Point of Impact nf-5 Read online

  Howard didn’t hesitate. He started the rental car’s engine and pulled out onto the highway.

  * * *

  Jay said, “Why don’t you get closer, General? We might lose them!”

  Howard said, “If they see us behind them, we’ll sure as hell lose them. We’re going up a hill here. This gutless piece of crap rental can’t begin to keep up with that hot rod they are in. So far, they are obeying the speed limit, but if they see us and decide to run, we can’t keep up with them.”

  Michaels was on his virgil, trying to call the SAC running the bust.

  The man wasn’t answering.

  “Come on, come on!”

  “He’ll have his com shut off, tactical channels on LOSIR only,” Howard said. “You don’t want to have to answer the phone in middle of a firefight.”

  The boss swore.

  “Try FBI HQ,” Jay offered.

  Michaels shook his head. “Probably half their guys are on this raid already, and it’s gonna take anybody else as long to get here as it did to get to the beach. Maybe longer.”

  “What about the local police?” Howard said.

  “Who are the local police? Where are we? Who has jurisdiction?”

  “Call CHP,” Howard said. “Probably they can get here fastest. Put up a roadblock. Better than nothing.”

  Michaels nodded. He tapped a button on the virgil, waited a few seconds, then started talking. The woman’s voice coming from the virgil was calm enough, but her news was bad:

  “Sorry, sir, but we have a major traffic accident on the Ventura, ten cars and a semi full of hazardous chemical that’s on fire, all available officers are there or on the way there. I can put you through to the county sheriff’s patrol.”

  “Damnit!” Michaels said. He shut the virgil off.

  “We’re okay,” Howard said. “We stay with them, they’ll stop sooner or later. When they do, we’ll get whatever police agency that covers the area to roll.”

  “If we don’t lose them,” Michaels said.

  “If we don’t lose them,” Howard agreed.

  * * *

  “Close,” Adam said. “FBI assault team, looked like. What did you guys do?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Bobby said from the backseat. “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. They didn’t follow us, right, Tad?”

  Tad looked into the rearview mirror, but anything more than a few feet back was a blur. He hadn’t gotten his stack just right; he was having a little trouble focusing his vision. But nobody was within a block of them, and if the feds were there, they’d have already zoomed up and tried to run them off the road by now, right? Out here on a road over the hill with nobody around, that was the way to do it. There was a curve maybe a quarter mile back, and if he squinted hard, Tad could see that the road was empty at least that far.

  Tad said, “No. Nobody followed us.”

  Adam, in the front, turned around and looked. “Looks clear.” He rolled the window down and stuck his head out, glanced around, then pulled his head back inside. “No helicopters. Where are we going? The safe house?”

  “Yeah. For now. After that, I think maybe we need to take a nice long trip somewhere out of the country.”

  “All of us?”

  “No reason for you to go,” Bobby said. “Nobody knows who you are. We’ll give you a nice bonus, you can get back to your life.”

  Fuzzed as his brain was, Tad didn’t think that was a very good idea, but he didn’t say anything. Bobby knew what he was doing. Bobby always knew what he was doing.

  “Fine by me,” Adam said. He turned around to watch the road in front of them again.

  Bobby said, “Loud noise, Tad.”

  Tad didn’t have time to think about that when two bombs went off-Boom! Boom! — that fast, and the windshield spiderwebbed on the passenger side.

  “Fuck!” Tad screamed. The car slewed onto the shoulder, hit a couple of rocks, and jounced hard. He fought the wheel, managed to get it back on the asphalt.

  Tad looked into the mirror, saw Bobby just leaning back into the seat, that black gun in his hand. He glanced over at Adam. There was a bloody splotch on his chest and more blood oozing from a hole right over his heart. His left eye and part of his nose was also gone, shredded, gore running down his face. He was slack, only the seat-belt keeping him upright.

  It took a second for Tad to get it.

