“Three…but I think there was a fourth, because someone started the van when the three men left.”
“Is the van they drove a dark-blue full-size like you said, and when did they leave?”
“Yes, the minute you told me you’d be over.”
“They’re hitting my house. Shit! Keep the throwaway cell on you. Pack up your kids. Go stay at a motel until I contact you.” Nick left the house at a run, cutting down the street in back of his house. He saw the security lights and heard Deke barking at the back of his place. He knew the neighbor at the rear of his property did not have a dog so he leaped their fence at a run and moved to the next fence bordering their properties. He pulled himself up to look into his backyard. Deke heard him. The dog left the patio door to investigate the fence. Nick went over quietly, slipping down next to Deke. Staying along the border of his fence, he rounded his backyard. He crossed to the patio inside the security light’s glare, with the dog shadowing his moves.
Inside the living room, he saw two men waiting, their eyes on the front entrance, with silenced handguns. Knowing he had locked the sliding glass door, and the men inside would not have opened it with Deke in the backyard, Nick moved to the sturdy lounger Rachel had lain in earlier. He took off his belt, and looped one end around Deke’s neck, and the other he cinched around a table leg.
Gripping the middle sides of the lounger, Nick used it as a battering ram and plowed through the patio door glass. Once through, he tossed the lounger left, while he dove to the right, drawing his H &K. The two men fired wildly at the lounger. One went down immediately with a.45 caliber slug through his head. Nick shot the shoulder of the second man, the.45 slug potent enough to knock the man down flat. Nick covered the distance between himself and the wounded man in seconds. The man was feebly trying to roll toward him. Before he could turn, Nick slammed the butt of his weapon against the man’s temple, stunning him. He quickly disarmed him, and dragged the man into the kitchen to the cupboard where he kept his duct tape.
Keeping his eyes on the downed man in the living room, He duct-taped the wounded man’s wrists and feet behind him, and together. Then he made sure of his kill. He quickly frisked the dead man for ID and weapons. With those items, he returned to the kitchen and repeated the process, evoking a groan from the trussed man. Deke started barking again, so he hurriedly dragged the wounded man onto a kitchen chair, and duct-taped him to it securely. With the confiscated weapons on the kitchen counter, he carried Deke over the broken glass and into the garage.
“Stay here for a moment. This may get a little messy,” Nick told the dog while pulling a stun gun out of the Escalade’s glove compartment. Leaving Deke out in the garage, he returned to the kitchen.
After checking to see how much blood was flowing from his captive’s shoulder wound, he stuffed some towels inside the man’s shirt, and duct taped them in place. He unfastened the man’s pants, and yanked them down with his underwear. Filling a glass of water next, he flung it in the man’s face. The man regained consciousness, groaning for help, only to be slapped in the face with hard, flat hand swipes.
“Can you hear me now?” Nick shook the man’s chin.
“Oh shit!” The man’s eyes widened when he recognized who had his jaw in a vice-like grip.
“I see Suzan must have told you what happened to the other guys who tried this crap on me.” Nick fired off an arc. “I’d advise you to start talking, beginning with what route your partners took the woman and girl.”
“Route 93 out of the city, then hit Interstate 40 all the way to Georgia, then…”
“I get the picture. They left you and the dead man to kill me. What then?”
“Follow in your vehicle with the body. Please, man…that’s the honest to God’s truth. Don’t -”
“Shut up. Who connected you to us?”
“Craig and Joe. They…they were supposed to kill everyone but the woman.”
“Including Brewster?” Nick interrupted, pissed off Joe held out on him.
“Yes.”
“Then you guys are independents?”
“We had a buyer for the drives.”
“Who?”
“Tanus’s rivals, ah, Fletcher Exports.”
“Then what?”
“When Joe and Craig didn’t show, we came looking for them. Please, that’s all of it…I don’t know anything else.”
“That’s what they all say.”
Chapter Fourteen
With Deke in the back of his Escalade, Nick raced after the dark blue van. Attaining speeds in excess of a hundred and ten miles per hour, he crossed the Arizona border in minutes. After the slight slowdown crossing over, Nick again drove all-out on the long stretch of US 93 toward Interstate
40. A three-quarter moon cast some light over the nearly deserted highway. Whenever Nick saw taillights ahead, he turned off the Escalade’s headlights.
Fifteen miles before the Interstate, he spotted taillights mounted far enough off the road to be a van. He shut off his headlights, and floored it. Once he confirmed that the license matched what the man at his house had told him, he paced the vehicle three car lengths back, and switched to cruise control. With the window down, Nick kept the steering wheel controlled in his right hand. He leaned out the driver’s side window, aiming the H &K.45 at the van’s left rear tire. He hit it on the third shot, immediately braking while waiting for the van to pull over.
When the van drove onto the roadside, kicking up dust and dirt, Nick turned off the road with it, keeping a fifty-yard distance between the vehicles. Having already pulled the fuse on his interior lights, he opened the door, exiting quickly with his weapon in hand. He kept to the blind side of the van, working his way quickly and quietly toward it. Two men, swearing and slamming the doors as they emerged, approached the damaged tire from both sides. They stood assessing the damage at the left rear tire with a flashlight in the driver’s hand. Nick shot four times with deadly accuracy, two.45 caliber slugs through the head of each man, running up on them to fire once more from point blank range. Continuing around to the driver’s side, he opened the door and got in, ready to fire. The cargo area was sealed off from the van’s front seating.
Nick quickly dragged the bodies around to the van’s passenger side, confiscating the keys and paraphernalia the two men carried. He opened up the rear compartment, his heart pounding. Rachel and Jean lay bound and gagged on their sides. The mind numbing tension of his race across the desert slowly seeped from Nick, leaving him drained, momentarily, of all thought and energy. He took his knife out and carefully cut Jean free first, gently helping her take the gag off. Jean’s lip trembled and her eyes misted as she worked Rachel’s gag off while Nick cut away the bonds.
“Oh Nick, thank God!” Rachel cried out, hugging Jean tightly.
“The Cad’s back about fifty yards. We have to get out of here. Our luck’s run out. I’ll follow you back to the house.”
“Is…is Deke okay?” Jean asked.
“He’s in the Cad. There’s broken glass, so I didn’t want to leave him. Take him upstairs when we get home. Start packing. I have to do some clean up. Then we need to go.”
Nick helped Rachel from the van with Jean still in her arms. He walked with them to the Cad. With a cry of pure joy, Jean dived into the backseat with a wild Deke. Rachel let Nick guide her into the driver’s seat and shut the door.
“Drive the speed limit. Don’t pick up any hitchhikers.”
Rachel barked out a quick laugh, which turned into a sob as she covered her face. Nick reached in and took her hands.
“Training or no training we’ll get ahead of this thing, Rach. No more chances-no more playing house. I really screwed the pooch last night. You go on now. I’ll follow shortly in their van after I change the tire.”
Rachel nodded, taking the handkerchief he offered through the open window. She started the Cadillac and watched him jog back to the van in the Escalade’s headlights.
