Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller (31 page)

“You’re about to,” Storm said.

He tapped the brake for a half second as he eyed the westbound lane, then shifted his view to the eastbound lane. More shots were coming from the Lincoln, but they were wild. An Exxon sign beside them shattered. Some flower planters exploded. Storm only prayed the drivers milling about as their gas was pumped didn’t get hit by a bouncing bullet.

The Lincoln was closing in. And fast. If he stayed on the brake much longer, he was going to be rear-ended, probably pushing him into another car in the process. He’d be at a dead stop. If that happened, he might as well fasten Cracker into the Lincoln, then shoot himself—it would save everyone some time.

Then he saw an opening, albeit not much of one. Maybe it was enough. Maybe it wasn’t. But the moment for further deliberation had passed. Two bullets plowed into the Jaguar’s trunk. If the shooter adjusted his aim just a foot lower, Storm would lose any choice he had in the matter. It was time to act. He jammed the accelerator to the floor. The Jaguar leaped forward.

“Brace yourself,” Storm called out.

Horns blared. Cracker screwed his eyes shut. Storm gripped the steering wheel as if it were his hold on life itself. He had aimed for a clearing in the westbound lane—the first lane of cars they had to negotiate—but there was no such gap in the eastbound lane. He was heading straight for the passenger-side door of a Subaru. He could see the driver’s eyes grow wide and her mouth drop to unleash a scream as she realized she was about to be speared by what appeared to be a runaway car. But Storm couldn’t adjust course without clipping another eastbound car. A collision was imminent.

Then at the last second, he nudged the wheel to the right. He squeezed past with inches to spare. Storm let out a rebel yell as they charged toward Route 3, now totally unimpeded.

Behind him, he could hear the crunching of metal as the Lincoln T-boned the Subaru.

Storm only hoped that, because neither car was going too fast, the drivers would be okay. He was not a deeply religious man, but he uttered a quick prayer.

Storm kept the gas pedal to the floor until they reached the left-hand exit that led to the highway. As they wound around the ramp onto the highway, he eased up on the speed, relaxing his grip on the steering wheel.

Cracker looked like he was going to faint. He started doing some strange breathing exercise. Storm was about to tell him to stop—it was annoying—but then decided to let the man huff and puff. It was better than having to hear him talk.

Storm kept one eye on the road, one eye on his rearview mirror. As soon as they straightened out and reached the merge, he accelerated. A welcome sign told him the exit for the New Jersey Turnpike was a mere three-quarters of a mile on the right.

“So was that… was that Volkov?” Cracker asked.

“You got anyone else in your life who might have reason to shoot at you?”

“If I had gone bankrupt? Yeah, a horde. But not now. He’s the only one.”

“Well, there you go.”

“So what are we going to…”

“Shit,” Storm said.

“What is it?”

The pickup had reappeared in his rearview mirror. Its front grille plate was bashed in and its front bumper was missing, but it was otherwise intact. Its engine must have had enough torque to power it through the wreckage.

The only blessing was that it appeared the shooter had been thrown from the…

Never mind. He was reestablishing his position, with his arms draped over the top of the cab. He must have seen the accident coming and saved himself by hunkering down in the flatbed.

“What’s going on? Tell me,” Cracker said.

“Your friends are back.”

He was able to join the southbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike without sustaining any more fire from the Lincoln, but by now it was late afternoon. No one was going anywhere at much more than the speed limit. Storm could use the breakdown lanes to pass, but he didn’t dare use them to travel: They were a minefield of shredded truck tires and other debris. He’d be too likely to blow a tire.

In those conditions, he couldn’t open up any ground on the Lincoln. If anything, the driver of the pickup was taking more chances in his passes, not caring if he clipped the occasional car’s bumper, and therefore was gaining slightly on them. The guy with the AR-15 was taking potshots. Even if he was too far away to be able to reliably hit a fast-moving, weaving target, it was tempting fate to let him keep blasting away. Eventually, one of those bullets was going to find its target. Storm was just grateful none of the other cars had been hit. In truth, not many of them seemed to even notice the gunfire. An AR-15 muzzle blast was easily mistaken for a backfiring muffler.