  Bobby had just shot Adam. Twice. In the back and in the back of the head. One of the bullets had gone right through him and through the windshield, which was now whistling with the breeze coming through it — what he could hear with his ears ringing from the noise.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Bobby!”

  “He was a liability,” Bobby said. “He knew where the safe house was. He knew you personally. We have to make a clean break here, no loose ends.”

  Tad nodded. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say.”

  * * *

  “What was that?” Jay said. “Sounded like some kind fire-cracker — look at the car!”

  Howard eased up on the gas pedal and the rental car slowed dramatically. The little four-cylinder gas-alkie engine with battery backup was barely able to move them uphill.

  The Dodge ran off the road, hit something and bounced, then scraped and skidded back onto the tarmac.

  “Gunshots,” Howard said. “Two of them. Pistol caliber.”

  “They shooting at us?”

  Michaels said, “No, not us. Somebody in the car.”

  “Why?”

  Michaels looked at Jay over the back of the seat. “Did I get here before you? What can I see that you can’t? I don’t know.”

  The three men stared at the car, which rounded another curve in the wavy road and disappeared.

  Howard shoved the accelerator pedal down. The little car moaned, and not much else. Their speed picked up slowly. He pounded the steering wheel. “Piece of Japanese crap! Go!”

  Michaels reached for the in-dash GPS, thought better of it, and pulled his virgil. Its GPS would be more accurate. Better find out where they were. Maybe they could get a helicopter from somewhere.

  Los Angeles DEA had those, didn’t they? All the drug raids they went out on, they’d have to have air cover.

  Could he risk calling the DEA in?

  Well, why not? Lee wasn’t the guy who shot at Howard, he had witnesses saying he was elsewhere. And he didn’t have to call Lee back in D.C., just the local HQ.

  He didn’t want to do it. But what was more important here? Letting the DEA get the credit? Or maybe losing the drug dealer altogether?

  Crap—

  The decision was interrupted by his virgil beeping. Michaels pulled it from his belt. The ID showed it was the director. He tapped the link-on, and the vid control, held the virgil up so the cam could see his face.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “My SAC tells me that the drug dealer was not in the house they raided, nor was the other man. What is the situation there, Commander?”

  “Three men managed to escape by car just as the raid went down, ma’am. The agents didn’t see them. General Howard, Jay Gridley, and I are in pursuit. We are heading east over the mountains at the moment. We have been unable to contact SAC Delorme’s team.”

  “I’ll have them spot on your GPS signal,” she said.

  “I was thinking we might call in the DEA,” he said. “They’ll have air support.”

  “Already done, Commander. They should have a helicopter in the air by now, and they are also tracking your virgil’s GPS, have been all along.”

  Howard nodded. “I see.”

  “We have to let them in, Commander. There is no choice in the matter, you understand?”

  He understood, all right. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Try to maintain your surveillance. I expect you’ll be seeing the DEA forces show up soon. Call me when you have something to report.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Michaels discommed. Howard glanced over at him.


  “You heard the director. Try to stay with them. DEA is in the air.”

  But that wasn’t quite true, Michaels realized a few seconds later. The DEA had a helicopter, all right, he saw it not more than a block ahead as they rounded the next curve.

  The copter was parked across the middle of the road.

  36

  Drayne saw the helicopter blocking the road a good two seconds before Tad’s drugged reaction time finally kicked in and he slammed on the brakes. The big Dodge’s wheels locked and the car skidded to a rubber-burning stop.

  Adam’s body twisted out of the seat belt’s shoulder strap and he thudded against the dashboard, then slid sideways into the door, smearing blood all over the window and door post.

  “Shit!” Tad said.

  “Turn around, turn around!”

  But as he said it, Drayne looked over his shoulder in time to see a car a hundred feet behind slew to a stop and turn so it blocked the road.

  Tad saw it, too. He hit the brakes again.

  To their left was a rocky slope, the wall of the mountain. To the right, a fairly steep drop down the hillside into a valley of rock, dried brown bushes, and eucalyptus.

