Nice ride, is it bulletproof?
“Back up. Cops moving in,” Luke said.
“What cops?” Gradie asked. He sat up and saw for himself. Two of them. They moved out from behind the concrete pillars at the edge of the sidewalk in front of the store.
“You didn’t see them during the fight, man?” Luke said with a laugh in his voice. “They were doing all kinds of analysis behind those pillars.”
“Target?” Lindsey said abruptly.
“Get to cover, bro!” Luke said just as quickly. The cops were moving toward the center cruiser with their guns raised. Gradie remembered he was laying there in a pile of shells with a hot pistol in his hand, so he scampered to get behind a nearby shelf.
“Target?” Lindsey repeated. “He’s in that cruiser, correct?”
“Yep,” said Luke.
“Let’s extract.”
“Negative. Disengage and fall back.” It was Michael.
“He’s right there! There’s only two of them!” she hissed.
“He is not the objective. We take him now, the house tracks you and you’ll be on the run with limited options, if you even manage to get him out of the area.”
“Boss,” Luke started.
“Disengage. Over.” It was Philip this time, and he sounded defeated. Michael wasn’t budging on this.
“Fuck!” Lindsey whispered.
Gradie peeked around and watched the cops move up to the right cruiser. One of them looked in the back seat and said something to the other one. He didn’t respond, but got in the passenger seat in a hurry and scanned the lot. The other cop got in the driver seat and started the engine.
The cruiser pulled away from the curb and around the blood-splattered sedan. The tires crunched on glass and shells with a sound like a monster chewing. One of the cops spoke into the radio in a voice edged with authority. The sounds glided over the silence.
“Hey!” It was another cop who had appeared out of nowhere. He waved his hands in the air, but the cruiser accelerated down the row. Gradie realized it was unlikely that police procedure was to leave a scene like this. The cop looked confused and started stuttering into his radio.
“I think those two cops are Hardworlders,” Gradie whispered.
“Yep,” Luke said. The cop moved out into the street and looked back at the carnage around the other cruiser in shock. He put his hand up to his mouth and Gradie could see in his eyes that he had never seen anything like this. He talked into his radio some more, then a loud crash drew his attention out to the street.
The cruiser was stopped in the middle of the road and taking fire from men in two other vehicles in the oncoming lane.
“It’s another fucking team!” Lindsey said on the channel.
“Get out of there.” Philip said.
“We just gonna let them take—” Luke said.
“They’re not taking shit,” EP said. “More cops are moving in now.”
Sirens echoed down the main street and red and blue lights flashed from behind the auto parts store.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
The lone cop stood there watching the gunfight. A particularly loud burst made him flinch and he dropped down into a crouch and moved to cover behind a parked car.
Luke popped out from behind another row and jogged across the front lane towards the store. Gradie couldn’t see his gun or mag pouches, but his shirt had a distinct bulge to it. There was a glitter on his clothes that he realized only as Luke got closer was broken glass. The cop didn’t notice this and motioned at him to get down. He somehow hadn’t seen him firing earlier or the shock had made him forget.
“Is anyone hurt? I’m a nursing student!” Luke yelled with faked panic in his voice while jogging faster. The cop waved in the general direction of the store before more shots drew his attention back to the street, where swarms of blue and red lights were now converging from both directions on the carnage in the middle of the road. He stood there shellshocked while Luke sprinted toward Gradie and smiled at him. He came around the cruisers and nodded at him.
“Let’s get outta here bro.”
Gradie’s body stayed locked in a crouch, and he realized that some part of him had been afraid to turn around, convinced that if he turned his back to the bodies and the gunfire, it would eat him. As if it was all made of the same substance. A pure liquid violence waiting to take him.
Luke, as far from that kind of fear as anyone could be, pulled a corpse off one of the ATVs and nodded for Gradie to get on. The liquid feeling of danger drained away as Gradie watched him, and he realized it had just been his self screaming at him. Asshole.
Gradie scrambled over the glass and got on the back of the ATV. Luke gunned it and they zoomed down the lot toward the side of the store and cut down the alley behind the building. Lindsey and her Hayabusa were already long gone.
A quarter of the way down the back alley, Luke drove through a gap in the curb and Gradie’s stomach flew up rollercoaster style as they dropped onto a dirt path winding down the hill, worn into place by a million smoke breaks and a few night shift blow jobs. Gradie couldn’t even see ten feet ahead of him, but Luke guided the ATV down the steep wooded hillside like a slice of cardboard down a grass slope.
Gradie sectioned his breathing into sections of four counts, trying to keep himself aloft under the weight of the adrenal dump. He remembered the day in the clubhouse, when Philip had set of a chime in his earbuds at random times, and he would have to box breathe until the chime sounded again. The intent, he was told, was to make the breathing second nature. Now, a million realities away, in another version of himself who viewed the Clubhouse training like a reoccurring vivid dream, it worked. The breath came easy, and Gradie wondered to what extent the Spirit could truly override the Self.
Suddenly, they were weaving through the brush and roaring up a creek bed, Luke laughing and whooping with every jump, diesel motor drowning out the sirens. It was like Gradie had teleported out of a warzone into a carefree Saturday. EP directed Luke across a creek, down a trail, and through a dense cluster of mesquite.
“Stop there. Kate’s on the street about twenty yards ahead.”
Luke killed the engine and they started walking. After a few minutes of pushing through the dry brush, a street corner came into view. It was like the neighborhood had never gotten up the courage to cross the street so the Texas brush built up the lots instead. The houses were sixty years old at least and the one on the corner looked like a shed that had gotten sick and spit up a brick addition. The SUV waited on the street with its bullet wounds, only visible as tiny white dots on the glass, facing them.
Luke got in the center door and Gradie followed. Sam sped off the moment he shut the door and he fell hard into the seat. It pissed him off, and reminded him of something.
“So why did you leave the scene while we were getting shot at?”
Sam whirled on him and the car swerved in the road.
“Because Max told me to get clear so the cops wouldn’t be chasing us right now. And what about you? Who the fuck told you to run in like that you god damned idiot?”
“It worked out. I shot—"
“No, it didn’t! Did you find the prize in there and not tell us? And your supposed to cover your fucking face when you—"
“Johnny didn’t have a mask on either so what’s it—"
“Oh yeah, Zoey, cop saw me,” Luke said. “You get the cameras inside?”
“What? Yeah, I’m getting them wiped now. Which cop saw you?”
“One of the natives. He looked shell-shocked though, so I don’t think.”
“You’ll stay out of sight for the duration.” Michael's voice came in, harsh-edged.
Luke nodded.
“My bad boss.”
“Alan,” Michael continued. “If you engage, it’s important to cover your face so you can remain off the radar. This isn’t a hit, remember. These jobs are more prolonged, and we need to maintain flexibility.”
Gradie doubted that repeating the fact that Luke hadn’t covered his face would get him out of the lecture so he tried something else.
“No one in the store saw me. And I didn’t have a mask.”
“That’s because you weren’t supposed to leave the car!” Sam yelled. “We told you—” Michael cut her off.
“Enough. Get clear of the scene and Max will give you a location. Boss out.”
The ride was silent for a while. Sam checked every mirror and window five times at every turn.