Nick Stephenson - Eight the Hard Way

The straight stretch along the waterside lasted only four miles and two minutes as we screamed up to autobahn speeds again. The Audi suddenly slowed to eighty, threading between cars and trucks as the freeway split.

Ignoring I-80 toward Sacramento, my white rabbit took 580, a route that would lead him across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and back into Marin County. If he did, I would have nearly completed a vast loop around the north Bay.

I leaned on the horn and shot a narrowing gap as another idiot tried to cut me off.

This whole thing is crazy, I thought. I ought to have Mickey call the cops and, oh by the way, where’s the damned CHP when you need them?

Around the wide curve into Richmond we blazed, Molly’s wipers working furiously to keep the windshield clear. A mile later, just before the bridge, the Audi took the last exit, dumping straight into an industrial district next to the railroad terminus. Two hundred yards behind, I decelerated smoothly to seventy before fishtailing onto the surface streets in hot pursuit.

Horns blared as I ran the red light crossing Richmond Parkway. No way I was going to let this son of a bitch get away.

Weaving deeper into the warehouse park, the Audi led me past petroleum tanks and cracking towers of the refinery complex that filled most of the peninsula. Chemical smells sucked into Molly’s interior made my eyes water.

Rounding one final corner, the Audi slewed through the open gate into the parking lot of a rundown warehouse that backed up to a dozen huge oil tanks looming like fat cylindrical high-rises. Between the petroleum containers, tall uncut grass provided ground cover for the sandy coastal soil.

I was about to follow the Audi in when I finally came to my senses.

While there might be a back gate, as far as I could tell the big building was ringed by a ten-foot fence. I pulled over at the gap and watched my quarry drive up a ramp and into the warehouse itself.

Calming my breathing, I dialed Mickey. “Mickey, you got me on GPS?”

“Yeah, boss, I got you.” Molly updated her location in Mickey’s computer once a minute. It was a very cool system that he had built himself. He’d said someday everyone would be findable on GPS, day or night, but I didn’t really believe that either. At least, not in my lifetime. Where would the thing go? It’s not like you can cram it into a cell phone, after all. Maybe cars, sure, but...that was for the year 2050, not the 2000s.

Yeah, funny, I know. But that’s what I thought at the time.

“Get the cops out here right now,” I told him. “Warehouse fifty yards north of me. Anonymous tip, kidnapped child, perps armed and dangerous. Give them the Audi, too. Tell them female officer on scene.”

“But you’re not an officer anymore, boss.”

“So lie. It’s better than getting shot on sight.”

“Righto. You going in?” Mickey sounded eager, like this whole thing was a video game. Maybe to him it was. Cal Corwin, avatar...only real life had no respawns.

“I shouldn’t...but I am.” Just like with the bomb, and falling for Cole, and a dozen other things I could name in my life, pushing all in and hoping the right card fell.

“You crazy , girl. Stay low.”

“Doubtless.” I hung up.

Mickey was right. I was crazy, but the thought of the child kept me in that zone where it seemed like I could do anything, like in a perfect rally, like a hot streak at the tables, like that one sweet break in a case.

Riding the tiger.

PD would take from three to ten minutes to respond with a couple of cruisers, and they would be alerting the tactical team in case they were needed. With plenty of crazies calling 911 every day, they had to confirm the tip before committing resources. That left me just enough time.

Dropping Molly into first, I accelerated smoothly along the outside of the fence line. It met another barrier at the corner, one more warehouse, but that was fine. It gave me a chance to get out of sight. I swung wide around the second building and passed behind it along the old access road that dead-ended at the oil tanks in the back. Nothing barred me from driving straight into the deep grass between the painted white cylinders, though I slowed to under twenty. It wouldn’t do to blow a tire slamming into some hidden chunk of concrete.

With rally clearance and four-wheel drive, Molly powered through the scrub.

Gonna be hell to pay on the undercarriage, I thought as something banged up into a wheel well and a hidden hole made Molly bounce hard. Not at all what I figured I’d be doing when my day started.

One minute.

I drove deeper into the forest of cylinders and parked behind one of the tanks, out of sight of the back of the warehouse the Audi had entered. Once hidden I hopped out, hurriedly stripped off the blazer and opened the hatchback. Shrugging on a Kevlar vest, the one with SECURITY in big white letters on the back—technically I wasn’t impersonating a law enforcement official—and a ball cap with the same, I grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and a set of bolt cutters.

Crouch-running in the high grass, I reached the back fence to the warehouse and began cutting. The cyclone wire popped with metallic pings as I worked the cutters as fast as I could from the bottom up. As soon as I had a little door of fencing material I bent it out of the way, dropped the tool and wormed through, and then ran for the building.

Two minutes.

A loading dock ran along this side of the warehouse, with the big doors all closed. At each end a personnel entrance beckoned. I made for the left one, the closer of the two.

Sirens wailed in the distance. I hoped it was the response to Mickey’s call coming in hot. If so, they would provide a distraction. If not...well, I’d do the best I could.

At the door I paused and racked a beanbag round into the shotgun. Useful for taking down wanted criminals without killing them, I used it for the occasional bounty hunt. The attached sling held slugs and buck in case things turned ugly, and then there were my handguns. I was as ready as I could be.

Reaching out, I tested the rusty round knob. It turned, so I tried pulling. It resisted, but only because it was stuck, not locked. Slowly, trying to avoid too much noise, I dragged the barrier open by half inches.

Eye to the crack, I could see nothing. The wan daylight outside made the dim interior even darker.

Taking a deep breath I crouched, reached my fingers around the edge of the door and gave a steady pull. It ground against the concrete floor for a moment, then came free. Quickly I slipped inside and pulled it shut again with some difficulty, but left it not-quite-closed in case I had to get out fast.

I found myself behind tall cylinders, visible by looking upward to see light reflected off the steel-strutted roof’s underside. Reaching over to touch one, I found it was composed of enormous rolls of paper stacked on their ends like coins, six feet wide and twelve high. As my eyes adjusted I was able to see down the row to a gap.

I stood there a moment more, ears straining to hear anything above the faint background hum of the city outside, the breeze catching the edges of the metal building, and the spinning rattle of the ventilator balls on the roof. Voices, maybe; the burbling tones of conversation.

Three minutes.

The sirens came closer.

A low thud came to my ears then, and I turned the left to listen. My right eardrum had been burst by the bomb blast, and had never completely recovered. I moved stealthily forward toward the gap. I also thought I heard a faint cough, and then two more thuds, as of sacks of dirt being dropped on ground.

Or bodies hitting the floor?

I raised the shotgun to my shoulder and hurried to the gap, swinging around it to my left and pausing to assess. More rows of paper appeared, braced like gigantic worshippers in a church, with me standing in the center aisle. Light from the large open door the Audi had entered poured from the far end.