  A half-dozen men with guns were crouched around the copter, pointing their weapons at the Dodge. Drayne looked back in time to see three men pile out of the other side of the car behind them. They came up behind the hood and trunk, and pointed weapons, too.

  Well, shit.

  “Fuck! What do we do?”

  Drayne thought fast. There was a dead body in the front seat of their car. Tad had enough drugs to stone a parade, not even counting the scores of Hammer caps. This was bad.

  Drayne leaned forward and gave Tad the pistol he had. “Here, take this.”

  “We’ll get slaughtered,” Tad said.

  Drayne reached around the seat and took Adam’s pistol from the dead man’s holster. “Maybe not, I’ve got an idea. Stick the gun out the window and shoot it into the air.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Tad did, the sound loud in the quiet afternoon.

  The men behind the copter ducked, but they didn’t return fire.

  Drayne almost smiled. Good, that was good. They wanted him alive. Alive, he was valuable. Dead, he was worthless.

  And now Tad, bless him, had powder residue on his hand showing he had fired a gun.

  “Okay, okay, let’s think about this. We got their attention, but we’re boxed, so we’re gonna have to do this with lawyers. We have money, and we have power. The pharmaceutical companies want what I have. So we get out with our hands up, and surrender.”

  “You sure?”

  “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. One phone call, we’ll have some very heavyweight people lined up to help us.”

  “Okay, man.”

  Of course, Tad would have to take the fall for killing Adam. And since Tad would get shot resisting arrest or trying to escape, he wouldn’t say otherwise. Drayne could pull that off. If he yelled, “Hey, don’t shoot, Tad! Put the gun down!” at the right moment, the feds would hose Tad. DEA rules of engagement wouldn’t be that different from the FBI rules when facing an armed perp. Too bad, but Tad had one foot in the grave anyhow. He liked him, but his death might as well count for something. No point in Tad being dead and Drayne being in jail, was there?

  Drayne climbed over the seat.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to be right behind you when we get out, we don’t want them to think you’re reaching for something when you move the seat to let me out.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Tuck that gun into your belt and keep your hands in the air when you get out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s do it. Just stay cool. We’ll walk away from this, believe me. Once we’re out on bail, we can take off and stay gone forever.” Not that they would get bail with a corpse in the front seat of their car. Judges frowned on that.

  Tad nodded. “Okay.”

  * * *

  Howard had braked and turned the car to block the road, and the three of them jumped out on the driver’s side, away from the stopped Dodge.

  “Get those tasers out, for all the good they’ll do,” Howard said. He pulled his gun from under his jacket, crouched behind the front wheel, and pointed the gun over the hood. “See if you can get the DEA there on your virgil’s emergency band and tell them not to shoot us.”

  Michaels nodded. He was the commander of Net Force, but he was willing to defer to the general in this kind of situation. He wasn’t going to to let his ego get them killed.

  He hit the emergency call button, got the Net Force operator, and told him to patch them through to the DEA team. The FBI Director should have their number.

  Crouched behind the trunk, his taser clutched in both hands and pointed at the Dodge, Jay nervously said, “I think… I think I’m gonna throw up. And I gotta pee, real bad.”

  “It’s okay,” Howard said, “we all feel like that.”

  Oddly enough, Michaels didn’t. He felt relatively calm, almost as if he were watching and not participating. His mouth was awful dry, though.

  Behind them, a car approached. Howard turned and waved at it frantically. “Stop!”

  The car, a dark minivan, did stop. The passenger door opened and a man jumped out and ran toward them.

  He had a gun in his hand.

  Howard swung his revolver around and almost shot the guy — then they all recognized him.

  Brett Lee, of the DEA

  Lee crouched into a duckwalk the last few steps. “What’s the situation?” he asked.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Michaels responded.

  “I was following you,” Lee said.

  They all stared at him.