Storm’s brow furrowed. Running away was frustrating him, and not just because it wasn’t working. He wanted to feel like he was doing something proactive to improve his situation. His current course of action was too passive. Storm hated passive.

“What do you have in this car?” he asked.

“What do you mean, like weapons?”

“That would be a good start.”

“Well, I’ve got a mini Swiss Army Knife on my key chain.”

“A two-inch stainless steel blade and a nail file. They might as well surrender to us now. Anything else?”

“Nothing. I’m a hedge fund manager, not a soldier of fortune.”

Storm sighed. This was the problem with amateurs. You had to spell out everything for them. “No, I mean, what else do you have in this car? I want you to list every single item in this car that isn’t bolted down.”

“Uh, okay, let’s see,” Cracker said, turning around to catalogue the contents of his backseat. “I’ve got my tennis bag… a six-pack of Poland Spring water… a CD case… a bottle of Macallan I was going to give to a buddy of mine at the club… my daughter’s car seat… a cigar case and… That’s it. Except for what’s in the glove compartment.”

Storm felt like he was rescuing a six-year-old. “And what’s in the glove compartment, Whitely?”

“Uhh, let’s see… Some napkins… aspirin… a tire gauge… my insurance and registration… and, oh, that’s where I put my sunglasses!”

“I’m thrilled for you. Anything else?”

“Nope. That’s it. Sorry, there’s not anything useful. Like I said, I’m not…”

“Actually, that’ll do just fine,” Storm said. “Get the tennis bag up here and hand me your racket.”

Cracker fished out a Head YouTek IG Speed MP. It was made of carbon fiber–reinforced polymer. There were two more identical to it in the bag.

“That’s the racket Novak Djokovic uses,” Cracker said enthusiastically.

“I’m sure he’d be very proud,” Storm replied, rolling down the window and allowing air to rush into the car.

Storm looked at the Lincoln in his rearview mirror, still keeping pace a few cars behind him, weaving in and out of traffic like he was. Storm maneuvered until he had a length of open pavement behind him and drifted into the right breakdown lane.

Then he jammed the brakes, pulled the wheel hard left, and executed a perfect one-eighty into the left breakdown lane—directly into the oncoming traffic.

A chorus of car horns blared at Storm, as did a small army of one-fingered Jersey salutes, but Storm ignored them and focused on what he was about to attempt.

A little known fact about Derrick Storm—one he seldom bothered to share, because it seldom seemed relevant—was that he was ambidextrous. He could throw with his left arm and his right. The right tended to be more powerful. But the left was, for whatever reason, more accurate. He was relying on that as he got the Jaguar straightened out and pounded the gas pedal.

Gripping the racket, he put his left arm out the window. He waited until the onrushing Lincoln was nearly on them, then hurled the racket, boomerang-style, at the gunman.

At the moment Storm released his improvised projectile, the Jaguar had gone from a dead stop to perhaps twenty miles an hour. The Lincoln was only just starting to slow in response to Storm’s move and was still traveling fifty. Counting the fifty miles an hour Storm was able to generate throwing from a seated position, the racket was coming at the gunman at an effective speed of a hundred and twenty miles an hour.

It struck him square in the forehead, knocking him unconscious and sending him careening backward, out of the flatbed and under the tires of an eighteen-wheeler. The truck didn’t have a chance to react before flattening the unexpected pedestrian.

“I guess that’s one down,” Cracker said.

“More like fifteen-love,” Storm said.

As they sped past the still-confused occupants of the pickup, Storm spied a break in the concrete Jersey barriers that separated the northbound and southbound sides of the Turnpike. It was an official-use-only U-turn, and Storm decided to officially use it. It seemed prudent to join the travel lanes of the direction he was currently pointed. He allowed himself to creep through the gap, then exhorted the Jag’s V12 forward, quickly joining the northbound left lane.

He knew better than to think that simple move would lose Volkov’s pickup. Sure enough, as Storm looked back, it was in the midst of pulling its own U-turn. It was not as adroit as the Jaguar, and Storm watched it clip the front bumper of a Chevy Cavalier then slam into the Jersey barrier, gouging its side panel but then speeding forward through the same U-turn that Storm had used.

The Jaguar had gained some ground, but the northbound lanes were not flowing any more smoothly than the southbound lanes had been. The pickup was four cars back, matching the Jaguar’s passes car for car. But at least, Storm thought, they weren’t being shot at anymore.

