36

A BEARDED MAN wearing a Ravens jersey caught Addy’s attention as he wedged his way through the front door and worked his way to the end of the ordering line. For a moment, their eyes locked. Addy turned to leave the cupcake store. Suspecting the man was more than an admirer, she spun her head and glanced backward, noticing the man’s gaze suddenly shift away from her and to the menu displayed on the wall. Keeping one eye fixed on the man, she made her way closer to the exit. Once again the man set his eyes on her, a dark cold stare.

Addy bolted from the cupcake store into her stolen truck, digging her fingers into her shoe to extract the wadded gum wrapper while she craned her neck to see over the dashboard. Steering with the wrist of her injured hand, she once again un-crumpled the paper. The encryption scheme was simple. Quinn had randomly assigned a number from one to ten for each single digit. Her task was simple enough, match each number of the geocode with the identical number on the gum wrapper, then find its counterpart. But she couldn’t manage that while driving.

She needed another hotspot to run her geocode app on her phone and identify where Quinn had stashed Hindy’s replacement. Her best bet was the Shell station where she’d hidden the catalyst. She could do a two-for-one: connect to the internet, get the location of the cache, then unearth the catalyst. The danger, of course, was that the moment she had the catalyst, all hell would break lose. Addy was convinced a tracking mechanism had been attached to her truck. She’d thought about trying to find the bug, but then realized she didn’t know the least thing about electronic surveillance and it would be a waste of time to try to find it. Which meant that the truck had to go before she retrieved the catalyst.

Addy was still a good eight miles from Sunnyvale, and ditching her only mode of transportation this far away from the catalyst was problematic. Addy looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was nearly noon; only one hour left.

Her options were limited. A bicycle would be too obvious, even if she could find one and figure out how to steer with an injured hand. Walking was out of the question. That left the train, one that ran on a single north-south line from San Jose to San Francisco. She didn’t have a train schedule, but she recalled that it was scaled back on weekends. Even then, what would she do when she got to the Sunnyvale station?

She looked at her speedometer. She was going fifty on a residential street. Her foot was as frantic as her mind. How was she going to dump the truck, get the catalyst and rush to the geolocation all within an hour? She had to have the new Hindy to Levi’s^® Field before kickoff.

Taking a gamble, she raced toward the bed of cobblestones hiding the vial, remembering there was a Starbucks across the street. At least she could get close, run the app to tell her where Hindy was being stored, and from there make a plan to get the catalyst.

She tapped on the radio dial, and scanned the available stations, hoping to get a traffic report. All the buzz was about the game. She listened to one DJ summarize the commercials that had already been leaked onto websites.

Then he changed topic to read a breaking news story, one that many of the local stations had been following. Yesterday, there had been a grisly murder of a patent examiner, one who had been examining a patent application about a car that could run on water. He mentioned that the patent attorney who had filed this patent application was a so-called “person of interest,” because of an incident involving the examiner and this same patent attorney at a health club right before the examiner’s death.

Now, the announcer said, the case had turned to the bizarre, when Palo Alto police had discovered the body of Addy’s former partner hanging from his bedroom ceiling. One neighbor reported that they’d seen a woman fitting Addy’s description and driving a black truck with large mud tires exiting the home earlier that morning. Police were reportedly putting together a reward for information on her whereabouts.

“I don’t know about you,” the DJ concluded, “but this is totally crazy. Who would have thought that a patent attorney would break into the Patent Office databases to steal US technology, then kill an examiner for not allowing a patent application that purportedly covers a car that can run on water, then murder her former partner? And, I might remind you that this is the same attorney who, just a few weeks ago, started a fire on El Camino when the blimp hovering over her hydrogen-power car exploded in rush-hour traffic.”

Addy was furious. Her hydrogen storage tank didn’t explode! The jerk neglected to tell his listeners that it went up in flames because it been shot.

Why wouldn’t anyone believe that she wasn’t a murderer, that she had been set up, a patsy for the schemes of competing government and corporate interests, and that she really did have a car that could run on water?

Addy’s knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel, gritting her teeth through the ever-lingering pain in her hand. If she was viewed as a fugitive, as some kind of crazed serial murderer, she wondered how much sympathy she was going to generate during her Super Bowl commercial.

But seeing was believing. She absolutely had to get to the stadium. It was her only chance. Otherwise, she was doomed to a life behind bars. If she was lucky.