  He said, “Look, okay, I screwed up on the bust at the movie star’s house, okay? My job is going away, at the least. I need to help catch this guy so I don’t leave in total disgrace. I need a little victory.”

  That made sense. Before anybody could speak, Michael’s virgil started its musical sting. No ID sig. That damned thing was practically useless. He thumbed the connect button. His camera was still on, but the incoming screen was blank, no visual transmission.

  “Commander Michaels? Riley Clark, DEA. Is that you in the car behind the suspects?”

  “Yes. And I have Brett Lee here with me.”

  “Hold your positions, and please don’t shoot unless you are fired upon—”

  As if his words were a signal, a gun went off. Michaels ducked instinctively.

  From the virgil, Clark’s excited voice came: “Negative, negative, do not return fire, the gun was pointed into the air, repeat, hold your fire!”

  Michaels raised from his squat and looked. The driver’s side door opened, and two men stepped out, their hands in the air. The zombie and the surfer. What an odd-looking pair they were together.

  “Which one is the chemist?” Lee asked.

  Jay said, “Gotta be the surfer.”

  * * *

  Drayne felt tight, knowing all those guns were pointed at him, but he also knew he was the golden goose, and while the DEA field guys might want to burn his ass, the higher-ups would know which way the political winds blew. Sure, he might have to do some time at one of those country-club honor farms somewhere, working on his tan and Ping-Pong game, but in the end, he was going to cut a deal, and he was going to walk away rich. Guys worth tens of millions of dollars didn’t go to jail very often, almost never, and he’d be very cooperative. The feds would bargain with him, because he had something everybody wanted. He could turn people into superhumans. Hell, the Army would be first in line, if the Navy and Marines didn’t beat them to it.

  He was smarter than the guys they sent against him, always had been, always would be. He could think circles around them. This was a temporary setback, that was all. He was a genius, and he’d show them just how smart he was.

  He smiled. “Don’t shoot!” D
rayne yelled. “We give up!”

  * * *

  Something was wrong, Howard felt, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Lee was right here next to him; Howard didn’t trust him, and if Lee raised that pistol, he was going to bat it down, but that wasn’t it, it was something else.

  Then he knew. It hit him like a lightning bolt.

  Lee had gotten out on the passenger side!

  He twisted around, looked at the van, said, “Shit!”

  The driver’s door was open, and a man was behind it, a rifle resting on the windowsill, but not aimed at Howard or Michaels or Jay or Lee.

  Howard swung his revolver around.

  The rifle went off.

  * * *

  Tad was looking right at him when Bobby’s head exploded. The skull deformed in front, like it was plastic, and Bobby’s whole forehead spewed into the air, blood and bones and brain in a greasy fluid like a water balloon bursting, spraying every which way.

  Fuck. They shot Bobby.

  Tad didn’t even think about it, he bolted, ran straight for the only way not full of guns, right over the side of the hill. He hit five or six yards down, his legs collapsed, and he rolled himself into as much of a ball as he could, bouncing and smashing into creosote bushes and rocks and dirt, until he hit something so hard it took his consciousness.

  * * *

  Michaels watched in slow motion as John Howard shoved his handgun forward and started pulling the trigger. There were orange flashes from the muzzle and smaller flashes from the cylinder, but the sound was oddly quiet, like a cap pistol.

  Brett Lee screamed — Michaels saw his mouth open — and he tried to point his pistol at Howard.

  He’s going to shoot John, Michaels realized.

  Michaels lunged, slamming into Lee. They both sprawled on the road. Lee dropped his gun to break his fall, hit, rolled up, and kicked at Michaels.

  Without thinking or pausing, Michaels swept his right hand down and up again in an arc, caught Lee’s ankle and, at the same time, dropped into a low position and shoved with his left hand at Lee’s chest.

  Lee fell backward, hit the road flat on his back, and his head thumped the asphalt and bounced. He was stunned enough so he didn’t move.