Page 38 of Lone Wolf

Evan didn’t have a moment to catch his breath before he heard the whump-whump-whump of the choppers.

LAPD had the most airborne assets of any municipality in the country. At the moment, they all seemed to be headed in his direction.

A swarm of Eurocopter AS350 B2 AStars and Airbus H125s buzzed in from the horizon like angry wasps. Several more hovered over the area of Dr. Hill’s residence.

Evan stumbled from the wreckage of his car and stepped into freeway traffic, which had halted around the nucleus of the crash. A few more vehicles skidded in from the periphery, a slick-haired guy in a Tesla braking abruptly, nearly hitting him. Evan came around to the driver’s door.

“Thank God,” he said, hooking his hand on the door handle as it slid out. “You have to help me.”

He opened the door, unsnapped the guy’s seat belt, tugged him out, and climbed in. The guy stood there, mouth agape, white teeth shining, a dot of fluorescent-green gum punctuating his molars. Evan took off before he managed to get off a single word.

The scent of AXE body spray permeated the car. An iPhone was plugged into the dash, a podcast of a former SEAL assault team member: “… to change the world, you must be your very best in your darkest moment…”

Already, in the rearview, he could see the helos closing in. He reversed away from the crash site in a modified J-turn and bulldozed west, weaving along the 101, veering to pass cars. Screeching off at Broadway, he sensed the helicopters nearing, the lead bird now out of sight above him. He ripped onto Second Street, oversteering to put the Tesla into a controlled drift. The sideways swoop took a third of the block before delivering him neatly into the gritty east mouth of the Second Street Tunnel. As he blasted through, the world darkened.

Five cars zipped past, and then there was a slight break in traffic coming at him.

He wrenched the wheel sideways, blocking both lanes, gumming up the tunnel. He’d neared the illuminated aperture of the tunnel’s west end, flared buttresses wrapping the curved walls like sails.

Horns and screeches and cursing. A Dodge Ram with a camo paint job ground to a halt, its grille a few feet from the Tesla’s passenger window.

As Evan hopped out, a burly man sprang from the Ram and charged him. “What the fuck are you—?”

Evan ducked him without losing momentum and stepped up onto the Ram’s runner, hoisting himself into the truck. Reversing a few feet, he knocked into the plumber’s van behind, making room. Then he steered forward into the bike lane, smashing through the nose of the Tesla and clearing the way to exit through the east side of the tunnel he’d entered seconds before. The burly guy pursued his truck on foot, screaming, neck flushed with rage.

Evan shot free of the tunnel into a yawn of daylight. The choppers buzzed overhead, a swirling confusion. He held the gas steady and even. An American-flag Little Trees air freshener twirled from the rearview, perfuming the interior with vanilla. The radio display screen showed a country station, a baritone crooning that he wasn’t as good as he once was, but he was as good once as he ever was. Leaving the tunnel behind, Evan allowed himself an exhale and gave an amen to Mr. Keith.

Blasting along in the truck, he tugged his RoamZone out, thumbed up an EMS scanner app, and jacked the volume high. Words cut through the static: “—copy that”—click—“receiving multiple reports on the incident”—click—“EMS Unit Two One en route with police escort to Downtown Medical Center ER”—click—“female, approximately eighteen years old”—click—“emergency trach, now stable—”

Winding through the uneven streets of Bunker Hill, he rimmed the edge of Pershing Square, zipped past the imposing south entrance of the Los Angeles Central Library, an Egyptian–Art Deco triumph capped with a mosaic tile pyramid.

—click—“copy Unit Two One”—click—“PD has been notified from our end and will meet you there to establish further protection protocols for the victim—”

Jayla Hill was safe. For now.

He punched the RoamZone to call Joey and—thank God—she answered on the second ring. “I had my shirt off for a brief stretch of time in downtown L.A.”

Joey giggled. “Say more.”

He gave her the location of the alley and the stretch of streets he’d run. “No shirt means no facial-recognition thwarting. I need you to carpet-bomb those two blocks—Ring doorbells, surveillance cams, anything that might’ve caught my face.”

“You got it. Maybe next time you wanna moonlight as a Chippendales dancer you could gimme a heads-up so I can—”

He hung up.

Beelining across the 110 and up Seventh, he neared the edge of MacArthur Park. The home of the West Coast’s most celebrated pastrami sandwich flew by on the left, capped with a cursive sign.

At the stoplight at Rampart, he drifted up on a tidy red Jeep and tapped the rear bumper. A woman hopped out, tugging back her corkscrew hair with one hand, almond-shaped eyes visible through tortoiseshell eyeglasses.

He climbed out as well and they walked toward each other.

“Man, this day,” she said. “You got insurance?”

“I’ll leave it in perfect condition,” Evan said, moving right past her. He slipped through the Jeep’s open door and took off.

Through the speakers, a new sound washed over him—“rise unafraid”—an R&B alto clear as alpine air, soulful and raw. No lights in his rearview, no choppers overhead.

Shooting west to Koreatown, he didn’t let up until he banked into a strip mall hosting a so-called Spa Palace. Cars were backed up out of the parking lot, the valets scrambling.