W. Griffin: The Vigilantes

“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.

Matt saw ahead of the Ford minivan that traffic in all the westbound lanes was slowing to a stop just past the construction crew.

“Looks like the Vine Expressway is shut down, Tony.”

The minivan was beginning to make jerky moves from lane to lane, looking for a route around the slow traffic.

Matt moved into the far outside lane behind the minivan and eased up on the accelerator as he closed the distance between them.

No exit here. Nowhere to run.

Looks like the end of the road.

But then he saw that not only was the minivan not slowing to the posted twenty-five miles an hour, it was accelerating.

And then it suddenly shot from the right lane and across the other three-then went right through the orange barrels, scattering them and causing the construction workers to dive for cover.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

“What, Matt?”

“He just crossed into the oncoming lanes.”

“How the hell did he do that?”

“He blew through a hole in the construction zone.”

More important, how the hell did he miss those oncoming cars?

At least they’re driving slow because of the roadwork.

The minivan then drove to the far left of the expressway and turned left onto a lane that was carrying oncoming traffic coming off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The vehicles swerved to miss hitting the minivan head-on.

“Jesus! And now he’s headed the wrong way toward the Ben Franklin Bridge!”

Payne, with his hands on the steering wheel at three and nine o’clock, looked over his left shoulder, then cut across the westbound lanes of the expressway, stopping in the hole that the minivan had plowed through the rows of orange drums. Then he checked for a gap in the eastbound traffic. There wasn’t one immediately, but as he waited, one driver, then two and three and more, began to heed the siren and red-and-blue strobes, either slowing to a crawl or coming to a complete stop.

Jesus! Here we go!

Payne put his right foot to the floor, and the Crown Vic burned rubber as it shot forward.

The minivan had momentarily disappeared around the curves of the turns leading up to the bridge. But its tail came back into view as soon as Payne reached the first overhead gantry.

The five vehicles that had just crashed also came into view.

Payne steered around them and headed for the bridge.

The eighty-year-old steel suspension bridge spanned the Delaware River, connecting Center City to Camden, New Jersey. It had a total of seven lanes for automotive traffic. Separating the east- and westbound lanes was an articulated concrete wall called a “zipper” barrier. Depending on traffic demand, the three-foot-tall zipper could be moved to create more or fewer lanes in either direction.

Payne saw that the zipper had been positioned so that there were four lanes westbound.

Which gives me more room.

The minivan was going right down the center white-dotted lines, the oncoming cars parting to either side. That created a path for Payne, and he gunned the Crown Vic, closing more quickly than before.

Need to do this PIT fast.

He pulled up almost to the minivan, setting up with his reinforced front bumper to the left rear of the minivan, just forward of its rear bumper. Then he quickly turned the steering wheel to the right, causing his front bumper to smack the minivan’s rear-and the minivan to suddenly break loose and skid sideways.

Matt slammed both of his feet on the brake pedal, which triggered the chattering kickback of the antilock-brake system.

He watched the minivan slide sideways toward the concrete zipper barrier, then go into a counterclockwise spin. On its second almost complete revolution, the right front bumper impacted the zipper barrier, then the whole right side of the vehicle slammed into it, forcing the van to almost flip over into the eastbound lanes. The impact moved the zipper barrier into them, causing two cars to collide on that side.

Payne let off the brakes and, dodging an oncoming Volvo, its woman driver looking terrified, drove beyond the minivan. He nosed the Crown Vic against the barrier at an angle so that it would serve as a buffer. As he got out, he saw that the minivan driver had already fled the vehicle and now was running with the pistol in his right hand. He also saw that blood flowed from a gash on his forehead.

It was a feeble escape attempt. He almost immediately tripped in a crack just before an expansion joint in the suspension bridge, and bounced as he landed on top of the joint. When he hit, he loosened his grip on the pistol-and it slid toward the gap in the expansion joint.

That Glock’s going to fall into the Delaware!

But then it kept sliding and stopped in the middle of the westbound lanes.

Payne then suddenly heard the horrible roar of screaming tires behind him, and he immediately ran to the pocket that the minivan had made by moving the zipper barrier. When he turned, it was just in time to see a woman in a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser slam into the side of the Crown Vic, the SUV’s windshield instantly filling with multiple inflated air bags.

Jesus!

Guess the car can go back to the feds now…

Payne looked back at the black male. He was still trying to get up.

Payne ran toward him, his pistol aimed at his back.

He shouted, “Police! Don’t move!”

But then the black male did move, bolting toward the zipper barrier.

Now Payne no longer had a clear field of fire; there were countless vehicles zipping by in the three eastbound lanes just beyond the man.

“Stop!” Payne yelled again as the man went over the low barrier.

The man paused there on the other side, waiting for a gap in traffic- and causing a six-wheeled big box delivery truck in the inside lane to lock up its brakes trying to avoid hitting him.