Busted (2 page)

The shotgun was raised, but the man didn’t come closer.

Will pressed his luck. “Don’t worry about me. Just take the money, jump back on 75 and get the hell outta here.” Will had to swallow so he could keep talking. “Police ask me, I’ll tell them you took the back roads.”

There was a moment that felt a lot like contemplation. Will didn’t realize he’d
been holding his breath until he saw the gunman shake his head once, then turn back to the girl at the cash register.

Apparently, the gunman wasn’t pleased with her lack of progress. “I said hurry, you stupid bitch!”

“I’m doin’ it!” she yelled back. Will chanced another look. She stuffed one last handful of cash into the bag before shoving it toward the robber. “That’s it! That’s all I got!”

The gunman snatched the bag out of the girl’s hand. Relief seemed to flood his body. His teeth showed under the mustache. He gave a rebel yell as he raised the shotgun and pulled back on the trigger, which was a very dramatic way to make an exit, but a stupid thing to do if you wanted to get away.

Double-barrel shotgun. Two triggers. Two shots. Unless he broke the action and reloaded, the gunman might as well be holding a hollow metal stick.

Will stood up.

“Jesus Christ!” the gunman screamed, obviously startled.

Will started walking toward him.

“What are you doing?”

Will told the girl, “Go out the back.”

“I thought we were cool!” the man yelled, his voice cracking. “Stop right there!”

Will didn’t stop.

The man leveled the shotgun from his waist. “I’ll shoot you.”

Will kept walking. The girl was frozen in place, so he made his voice harder. “Move.”

She finally did as she was told, bolting for the back door.

“Stop!” The man shook the gun at Will. “I mean it! Stop!”

Will still didn’t stop.

The gunman pulled on the first trigger, then the second one. The empty clicks reverberated through the store. “Shit!”

Will grabbed the shotgun. The hot barrels singed his skin. He jammed the butt of the gun into the man’s chest so hard that he could feel the sternum give. The man stumbled back against the plate glass window. His arms flew out. His eyes went wide. There was a clinking sound. The glass started to crack, white lines shooting out like bolts of lightning.

The man’s forehead broke out in blood – at least that’s what it seemed like. Will felt the air stir as a bullet whistled past him. Bone and gray matter spattered his face, the front of his shirt. The gunman had been shot from behind. The bullet went through the glass, through his head, and almost straight into Will.

Instinct.

Will’s knee hit the floor. His hands went over his head like they could magically stop a bullet.

The idling Chevy.

The get-away vehicle.

The driver stood outside the open door to the truck. He started shooting wildly into the store. Bullets zinged off the floor, ricocheted into the snack displays.

Will reached for the Glock. The cop’s hand snaked out and grabbed it before Will could. Even flat on his back, he wouldn’t give up his weapon. Another bullet whizzed
past Will’s shoulder. There was no time for reasoning. Since Will couldn’t grab the Glock, he grabbed the bag of cash. He ran down the aisle, hiding behind the end cap as linoleum tiles splintered behind him.

Silence descended. Like time, sound was defying the laws of science.

Slowly, Will was able to pick out some familiar noises. The idling engine of the Chevy was like a broom sweeping up asphalt. The heavy, snare-drum pounding was his heart trying to break out of his chest. The rat-tat-tat was the breath panting out of his mouth. Will looked down at the bag of cash in his hands like it could explain to Will why he’d grabbed it. And then for no reason at all, he looked back up at the Icee machine.

The red light was flashing again.

Motherfucker.

Glass crunched. The driver was inside the store. Will’s eyes automatically locked onto the fish-eye mirror. He could see the second shooter, so the second shooter could also see him.

Everybody wanted to think they were Rambo in a situation like this, but the fact was the only thing going through your mind was that you were probably going to die. Will debated how to go out. Should he throw the bag of cash at the man, hoping that’s all he wanted? Should he just stand up and take the bullet to his chest on the off chance that all the major arteries would be missed? Should he just stay curled into a ball and piss himself like every bone in his body was telling him to do?

