Matt Hilton - Dead Men's Harvest

‘If they get an eye in the sky on to us we’re fucked.’

‘Best we lose them before they can arrange one, then.’

Ahead of us a police cruiser shot from a side street. From the passenger seat a cop aimed a shotgun at us. Harvey bit down on his bottom lip, at the same time popping a handbrake skid, taking us into a ninety-degree turn. Side on we caromed into the cruiser, and the cop had to throw himself inside to avoid being crushed. Harvey pressed the throttle, hit another skid and punched our way around the obstacle. The pursuing cars braked to avoid hitting their colleagues, giving us a couple seconds’ respite. Harvey made the most of the time. He pushed the car up to around seventy miles an hour. It felt much faster when weaving between the slower-moving city traffic.

On our left was a strip mall, and behind it a huge Wal-Mart superstore. Harvey sped past the mall, swung a left and into the superstore parking lot. We streaked between rows of parked vehicles, customers leaping out of our way, abandoning their shopping carts. Our pursuers were too close for us to ditch this car and steal another, but that had never been Harvey’s intention. He went out the other side of the lot and on to a service road that connected to another store, this one an electrical giant. Harvey sent the rental over a grassy strip and we joined another highway, this one heading back towards Richmond.

We’d given the cops the slip, but that wouldn’t last long. Harvey floored the pedal, while I clung tight to the dashboard. There was a junction ahead. We could take the correct route around the sweeping ramp, or we could be more direct. Harvey chose the latter, pulled into oncoming traffic and across to the hard shoulder. Streaking past the horrified faces of commuters heading out of the city, we tore along the shoulder and on to Route 76. Here the two carriageways were separated by a median, but thankfully there was no crash barrier like on the motorways in the UK. Harvey sent the rental across the lanes, whipping between a Kenworth truck hauling cattle and a fuel tanker. I closed my eyes, expecting an impromptu beef barbecue, but there was no accident this time. When I opened my eyes again, we were on the median and spitting divots of grass and soil in the air.

Medians are designed to halt out-of-control vehicles, the soft earth catching and holding the tyres firm, but Harvey continued to hammer down on the throttle and the median finally gave up its hold and spat us on to the carriageway on the far side. Thankfully we were now heading in the same direction as the traffic flow. There was no sign of the cops: no way were they going to attempt the insane manoeuvres that Harvey had. They would be trying to catch us, but they were far enough behind for us to have won a minute or so of respite.

Then unfamiliarity with our terrain struck us a cruel blow.

‘Shit. We’re on a goddamn toll road.’

I looked ahead and saw that the traffic was slowing, moving into lanes to crawl through between the toll booths. Every lane had a red light flashing overhead: the cops had called ahead and had the road closed.

‘There,’ I said, pointing at a small housing estate on our right. There wasn’t a road into the residential area — possibly to foil any plans to avoid the toll charge — but all that separated us from escape was a chain link fence and a drainage gully. Harvey didn’t even slow, just aimed the car at the fence and blasted through. We ramped over the gully, then hit the ground hard. The car didn’t make it in one piece, the suspension was shot, but I was relieved to hear the engine continue unhindered. We swept between two rows of houses, trailing wire mesh behind us. At the end of the street, Harvey slowed, took a right and went at a moderate pace along another residential road. A left took us to another junction and across the way we saw another strip mall, this one catering to the discerning diner. There was an Italian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a rib shack and something called the Food Lion. Jammed between them was a chemist store: could have been where diners picked up a bottle of Pepto Bismol after their dinner.

We abandoned the rental in the mall parking lot, then jogged back to the intersection towards a petrol station on the far side. While we caught our breath, we watched until an old model station wagon pulled up at the fuel pumps. A skinny kid climbed out and headed for the store. Like many at service stations, he hadn’t bothered to lock his car or even remove the keys from the ignition. While he was inside, picking up a newspaper or bar of chocolate or whatever, Harvey and I were in his car and heading out of town.

The cops arrived, but they were looking for the bashed-up rental car, and we slipped by them, unnoticeable in our equally bashed-up but thoroughly anonymous station wagon. The kid would report his vehicle stolen, but by the time two and two were put together we would be well beyond the cordon.

A short time later we dumped the station wagon.

We caught a bus that took us back into town, where we hopped a cab and headed off to where Harvey’s Bell Jetranger waited for us at a small private heliport on the northern fringe of Richmond. The last place a police helicopter would be looking for us, we decided, was in the sky.

I didn’t know how I felt. The hit on Kurt Hendrickson hadn’t exactly gone as planned. That he was dead and gone was a bonus, but it hadn’t brought me any nearer to finding or stopping Tubal Cain. In fact, if anything, it had made matters worse. Not only was I now a hunted man, probably by every cop in the USA, but it was also likely that the police were being helped along their way by the very person who’d set me on this task.

Walter Hayes Conrad IV.

It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the cops just happened to turn up when they did, could it? No one knew where we were, or even who. The fact that I’d telephoned Walter, he’d played a stalling game and then a government car had turned up to scope us out hadn’t escaped me. But: why?

What purpose did it serve for Walter to betray me?

Was he disassociating himself, ensuring that his part in our scheme to finish Tubal Cain was never discovered? Or had his role already been revealed and forced him to hand me over?

I didn’t know; that was the truth of it. Thinking about the possible betrayal made my head hurt. More likely that was down to lack of sleep, and a dump of noradrenalin into my system after the sustained action of the last couple of hours. It was a good job that Harvey was at the controls of the chopper, because I was seeing double. I inhaled, shuddered out some of my tiredness. When I looked across at Harvey I could focus again. Harvey had his earphones and microphone in place. I pulled mine on.

‘That was some fancy-arsed driving you did back there.’

Harvey gave me a short, derisive laugh. ‘Fancy-assed? I was crapping my pants, man!’

‘Well, you did OK. Did you study defensive driving when you were with the Rangers?’

He shook his head. ‘I was just winging it. Sheer adrenalin got me through.’

His comments had shut down my line of conversation, and I sat there ruminating for a moment. It got me thinking on how earlier I’d have preferred if Rink had been the one covering my back, and now I felt a little ashamed of myself. ‘Harve.’

He glanced over at me, inclined his chin.

‘I’m sorry I got you into this.’

‘Anything for a friend.’

That made me feel worse. ‘You do realise that we’re probably going to go to prison for a long time.’

Harvey bit down on his bottom lip. ‘There’s always the possibility we’ll get away with it. I’ve taken precautions. The rifle can’t be traced to me. I had my gloves on when driving the car we dumped.’