by Andy Remic
The room seemed to change suddenly from a normal hotel bedroom into the bizarre heart of a raging tornado. The furniture was picked up and tossed about and smashed up and out and down in a fury of chemical obliteration. The floor shook and trembled; glass shattered; there came the crunching of timbers and the scream of twisted steel. Carter cowered behind the bathroom wall, nose twitching at the heavy chemical stink as dust and debris spat through the doorway. He suddenly realised with horror that if the wall had been merely a plasterboard partition he would have been pulped and fucked up bad. There was a heavy thump as the wall buckled above him.
He glanced up, the tip of the Browning touching his nose, his eyes blinking in the sudden dust storm.
The shaking gradually subsided.
There was a rattle of plaster and wood hitting the ground.
Carter could hear the beat of his own heart. Hear his own breathing.
The soft thumps of his own life ...
He glanced left. A chewed length of timber leaned against the bathroom doorway; dust was floating thick in the air and only then did Carter realise his ears were screaming at him—
Singing to him—
A song of pain.
The sprinklers suddenly burst into life, dampening down the dust.
Carter eased himself to his feet and peered around the doorway. The room was like a scene from a war movie. All the windows and their frames had blown out. The carpet had been torn up, twisted around the blasted furniture and the whole mess wrenched apart to litter the corners of the room. The walls were smashed and torn and scorched. The ceiling had partly fallen in, and there were several piles of unidentifiable rubble ...
Gol had been running for the corridor ...
‘Gol?’ screamed Carter. He wiped cool sprinkler water from his face and lips.
Somebody hammered on the main door, which had somehow survived the blast but twisted in its frame, wedging shut.
‘Fuck you,’ wept the imitation Gol.
Carter stepped out of the bathroom. He moved to the prostrate body of Gol, who was lying on his side clutching his twisted, smashed leg. The right limb had been almost ripped free and was only held on by tatters of muscle. A split second earlier and Gol would have made it to the sanctuary of the corridor and the protection of a genuine brick wall—
Carter grinned nastily. Put his Browning in Gol’s face.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I am not Gol.’
‘Well, no fucking prizes for that answer. Who the fuck are you?’ Carter jabbed the Browning against the side of Gol’s head. ‘Answer me - at least you’re still fucking alive ...’
Carter heard a zipping sound, and a buzz. Something warm raced across his cheek.
His hand lifted, bringing a vision of blood in front of his eyes—
‘Fu—’ he began as he dived for the ground and three more bullets skimmed overhead. Carter crawled away from the window, teeth gritted, shock registering in his system.
The sniper’s bullet had taken a strip of skin from his cheek, and nicked his ear lobe.
Carter breathed deeply, calming his racing heart.
Close call...
Close call.
Millimetres ... a single millimetre ...
Fuck, he breathed—
‘You got an answer, Gol?’ he suddenly bellowed through the ringing in his own head.
The sniper’s bullet took the imitation Gol in the face, punching his head back against the carpet. The man’s huge body seemed to sigh, to deflate, to settle back and finally lie still.
Carter’s mouth became a grim line.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he hissed.
He crawled across the room, across the chaotic debris of the explosion. He could hear distant sirens. The fire service and LAPD. Could he trust either? He doubted it.
And then he heard a scream - from outside the room, in the wood-panelled corridor. Machine-gun fire shattered the door from its frame and Carter found himself back in the bathroom, ducking below the trajectory of the sniper’s bullets and - thankfully - a little shielded by the frosted glass.
He heard boots, charging down the corridor—
Carter tossed another HPG; the globe bounced from the wall of the room and rattled across the torn floor—
He heard a single word.
‘Shit—’
They ran for it.
The explosion rocked the room as Carter put a bullet through the bathroom window. The whole world seemed to have gone mad as Carter crawled to the ledge. The sniper’s bullet had cut diagonally across his cheekbone and down to nick his ear lobe. That meant the sniper was above Carter’s position and to the left—
He saw it: a nearby rooftop. Ideal—
Carter’s sharp eyes spotted the tiny figure. Steadying his hand on the ragged glass-edged sill, Carter levelled the Browning and began to fire—
Five, six, seven, eight bullets.