One single gunshot rang out. Will stood up. This wasn’t instinct or training, but just blind hope. The shot was either the cop shooting the driver or the driver shooting the cop. It didn’t really matter. This was Will’s only chance. He lunged into a full run. He
kept his body low like a linebacker going for a tackle. The driver was either distracted or shocked or just plain stupid, because instead of shooting Will in the face, he stood there with his mouth open in surprise until Will’s shoulder slammed into his gut.

The force pounded them both into the floor. Will tried to grab onto the man, but he was wiry, and he bucked like a horse. Will got in a few punches before the driver’s elbow swung around like a rotary blade. Will’s nose exploded. That was the only way to describe it. The pain was debilitating. He saw literal stars. He was too stunned to do anything but bleed, which gave the driver the opportunity to push himself up from the floor. Will struggled to do the same. It was no use. He shook his head like a dog. Horked up a wad of blood from the back of his throat.

The driver ran toward the door. There was a wail of sirens in the distance. Will could see the guy heading for his truck. After a few false starts, Will ran after him. His boots cracked against broken glass. He jumped over the cop’s body. The asshole was still holding tight to his Glock. Will didn’t bother with the gun. The Chevy was barreling toward the road, which was less than fifty yards from the interstate.

Will jumped on his bike. He kicked the starter and revved the engine. The bike bucked from the sudden surge of power, but Will held on tight, opening the throttle wide as he shot out into the road.

He nearly rammed straight into a Mercedes. Morning rush hour was out in force, cars streaming into the various fast-food restaurants lining the exit. Will darted in and out between cars, narrowing his eyes to keep out the bugs and dirt spitting up from the road. He heard sirens behind him, but knew that his bike was their best chance to keep up with the Chevy. Ahead, the man drove with one foot on the brake, one on the gas. He swung
the truck like a slingshot in and out of traffic, blindly trusting that everyone else would get out of his way.

The Chevy ran the first light it came to, causing an eighteen-wheeler to jackknife across the median. Will cringed as the rig swept up two SUVs. Just by chance, he looked down to find the handlebar of his bike inches away from a car’s sideview mirror. Will jerked his hand away seconds before the grip hit the mirror. The mirror flipped back. He fought to correct the turn, praying he hadn’t saved his fingers only to lay down eight miles of skin on blacktop.

The Indian righted, staying true to the yellow line in the center of the road. Will gunned the engine. He clenched his ass cheeks as he slid between two cars going in the opposite direction. The Chevy was up ahead. A Forest Park Police cruiser was on its tail now. Lights and sirens were blaring. Cars were starting to pull over, but not all of them. Will saw a man holding up his iPhone with one hand as he attempted to drive with the other.

The Chevy approached the bridge over the interstate. The driver was going straight as an arrow, but he made a split second decision and swerved toward the on-ramp to I-75. The police cruiser missed the turn by about a foot, popping against the bridge railing so hard that the trunk and hood flew open. Will almost did the same. He turned at such a steep angle that he felt the asphalt rub the seam on the side of his jeans.

He righted himself, then swerved sharply to avoid rear-ending a parked BMW. Then swerved again to avoid another car. Will gripped the brake as hard as he could. The bike went into a spin, almost getting away from him before shuttering to a stop.

The on-ramp was packed with vehicles. Again, the Chevy weaved back and forth
through traffic. The driver’s luck ran out smack in the middle of the ramp. The Chevy clipped the front end of a Prius. The impact was like two rubber balls colliding. The Prius sucked into an SUV. The Chevy bounced sideways, sliding at a right angle across the asphalt.

Will stood from the bike.

The on-ramp started at the top of a steep hill. Instead of a guardrail lining the left side, there were a bunch of orange barrels indicating where a guardrail would eventually be placed. The on-ramp needed it. The median was a sharp drop down, maybe thirty feet of nothing but sky between the top of the ramp and the highway. The Chevy driver’s hands worked furiously to avoid the obvious, but there was no stopping gravity. The truck knocked out a row of orange barrels as it plunged toward the interstate.

Will felt his jaw drop.

Instead of fighting the fall, the driver steered into it. The truck accelerated. The wheels caught air. The landing wasn’t pretty. The truck bounced and skipped across four lanes of interstate, hit the median divider, then skidded back across the same four lanes. Cars careened around like pinballs. The driver’s arms flew wide as his head slammed into the roof, then snapped down, then slammed into the roof again.

