Authors: EJ McBride
The automatic glass doors of the gas station slid quietly open as Clara approached, the air conditioning hitting her face, clashing with the sweat from the warm night air, a shiver shooting across her body. In front of her was a relatively sprawling MiniMart, especially for a small gas station in a quiet part of town, stocking every snack and junk-food product a local junkie or alcoholic could possibly desire. The strip-lighting from the ceiling was bright, and Clara had to squint her eyes for a moment as she walked in, following the signs toward the restrooms at the back of the store. A loud Asian voice shouted out from near the cash-registers, 'You buy something!', the store owner angry at Clara's liberty-taking attitude.
'Sure, on my way back!', she shouted, heading into the restroom undeterred, being as quick as she could.
As she exited moments later, heading back toward the exit, Clara looked around the aisles, products stacked up high, and noticed that she was no longer alone. Two women, wearing evening dresses, but untidy looking were talking quietly to one another as they eyed up various bags of potato chips. One of the two, the younger looking woman, maybe in her late 20s, looked at Clara. She had thick dark hair, knotted and dirty, and wore far too much makeup on her prematurely aged skin. Clara smiled, but the woman didn't smile back, and although Clara struggled to make sense of what the woman was thinking, the cold shiver hit her again, only harder. Something felt not quite right, an uneasy sensation. Clara walked briskly toward the door, ignoring the cries of the shopkeeper, furious at being lied to, and began to jog, still in her high-heels, toward Nick and Robin.
As she approached the pair, she noticed the lights of an oncoming car illuminate the street where they were standing, the reassuring orange glow of the cab box atop it's roof, Clara breathing a heavy sigh of relief as she realised her ride to at least relative safety was here. Nick had moved toward the driver, sticking his head down to the window, confirming they were who they said they were, before opening the door for Robin, who gladly hopped in.
'Wait there sis', chirped Nick, running around the cab to grab the door for his sister. Clara got to the cab, ready to throw herself in, as more light bathed the trio, more headlights, a car leaving the JetStream station. Nick kept his head facing away, lifting his left hand up to Clara's chin, an attempt to tilt her head away in the same manner, but Clara was transfixed on the passenger of the vehicle, the same young woman she'd seen in the gas station. Clara smiled again, aware she probably wouldn't receive a smile back, before turning her attention momentarily to the driver. She sighed, her stomach balling itself up into a knot as it had done so many times lately, as the all-too familiar face of Mikhail Lebedev stared back at her, his eyes wide with shock, shouting and waving from behind the driver's seat.
Despite all the training, despite the days and weeks spent honing her mind into a slick, controlled, polished surveillance and interception device, Clara's instinct as she saw Lebedev was to simply turn away. To glance back at the cab, in the naive hope that he may not have seen her, or that he might decide not to bother her on this particular occasion. She just, looked away. As she dropped down into the seat of the cab, pulling the door shut behind her, Nick in the front passenger seat and Robin to her left, the unmistakable, deafening sound of a bullet shattering the rear windshield, ripping through the middle of the back seat and tearing into the upper back of the unfortunate cab driver, who slumped motionless against the steering wheel, the car's horn blaring out loud. Robin and Nick jumped in complete unison, the bullet shocking both of them as they flinched, eyes bolting around in an effort to work out what was happening. Clara didn't spare a second,
'Drive Nick! Do it now!'
Nick faced back to look at Clara, his sister hitting him hard on the arm, gripping his head with her hand in an effort to force him across to the driver's side. He saw Lebedev outside the car, walking toward them quickly, gun cocked and ready to fire.
Bang! Another shot, this time burying itself low into the car, not making it far enough through to damage the passengers. Nick knew their luck was running out. He reached over the driver, yanking at the handle to his door and pushing it open, ready to force the unfortunate man out onto the sidewalk, but he was dead enough that he slid out onto the cold, unforgiving concrete. Nick jumped into his seat, twisted the transmission and hit the gas, glancing in the rear-view mirror just long enough to see Lebedev fire one last shot, before running back to his vehicle to take pursuit.
Chapter 28
'Where are we going Nick?!', screamed Clara for the fourth time in quick succession.
