Chapter 16
Sixteen
“Half past,” Jamie radioed, and Cam gave the signal for his team to move. On quiet approach, he was depending on Jamie cycling through position checks to gauge where each of the teams were, including Matt’s across town.
Cam led his team down an alley a building over from their target. Peering around the corner, he looked for the gate in the target garage’s back fence.
Every other building on this street was a garage and most of them had caged-in yards where cars were parked overnight.
The fences around the garage yards usually had two entrances.
A big rolling gate for cars to pass through and a smaller swing gate easier for people to enter and exit.
A better-than-average B one Cam guessed had been more common in the desert halfway around the world.
“Back off the target now!” Cam hesitated, his helmet and no doubt the camera attached to it shaking.
Nic tempered the commanding tone when he added, “Nothing will be solved if you die. Don’t do that to your family. ”
Don’t do that to me.
“Fuck!” Spinning on his heel, Cam ripped off his accelerant-soaked gloves and ran for his team at the far edge of the yard. “Stay on the—”
His words were swallowed up by the spinning of tires, the shattering of glass, and a booming whoosh that drowned out everything but Nic’s “Boston!”
A ball of heat blasted into Cam’s back, lifting him off his feet and hurtling him against the gate.
“Turn the goddamn van around, Jamie!”
Nic’s shouts from the back of the van went unheeded by the man up front who was whipping them around corners and speeding down the narrow streets of Boston.
Traffic was light at this hour—they were moving fast after the Charger—but the streets weren’t totally deserted, their mad dash drawing a cacophony of car horns.
The only reason Nic wasn’t puking his guts out on the wild ride was his prior experience getting tossed around tanks and boats.
This was nothing new. But the tossing and turning of his insides .
. . Now that was new and shaking him up far worse than the physical jostling.
“Get up, get up, get up,” he mumbled, not that Cam could hear him.
Audio had been blown by the explosion, but Nic still had visual.
A sideways shot from Cam’s motionless helmet cam showed the fire eating up the garage, creeping out toward the yard and an unconscious Cam.
Why wasn’t anyone pulling him back? Had the entire team been taken out?
Or had Cam just lost his helmet? Nic couldn’t see and the not knowing was driving him insane.
“We need to go back!” he shouted at Jamie. “We don’t know what happened to the team.”
“I need you up here!”
“Fuck!” Nic slapped the table with his open palm, frustration boiling over at being sidelined and pulled away from where he wanted to be. Again. But if he wanted to get back there, the quickest way was to help the driver.
Cranking up the volume on the wall speakers, making sure he’d hear Cam’s call when it came through, he shot to his feet and charged up front.
He’d just pushed through the curtains to the cab when Jamie slammed on the brakes, propelling him forward, fast. He went flying toward the dash, arms and hands outstretched to catch himself, but the speed and momentum were more pressure on his wrists than they could handle.
He was going to hit the windshield.
Later, Boston, was on the tip of his tongue, but Jamie saved him the sentiment and probably his life, grabbing a fistful of his jacket and yanking him back. He went down hard in the passenger seat, but he was still in one piece, as was the biker that had ridden out in front of a speeding van.
“Get out of the way!” Jamie yelled, and the biker, still wide-eyed from his near-death collision, hustled past. Foot on the gas, Jamie revved the van back into action, chasing after the Charger. “You okay?”
Nic straightened in the seat, checking his wrists and appendages. “Yeah, thanks.”
Eyes still on the road, Jamie shot him a sideways grin. “Didn’t think Cam would appreciate it overly much if I killed you.”
“And I’m not going to appreciate it overly much if something happens to him and I’m in this van with you,” Nic replied as he buckled his seat belt. “No offense.”
Jamie chuckled. “None taken.”
“What do you need me to do so we can get back there?”
“If I get close enough, can you shoot out the tires?”
Yeah, he could. The Navy had trained him well, as an attorney and a sniper. He withdrew his Beretta and disengaged the safety. “Get me in spotting distance, and I’ll nail him.”
Grin wicked, Jamie kicked the van into another gear, gaining on the red taillights ahead of them.
When the Charger hung a left a street ahead, Jamie took the next left, a block early.
Sliding and correcting, he flew down the empty side street.
Unbuckling and getting into position, Nic wound his left arm through the seat belt, securing himself, then levered the top half of his body out the window, ready to take aim when they emptied back out into the cross street, right on the Charger’s tail.
Drawbridge lifting up ahead, the chase was on, the Charger racing to make it over the bridge before the two halves split. Nic lifted his firing arm, trying to get a clean shot, but the Charger’s swerving motion was making it impossible. “I’m gonna need you to swing left to get a clean shot.”
“We’re gonna lose them if you don’t hit it.”
“I’ll hit it. Do it now!”
Hand over hand, Jamie wrenched the wheel, sending the van into a left-drifting skid. Nic aimed and fired twice, hitting each back tire. The Charger lurched, slowing as it climbed the rising bridge, but even as its tires shredded, it continued racing ahead on metal rims.
“Fuck!” Jamie corrected the van to give chase, but they’d lost too much ground. “He’s got run-flats on there.”
“What are those?”
“Racing tires. Can drive on the rims.”
Jamie followed him up the bridge but braked at the edge, saving them from going over. From his seat on the windowsill, Nic watched the Charger clear the widening gap and land on the other side, leaving a shower of sparks in its wake.
“Dominic!”
He whipped around, staring toward the back of the van. Cautiously believing what his ears had told him. Then throwing caution to the wind when the call came again.
“Dominic, Jamie, can you hear me?”
Sparks erupted inside Nic, relief brighter than metal on asphalt.