Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover

by Mike Cooper

  The hail of fire slowed. Now that I was outside, in the open air, I got a quick placement—gunshots from left and front, in the foundry, other shots from somewhere right. Zeke was doing his best to put down suppressing fire, though he’d now exposed his own position.

  I got out and half ran, half dove for the side of the shed. I collided with the dark wall, hitting my head again, and collapsed behind a metal drum holed with rust.

  BL-A-A-MM!

  An explosion rocked the Aveo, punching it into the air, then dropping it back. A cloud of dust bloomed. Debris battered my face and the wall behind me.

  RPG? A planted charge? It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be driving away.

  Manic laughter. For a moment I couldn’t tell from where, then realized it was Zeke, yelling incomprehensibly, coming through the cellphone, which apparently I hadn’t switched off.

  Dave’s horn blared again. I turned around to see him through the chain-link—he’d backed fully into the lee of the railcar, sheltered from the attack.

  “Come on, get out of there!” Dave yelled through the boxcar’s open doors, from the other side. I could just see his head, and nothing of the Charger. He had to be standing right outside it.

  “Zeke?” I spoke directly into the phone. “Fuck this. Time to go.”

  “Who’s in the car? Good guy? Bad guy?”

  “It’s Dave. Didn’t you see him?”

  “Other things happening. Your car’s wrecked.”

  “I know. We’ll take the Charger.”

  I finally got my shit together. Lots of scrapes and bangs, no serious injuries. I untwisted the MP5’s strap, cleared the Sig in its holster and stood up.

  “Where are you?”

  “Up on the gantry.”

  I went to the other end of the shed, knelt to put my head at ground level and looked around the corner. The traveling crane’s near end rose from a pad of cracked concrete about ten yards away, up into the air and then stretched across the ground, a massive frame of rusting girders and drooping cable. Three rail spurs ran underneath, their connection to the main line now interrupted by the chain-link fence.

  A small controller’s compartment was bolted onto the middle of the gantry—a little steel shed, empty window frames. Through the door, which faced back toward my way, I could see someone’s dim form.

  Gunfire had picked up from the foundry. Shots banged into the shed, puffing dirt on both sides. I heard a bullet crack past my head, then another. I ducked back.

  “How you getting down?” I yelled into the phone.

  “Hang on.” Two shots—I heard them in slight echo, both through the air and the phone, as Zeke fired at someone. “They’re not showing themselves.”

  “Silas!” Dave, calling again. I glanced over. He made a let’s-go gesture, beckoning with his arm. I waved back, then held up one finger.

  “Ten seconds,” said Zeke.

  “Ready.” I raised the submachine gun. “You call it.”

  A long pause. The ambushers’ fire slackened. I smelled dirt and sweat and gunsmoke.

  “Now!”

  I kicked the oil drum just past the corner, dove behind it, and fired the MP5. Three-round bursts, placing them into the windows I thought our attackers might be hiding behind.

  Return fire immediately blasted my way, tearing into the barrel and the shed and the ground. Bullets and metal shards and dust everywhere.

  From the corner of my vision I saw Zeke emerge from the control house and run along the topmost beam of the gantry. A hundred feet in the air, the beam maybe six inches wide. Jesus. Something loose—his jacket?—flapped from one hand.

  “Silas!” Dave, again. Gunfire came in even stronger.

  An electrical cable extended from the crane’s end to the shed roof, clamped to insulating posts. Zeke didn’t stop, just threw his jacket around the cable, grabbed on with both hands and jumped.

  We all stopped shooting simultaneously, equally stunned by the move. For a full second nothing but silence, as Zeke slid down the cable like it was some Delta Force zipline.

  Then everyone lit up again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Zeke crashed onto the roof, rolled off and fell to the ground just behind me. I ducked back, gunfire following.

  He was hurt. Blood on his head and all over his shirt, arms held across his chest in that way meaning pain. He’d lost one pistol, but the other was holstered and the shotgun was jammed barrel-first into his belt.