'I don't know!', he yelled back, eyes fixed on the road ahead, only breaking his gaze to occasionally confirm that the sedan belonging to Lebedev was indeed still chasing them. They flew along the desert road, past houses and stores, joining the freeway to try and shake Lebedev off but having no luck.
'Nick!', screeched Clara.
'We're gonna have to head back into the City', he said. 'The people, the crowds might help us lose him. We're sitting fucking ducks out here'
'Just get us away from him!', yelled Clara, doing her best to stay out of sight whilst keeping an eye on the swerving car behind them. Lebedev wasn't the best driver in the world, but his car had the power that their cab didn't, and Nick knew that a car chase wasn't going to end especially favourably for them.
'He doesn't look like any agency guy I've ever dealt with', yelled Nick from the front seat.
'He's not Agency. He's uh, well. He's a Russian mobster. I kind of robbed his daughter a while back and he's not happy about it'
'So the whole 'staying legal' to keep our cover was never really going to work for you huh?', quipped Nick. 'Robin, any Mafia members you've double-crossed I should be aware of?'
Clara turned to look at Robin.
'Robin?' She reached out to gently prod him, playfully coax a response out of him as she'd done so many times before, knowing even before she'd touched him that something wasn't right. She pulled back her hand, covered in blood. 'Oh my God, Robin!', she shouted, pulling his head down and stretching him out on the back seat, his eyes sealed shut, blood dripping from his jacket. 'He must have been hit when Lebedev was shooting', cried Clara. 'What do I do?!'
'You need to find the source of the bleeding', yelled Nick, still trying desperately hard to outrun Lebedev. 'Take his shirt off, find out where the bullet's gone in'
Clara yanked firmly on Robin's jacket and shirt, lifting it up toward his head, feeling around his abdomen, thumbing back the blood for long enough to see the fresh wound. 'It's gone into his side', she shouted out.
'Has it come out the other side?!'
Clara gently rolled Robin over a little, looking underneath him until she saw an exit wound. 'Yeah', she shouted. 'Clean out the other side. That's good right!?'
'It means we don't have to worry about getting a bullet out of him. It also means that the bullet tore right through him, and right now he's bleeding out. You need to get the bleeding under control, you need to stop the bleeding! Here, use my jacket'
Nick shook and wriggled his way out of his jacket, reaching back into the car to hand it back to Clara who promptly tore and pulled at the garment, wrapping the strips around Robin's waist, doing her best to stop the blood from gushing out.
'It's not great, but it should hold', said Clara. 'He's not conscious, what are we going to do?'
'I know someone', replied Nick. 'But we need to get rid of this prick first!'
As the bright lights of Vegas approached over the horizon, the two cars screeching and swerving across the road, Nick turned to his sister.
'We'll get through this'
Chapter 29
The cab screeched into the parking lot of one of the large, commercial casinos in Vegas, Lebedev still in hot pursuit. 'I really hope you have a plan!', shouted Clara, still looking back at Lebedev, only a few feet behind them.
'I hope so too', shouted Nick, stopping the car next to the valets, hundreds of people pouring in and out of the casino's front door, launching himself out of the vehicle, shouting at the top of his lungs;
'GUN! HE'S GOT A GUN!' Nick pointed in the direction of Lebedev, who'd stopped his car and was halfway out of the driver side, his weapon drawn and clear for all to see. A woman a couple of feet away from Nick screamed, yanking at her husband's arm as the pair dropped to the ground, alerting more people, crowd mentality and panic beginning to set in, people running and yelling in every direction. Three security guards from the casino, stood by the main door pulled out their tasers, aiming them at Lebedev and yelling at him to drop his weapon. Lebedev turned, aiming his pistol at one of the guards and firing, catching the man in his shoulder, the guard yelling and dropping to the floor. The second guard pulled the trigger on his taser, the metallic prongs launching Lebedev's direction, missing the target. Then a gunshot, as Lebedev's body jolted, his eyes rolling back in his head, dropping hard on the concrete.
