Will Curtis hit the bastard.
"Police!" Matt yelled down the steps. "Drop your weapons!"
Payne and Harris slowly descended the stairs.
When they reached the bottom, there were two rooms. They cleared the first, then followed the blood trail to the door of the second. A light was on inside it, and when Payne looked around the edge of the door frame, he saw two black males-both dead.
One was on the floor at the end of the heavy blood trail. The shooter had at least one enormous hole through his neck. The semiautomatic 9-millimeter Baretta was still in his right hand. The other dead male was lying on an old twin bed. He had been strangled. Two foot-long plastic zip ties strung end-to-end cut deeply into his bruised neck.
A black duffel bag with stacks of banded cash and clear plastic bags full of pills was on the floor.
Matt and Tony then heard fast footfalls on the wooden flooring above their heads.
Then they heard Charley Bell yell, "Stop! Police!"
Payne exchanged a fast glance with Harris, then bolted up the steps.
At the top, Payne turned toward the open front door as he heard the minivan starting and then its tires spinning as it squealed away.
He looked toward the back of the house and saw Bell standing with what looked like a dirty dish towel wrapped around his left forearm. It was blood-soaked.
"The sonofabitch grabbed the old man's keys," Bell said. "And got his Glock, too!"
Matt looked at the towel.
"I'm okay," Bell said. "Go! Go! Go!"
Matt pointed down the basement stairs.
"Clear the house with Tony," he said.
Then, stepping around the dead body of the old man who'd sacrificed his life for Matt's, Payne was out the door. [FIVE] The first thing Matt Payne saw when he came running out of the row house was a huge, nasty-looking garbage truck. It was stopped right beside the PECO van, and Payne realized that if he didn't run faster to reach the Crown Vic, the truck was going to move up and block him.
As he ran, he yelled "Stop! Police!" to the driver, holding his left-hand palm out, anxiously signaling him to stay put. But after he got in the car and finally had it moving off the sidewalk, he saw the last plastic garbage bag from the corner being tossed into the back of the garbage truck as the truck moved forward.
Matt hammered the heel of his right hand on the horn as he floored the accelerator. Yanking the steering wheel to the right, he had to hop the curb to narrowly miss both the front of the garbage truck and the rear of a parked car.
Payne pursued the Ford minivan as it raced up Richmond Street.
He thought about calling in for backup, but dismissed that immediately.
No police radio. And I'm not about to try juggling my cell right now.
He flipped down the sun visors, then reached down and plugged in the emergency lights and threw the switch for the siren.
Two cars were stopped up ahead, waiting for the traffic light at Allegheny Avenue. He watched as the minivan's brake lights came on for a second, then went off. The van then swung into the oncoming traffic lane to get around the two cars. Then it blew through the red light, cutting a hard right and going down Allegheny Avenue.
Matt came up on the two cars but could not pass because a pickup truck had just turned down Richmond, blocking his way. He could see the red-and-blue strobes reflecting off the back glass of the vehicle ahead of him. He hammered the horn out of habit, but its sound was mostly lost in the loud whoop-whoop of the siren.
The traffic light cycled to green, the first car started to roll, then both finally moved quickly out of the way.
Matt made the corner just in time to see the tail of the minivan going up an on-ramp, headed southbound on the Delaware Expressway.
He pulled on the gear-selector stalk on the steering column, dumping the transmission into second gear, then floored the accelerator.
Just before the ramp at the next block, with the high-revving engine roaring, Matt tapped the brakes once before turning, then put the Police Interceptor into a squealing right turn. He corrected the skid, then floored the accelerator again and bumped the transmission into high gear.
This section of Interstate 95 was four lanes in each direction, and Matt saw that the minivan was weaving through the heavy traffic.
Sonofabitch is using all the lanes!
The other vehicles were quickly becoming aware of the reckless minivan. Just past the point where the expressway became elevated, some began moving out of the wild driver's way. Matt figured that the driver of a full-size Dodge SUV must have seen the Ford minivan flying up on its tail. It tried to move quickly into the lane to its left-and immediately sideswiped the Honda Accord that was traveling in that lane.
Oh, shit!
The impact from the heavier truck forced the lighter compact car into the far inside lane, which fortunately was unoccupied.
That Honda was damn lucky it didn't slam into the concrete divider.
Or completely lose control.
The Ford minivan, apparently anticipating the Dodge SUV swerving back into its lane, then darted through a gap in the right lane. It flew past a half-dozen vehicles before again having to brake heavily, this time almost at the Vine Street Expressway.
After checking the nearby lanes for traffic, Matt calmly steered to follow it.
I wonder how many violations I've made so far of our department's pursuit policies.
Plenty, I'm sure.
And I'm also sure someone will be more than happy to point them out as we review the video of it in the ECC.
His cell phone began ringing, and he dug it out of his pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Payne was amazed the earbud was still in his ear. When he answered the call, he wondered if all Harris would hear would be his siren wails and horn honks.
"Tony, how's Charley? All okay?"
"He's fine. We've got the scene under control. Where the hell are you?"
"Southbound Delaware Expressway, about to Vine. Hot on the tail of the white minivan. You want to call in for units to try to head off this guy? He's running hard, and about to make a big mess out here."
Payne, closing the distance between them, watched the Ford minivan make jerky movements as the driver tried getting around four vehicles that were driving abreast and effectively forming a wall across the expressway. They did try to get out of the way, but every time a driver anticipated the minivan's next move, another driver wound up blocking him again.
The minivan was in the far right lane, and when it came up to the two-lane split leading to the exit for the Vine Street Expressway, it shot the gap and accelerated.
"Tony, he just took the Vine exit. Hell, we're almost to the Roundhouse, about a quarter-mile out. Maybe he's going there to give himself up."
He heard Harris snort, then start relaying that updated information.
Payne made the exit for the Vine Street Expressway, and as the two lanes of the elevated concrete thoroughfare widened to four, Matt looked in the distance and saw the minivan heading toward the Center City skyline.
Also ahead, at the point where the expressway crossed over Fourth Street, there was a series of flashing caution lights and signage that read: CAUTION! ROAD REPAIR AHEAD! YO, GIVE US A BRAKE!
The minivan was now just passing the first of the flashing lights.
The lights and signs became thicker as the expressway approached the Fifth Street overpass, and Payne remembered that that was where two eighteen-wheelers had collided a few weeks earlier. The mass of them together had taken out five sections of the three-foot-tall concrete divider that separated the eastbound and westbound lanes.
As a temporary patch, a double line of fifty-five-gallon drums, orange with reflective tape, had been put in place with more caution signage. And a temporary speed-limit sign had been posted.