She swung the monster truck into the first available parking stall and rushed into the Starbucks. She found an empty table and switched on her phone. She didn’t bother looking to see how many other vehicles had made their way to the coffee shop.

As she waited, she smoothed out the gum wrapper and began decoding the seven-digit number for the longitude. The first number was a six. That corresponded to a three. Then an eight that matched up with a two. She continued the process until she had decrypted Quinn’s code.

When the phone had finished booting up, she searched the icons, desperately searching for the geo app where she could type in the translated coordinates. She scanned through the four rows of square icons, noticing apps on calculators, the weather and stock quotes, but couldn’t find anything on GPS coordinates. Had Quinn forgotten to include it?

Then she realized there were more screens. She swooshed her finger across the screen to another page. There it is, she told herself, in the middle row. She tapped the screen, uploaded the program and feverishly typed in her code.

Her heart sank when a map of the address popped up. The new Hindy was stored in a warehouse in South San Francisco. Did Quinn realize that the 49ers didn’t play in San Francisco anymore? Candlestick was long gone. Their new stadium was in the South Bay, nearly a forty-five-minute drive in good traffic.

Staring blankly at her phone, she remembered seeing a familiar icon on the second page. She exited the geo app and went back to the main screen. She hadn’t been imagining it. In the row above the geo app was one from a taxi service.

Quickly, she tapped the screen to see if it worked. It loaded instantly. And, Quinn had set up a prepaid account. Quinn was definitely making it easy for her to get to South San Francisco. She wondered whether she should take the chance. There was no time for debate. If she didn’t have a car, she didn’t have a commercial.

Addy threw together a new plan. She asked to have a driver meet her in the back parking lot of the apartments behind the row of hedges. In a matter of seconds, her phone buzzed as she received a text. She pumped her fist when she saw the banner at the top of the screen. Be there in three minutes.

She leapt into the truck, revved the engine and illegally darted across four lanes of traffic, barely avoiding a collision with a yellow Corvette. She maneuvered parallel to the first pump and hopped out. Addy shoved the gas hose into the tank and hurried to the back of the convenience store to the bathrooms, head down, eyes raised, trying to remember the exact bush where she’d buried the vial in the Ziploc bag.

She remembered it was four bushes to the right. Her dart across the street hopefully slowed down her pursuers enough so that they wouldn’t see what she was doing, but she didn’t dare underestimate them. Even so, if she didn’t get the catalyst now, everything she and Perry and Quinn had been through would have been for nothing.

Crouching, she scurried over to the spot where she found a familiar, slightly pink cobblestone. She had chosen that one so it would be easy to find. She quickly hefted off the three cobblestones, expecting to find a plastic bag. Her heart sank when the only thing beneath the stones was bare ground and a few ants.

Addy looked to her right at the next bush. No, she was sure this was where she’d put it. But now they all started looking the same. She shuffled to the adjacent bush and tore away the stones. Again, bare ground. This time she went to her left, checking beneath the stones of the next two bushes, all with the same result.

Addy squeezed her temples. This couldn’t be happening. After everything she’d been through.

She sank to her knees and pounded the dirt with her good fist. Someone had watched her deposit the catalyst and had taken it. But who? There were plenty of others who still believed she had it.

She looked over her shoulder. Parked at the pump in front of her truck was a sedan with tinted windows. A man was standing, arms folded, watching her while he pumped his gas. She remembered the sunglasses. It was the same man who had passed her in the muffin shop. He quickly looked down and fiddled with the gas hose.

She heard a vehicle on the other side of the hedge. From her vantage point, she could see into the parking lot of the apartment complex. It was a green and white Prius. Her taxi had arrived.

“Are you looking for something?” came a voice in a thick Spanish accent.

She lifted her head and spun around. A short man with a dark, leathery face and wearing jeans and a long-sleeved button-down shirt was peering down at her. It had a logo embroidered just above his bulging pocket—the name of the convenience store.

“No, I mean yes. I’ve misplaced something. I figured someone may have found it and put it in the rocks.”

The man patted his shirt just over his heart. She could see the bulge in his pocket. “I saw you put it there. It must be valuable.”

Addy shot out her hand. “Please, I’ll give you anything.”

“At first I thought it was drugs, but I tasted it. It tastes like dirt.”

Addy moved her hand closer. “Please sir. It’s a chemical. I need it for my chemistry class. My boyfriend tried to steal it when we had a fight.”

It was the same story she’d told before, but from the blank stare she could see it wasn’t registering.

“Okay, how much do you want for it?”