Clara jumped out of the car, stared at Lebedev's bloodied body, before turning to look at Nick. She locked onto his eyes, reading his thoughts; 'The Agency'. As the screams rang out from the crowd, as people fled to their cars, a throng of people running into the casino for safety, more people heading out to see what was going on, Clara swore she heard the sound of helicopter blades nearby. By the time she'd formulated the thought, by the time she'd been able to comprehend whether the sound was real or not, a commercial helicopter roared into sight, hovering about 300 feet away, a man with a sniper rifle pointing out of the side.
'Run!', yelled Nick, 'Now!'
'We can't leave Robin!'
Nick looked around, trying to find them an escape route, spotting a busy restaurant complex just the other side of the 8-lane road, a mass of fast-food joints and family diners. 'Head to the restaurants!', shouted Nick. 'We can lose him in amongst them. He can't land here and the second he's out of sight we can get away! We'll get Robin before we go I promise!' The pair paused for all of a second, barely turning in the direction of the restaurant complex before another gunshot rang out, an unknown man walking out of the 'Taco Shack' in front of them dropping dead on the sidewalk. The pair stared at one another in disbelief, Clara looking up at the helicopter, suddenly recognising the man behind the rifle. 'Boal?', she yelled, more in disbelief than anything else. 'How did he know we were,,,'
'He's reading us', shouted Nick, grabbing his sister by the hand and yanking her down into cover behind the cab.
'I'm sorry, what!? He's READING us? How can he, I mean, from there, and, but he can't,,,'
'Fuck sake Clara', snapped Nick. 'You think the head of a Government unit like this would allow himself to be around people like you without having some tricks up his own sleeve?'
'Oh my God!', screamed Clara, looking up and around, trying to spot the helicopter that by now was circling them, desperately trying to get a clear shot. 'He's been able to read me the whole time? He knows everything there is to know about me'
'He doesn't need super powers to be able to do that. He's had a file on you for years'
'What do we do?!'
'We're going to have to outrun him'
Nick tugged on Clara's arm, hoisting her quickly up to her feet, opening the door of the cab and forcing her in to the back, jumping into the driver's seat immediately afterwards.
'Try to keep you and Robin low, bury into the footwells if you need to!' Robin slammed the gear lever down hard, pulling away with more screeching and tyre burning than he ever thought possible from a taxi cab. The car roared out of the main casino entrance and out onto the busy road, tearing through an intersection on a red light, narrowly avoiding a collision in the process.
'You need to get us out of here!', shouted Clara from the back. As the car shuddered and vibrated, thundering along the main road, she lifted herself up a little from the back seat, glancing cautiously out of the rear window, just as a bullet slammed into what was left of the rear windscreen, missing her by inches and burying itself into the front passenger seat. Clara screeched and dived back down.
'Stay down!', ordered Nick. 'He's too quick. I don't know how to outrun him, I don't know how to...' Nick stopped mid-sentence, the cab still hurtling along the main road, the neon-bright lights of The Diamond Palace, one of Vegas' newest and busiest Casinos on the strip glowing in the distance. He lifted his left wrist up, looked at his watch, a wry smile on his face. 'I might have an idea', he said. 'You're going to need to hold on' Nick pushed down on the accelerator as far as it would go, as if he were trying to reach his foot through and out the other side of the vehicle, pushing the car beyond it's limits. The helicopter kept up it's pursuit, Boal signalling with his hand and yelling at the pilot to turn and circle, desperate to get a better shot, glancing down the scope every couple of seconds, squeezing the odd round off here and there, each one coming painfully close to hitting them. Nick swerved across lanes of traffic, mounting the sidewalk for a second before careering back onto the tarmac, heading in the direction of The Diamond Palace. A marvel of modern architecture, a modern mess of glass and metal, the casino stood proud against it's older and more established neighbours, an investment by rich Saudis looking for somewhere to play when they visited the USA. An enormous crowd of people were gathered in an enormous outdoor area, sat in huge seating structures, talking, laughing, drinking. Nick swerved hard on the steering wheel, the car veering off of the main road, smashing through the security barrier outside of the casino's parking lot, circling around the enormous mess of parked vehicles.
'What are you doing!?', yelled Clara from the back seat.
'Trust me', said Nick, glancing again at his watch, looking at the helicopter through the rearview mirror. 'Any second now, it will be any sec...'