Who were these bastards? Burke’s crew? Or working for Liashko himself?
Whoever they were, I wasn’t going to let them follow me home. Shaking the Buick would be tough on the nearly empty roads at two in the morning. The grid of one-way streets in downtown might be my best chance. I turned left and at the next intersection jogged one block west to Boren. Not pushing my speed. Not yet. The Buick stayed with me, green paint glittering under the streetlamps. Like a blowfly keen to find a carcass. The Beretta in my pocket made a comforting weight.
They followed me over the freeway and into downtown, drifting southward. I knew of an alley off Columbia that ran for two long blocks. If I could put some extra yards between me and the Buick, I’d veer into the alley without them spotting me and have my choice of half a dozen escape routes at the other end.
I turned down the slope of Columbia. Two intersections away, the stoplight flashed red at 2nd Ave. The Buick drifted confidently behind me, one block back. I looked for a gap in the traffic, ready to run the light and leave them hanging.
A black Taurus launched itself from the curb and past me in an instant, turning sharply to block my path. I jogged right by reflex. The truck’s grill slid off the Taurus’s fender with an agonized scrape.
My engine sputtered and nearly stalled. The gas pedal felt as soft as butter. I downshifted and managed to keep the old Dodge moving, down the hill, more coasting than driving. Men were out of the Taurus now. Running to catch up. The truck’s engine finally gulped fuel and the Dodge lunged forward.
The green Buick roared past me, trying to cut off my escape. I turned hard left and nearly brained myself on the ceiling as the truck bounded onto the sidewalk, then swung right again before I crashed into the building. The truck flew off the curb, screaming across 2nd, the Buick roaring after me through a blare of frightened car horns.
The black Taurus caught up to me on my left side, the Buick now on the right. I couldn’t outrun them in the old Dodge.
And ahead, a nightmare: Columbia Street closed to all traffic by a chain-link fence, readying for the viaduct demolition. If I stopped I was dead.
I swung the wheel right. The side of the truck banged off the green Buick, once, twice, but the heavy car barely moved.
I was out of road. All the way out.
A chained gate blocked the on-ramp to the viaduct. The Dodge crashed through, sending the gate half off its hinges and links of chain flying like fastballs. I shifted again and the truck howled in protest as it tore up the ramp. Behind me, a screech and a low crunch of impact as the Taurus slammed into a solid plastic barrier at the side of the gate.
The truck climbed, so slowly that I yelled at it out loud. Headlights in the rearview. They were coming.
The on-ramp curved left to become the lower level of the abandoned highway, the southbound lanes. Demolition had already begun. I swung the wheel to avoid a pile of concrete rubble torn from the lanes above and left in pieces on this level for salvage teams to cart away.
Another heap of debris ahead, a larger one. The truck bounced as I hit a loose chunk of old asphalt. Moonlight streamed through missing portions of the upper level, where tearing down the guardrails had also demolished huge shark bites of the pavement underneath.
At the other end of the viaduct, a mile south, there must be another gate. A way out. The headlights of the Buick were closer now, the faster car eating up the distance despite the ragged road.
I’d picked the wrong instant to check the rearview. The truck struck another chunk of highway and the wheel spun. Only stomping on the brake kept me from hitting the guardrail. I sped forward again, but the Buick was right on top of me.
Ahead, just coming into full view in my headlights, a short wall of smashed concrete and twisted rebar blocked the entire road.
No way around. No way over. The truck could never climb that crumbling, spiky mass, not even with all four wheels churning.
I could make it on foot. I swung right to put the truck between me and the Buick. As I slammed the brake, the Beretta skidded from the seat where it had jostled from my pocket during the havoc and onto the floor of the truck. I unclipped my seatbelt to reach for it.
A bullet shattered the passenger window, making me flinch from the flying shards. A second round punctured the door. I ducked and rolled away from the barrage, falling out of the truck to land next to the wall of destroyed highway.
Shouts in what might be Russian or Ukrainian followed me as I half ran, half crawled up and over the bank of rubble, loose hunks tumbling and crumbling under my feet. One chunk tipped over, threatening to crush my ankle beneath it. I sprung away and fell to my hands and knees on the other side of the wreckage.
