‘Chloe will be alone, without backup. You okay with this?’ Bwana shifted uneasily, looking at her.
‘Yup. That part was my plan if you recollect.’
‘Tony will be following at a distance,’ Broker said mildly, deflating Bwana’s tension. Bear looked bemusedly at him and shook his head. ‘All that badass routine… you’re just a softy underneath, aren’t you?’
Bwana gave him a look that chilled hardcore gangbangers, but it just raised a laugh from Bear.
‘What about traffic? We can’t be sure we’ll be the only ones on that stretch.’ Roger was frowning still.
Broker’s lips twitched. ‘We can. Eric will be driving a Freightliner with a container, an empty container, and it will develop some problems, if needed, and block the highway. I’ve made some calls, and we will not get attention so long as we can clear up the highway in half an hour. That should be enough for us. Tony will be backing up from the rear, a distance away.’
They took two custom-fitted Escalades from Broker’s garage: bulletproof glass, double armor- plated, run-flat tires, navigation system, impact proof, the works.
‘I have a few.’ Broker patted the roof when Bwana looked quizzically at him. They were colored a dull gray so that no shine reflected off them, and ran low on the wheels because of their weight, but the four hundred horses under the hood gave them enough muscle and torque to leave most other wheels behind.
Chloe’s ride was a favorite of hers, a Yamaha YZF-R6, fast, steady, jet black, and when she wore matching leathers, with her chest-strapped Glock, Bwana gave her a wide berth.
He shook his head admiringly. ‘That sight alone is enough to reform me. I pity those hitters.’ They loaded their weapons, Bear throwing Mossberg shotguns in the back of his Escalade, Bwana packing his long gun carefully, and when they were done, Broker placed hampers of rations in both the vehicles.
He shut the door and looked at them. ‘Let’s do it.’
Chloe went to their Chevy, a familiar friend by now, inserted herself in it, and checked her comms. ‘In position,’ she whispered.
‘Roger,’ came Broker, who had headed to US 130 a couple of hours earlier with Bwana as his wingman, the two of them catching a snooze, waiting for everyone to catch up and the action to begin.
‘Yup,’ Bear and Roger acknowledged, in their ride a block away.
The hoods repeated the same routine, the Cherokee coming, hitters spilling out, increasing the pace of activity in the warehouse, the three Patriots rolling in at two a.m., signaling the exodus of the workers, and then Cruz and his motorcade left at just after three a.m.
Cruz was in the middle set of wheels.
Chloe waited for them to clear the block and then unlimbered herself and jogged to the end of her street, rounding it, and reached into a dark alley for her bike. The roar, when it came, was muffled, the custom silencers doing their job. She tapped keys on her dashboard, and the navigation and tracker system sprang to life. She scanned the console swiftly, noting the three red dots, and eased out on her bike. ‘Bogeys identified and all rolling.’ She spoke normally, the days of shouting over the wind had long gone with the technology Broker had access to.
In his Escalade, Broker queried Tony and Eric, ‘You guys with us?’ and nodded silently when the affirmative replies came back. They would fall behind Chloe once they left the city behind.
Chloe zipped past dimly lit streets, the rare cab or police cruiser crossing her way. This was a different New York, silent and brooding before daylight came and restored it to its cheer and energy.
Keeping the last Patriot’s taillights in sight in the distance, her own lights doused, she followed them through Holland Tunnel, entering the Garden State, down Hoboken Avenue, then Newark Avenue.
‘I think they’re taking the US 130,’ she said in the wind.
‘Gotcha. That’s the route they took the last couple of nights. So far they’re sticking to habit, which’s bad for them, good for us.’ Broker’s baritone came back muffled, trying to clear sticky gum in his mouth.
They hit the highway at North Brunswick, and the hoods maintained a steady pace, ignoring the call of the empty expanse of tarmac ahead of them.
The gang’s motorcade took a three-hour break at a rest stop, presumably to catch up on sleep, and when they resumed their ride, Chloe followed.
The sun was painting the sky gold as suburban America fled past, places where dreams and hopes took shape, bearing names such as Cranbury Township and Windsor. Chloe started to wonder if she’d been going too fast for those behind when Broker’s baritone broke in her ear. ‘Alrighty, we’re behind you now, rather, we are behind Eric; you should see him soon. Bear is following us.’
She glanced at her mirror, and in the distance she could see Eric’s Freightliner take shape, growing larger as he ate the miles between them, the gleaming chrome grill catching the dim light. She breathed deeply, patted her gun once, and smiled when she remembered the conversation Bear and she had had. This was her life, their life… not the picket fences and children’s toys in some of the homes she rode past.
The lights ahead flared suddenly. ‘Uh-oh,’ she commented.
‘What?’ came Bear’s voice urgently.
‘They’re slowing, hang on… no, they’re speeding again, now turning, the exit to US 206. I’m following them. Eric, did you get that?’
‘Yo, ma’am, will follow your tail.’
Broker glanced at Bwana. ‘They could have made her… or maybe that’s where they were planning to go in any case.’
Bwana shrugged; he was scrolling through the navigation system. ‘Works just as well. There’s a lot of empty road and open country there.’
Broker swung the wheel and followed Eric’s truck, Roger and Bear’s ride behind them, and far behind, Tony’s van fell into position.
They drew on, the road narrowing to two lanes, the surroundings becoming thicker, densely wooded, darker, the terrain preparing itself for action.
Broker looked far ahead and behind in the mirrors. ‘Go.’
They accelerated, closing the gap to two vehicle lengths, and Eric stomped the gas, his truck filling Chloe’s mirror, escaping it as it came alongside and drew ahead, powered behind the gang’s Cherokee, and started overtaking it.
She revved, sticking close to its body not more than two feet away from its rear and using it as cover, the Freightliner’s front wheels throwing fine gravel over her, pinging her helmet.
She feathered out from behind when the truck drew abreast of the last gang vehicle, eased between the sets of wheels on either side of her, the Yamaha rock steady amidst the buffeting from both sides. Through the darkened glass of the rear window, she could make out a hitter on the phone turning back to look at her, his mouth a dark oval, and his silent shout as the Glock slid whisper smooth into her hand and she shot the right, rear tire.
Their Patriot wobbled, straightened, lost speed, and she flashed past, the sight of windows cracking open and hitters shouting fading behind her. She cut across in front of Eric, who swerved into their lane, absorbing the automatic rifle fire that spat from the gang, and she was free ahead.
The pothole came up in the edge of her vision as she was scanning her mirror; her fingers instinctively reacted, guiding the bike around it, and the handle twisted violently in her grip, and she was flying, falling, landing in the woods, rolling over and over again, her helmet cracking, until she came to rest against the bole of a tree, and woods closed in on her.
Their takedown was planned for the wider highway. On a narrower road, the margins lessened, and loose gravel around a pothole was what Broker eloquently called, ‘Shit happening when it doesn’t need to.’