He could see the distant stonework crumbling.
Twelve, thirteen. He switched mags, pulled a small device from his pocket, snapped it against the wall beneath the windowsill, took a step back, dropped an HPG in the middle of the bathroom and leaped out of the window—
Several things happened at once—
Five black-clad Nex slid around the corner, carrying sub-machine guns—
The sniper got to his feet, screaming in pain at the bullet in his shoulder, and painfully picked up his rifle. Shaking with anger, fatigue and the agony of hot metal piercing his flesh; he tried to level the weapon over the parapet and aim it at the opposite building—
The HPG detonated.
Carter bounced violently against the wall ten feet below the window on the end of the wire and the attached small black circular object - standard Spiral issue - that he held in his free fist—
The bathroom exploded.
Debris spat from the hole in the wall; even as the chaos erupted Carter swung himself around on the wire and, hanging suspended, unloaded another full magazine towards the sniper.
Then he flicked the release.
Buzzing filled his ears and he shot towards the ground; his boots touched down beside the Olympic-size swimming pool and a few onlookers who were standing, mouths agape, staring up at the room that he had suddenly and urgently vacated. Fire bellowed out, then was suddenly sucked back in. There was a splash as a scorched and flaming wall cabinet landed in the pool, where it hissed and steamed.
Carter glanced around, then sprinted for the nearest cover, switching magazines in the Browning as he ran. From the bushes he saw the police squad cars and two huge fire vehicles charging up the road, horns blaring. Carter made it to the pavement, shoved his Browning back into his pocket and ran.
He was motoring on instinct now. All six cylinders.
He sprinted, boots thudding against the sidewalk. As he skidded onto El Camino Drive he saw the distant lights of cars and cursed. He dived over a low wall and watched the vehicles - three large black GMC trucks - go screaming past, engines howling.
Bad, thought Carter.
Real bad.
He continued to run.
Two minutes later, pouring with sweat, he reached the Corvette. He jumped in, gunned the engine and floored the accelerator. The huge VI2 roared and, leaving rubber tread smeared heedlessly against the concrete, he wheel-spun towards the end of the fire-scorched alley and out onto the road—
The GMC trucks were prowling, waiting, searching. Their engines howled as they raced down the highway after the Corvette as it appeared: wolves hunting down this running lamb.
All four vehicles screamed around a huge loop of tarmac, suspensions dipping as they veered round corners and ended back on Wilshire Boulevard. They slipped past the fire trucks and Carter, bent forward over the steering wheel, sweat dripping in his eyes, cursed his pursuers—
Carter pulled free his Browning and kissed the grip. ‘You’ve saved me before, baby,’ he muttered.
He fired through the Corvette’s rear window. Glass exp
loded in a shower and the three GMC trucks veered, one mounting the pavement and sending a couple of pedestrians sprinting for cover, wheels churning an old man into the ground with quadruple impacts.
They regrouped on the road and, their lights dazzling Carter, accelerated towards him.
Where’s fucking Kade when I need him? he thought. Closely followed by, I should have stolen a faster car—
The lead GMC truck smashed into the back of the Corvette. Carter was jolted in his seat, and almost lost his Browning. His foot slammed to the floor and suddenly he veered right, down a narrow slip road leading away from Beverly Hills—
The GMC trucks followed in tight formation.
They sped past a parked patrol car. Red lights flickered.
The police car pulled away from the kerb and gave chase.
Carter growled to himself. He fired another few bullets from the rear of the ‘Vette and was gratified when he popped a headlamp. But that did little to take the GMCs out of action.
They’re too high up, he realised. Their cabs are too fucking high up.
The lead GMC shunted him again.