For just a moment, it looked like the Chevy might tip over, but through some act of physics Will would never understand, the truck stayed upright. The driver didn’t argue with luck. The truck’s engine screeched as it lurched down the interstate. The tires had popped from the impact. The rubber flew loose like Silly String. The Chevy was on nothing but rims now. Sparks flew up from the road.

Still, he was getting away.

Will sat down on the bike. He pulled back on the throttle again, gunning the engine. The on-ramp was bottlenecked. Some of drivers had gotten out of their cars to watch the melee. Most of them had phones in their hands, like nothing was real for them unless they captured it on video.

Will had no choice but to follow the truck’s path down the median. He tried to control the descent, but a large rock sent the bike airborne. He ended up making roughly the same jump to the interstate as the Chevy. It was easier on the bike, and certainly more graceful, but only a last-minute straightening of his knees kept Will’s testicles from sneezing out of his nose.

Up ahead, the Chevy was slowing. The rims had melted down to the axles. Finally, the driver was forced to stop in the middle of the interstate. No one had been speeding, but there were still some collisions as the cars around him came to a stop. In the end, the Chevy looked like the center of a Matchbox display.

Will was around a hundred yards away, the length of a football field, but he clearly saw the driver get out of the truck. A blue bandanna was wrapped around the lower half of the man’s face. A gun was in his hand. He stumbled as his leg started to give out from under him. Blood soaked his shirt and pants. He limped across the interstate, the gun pointed straight out in front of him as he approached a yellow Mini Cooper. Will saw the door open. A woman’s leg appeared, her high-heeled shoe touching the pavement.

The man waved his gun, indicating she should slide over to the passenger’s seat.

Hostage.

Will revved the bike. He didn’t let himself think about what he was doing,
because what he was doing was probably the most idiotic thing he’d ever done in his life.

He steered straight toward the driver, the muscles in his arm and shoulders screaming from pulling back on the throttle. The driver turned, but it was too late. By the time he swung around to point the gun at Will, Will was off the bike and the bike was heading straight toward the driver.

Will didn’t slide across the asphalt – there was a limit to his stupidity. What he did was try to hop off. The shift in weight lifted the motorcycle’s front wheel up into the air. Instead of flipping back on itself, it roared across the tarmac on its back tire.

Oddly, Will recalled a show he’d seen on Animal Planet the week before. Bear attacks. Tense stuff. During one of the reenactments, a giant black bear had reared up, mouth open, claws up, as the victim just stood there waiting to get mauled.

And so it was with the driver. He stood there motionless with his gun out in front of him. The screaming Indian seemed to leap at him. Metal met metal, then skin, then bone. Blood sprayed. Hair was wrenched from the scalp.

It really was a lot like the bear attack.

Will fared only slightly better. His body didn’t just stop because he was no longer on the bike. The momentum wasn’t entirely unexpected. As he jumped off, Will tried to pitch to the side. Tuck and roll, just like they’d taught him. Of course, drills couldn’t prepare you for the massive shock of hitting the interstate with nothing but your own body fat to cushion your fall. Will hit the pavement like a clapper striking a bell. His entire skeleton jangled inside his skin.

Will was no stranger to getting the shit knocked out of him. He’d blacked out before. Somewhere in his mind, he knew how to fight it, but it was too late for thinking.
He saw more stars, then darkness, then nothing at all.

Will was sitting in the back of an ambulance when a black Suburban with smoked glass pulled into the parking lot of the Lil’ Dixie Gas-n-Go.

“You all right?” the paramedic asked. “You just groaned.”

“Yeah,” Will said. He
had
groaned. And with good reason. “Just having a bad day.”

“No shit, dude.” The paramedic looked back at the Suburban. An older woman with a helmet of salt-and-pepper hair jumped down from the driver’s seat. She called something to the passenger, a blonde wearing the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s regulation dark blue shirt and tan khakis.

The paramedic noted, “Somebody called in the big guns.”

“Yeah,” Will repeated. He angled himself out of the ambulance, wincing from the pain in his shoulder. “Thanks for patching me up.”