Now the man smiled.

“How much do you have?”

Addy figured she had about a hundred in change left in her purse. She offered him all her money.

“A rich girl like you driving a truck like that, you’ve got to give me more. I wish I could drive a truck like that.”

“It’s yours,” Addy quickly offered, having no intention of getting back into that truck. “The keys are in it, and my wallet too.”

The corner of the man’s eyes crinkled, as if he were being played for a fool.

“No, I’m serious. Take it. Just give me what’s in your pocket.”

The man looked back at the truck with its chrome package and oversized tires. “It’s a nice truck.”

“And it’s yours. Just give me back my chemicals.”

Slowly, the man unbuttoned his pocket, removed the plastic bag containing the vial and placed it into Addy’s outstretched hand. She shoved it down her shirt, the plastic pressing against her skin. The clerk’s body was positioned so that the man pumping gas could not see the exchange.

“Go get your truck,” she insisted, and she went down on all fours and crawled through the hedge. When she emerged on the other side, she brushed off her yoga outfit and opened the back door of the Prius.

“To the San Francisco Hilton?” the man asked.

“Yeah, for now,” Addy said. “And make it quick. I’ll give you a hundred-dollar tip in cash if we get there in thirty minutes.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said gunning the car before she’d even closed the door. Addy strained to look through the row of bushes as the car gained momentum.

Peeking through a gap, she noticed that the black truck with big mud tires had already pulled away from the pump. Her stomach sank. If the man was followed, who knew what might happen to him? She didn’t know if she could handle another death on her conscience. She hoped it turned out to be the FBI and not some terrorists.

“You should have waited another hour until the game starts,” the driver complained as he turned onto the 101 Freeway. “This traffic is impossible. For a Sunday afternoon, there’s a lot of congestion.”

Addy leaned forward and stole a glance at the digital clock. Kickoff would be in two hours. Even if the driver managed to reach the warehouse in South San Francisco in thirty minutes, that left her less than an hour to retrace her path and continue south to Levi’s^® Stadium in Santa Clara.

She did a quick mental calculation. She had a thirty-minute buffer, but the number of vehicles on both the north and southbound lanes could easily eat that up.

“What’s going on at the Hilton?” the driver continued. “Super Bowl party?”

“Something like that,” Addy said, fidgeting with her phone. “Are you going to watch?”

“No, I’ve gotta work. Besides that, I’m not into American football. Where I come from, the football is round and you can’t touch it with your hands.”

“Soccer,” Addy said, staring unfocussed at the brake lights in front of them.

The driver reached over and switched on his radio to an AM news station. The host was discussing the strange case of Examiner Johnston’s murder.

“Can we listen to another station? I want to hear what’s going on at Levi’s^® Stadium.”

The driver held up his hand. “Just give me a second. I want to hear about this. You been following this case? Some patent attorney kills an examiner and gets accused of stealing government secrets. Just today her former partner is murdered in his house and a neighbor saw her running away.”

“He’d already been dead a day,” Addy said, then instantly regretted it. “How about listening to the Super Bowl, something a little less depressing?”

“You’re the client,” he finally said, switching the channel. “But she sure seems guilty to me.”

Once they passed Hillsboro, the traffic broke free, and the Prius reached nearly eighty miles an hour. At the last second, Addy gave a new set of instructions.

“I need you to exit right here on Grand Avenue, then take a left on Linden Street.”

His head swiveled around like an owl’s and he scowled.

“I’m the client, remember?”

He swerved the Prius and shot down the exit ramp, following her instructions. In a few blocks they approached a warehouse in the shape of a giant barn with red walls and a corrugated metal roof. It had five bays for semis to dock and unload their wares. Two dozen unhitched trailers were stacked and waiting for a hookup. A wide chain-link gate blocked the entrance.

“This is it,” Addy said.

The driver handed her his mobile phone, and Addy approved the payment with the promised tip, then jumped out and waved the driver on.

The taxi sped away, and Addy rolled away the gate and slipped through, nervous and uncertain. Would some masked men take her down and conduct a thorough body search?

She darted across the pavement and crept along beside an unhitched trailer. She wondered which one, if any, held Hindy II. When she reached the set of bay doors, she noticed one was a few feet open. This could be a trap, she thought. She might never come out alive. Could she trust Quinn?

Time was running out, and she was out of options. Addy flung herself down on her belly and wiggled her way through, hoping to find Hindy all ready for her Super Bowl appearance. A sharp pain shot up from her bandaged hand, but she had no time for medical attention. Ignoring the pain, she pushed herself upright.

