Storm

I’ve ridden into bad ideas before.

Hell, I’ve financed a few.

But sitting on the next-to-top level of a downtown parking garage with the woman I’m falling for, a duffel bag full of gas masks and fireworks, enough bad decisions to make a priest nervous, a motorcycle with a dog-sized sidecar welded to it, and an entire city preparing to punch itself unconscious—

That’s new.

Mostly.

Kristy Lee sits beside me with her back against the concrete barrier, knees pulled up, binoculars in hand.

My bike waits ten feet away.

Black.

Mean.

Perfect.

Except for the sidecar.

I stare at it.

Shake my head.

“I still can’t believe Malachi put a sidecar on my bike.”

Kristy looks down and brushes dog hair from her jeans.

“What are you complaining about?”

She holds up one sleeve.

“I’m the one covered in Benjamin.”

“Benjamin sheds like he’s trying to build another dog.”

She smiles.

I reach into my jacket.

“Speaking of unresolved problems.”

Kristy lowers the binoculars.

I pull out a syringe.

Empty.

She doesn’t know that.

“Remember telling me to put the doping incident on your tab?”

Her eyes move from my face to the syringe.

“Are you serious?”

I let her wonder for one second.

Then I smile and place it on the concrete between us.

“Nah. Usually I’m a tit-for-tat kind of guy. Accountability and all that.”

I look at her.

“But for you, I think I’ll let it go.”

Kristy Lee stares at me.

“Wow, Gene. Coming from you, that’s practically a marriage proposal.”

Heat climbs straight into my face.

Not a little.

Enough to trigger the garage sprinklers.

I open my mouth—

Sirens rise from the street below.

Saved by law enforcement.

First time for everything.

We both look over the wall.

Across the street stands Ted’s shiny new monument to greed, corruption, and overpriced whiskey.

Glass.

Steel.

Chrome.

Too clean for this city.

Too clean for what’s about to happen.

A whole fleet rolls into downtown from the right.

Squad cars.

City and county SUVs.

Unmarked sedans.

SWAT vans.

An armored personnel carrier because apparently somebody in government thinks subtlety is overrated.

Kristy whistles.

“They brought everybody.”

I grin.

“Boone Whitaker isn’t known for moderation.”

Rourke went into “early retirement” after the mess with Mayor Langford.

Nobody agrees whether the quotation marks belong around early or retirement.

Boone Whitaker replaced him as Paradise’s police chief.

Career politician with a badge. The kind of chief who spends more time studying camera angles than crime statistics.

He isn’t crooked like Rourke.

Just ambitious.

Bribes can’t move him.

Cameras can.

Henderson knows how to work with that.

Patrol cars block the intersections below. Officers pour into the street carrying rifles, body armor, helmets, shields, and the entire fantasy.

News vans appear behind them.

One.

Then two.

Then three.

Camera crews spill onto the sidewalks.

Whitaker won’t be able to resist.

Then come the food trucks.

One.

Two.

Five.

Ten.

Twelve.

The taco man said he owned twelve trucks.

He brings all twelve.

They roll onto sidewalks, park crooked, and open their windows. Grills fire up. Coffee starts pouring. Workers call toward offices and storefronts.

People gather like somebody announced free lunch and public violence.

Which—

Fair.

The smell reaches us even from the garage.

Burgers.

Fries.

Onions.

Pulled pork.

Barbecue.

Coffee.

Cops start eating.

Pedestrians start eating.

Everybody relaxes.

Exactly what I need.

The lunch crowd isn’t bait.

They’re witnesses.

Everybody in Paradise records anything more interesting than a parking dispute, and I need enough cameras pointed at Ted’s building that nobody can make today disappear.

The truck operators know the plan.

They know the exits.

When the signal comes, they’ll use twelve vehicles and several thousand pounds of fried food to move civilians away from the center.

That’s the theory.

Theories are plans that haven’t met people yet.

Kristy leans beside me.

“You act like this isn’t your first time.”

I keep watching the street.

“Kinda is.”

I smile.

“I just hope Henderson can light the fuse.”

Then comes the rumble.

Low.

Distant.

Growing.

Kristy looks left.

“Oh.”

I smile wider.

Chrome appears at the far end of downtown.

Then leather.

Then Harleys.

A hundred engines roar toward us like Judgment Day traded its horses for gasoline.

The Devil’s Angels.

Kringle leads them.

Red.

Massive.

Peppermint beard blowing in the wind.

The food trucks start moving.

Like ants.

Sliding.

Backing up.

Opening the center of the street for the bikers while creating walls between the confrontation and the growing lunch crowd.

Workers wave office people toward side streets and safer sidewalks.

More bikes arrive.

More bodies.

More noise.

Within minutes, downtown becomes one enormous ring of cops, bikers, food trucks, cameras, civilians, engines, smoke, and madness.

I duck behind the barrier.

Kristy joins me.

She smiles.

“It’s all going according to plan.”

I nod.

“Assuming Henderson remembers his part.”

Kristy reaches into her jacket and hands me an earbud.

“Police frequency.”

“Of course you have that.”

“I contain multitudes.”

I fit it into my ear.

Static crackles.

Then voices.

Kristy lifts the binoculars and points toward the second floor of the garage across the street.