Demolition of the highway was further along in this section. The road in front of me had become more a collection of huge mounds of cracked pavement than any kind of passable route. The night sky showed in patches ahead. I was up and running, even as I heard another pistol shot and more shouts from behind.
The mounds of concrete would offer some cover. How many men would be chasing me? Four, maybe five. Too many to fight even if I still had the Beretta. I’d have to run for it, all the way to the far end. Pray none of these thugs were competitive marathoners when they weren’t busy killing people for Burke and Liashko.
No, I realized as I sprinted. Running was no good. There was no way to get off the viaduct until it ended all the way down near the stadium. Too far away, too many minutes to get there. They would send half their team with the car to head me off at the other gate. Maybe they already had.
I was boxed in, just as surely as a bull in a slaughterhouse chute.
Continuing to run would just exhaust my energy. Already my breath was tight in my chest, lactic acid building in my legs, the adrenal rush from the ambush having peaked. I needed a place to hide. Get a second wind. Attack with surprise and take a weapon from one of their crew.
There. A taller pile of rubble than most, broken sections of roadside barrier heaped on their sides against one another, forming a crude low pyramid. I looked behind me to make sure none of my pursuers were in sight before I ducked behind the pile.
I concentrated on slowing my breath. To ready myself for a fight, and so that I might hear something more than the pounding of my own heart. I peered between the leaning chunks of crumbled pavement to watch the road. Dust of decades-old cement filled my nose, as powdery as clouds from a chalkboard.
They came at a fast walk. Two of them, one on either side of the four-lane highway. Both with handguns. Scuttling like spiders from mound to mound and avoiding the brighter spots of moonlit road. Searching. Maybe they’d found the Beretta and were more confident that I was unarmed. They circled each mound separately to flank anyone on the other side. Like me.
I felt strangely calm. The part of my mind that emotionlessly calculated tactical options narrowed that list to one and ordered the rest of me to get on with it.
I reached down to pick up a heart-sized chunk of rubble. With melting slowness, I made myself as flat as I could at the base of the outer side of the pyramid, near the guardrail, one leg coiled underneath.
The two men were moving too fast to be silent. Each footfall made a distinct scrape on the pebble-strewn pavement. Twenty yards away now, checking the nearest mound of debris. Coming toward mine.
They would move together around the pyramid where I lay. I listened as each rustling step closed the distance.
A shoe landed three feet from my head. I sprung up, half blindly swinging the chunk of rubble in my fist with all my force to where his head should be. It nearly missed, striking the man high on his skull, tearing the fabric of his hood. He went sideways with a cry of pain and terror, almost leaping away in his panic. Away from me, and over the rail. He vanished.
A second cry then, shorter and ending cruelly. There was surely a sound when he hit the street thirty feet below, but it did not carry.
The other man shouted, “Stop!” behind me. Any instant now his bullets would rip through me, turning my heart and lungs into so much paste.
They didn’t come. I turned. The lean dude with the midnight stubble stood twelve feet away, his face a sweated mask of hate.
“You. Down,” he said, in heavily accented English.
I stayed where I was. Might as well die on my feet.
“Down.”
I waited. He didn’t move, either. Maybe too smart to get close.
Our little contest of wills didn’t last. A single headlight appeared to the south, weaving between the piles of debris. Their team had come through the gate at the far end. The Taurus stopped, its lone beam illuminating my angry foe and me, the other headlight and a good portion of the front grill crumpled by whatever the car had struck earlier.
Three men scrambled from the car. All of them drawing guns, training them on me.
A fourth emerged from the passenger’s seat. I didn’t need the moonlight to recognize his dark visage immediately.
Sean Burke.
He looked at me. The killer with the permanent five o’clock shadow said something to him in Russian. Burke walked to the rail and looked down at the body of his soldier on the street below.
“Take him,” Burke said. His man stepped forward to whip a leather sap I hadn’t seen across my forehead.
He got his wish. I went down, all the way. The last that any of my senses registered was a scouring rasp of grit against my cheek, and the strange sweet taste of powder from ammunition.