Inside, the air was cool and damp. With no windows, the warehouse was dark except for the light streaming in from underneath the bay door. Addy waited for her eyes to adjust. The warehouse was nearly full of cardboard boxes, none of them large enough to store a full-sized vehicle. As she took in the scene, her neck and shoulders prickled as she half expected to be clubbed from behind.

“Quinn,” she softly called out.

An eerie silence followed. Addy could feel the blood thudding in her ears. Then she heard a faint bang, like a door slamming. Addy turned in that direction while feeling her way along the wall until she encountered a light switch. Turning it on would give away her position, but she needed light to find her way around the stacks of boxes. But time was running out, so she shrugged and flipped it on. A row of incandescent ceiling lights banished the gloom.

Now she could see the entire warehouse, which was big enough for a 49ers practice. There were brown cardboard boxes everywhere. But nothing that would hold something the size of a car.

Off to her left she could see another door, which she assumed led to the front office. The slamming door had come from that direction. Addy dashed over and gently turned the handle, wondering if this would be the end of her quest.

She cracked the door a few inches, and suddenly she heard another loud bang, then another, then someone rustling papers. She pushed the door open far enough to poke her head through and peek inside.

By light from a small desk lamp, she could see Quinn frantically flailing his arms, tossing documents out of drawers, then slamming them shut. Sweat was dripping from his nose and his pupils were dilated.

She nudged the door further and it struck something on the floor. Instantly, Quinn pivoted, yanked out a gun from his pants and pointed it at the door.

“Quinn,” she whispered with her finger over her lips.

He slowly lowered his weapon, his eyes focused on her small frame.

“Is that you, Addy?” he said stepping forward.

She held up her hand. “Wait, don’t come any closer. Are we alone?”

“Unfortunately,” he said. “I could use a little help.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Quinn wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, but remained silent.

“Let me tell you what you don’t want to hear. Perry’s dead. He’s been murdered. And you know what he did right before he died? He paid for the commercial with his own money.”

Quinn’s jaw dropped. “I’m so sorry,” he stammered.

“Oh, no you’re not. You know what else I found out? Janice tried to give me fake wiring instructions. You were going to wire the money back into your own account and make it look like you’d paid for the commercial, just so you could get your catalyst back. But it didn’t work. Perry beat you to it. And I’m not going to let you tie me up and take the catalyst.”

Quinn ran his fingers through his saturated hair. “Addy, none of that’s true. I called Perry last night, right after you and I separated. I told him about our plan, and that I was supposed to get him the rest of the money and track down the car. But the problem was that there was no way I could get the money.

“When I called Korea, it set off all kinds of red flags. They froze all the accounts. When I explained that to Perry, he said not to worry, that he’d already arranged for payment, and all he needed me to do was to get the car to Levi’s^® Stadium.

“He said that no matter what had gone on between us, he was sorry for how he treated me and that he believed that I was the only one who could help you. He said that if anything happened to him, I needed to make sure I got the car to the stadium in time. He said it was your only hope, but that he knew I could do it.”

Addy folded her arms. If what Quinn was telling her was true, Perry had not only given all his savings, but he’d also admitted that he needed Quinn, and had even asked his forgiveness. Her chest felt tight. She’d misjudged her former partner, but too late to thank him.

“What about Janice?” Addy said.

“She must still be working for WTG. That explains why they froze my accounts. They knew I was trying to get money for the commercial even before I called. They must have given Janice the wiring instructions, hoping to prevent your Super Bowl appearance.”

Addy swallowed and blinked hard, trying to contain her emotions. “Are you telling me the truth?” she finally asked.

“I’m truly sorry about Perry,” he said. “I misjudged him. He was an amazing human being.”

Addy couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer. She rushed to Quinn and threw her arms around him. His tight-fitting black shirt was damp and hot. She felt his strong arms pull her tight, then drop.

“I’m afraid I’ve let you both down,” he whispered. “The only task Perry gave me was to get Hindy to the Super Bowl. It seems like I can’t even do that. I’ve got Hindy in one of those semi-trailers out there, but I can’t find the truck keys. Without the keys to the tractor, I can’t hook up the trailer, and the game is ready to start.”

She stepped back and looked into his brown eyes, then smoothed back his rumpled hair. All she felt was relief that he hadn’t betrayed her.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find them.”