  “Shit,” he muttered hoarsely. “Just when I hit the roof.”

  No time for triage. “Can you move?”

  “Have to.”

  I lifted him up. He groaned, teeth clenched.

  “Dave?” I shouted. “Ready to go?”

  As an answer, I heard the Charger’s engine roar to life.

  But the chain-link fence was still between us and him.

  I grabbed the shotgun from Zeke, held him up with one arm and aimed with the other.

  BLAM!

  The first round was fléchettes and didn’t do anything to the fence. We hobbled forward, still protected from the ambushers by the bulk of the shed, until I could hold the barrel a foot from the fence post.

  I fired, and the slug round cut the pole off at its base.

  “Awesome.” The fence sagged. We staggered six feet to the next pole, I fired twice, and it went down too.

  One more and then the chain-link drooped enough that I could haul Zeke right over, dragging him like we were trampling a field tent.

  The Charger appeared in a spray of gravel, wheels skidding. Dave jumped out and helped me pull Zeke into the rear seat. He slammed the door and slid into his harness while I got into the back. We took off so fast my door was still open, but it banged shut as the car swerved back onto the service road.

  “Hospital!”

  “Already called,” Dave said. I raised up enough to look out. Puffs and smoke, nothing else—they were probably still firing, but Dave got us out of there in about four seconds.

  “They can’t follow,” I said. “Not through the gate, with the Aveo in the way.”

  We crossed the bridge and hit the blacktop, bouncing hard across the edge of paving. Zeke winced and moaned. He was almost unconscious.

  “Sorry.” Dave shifted, the car flying but more smoothly now on the blacktop.

  “How’d you end up down here?” I was working on Zeke, but talking to Dave.

  “I was watching through the binocs—saw gun barrels in the windows. Had to warn you.”

  “I told you to stay out.”

  “Well, fuck that.”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at the back of his head. “Thanks.”

  Chest wound. Bad. Air bubbled in and out. I ripped off my jacket, folded it with the nylon shell on the outside and pressed the pad hard onto the torn bloody mess.

  “Ambulance’ll meet us at Route 509,” Dave said.

  “How far?”

  “Five miles. Maybe . . . three minutes.”

  It was an empty crossroads, two state routes meeting in the woods, a yellow blinker hung in the middle. One verge was wider, with some gravel—just a place for cars to pull over for a moment, maybe turn around. Dave brought us in nice and gentle, despite the long deceleration, stopping at the edge of the ditch.

  “They’re coming from Leechburg.” He pointed down the left road. “Dispatch probably has police and fire from Freeport, too, but the medics’ll be here first.”

  “Help me get him out.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll wait here. You take off.”

  The roads were deserted. A light breeze carried the smell of brush and asphalt.

  “I can’t just leave you like this.”

  Zeke was as stable as he’d get for the next few minutes, so long as I kept the lung puncture closed and an eye on his circulation. “We’ll be fine. If it makes you feel better, drive a half mile down and pull off. If you don’t see the ambulance go by real soon, come back and you can drive us in.” I watched Zek
e’s breathing—short and labored. “No offense, but he’ll be a lot better off on a paramedic’s gurney than your backseat.”

  “All right.” It bothered Dave, but he could see the point.

  “Take the weapons.” I pulled the Sig out one-handed, keeping my other on the improvised chest pad, and passed it over. Then the extra magazines. The MP5 was in the car.

  “What about you?”

  “What’s . . . if I walk straight through there, where do I come out?” I pointed into the forest, directly away from the road.

  “There?” He frowned. “Nowhere. The Allegheny, eventually. Farms? I don’t know.”

  “Okay, I’ll wing it—hike until I find another road, then I’ll call.”

  “Yeah, okay, shit.” He didn’t like it. “You need another car already, you know.”

  The Charger vanished around the bend about half a minute before the ambulance appeared. It was an advanced life support vehicle, one paramedic inside and another right behind in his own vehicle, a private Blazer with a rooftop blue light flashing. One paid, one volunteer—typical for a small-town department.

