Peter Leonard - Trust Me

With his trim beard and dark eyes, he looked like one of the 911 terrorists she'd seen in the Free Press when the Trade Center was destroyed.

After that it seemed surreal, like a movie scene in slow motion.

A car cruised into the frame, a blue and gold Garden City patrol car. The Arabs were moving. She saw the tall one go past the window on his way to the front seat. She heard the door open and saw him come back along the side of the Escalade, carrying a rifle. She saw Beard pull a semi-automatic from under his shirt and hold it against his leg, before he pulled the lift gate down and swung it closed. Karen dug at the rope with her index finger. She got a nail in the knot and felt it move.

Officer Jason Swinney watched the good-looking redhead walk down the street. He wanted to see where she lived, maybe stop by later with some news about her neighbor. She didn't appear to have a wedding ring. After he looked at her face that was the first thing he checked. He was going to ask her name, but didn't want to seem too obvious. She was older than him, ten years, at least, but that was okay. She sure was good-looking.

He tracked her to the end of the street. She was standing next to a car-some kind of foreign sedan, when two guys appeared. They grabbed her and picked her up. What the hell was going on? Were they kidding around? Jason wasn't sure what to do. He'd been a patrolman with the Garden City police department for a week shy of three months. He didn't want to make a mistake and screw up, do something embarrassing and call attention to himself. But his instinct told him to get in his car and follow the black SUV

He didn't tell dispatch what he was doing. He got in his cruiser and left the crime scene. He would follow them and see what happened. If he needed backup, he'd radio in. He tailed the Escalade down Windsor onto Middlebelt and then into the Midway Shopping Center. He wondered if he had misread the situation, if he had overreacted. He watched them park in a remote corner of the lot. What were they doing?

Swinney pulled into a parking space between a conversion van and a Silverado 4x4. He had a good angle on the SUV about a hundred feet away. He sat and watched. Nothing happened for a couple minutes, then the front doors opened and the two guys got out and opened the back end. He saw the redhead stretched out in the cargo area, and it looked like they were roughing her up. Jason had his hand on the radio about to call for backup, but changed his mind. He thought he could handle these two pussies beating up a girl.

He put the Crown Vic in gear and came up behind them in stealth mode, headlights off, speedometer needle climbing to fifteen, twenty. He pictured himself on TV, a news flash: rookie Garden City Police Officer Jason Swinney receiving a commendation from Governor Granholm after saving the life of a citizen.

He saw one of them close the lift gate, and then he saw the second one appear, coming around the side of the SUV, firing an automatic weapon, and Jason ducked for cover. He got down on the floor as low as he could go as bullets ripped up the interior, blowing out the windshield and side windows. He also heard the report of a semiautomatic handgun as rounds thudded into the side of the car. He unsnapped the clasp on top of the holster and drew his own department-issue Glock. 40, but didn't dare risk looking up. When the shooting stopped, he reached for the radio handset, brought it to his mouth and said, " Officer down…"

Once the knot was loose, Karen untied her hands and went over the backrest into the rear seat, dragging her legs, which were still bound. The shooting had stopped. She could hear a siren somewhere in the distance. She slid over the console between the front seats. Her. 357 Smith amp; Wesson Airweight was on the floor in front of the passenger seat. She leaned over and picked it up. The keys were in the ignition. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the Arabs moving toward the police car. She turned the key and shifted into drive and pushed down on the accelerator. Her bound feet felt big and clumsy on the pedal, but the Escalade took off and she could see the Arabs turn and start firing, trying to blow out the tires.

Karen swerved around a Ford F-150 backing out of a parking space. She sped across the lot, slammed on the brakes and just missed a Honda minivan. Now a police car entered the strip mall lot, flying past her, lights flashing. She heard speed bursts of machine gun fire behind her.

Karen drove out of the lot and took a left on Middlebelt Road and took a right into a neighborhood subdivision. She wound her way back to her mother's house, taking an intersecting series of dark side streets. She parked the Escalade on Windsor, the scene at her mom's was still playing out: police cars were still parked, lights were still flashing, and the neighbors were still gawking, standing behind the yellow crime scene tape.

Tariq watched Omar fire a long burst at the oncoming police car, first shooting off the flashing lights on top and then shooting out the windshield. The police car swerved off course, and slammed broadside into a parked car with impact, moving it out of its fixed position.

Omar ejected the spent magazine and reloaded, removing a new one from a satchel he wore over his shoulder. The asphalt around him was littered with shell casings. Omar turned as another police car approached from a different direction, speeding toward him. Omar raised the AK-47 to his shoulder and fired five-shot bursts. The second police car made contact with a row of shopping carts, sending carts airborne, carts in motion.

Tariq could see people emerging from stores in the shopping center, looking over at them and running back inside. He could see people in the parking lot disappearing behind their cars. He could hear more sirens in the distance, the sound of the sirens here much different from the sirens in Iraq.

He saw Omar fire at the storefronts, shooting out windows. People were running, scattering, afraid. Tariq shot a man with silver hair as he was opening the door of a Jaguar. He shot him at close range in the back of the head and the man dropped on the asphalt next to the car.

Tariq sat behind the wheel of the Jag. He turned the ignition switch and heard the engine start. He backed out of the parking space and picked up Omar, and drove slowly out of the parking lot, not wanting to attract further attention. He pushed the turn signal indicator in the upright position, turning right onto Middlebelt Road. In the side mirror, he could see more flashing lights approaching.

Karen drove to Schreiner's and parked in the driveway. She could hear laughter hang in the air, and music as she moved along the side of the house to the patio. There was a party in full swing two houses away. She could hear snippets of conversation, and then the music got louder and she could identify the singer, Shania Twain, and the song "Man! I Feel Like a Woman," sung by a chorus of buzzed partiers, mostly girls, by the sounds of their voices.

Although the weather had cooled down, Karen could feel herself sweating under her tee shirt. The back of Schreiner's house was lit up. She went through the family room into the kitchen and turned off the bright ceiling lights. There were empty beer bottles and bottle caps, and an ashtray with a roach in it on the counter. She could hear the TV on in the family room, the announcer said: "It took five years to build the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge, making it a modern marvel."

With the kitchen lights off, Karen could see outside and three people appear on the patio. They were laughing as they came in the house. She heard Schreiner say who wants to catch a buzz?

She went into the pantry and closed the door.

A girl's voice said, "Nice place. What do you do, anyway?"

"I'm a lawyer," Schreiner said.