He shook his head. “I’ve torn this place apart. They’re supposed to be here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said, sinking onto the floor, utterly exhausted. “Without a car, Perry’s death is going to be in vain. What are we going to do?”

She pulled the vial from out of her shirt and held it up. “No, Perry didn’t die for nothing. I’ve got the catalyst, and we are going to find those keys. We didn’t come this far to fail. Perry wouldn’t have wanted that. He believed in both of us. Now it’s time to prove him right.”

Quinn raised his eyes and she could see a glimmer of hope. “I’m not sure where else to look.”

“I have an idea,” Addy said and raced back into the warehouse. She remembered hitting her head on the corner of a thin cabinet next to one of the bay doors while she was feeling for the light switch. At full speed, she ran back and found a small oak cabinet the jutted out a few inches from the wall. She swung it open as Quinn raced to her side. The interior held five rows of brass hooks from which dangled an assortment of keys. She plucked off a half dozen and slapped them into Quinn’s hand.

“Start with these. I’ll bring the rest. One of them has to work.”

He quickly leaned over and kissed her, then raced for the big rig.

The tractor Quinn was going to use to haul the semi-trailer housing Hindy was bright blue, with Jerry’s Trucking emblazoned on both doors. It had polished chrome exhaust pipes running along each door. Quinn was standing on the runner shoving each key into the lock. Addy noticed his hands were shaking.

“How much time do we have?” he said.

Addy switched on her phone. “Forty minutes.”

Quinn threw a key to the ground and tried another. “It takes that long just to drive there, and we’ve still got to figure how to hook this thing up.”

“Keep trying. One of them is going to work.”

The next key slid into the lock and he turned it clockwise. The door popped open. “Someone is watching over you,” he said jumping inside and starting the diesel engine. A dark plume of smoke billowed out the exhaust pipes.

“Have you ever driven one of these?” she asked.

“Never,” Quinn said. “Have you?”

“Only once. The father of one of the families I stayed with in high school was a trucker. He said I was a terrible driver when I drove over one of his sprinklers, so I bet him I could drive his big rig through the McDonald’s drive through and order a hamburger.”

“Did you?”

“Not even close. I ground the gears so many times getting out of our neighborhood that he said the bet was off.”

“At least you know how they work.”

Addy screened the mass of semi-trailers strewn out over the parking lot. “Which one has Hindy?”

“That one,” Quinn said, pointing to an unmarked gray trailer at the front of the second row. “You stand in front of it and help me get this tractor truck lined up.”

While Addy ran to the front of the second bay, she heard Quinn grind the gears. The truck lurched forward and died. She laughed when she saw Quinn bang the steering wheel. He tried again, and this time was able to direct the cab to the front of the line of trailers.

“Keep coming,” Addy said, beckoning with both hands while Quinn shoved the cab into reverse and gently released the clutch. When the hitch was aligned, Addy held both hands high in the air. “Okay, stop,” she yelled.

Quinn kept the engine running while he ran behind the tractor and began cranking a handle to lower the trailer onto the hitch. “There’s got to be some kind of electrical connection. See if you can figure it out.”

Addy found an assortment of wires dangling from the trailer and found mating connectors on the semi-truck. She plugged them together.

“Good enough,” Quinn said. “Hop in. We’re going for a ride.”

“Don’t you want to test it first?”

“No time.”

“I’d feel better if I knew we were legal. Stay here,” she commanded.

Addy darted to the cab and pumped the brakes, then turned on one of the blinkers. “See anything?”

Quinn studied the back of the trailer as a yellow light flashed on and off.

He gave her a thumbs-up signal.

This time it was Addy who ground the gears as she searched for first, then gently let out the clutch. Addy watched her side mirror as the truck and trailer began moving in unison.

Quinn held up both thumbs. “That works for me,” he yelled. “Let’s get out of here.”

The truck was still edging forward when Addy heard the roaring of an engine, followed by squealing tires. A black Suburban roared into the lot and skidded sideways, blocking the entrance.

“We’ve got company,” Addy muttered.

Quinn raced to the front of the big rig and hopped onto the runner. They both watched while three figures, all wearing bulletproof jackets, leapt out, weapons drawn.

“Your friends from WTG?” Addy asked.

“I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure. I wouldn’t have thought my colleagues were capable of murder.”

Addy squinted her eyes. At least two of them had heavy beards, one with a bulging top lip. The third had hair flowing to the shoulders—a woman.

“My friends are back. We’re dealing with terrorists.”