  “What the fuck,” said the volunteer, staring at Zeke’s bloody torso, but the professional got to work.

  “Two rounds through the chest,” I said.

  “I see that.” He lifted my ruined jacket to see the wound. “Hunting accident?”

  “Sort of.”

  He glanced up. “Anything you need to tell me?”

  “Keep him alive. Everything else is for the cops.”

  “Right.”

  They were putting Zeke on a backboard, getting ready to strap him to the gurney, when the law finally showed up—county police, one officer in a dusty cruiser.

  He nodded at me, then looked at the paramedic. “How’s he doing?”

  “Stable. Shooting incident.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “No.”

  They loaded him up. Zeke looked small and helpless—oxygen mask, two IV lines, bloody white gauze crisscrossed over his chest. “We’re taking him to St. Joe’s if that’s okay.” A half question, directed to me.

  “He’s not local. That the best choice for trauma?”

  “Around here?” The medic shrugged. “Without driving all the way into Pittsburgh, yeah. Saturday nights are busier than you’d think.”

  His volunteer partner closed the door on him and Zeke, then jogged around to the driver’s door. “Have somebody drive my truck back to the station,” he hollered at the police officer. “The keys are on the seat.” And then they were gone.

  I should have left too, right then, but I was staring at the bloody dust where Zeke had been lying on the ground. The adrenaline of the last thirty minutes had ebbed away. I felt leaden and inert.

  The policeman stepped up. “So what happened?”

  I noticed his holster was unsnapped. Both hands were free, and he stood ten feet away, sideways to me, feet angled, knees slightly bent.

  He knew what he was doing. He was, reasonably enough, suspicious of me. I had no weapons, no energy and no desire to start shooting it out with the law anyway.

  What the hell. This had gone too far. Multiple running firefights were out of my league. Not to mention seriously out of proportion to a little accounting fraud—even if Russian gangsters were involved. I was over my head, and this seemed like a good time to turn it over to the authorities.

  “I think it was a meth gang,” I said.

  “That right?”

  “Yes. So here’s—”

  That’s when I noticed a white panel van approaching, the same way Dave and I had come.

  It had a roof rack, and indistinct lettering on the side—and it was moving about ninety miles an hour.

  “Shit!” Why had I assumed they wouldn’t try to finish the job?

  The officer turned, frowning, and drew his service weapon—some sort of 9mm—pointing at the ground but looking at the oncoming truck.

  “Who’s that?”

  I was already running, diving into the ditch at the edge of the turnout.

  BRRR-R-R-R-R-A-A-A-PPP!

  Automatic gunfire stuttered across the ground, somehow missing both of us. The van braked hard, screaming through a long skid that took it sideways into the intersection. A barrel pointed out one window, muzzle flashing, but the vehicle’s motion made aiming impossible.

  Fortunately.

  I scrabbled at the ground, seeking a rock, a stick, anything. Before the van stopped fully the side doors swung open. Two men leaped out, assault rifles in hand.

  And fell immediately.

  Two gunshots. My brain was a little behind. I looked over and saw the officer, standing in an old Chapman stance, two hands holding his pistol. He’d dropped both assailants, one shot each, like they were no more threatening than paper targets at the range.

  Clint Eastwood was in town, apparently.

  “Hands on the dashboard!” he shouted at the truck, fully in control. “Anyone else in back, stay there!”

  For a long moment, no one stirred.

  The van’s engine was running, a low grumble and exhaust visible from the pipe. I could see a figure at the wheel, through glare on the windshield—too blurry to recognize, but surely he was one of the Russians.

  “Ubey etih vybliadkov!” Faint, from inside the truck, but audible.

  Clint glanced my way. “Whose side are you on?”

  Just my own, but that seemed like the wrong answer. “Yours.”

  “Stay dow–”

  Then everyone exploded into motion.