Carter fired the remaining bullets; there was a high-pitched squeal and a rattle from the engine compartment and the truck veered off, hammering into a low wall. Carter caught a glimpse in his mirror of a dark body catapulted like a rag doll through the windscreen before the howl of police sirens made him drag the steering wheel to the left. The Corvette’s wheels screeched at the abuse as the car power-slid around a corner through a crossroads, the back end hitting and bouncing from a set of lights.
More police cars joined the chase.
Who’re they fucking chasing? he thought sombrely.
Me or them?
He pressed his foot to the floor. The engine growled.
Help, he thought.
The Corvette sped through an intersection; there was a multiple music-blare of horns as cars zipped insanely all around and Carter closed his eyes for a moment. Kade? Where are you, Kade? Come and get me out of this shit!
Come and fucking help me...
He no longer checked his rear-view mirror. The view in it only seemed to get worse.
Engines howled close behind him, mechanical animals with their teeth bared, ready to tear and rend him with anger and hatred ...
Once more he wrenched on the steering wheel, feeling the car lose traction as tyres slid around the corner, and once more he narrowly missed another vehicle - a fire truck, this time. The horn screamed at him and Carter involuntarily flinched, half ducking down in his seat...
Focus, he thought.
Meeting. With Natasha, and Jessica...
And Langan.
His gaze flickered up, checking the signs. He feinted a left turn, then dragged the Corvette over the grassy embankment and forced a U-turn through heavy traffic. Tyres squealed, horns blared; Carter caught a flashing, almost hallucinatory scene of angry faces and waving fists. The Corvette’s rear bounced from the wing of a brand new Porsche...
‘Motherfucker!’ came the scream.
Carter checked his rear-view as he sped away. He had managed, by some twist of fate, by some fluke of gridlock, to cause a massive jam across the six lanes of highway; the GMCs had stuttered to a halt against a wall of metal. LAPD cops flooded the road, guns out - yelling—
Gunshots rattled.
He heard the wet thump of metal in flesh.
Carter ducked low and floored the Corvette’s accelerator.
He drove for ten minutes as dusk began to fall, reducing his speed a little so as not to attract too much unwanted attention. As he sped down towards Inglewood and the meet, he checked his mirrors again.
There, in the distance, he could see a group of GMC trucks.
‘No,’ he muttered, frowning. ‘Fucking impossible!’
He saw the trucks accelerating, still distant blobs, their grilles like teeth.
Smiling teeth.
Carter’s jaw tightened. His foot hit the floor again and the Corvette jerked forward, spun right down a tight bend and into a McDonald’s drive-through. He slammed on the brakes and the Corvette screeched to a halt beside a wooden bench under a group of flowering trees where Natasha and Jessica sat, empty Coke cartons in front of them.
Carter leaped out.
‘We’ve got trouble.’
‘Big trouble?’ asked Natasha.
‘Oh yes.’
Carter slotted a fresh mag into his Browning and as a car pulled free of the service window of the drive-through he pointed the gun and screamed, ‘Get out of the fucking car!’
The Ferrari F355 Spider stopped abruptly. The engine rumbled, a deep-throated V8 purr.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Natasha.
‘You were right. We need something faster.’
‘Hey man, you have got to be kidding!’
Carter met the man’s outraged glare: he was young, wore a skull-and-crossbones bandanna, Oakleys and no shirt, revealing a heavily tattooed torso. When he spoke, his hands lifted from the steering wheel in emphasis.
‘Get out.’
‘You motherf—’
The Browning moved. There was a blam. A hole appeared in the passenger side of the windscreen - and in the fine leather upholstery beyond. The man stared at the hole in the windscreen, then at the seat. Then he leaped from the vehicle as if stung.
Carter, Natasha and Jessica jumped in.
‘You know how much this car cost, man?’
Carter met the man’s gaze again. ‘Sue me,’ he said as he slotted the tiptronic into first and floored the gas pedal; the Ferrari F355 roared, the bellowing of a 375-bhp lion, and shot off so fast that Carter was pinned back into the seat.
‘You motherfuckers!’ screamed the tattooed man, waving his fist and a strawberry milk shake in the air.
