapidly. Well, that and Butler had swerved into them, wedging the van between a guardrail and the Impala.
His second bullet ripped through the passenger’s neck and would have killed him if the first one hadn’t. This bullet then hit the driver in the jaw, creating a truly hideous profile. The third bullet missed both men entirely, probably due to the side impact of the vehicles causing Butler’s shooting hand to jolt. He knew his objective had already been accomplished, but he had told himself he was going to fire four times in rapid succession, and that’s what he did. He pulled the trigger a fourth time, making a further mess of the targets’ skulls.
Butler returned his focus to the road ahead, putting both hands back on the steering wheel. After all, distracted driving was just as dangerous as drunk driving, according to the most recent Federal Highway Administration statistics. The screeching metal was almost as piercing as the gunfire when he forced the van into the guardrail, rapidly slowing down both vehicles.
Skylar worried about Eddie’s hearing, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She flashed back to the grenade that had temporarily blinded her and caused her momentary deafness. It was frightening and painful, and would be only more so for Eddie, but she had faith that he, too, would survive.
To her amazement, Butler’s strategy seemed to be going according to plan. They and the van continued slowing down amid a hail of sparks from the metal-on-metal contact of the van with the guardrail, on the left side, and the Impala, on the right. Both vehicles came to a stop a quarter mile later. Butler’s door was wedged against the side of the van, and his handle would not open it. He quickly pulled ahead of the van one car length so that he could get out of the car. He slammed the transmission into park and stepped out of the car. “Your turn to drive.”
“Where am I going?” she asked with panic as she climbed over the gearshift into the driver’s seat.
“Just follow me when I start to drive.” He ran back toward the passenger side of the van since the driver’s side was wedged against the guardrail. There was no way to open the doors on that side. He would have to use the ones closer to oncoming traffic.
In the back of the van, Eddie’s ears were throbbing; he was crying in pain from the aural damage caused by the gunshots. He estimated the decibel level of each at over 150. Noises of 140 decibels could permanently damage a person’s hearing, and Eddie was afraid that the terrible ringing in his ears would never stop, that his hearing might forever be impaired. He had no idea what he would do if he couldn’t hear clearly—if he had lost his “golden ears.” While it was scary to think that Packard and the other man had been shot and killed, and that their blood was now spattered all over the van, including some that had gotten on him, it was scarier for Eddie to consider the possibility that he would no longer hear the world in the same way.
Besides, the two men in the front of the van had not been nice to him, so Eddie didn’t feel bad for them that they now seemed to be dead. He knew that kidnapping was a serious crime, and he was quite sure that they had kidnapped him. People who did bad things deserved to be arrested and sent to jail, at least if they were not killed first.
Eddie also hadn’t liked when they had refused to tell him where they were, or where they were taking him. That just wasn’t right, not telling somebody those things. He would never do that to another person, and he felt a degree of satisfaction that the bad men could no longer be mean to him. They had gotten what they deserved.
The gunshots were immediately followed by tires SCREECHING and metal SCRAPING and glass SHATTERING, which only added to Eddie’s terror. As the van slowed rapidly and finally came to a stop, he was thrown forward against the metal mesh that separated him from the two dead men in the front. The bloody mesh created a kind of graphic artwork across his back and right cheek—the same one that had already borne the brunt of his self-inflicted wounds. It was hard to tell whose blood it was, his or theirs. Eddie had numerous cuts around his body, including a gash in his forehead, but none were terribly severe. A stitch here, and a stitch there, and he would be back to normal in short order.
That was, until the driver of a brand-spanking-new Mercedes S550, who had been a number of car lengths behind the white package van when it finally stopped along the guardrail, was currently so busy texting a response to his divorce lawyer that he didn’t notice the right rear bumper of the van sticking into his lane until it was too late.
CHAPTER 30
I-495 SOUTH
SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT
June 1, 5:38 p.m.
The German-made luxury sedan had a gross weight of 4,729 pounds. Traveling at eighty-three miles per hour, the vehicle had kinetic energy of almost 1.5 million joules. In nonscientific terms, that was enough to do major damage to anything it hit, particularly an object that was standing still. WHAM!
Inside the Mercedes, the driver’s toupee flew off into the windshield as his head was jolted forward from impact with the van. The collision crumpled the right rear of the van, causing the tire to explode instantly.
The impact triggered the release of the driver’s airbag, which only took 0.01 seconds to inflate. This happens to be the same length of time as the average blink of a human eyelid, which means that many people who witness airbags deploying don’t actually see it happen. That was the case now. The driver did not see the bag deploy, but he certainly felt it hit him in the face. It knocked him unconscious and broke his nose. It also caused several blood vessels in both eyes to burst, making him look hideous for weeks to come.
The pursuit of wife number four was going to have to wait.
Butler saw the expensive German car barreling toward them and barely had time to react. He knew the impact was going to throw the white van forward, possibly pinning him between it and the rear of the Impala. Diving over the guardrail would send him into oncoming traffic traveling in the opposite direction, which would have been just as bad as diving into traffic on his side of the interstate. His only option was to jump onto the Impala’s trunk, which he did just before the van slammed into its bumper. It missed Butler’s legs by a matter of inches. When the car finally came to rest, he yelled to Skylar, who had just climbed into the driver’s seat. “You okay?”
She grimaced as she rubbed her neck. “Fine. You?”
“Barely.”
“Check on Eddie!”
Butler quickly scrambled off the car and went to find Eddie. The rear doors of the van had slammed open during the violent collision. Eddie lay on the floor of the van, unconscious. His hands remained cuffed behind his back. The impact had thrown him around the back of the van. He was bleeding through his pants from a gash in his calf, as well as from his head. He was lucky it hadn’t killed him.
Skylar quickly joined Butler at the back of the van. “He needs a doctor.”
Butler moved to the front of the van, looking for the handc
uff key. He reached into several of the dead driver’s pockets until he found it. Butler took the key and then uncuffed Eddie’s wrists, picking him up in his arms. “Get his devices. They’re in front.” He motioned through the mesh, where the two dead bodies were sprawled. The echo box and Eddie’s computer were both covered in blood.
Skylar walked around to the front passenger door and opened it. She recognized the driver—Packard, Harmony House’s newly hired head of security. She reached over the other body in the passenger seat, trying hard not to touch the bloody corpse as she grabbed Eddie’s equipment and quickly carried it to the Impala, where she joined Eddie in the back seat. Butler had laid him across it before getting in the driver’s seat. Blood was now streaming down Eddie’s leg. “Give me your hoodie,” Skylar said.
Butler took off his sweatshirt and handed it to her. She created a tourniquet by wrapping it around Eddie’s leg just above the knee, then tying it as tightly as she could. Skylar elevated his leg above his heart to reduce the amount of blood being pumped to the wound. She pressed her hand against his head wound to stem the flow of blood and couldn’t stop staring at the lacerations on his face that he’d inflicted on himself earlier. “Oh, Eddie . . .”
Behind them, Butler could see that a number of motorists had gotten out of their vehicles to offer assistance, or just because they were curious. Several were talking into their phones, most likely to 911 dispatchers. Several more filmed the scene to sell it to the highest bidder, or just to post the day’s excitement on their social media accounts.
Butler punched the Impala’s accelerator to the floor, hoping they might get lucky and avoid anyone recording their license plate. Skylar turned to him urgently. “We need to find the nearest medical facility.”
“I’m getting off at the next exit.” He swerved across the three lanes and took the off-ramp, heading west as he hit “Redial” on his burner phone.