“Something I said?” Philo said, checking the sideview mirror, frowning.
“I’d say it was the gun, Philo sir,” Patrick said.
“I’d say so too, Patrick…”
Another look in the sideview mirror. A sedan careened left out of the neighborhood and onto the highway behind them, now less than a quarter mile away. Philo needed his phone, it was on the floor somewhere, couldn’t find it. Patrick handed him his. He punched in some numbers.
“Commander Malcolm here.”
“Evan!” Philo shouted.
“Yeah,” an annoyed response, “who’s this?”
“Hey! We’re in a real fix now, bud, really need your help—”
“Philo? You fucked me over about that bareknuckle fight, goddamn it. I’m with Lanakai’s people right now. They feel my pain, Philo. I want a piece of that prick Yabuki…”
“I know, I’m sorry, Evan. Look, we’re on Kela Drive near Howling Sands Airport…”
“Near the base?”
“Yeah! Yabuki’s men, they’re right behind us. They catch us, they kill us, Evan. We’re in a fluorescent-green street sweeper…”
“Sorry, bad connection, I thought you said a street sweeper.”
“You heard right, damn it, which should make you realize we’re pretty much SOL. I need some support at the end of the line, bud…”
He leaned out the window, looked behind them, was fired on. The gunshots dinged the side mirror, then more shots blasted most of the mirror into pieces, a large chunk knocking the phone out of his hand, the black plastic handheld disappearing behind them on the asphalt.
Fucking damn it… Fuuuck…!
The sedan was now only ten, eleven lengths back. Ahead of them—
Howling Sands - 1 mile.
“Patrick, lower your head, bud, get down in the seat, watch the road from inside the steering wheel…”
Philo leaned over, checked the dashboard in front of Patrick. “What’s that button say?”
“‘Engage brooms,’” Patrick shouted.
“Brooms?”
“The cleaning brushes, sir. The big brushes under the sweeper…”
“Press the button!”
All four circular brushes emerged from the underside on metal skeletons, two each side, on robotic arms that lowered them toward the asphalt while increasing the sweeper’s wingspan.
“That red button there, Patrick, what’s it say?”
“‘Eject brooms—’”
“Do it!”
Four heavy-duty brushes two feet in diameter with thick bristles embedded in circular wooden frames bounced off the road and away from the sweeper, then went airborne in their wake. Philo positioned a remaining sliver of side mirror to see two of them impact the car behind them, one a direct hit through the windshield. The car careened left, then right, then ran into the shoulder, skidding back out onto the highway where it flipped onto its side. Smoke and fire rose up, blurring the blacktop behind it.
Philo howled in ecstasy, pounded the dash with his good hand. Patrick howled louder than Philo, adding, “I think I peed my pants, Philo sir!”
Philo leaned over to squint at the red buttons on the dash to read the caution language next to them: Do not eject brooms while truck is in motion—a design flaw if he ever saw one…
They heard a rumble behind them. Philo again glanced at the sliver of mirror still in place. Another sedan emerged from the smoke like a black bat out of hell, swerving around the crippled car, then accelerating.
“Shit.”
The Yakuza car roared alongside the truck, the men firing semiauto long rifles at will, taking out the side window glass, the bullets lodging in the padded interior ceiling, additional shots piercing the heavy-duty passenger door. Nearly flat in his seat, Philo saw the door’s interior metal stop the slugs just short of breaking through. The car inched ahead of them, the men now firing into the engine compartment, shots pinging wildly off the fenders and the hood, the engine beginning to smoke. Their final maneuver was to pass them and move into their lane, in front of the sweeper, maintaining their distance at nearly sixty miles per hour. The long guns came out again, this time from both sides of the sedan, the semiautos aimed at the windshield. The rata-tat-tat noise was deafening, obliterating the windshield and punching through the grill, glass flying around the cabin like they were in a tornado, more bullets and glass ripping the padded ceiling and pinging out through the broken side windows with Philo and Patrick crouched below the dashboard, showered by the debris. Their street sweeper now whined and wheezed and coughed up steam. It slowed, was rolling to a stop…
Two handguns were in the truck, Philo’s and the one he gave Patrick. Impossible odds, facing off against multiple long rifles. Philo hazarded a peek over the dashboard, saw four Yakuza exit the sedan ten yards away, their AR-15s in play, leaning into a crouch, approaching the truck like commandos. He ducked back down, awaiting the inevitable, listening to sand and stone crunch under their approaching feet.
“Patrick, bud, they’re either gonna kill us or capture us…”
“I know, sir. Love you, Philo sir.”
“Love you back, son.”
The crunching sand and stone noises stopped, then quickly picked up again, but were now receding. The car doors opened and shut and the tires squealed. Philo lifted his head, hazarded another peek past the windowless dash in time to see the sedan screech into an about-face fishtail, catch rubber, then whip past them in a hurry.
Whup-whup-whup-whup…
Overwhelming the horizon, a helicopter gunship closed in.
Philo kicked the sweeper door open and rolled out of the cabin, dropping onto the asphalt. He locked his elbow as he steadied his Sig, stiffening his arm as he drew down on the retreating sedan. The Navy gunship roared overhead, blotting out the sky above the crippled sweeper. When Philo fired his weapon, the cracks of his shots were drowned out by the Seahawk’s dual M60 machine guns taking their measure, strafing the speeding sedan until it veered out of control, flipped end over end, burst into flames, then exploded. Philo lowered his gun, wanting to believe his steady and precise sharpshooting took out the driver and the men in it before the explosion did, no accounting for the hundreds of expended machine gun shells that littered the highway in the