A fourth person followed. “Wait, that can’t be!” Quinn stammered, “but it is. That’s Wilcox. He doesn’t want the secret to get out. These guys killed the examiner—and Perry. They’re not here to negotiate.”

“What now?” Addy said.

“I’m going to slow them down. You get out of here.”

Addy reached out and grabbed his arm. “No! I can’t leave you. They’ll kill you, cut you up just like they did to Johnston.”

“Yes, you can. Just get to the stadium. I’ll find a way out of this. I’m an Olympic fencer, remember?”

Addy’s eyes began to burn. “This isn’t a time to joke around. I’m not leaving you. I can barely drive this thing. And they blocked the entrance.”

Quinn ignored her and reached behind her seat, emerging with a crow bar. Then he slipped off the runner and onto the pavement.

“Get back in here!” Addy shrieked. “I need a copilot.”

“You can figure it out. You’ve made it this far,” he said, maintaining eye contact with the three assailants.

“Don’t go,” Addy begged.

Quinn kept marching forward, slapping the crowbar against his open hand. Addy released the clutch to keep pace. The big rig jolted forward.

“It’s the least I can do,” Quinn continued. “I owe you this one. Two people have died because of me.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Addy said through her tears. “Get inside.”

“Just do what I say. Okay?”

“But they will kill you.”

Quinn kept up his steady pace, continuing to pound the metal rod in his open hand, ready for a fight. As he got closer, the first two men left the cover of the Suburban and rushed forward, leaving Wilcox and the woman behind.

“Don’t be a fool,” one of them yelled, their weapons still drawn. “Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head.”

Quinn continued toward them, undaunted. A shot kicked up a puff of dirt at Quinn’s feet. This time he stopped. He turned to look at Addy and waved her on. Another shot rang out. The crowbar fell clanking to the ground and Quinn grabbed his shoulder.

“Get down,” the assailant again commanded.

Quinn obeyed and began to kneel, still clutching his wounded shoulder.

The first man sprinted forward and swung behind Quinn, then kicked him in the back, knocking him face down on the asphalt.

Addy reacted, grinding the gears as she hunted for second, then found it. She floored the pedal and the semi accelerated.

The second man yanked out a baton from his jacket and swung it down on Quinn’s back. Addy had to look away, and the engine was revving too high for Addy to hear the impact.

The big rig gained speed, but still not fast enough to stop the thug from striking another blow. Addy propelled the truck at the man, causing him to leap sideways. At the last possible second, Addy swerved to avoid hitting Quinn.

The man who had kicked Quinn to the ground jumped to the runner and hung onto the side mirror, his other hand holding a revolver. Once he regained his balance, he pointed it directly at Addy’s temple. His oversized lip and black eye gave him away. The man with the tattoo, the same terrorist who had shot Hindy’s balloon, punched her in the ribs and tried to stop her at the gym.

“Stop the truck!” he bellowed in a deep baritone voice.

Addy kept her eyes straight ahead while they bore down on the Suburban. She found third gear and increased her rate of acceleration. Now she was only a few yards from impact. She made eye contact with the woman who’d held her tight while the man who was now hanging on to her mirror had crunched her ribs. Her gaze moved to Wilcox, who she now knew to be the mastermind behind these acts of terror. She hoped they wouldn’t move. She wanted them both dead.

Out of her peripheral vision, she sensed the man with the tattoo who’d caused her so much pain was perfecting his aim. At the last possible second, she ducked, just when the man pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed through the cab, and a second later the semi broadsided the Suburban.

The impact slammed her head against the steering wheel, leaving a gash over her left eyebrow. But it knocked the gunman off the runner, sending him headlong over the windshield of the Suburban.

The momentum of the semi pushed the crushed vehicle aside, and Addy shot into the street. Bullets whizzed through the cab, and Addy kept her head down. She could hear bullets tearing into the side of the trailer and its precious cargo, and she wouldn’t be able find out whether they’d disabled the new Hindy until she reached the stadium.

She kept the pedal down, veering left, then down the middle of the road toward the onramp for Grand Avenue.

She never had the chance to check her sideview mirror to see what had happened to Quinn. After what Wilcox and his clan had done to Johnston and Perry, she had a sick sense that she already knew what was in store. She wanted to stop, turn the rig around and finish off Wilcox. But she knew it would be useless. They had an arsenal, and she had nothing. Quinn had given her his final wishes.

Whatever happened to him, it was up to her to make sure his sacrifice was worth it.