The Ferrari F355 became practically airborne from the speed bump as they took off past five black GMC trucks, the windows all blacked out, their engines rumbling and lights blazing in the gloom of the Californian dusk. He slotted the vehicle into sixth gear and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as the V8 3496cc motor roared with renewed vigour and the road became a blur of twisting concrete snake; it danced ahead of him like a scene from a bad trip.
Natasha leaned forward - both women had leaped into the cramped rear of the roofless sports car. ‘Erm, Carter, how fast are you going?’ There was an edge of fear to her voice.
‘I don’t know,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m watching ... the ... road.’
‘Are we in that much trouble?’
‘Yes,’ said Carter softly.
‘Did you see my father?’
Carter looked at Natasha from the corner of his eye. ‘No, Natasha. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh.’
She sat back, deflated. Carter wanted to say, I told you so; you shouldn’t have got your hopes up, love. But he bit his tongue and concentrated on the road, a winding 180 m.p.h. roller coaster of orange and grey beneath the colourful bruise that was the sky.
‘Who did you meet?’
‘It was a set-up. I’m afraid I blew up the hotel room ...’
‘With what?’
‘A couple of HPGs.’
‘You lunatic! What did they - whoever they were - want?’
‘It was the Nex,’ said Carter sourly. ‘And they wanted the QIII schematics. Hold on,’ he snapped, slamming the Ferrari down a couple of gears and using the engine braking to get them sliding and squealing around a corner. Carter grinned like an excited child back at the two women.
They didn’t look impressed.
Sirens screamed suddenly off to one side as a convoy of police cars burst from a junction, almost running the Ferrari off the road. Carter swerved violently, the motor roaring, and just made it around.
The squad cars took up the pursuit.
‘Shit.’
Carter accelerated back up to 180 m.p.h., a wide grin on his face.
‘Catch this baby, little piggies,’ he muttere
d as they fell away behind him and he focused on the far distance. ‘Natasha, get a message to Langan to come pick us up. There must be a thousand cops after us.’
‘But the Nex will tag us ...’
‘So fucking what? They already know we’re here.’
Natasha pulled free the ECube as Carter concentrated on driving; night fell over California as they sped south and left their pursuers far, far behind ...
The motel was in the middle of nowhere; there were two pickups parked out front when the Ferrari F355 sped around a corner and came to a sudden halt. Carter lit a cigarette as Natasha and Jessica climbed out and stretched their tense, aching muscles.
‘You’re a lunatic,’ said Jessica.
‘I got us out.’
‘What happened back there?’ asked Natasha.
Carter shrugged. ‘There were Nex waiting for me; they wanted the QIII schematics and we had a bit of a lovers’ tiff. There was a bit of leg-slapping, hair-pulling and face-scratching and I had to make rather a sharp getaway ...’
‘You’re hurt.’ Natasha stepped in close, her finger brushing his cheek. Carter looked into her eyes then and smiled. He took her fingers, lifted them to his lips and kissed them.
‘There was a sniper. Waiting for me.’
‘Bad ...’
‘I think I hit him.’
The drone of the Comanche reached their ears and Carter gazed up into the darkness. Lights suddenly glared from the black as the chopper banked and, with a heavy wild thrumming of rotors, flashed overhead. It circled, then slowed and Carter, Jessica and Natasha backed away, shielding their eyes as the Comanche whined down, its suspension bouncing as the machine landed lightly beside the Ferrari. There were several hisses and whines, plus the drone of incredibly powerful engines being gently but purposefully abused. The HIDSS-helmeted figure turned, looked out from the smoked cockpit and gave a thumbs-up.
Outside, the trees and bushes were tossed from side to side by the rotors’ turbulence.
‘Here’s our ride,’ said Carter, something unheard and unseen making him turn, his dark eyes peering out over the gloom and shadows of the nearby trees and dirty highway beyond the motel’s parking lot. Something burned uneasily at the back of Carter’s mind. His head turned as he glanced uneasily down the road, eyes searching for the dark GMC trucks that had so recently given chase ... but there was nothing there.