  The policeman broke for his car. The driver gunned the van forward. One of his pals in the back leaned out the open door holding a Vikhr, and fired a long, wild blast.

  I tried to burrow into the dirt, arms over my head. Bullets nicked the ground and cracked overhead. More shots—at least two weapons, maybe three. Someone screamed, abruptly cut off.

  WHOO-O-O-M-M-P!

  The explosion sent a fireball over me, hot enough to scorch for an instant. A millisecond later shrapnel rained down. Something struck my back, burning through my shirt. I jerked in pain, grabbing at it, and came up with a long, jagged piece of metal.

  I risked a look.

  The officer was down, bloody in the gravel. His car burned, huge gouts of black smoke pouring out of its blasted frame. Another Russian lay slumped from the truck’s passenger door, and as I watched the driver pulled him inside.

  Was he going to leave?

  No. Christ.

  The driver swung down from his own door—the seven-foot motherfucker, in body armor, carrying a shotgun in one hand and a pistol in the other. He stood, head moving side to side, surveying the scene. Smoke billowed from the burning car, thick and acrid. A gust of wind pushed it down and across the turnout, obscuring him for a moment.

  I rolled to a crouch and sprinted toward the flames.

  No other voices. I had to assume the driver was the last Russian standing—otherwise they’d be yelling at each other, coordinating. No one can survive this kind of action—watch their teammates killed, blow shit up—without shouting.

  Not exactly even odds, though.

  BLA-A-A-M!

  The shotgun blast peppered the police car, which I’d now taken shelter behind—I figured the smoke and flame would make me harder to see. I could barely make him out, a dark figure shimmering indistinctly through the inferno. He raised the shotgun and fired again.

  And then he drove away.

  I mean, he picked up his two tovarishi, slung them into the truck, slammed the doors and then drove away.

  He was the worst kind of enemy. Not just armed, armored and shooting to kill . . . but sensible.

  He didn’t know what kind of weapons I might have. He’d lost three fourths of his team. Other police and fire volunteers were probably already on their way, responding to the first call, and the scene could quickly get crowded and messy. He wanted me dead, clearly, but he was willing to make smart choices along the way.

 
; The truck disappeared. I stood up and ran around the burning vehicle, but it was too late—the officer had died immediately, his head shattered by the bullets.

  So much for going to the authorities.

  Plan B. Or C or D, maybe. I looked at Clint’s pistol, still in his hand, but that was too much risk—steal a dead hero’s gun, and you’re as good as dead yourself when his fellow officers catch up.

  Instead I brushed myself off, looked around, didn’t see any obvious clues to pick up and headed for the volunteer’s Blazer.

  Keys on the seat, just like he’d said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  RT @lcPDept: Squatters in violent gun battle at old steel mill—2 dead, 5 wounded http://bit.ly/z8gtCW #leechburg #crime

  @shootmaven: serious shit they blew up 2 cars, police say 5000 bullets found

  RT @ctymoose: #scanner 123.65 hz—heard #fire response, recording online here http://bit.ly/z8gtCW

  @blt33: musta been drugs—fuckin gangstAZ send em all back 2 NYC

  @anarchyn0w: yr asshol @blt33 all that crack comin from Pitt u know it

  @blt33: @anarchyn0w you lv in NY dont you? no crack here its just getto gangz

  @anarchyn0w: @blt33 Id rather lv here thn fuck sheep like u do u crackhd

  @SidewalkRepairCheap: Cracks in your driveway or sidewalk? We’re the EXPERTS!!! http://bit.ly/H7qxBI

  “Anything about me?”

  “No.”

  “Really?” Dave sounded disappointed.

  “Don’t worry—someone figures out you were involved, first you’ll hear will be when SWAT comes through the door with a battering ram.”

  “Huh.”

  We were in the Charger, headed back to Clabbton on small side roads. I’d driven the volunteer’s Blazer to Leechburg, wiped it clean and walked away. Dave picked me up fifteen minutes later—he really had been just down the road, waiting for my call.

  “How’s Zeke doing?”