Then gunshots rang out again. Storm guessed, from the sound of them, it was either a .38 or a .357. Enough to shred a tire, for sure. Some cars were swerving out of the Lincoln’s way into the breakdown lane. Others honked. Others seemed oblivious—a man in the car next to the Jaguar was talking on his cell phone as if he was out for a Sunday drive.

Storm looked in his rearview window and saw a man with half his body leaned out the truck’s passenger-side window. It wasn’t Volkov. He must have been driving.

So it turned out getting rid of the gunman in the back of the truck had only improved their circumstances marginally. A shooter who had to lean out a car and use a handgun would be more errant than one planted on his feet using a rifle. So the probability of being hit by any one bullet had lowered. But each bullet still carried with it that possibility.

“Okay, I want you to listen to me very carefully, and follow each one of my instructions exactly,” Storm said. “And I don’t have time for you to question me. Can you do that?”

“I… yes, I… Yes.”

“Very good. Okay, first step. Take the Swiss Army Knife off the key chain.”

“What? We’re going to challenge them to a knife fight?”

“What did I just say about questions?”

“Sorry,” Cracker said, and worked the knife away off the key chain as Storm deftly picked his way through traffic.

“Now I felt some shirts in your tennis bag. Are those made of some kind of blended fabric? Something that wicks away moisture?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Cut one of them into six long strips.”

“Okay,” Cracker said and went to work with the knife on the shirts. Storm heard the ripping of fabric. More bullets were coming from the Lincoln. One shattered the right side-view mirror, evoking a yelp from Cracker. But, to his credit, he kept at his work.

“What next?” he said when he was through.

“Take those Poland Spring bottles and empty them.”

“Where?”

“I don’t care. On the floor.”

Cracker did as he was told. “Now?”

“Pour the Macallan in equal portions into all six bottles. And try not to spill any. We need those bottles as full as possible.”

Cracker apportioned the Scotch equally, filling each of the bottles roughly a third of the way. “Okay. Next?”

“Stuff those shirt strips in the bottles. Get as much of the fabric into the booze as you can, but leave some of the shirt sticking out the top.”

“Uh-huh,” Cracker said and applied himself to his task. He was apparently struggling with it: “The mouths of these bottles aren’t very big. I’m having a tough time getting them in there. Should I cut narrower strips?”

“No. We actually need a nice tight fit. Tight enough that it won’t spill if held upside down.”

“All right.”

Cracker worked diligently for two minutes, during which time Storm managed to keep the Jaguar shielded from gunfire.

“Done,” Cracker said.

“Great. Leave the bottles upright so that they lean against the back of the seat,” Storm said, then jerked his thumb toward the
rear of the car. “Then go back there and unbuckle your daughter’s car seat.”

“Uh, all right.”

Storm allowed himself to feel optimistic for a moment. He was confident he would soon be rid of the Lincoln.

But the moment didn’t last. The Turnpike bent to the left, and Storm needed to make a decision: Going into the left breakdown lane would allow him to pass several more cars and reach an opening that would give him the opportunity to put some significant space between him and the Lincoln; but doing so would also give the shooter a more direct line of fire to the Jaguar’s tires for a few seconds.

Storm decided to risk it. He gunned the engine and burst into the left breakdown lane.

It turned out to be the wrong decision. The moment his tires were exposed, a burst of fire came from the pickup.

And the left rear tire exploded.

The Jaguar skidded and swerved to the left, scraping concrete. Storm fought the steering wheel to keep them from losing control altogether, engaging his triceps and biceps in the battle. There were still pieces of tire clinging stubbornly onto the rim, but they were little help. It was all he could do to wedge the Jaguar back into the left lane.

“What’s going on?” Cracker called out from the backseat.

“We lost a tire,” Storm said. “It’s not your problem. Just concentrate on what you’re doing.”

“Okay. I’ve got it loose.”

Storm was thankful the Jaguar was front wheel drive. The car hadn’t lost its power. Just its handling.

It made threading his way through and around the slower traffic an impossibility. Merely keeping the car in its lane had become a struggle. Storm was now limited to moving at the speed of the other traffic.