AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A sudden burst of automatic gunfire aimed at Bart’s truck and the deputy’s car confirmed her suspicions about the not-so-abandoned building she’d passed.
She flipped the safety off of her personal .38 revolver. Rolling down the window, she hoped what she was about to do would put a quick end to this.
Driving on, she saw the truck in the lead, Bart and Wallace following, with three more tricked out sports cars trying to pick them off on the way back to the interstate.
She swore. A chase among civilian vehicles was never ideal because the criminals didn’t care who they hurt. There was no way to cut them off before they reached the on-ramp.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
They were nearly on top of a four-way stop when another car came flying through the intersection forcing Gonzales to slow down and jerk the wheel right to avoid the collision.
She pegged the dark sedan with tinted windows as a government vehicle as it narrowly avoided a gruesome collision. Were they DEA or another agency working a different angle on the Mexican cartel?
All of the vehicles tailing the truck had to compensate for the slowdown and the unexpected turn. The confusion gave her a clear shot at one of the cartel’s chase cars. It took two attempts, but she put a bullet through the left rear tire and tipped the odds back in their favor.
Seeing movement behind her, she recognized the government car joining the chase and said a prayer of thanks. She wasn’t nearly as grateful when a bullet shattered the back window a moment later.
They thought she was one of the bad guys.Fan-damn-tastic. “Check a plate,” she shouted, knowing they couldn’t hear her. She wasn’t even sure Bart had bothered to put real plates on the Camaro yet.
As much as she loved the power of the classic car, she missed the technology of her own. Even the rental had a built in GPS tool. Right now she wanted to know where she was in relation to the major thoroughfares.
It wasn’t an option. The car needed all of her strength—with both hands—to keep it in the hunt.
Another bullet exploded into the front seat, just a few inches from her shoulder. For a moment she wished the cartel would open fire on her. It might clue in the team behind her that she was on their side.
As if prompted by her thoughts, she saw the dark muzzle of a weapon sticking out of the side window on the orange car in front of her.
She yanked the wheel to the side and made the shooter miss. Shifting, she stomped the accelerator and put the solid, classic steel of the Camaro to the lightweight fiberglass of the smaller street-rod.
Surprised, the other driver only helped her cause when he tried to bump her. She tagged his quarter panel and sent him spiraling into the other cartel driver.
Brakes squealed and tires smoked on the summer-hot asphalt of the state road. The neon blue car crashed into a guard rail, tangled with the orange car. She skidded to a stop to pin them in, just to be sure they couldn’t get away. Grabbing her gun and shield, she leaped from the car to get control of the occupants.
The dark sedan slowed down, pulling to a stop behind the Camaro.
“Christ, Thalberg! What the hell are you doing?”
Hannah recognized Suter’s voice, but she didn’t dare take her eyes from Gonzales’s goons. “You shot at me.”
“We thought you were one of them.”
The argument would wait, but their rash actions would definitely be in the report she sent to her boss. “The mobile meth lab is on the move.”
“We know.”
She barked orders to the people in the car. Suter stepped up beside her, his weapon drawn. Slowly the cartel crew tossed their guns through the broken car windows to the pavement.
“How did you know where to find us?”
“We picked up a tip—” The rest of Suter’s reply was cut off by the wail of sirens bearing approaching. “What do you know, here comes the backup.”
Hannah wasn’t ready to relax. Not until the gang bangers were in custody. She knew Suter and Kellerman had the authority to haul in the crew, but with the wiretap order and Suter claiming they’d been tipped off, she wanted unbiased, local support. The more witnesses to this arrest the better for Bart.
Kellerman joined them as an ambulance and another sheriff’s car pulled to a stop. A third vehicle continued on down the road. “We have to go,” he told Suter. “They stopped the truck we’ve been tracking.”
“How far away?”
“The next I-95 on-ramp. Sounds like a messy spill too.”