I follow her line.

Captain Charles Henderson stands beside Chief Boone Whitaker.

Whitaker looks exactly how a police chief with political ambitions should look.

Tall.

Broad.

Silver hair.

Jaw carved from old oak.

He studies the bikers below.

His voice comes through the earpiece.

“You sure this is our day, Captain?”

Henderson smiles.

Cold.

Confident.

“Oh, I know it is.”

Whitaker looks toward the news crews.

“How many cameras?”

“Three stations so far,” Henderson says. “More coming.”

Whitaker straightens his jacket.

“Then we do this clean.”

“Absolutely.”

Charles Henderson lies better than I gave him credit for.

Kristy looks back at me and nudges the duffel bag with one boot.

“You planning on dying today?”

I look toward the street.

“Always.”

She doesn’t smile.

“Gene.”

I turn.

She looks straight through me.

“All those envelopes.”

I shrug.

“Loose ends.”

“Who were you saying goodbye to?”

I don’t answer.

Instead, I ask—

“If you had to disappear tonight…”

I meet her eyes.

“Anybody you’d say goodbye to first?”

She stares at me.

Deep.

Serious.

Almost vulnerable.

For one dangerous second, I think she might answer.

Then the bullhorn shrieks with feedback.

BWOOOOOMP.

We both pop up.

Whitaker stands in the middle of the street with the bullhorn raised.

“KRINGLE!”

Kringle sits on his Harley like some deranged Christmas card.

He pulls a peppermint from his beard.

Bites it in half.

Then shouts back—

“YOU GOT A WARRANT?”

The Angels howl.

Whitaker’s jaw tightens.

“DISMOUNT YOUR VEHICLES!”

Kringle leans forward.

“BUY ME DINNER FIRST!”

The bikers roar.

Cameras swing toward Whitaker.

There it is.

The pressure point.

He looks at the news crews.

Then at Henderson.

Henderson says nothing.

Doesn’t need to.

Whitaker raises one hand.

“Gas them.”

A deputy launches the first canister.

It strikes the pavement, bounces once, then rolls toward Kringle’s front tire.

Tssssssssss—

The food-truck drivers see it.

They move.

Engines start. Trucks close the remaining gaps. Workers pull civilians behind vehicles and push them toward the side streets.

Most people cooperate.

Some keep filming.

There’s always somebody willing to die for a vertical video.

Kristy looks at me.

I look at her.

“Henderson lit the fuse.”

The street begins disappearing beneath white smoke.

“That’s our cue.”

We run.

I sling the duffel across my shoulder and pull on my helmet.

Kristy grabs the other one.

We jump onto the bike.

I fire it up.

She climbs behind me.

The garage exit waits below.

Ted’s building stands directly ahead.

Perfect line.

Perfect timing.

Perfect—

CRUNCH.

The sidecar clips a parked cruiser.

Hard.

I have enough time to shout—

“DAMN DOG—”

Then we fly.

Metal.

Concrete.

Road.

Pain.

Silence.

Then groaning.

My left hand hits first.

The broken pinky sends a white bolt of pain through my arm and straight into my skull.

I roll onto my back.

Road rash burns along my other arm.

Kristy sits up beside me.

Her helmet has shifted sideways. A cut opens above one eyebrow, but her eyes remain clear.

Nothing serious.

Probably.

“You alive?” I ask.

She pulls off the helmet.

“Divine providence.”

I stagger upright.

“Or bad engineering.”

We abandon the motorcycle and run.

Straight into hell.

The street has vanished.

What was asphalt and painted lane markers five minutes ago has become an apocalyptic county fair.

Smoke rolls waist-high across the road.

The food trucks have moved most civilians behind their makeshift barricade, but workers, bikers, cops, and several dedicated idiots remain in the center.

Food flies through the air like edible shrapnel.

French fries.

Napkins.

Plastic forks.

Half a pulled-pork sandwich slaps against the hood of a squad car and slowly slides toward the pavement.

Somewhere to my left, a man screams over the loss of what smells like brisket.

To my right, a biker hits a deputy with a folding chair.

Two cops tackle another man in leather through the side of a taco stand.

I shove a gas mask over my face and hand Kristy hers.

Then I reach into the duffel and pull out a fistful of bottle rockets.

Nothing strong enough to maim.

Just sparks, noise, and panic.

Kristy glances over.

“You brought fireworks?”

“I brought options.”

She laughs as she pulls on the mask.

I light three fuses with a cheap plastic lighter I stole from Tabitha’s counter.

“Gene—”

Too late.

I throw them.

The rockets skip across the pavement, change direction twice like they’ve had too much to drink, then shoot screaming into the smoke.

One bounces off a Harley windshield.

One vanishes beneath the armored vehicle.

One shoots straight upward and explodes above us in a shower of red sparks.

The street collectively loses its mind.

“YOU IDIOT!” somebody screams.

“THANK YOU!” someone else shouts.

Kristy reaches into the bag, pulls out a Roman candle, and lights it like she was born doing stupid things with explosives.

She points it toward the sky.

Three glowing balls streak upward.

A biker ducks anyway.

A deputy hits the pavement.

A hot-dog vendor drops an entire tray of buns.

I look at her.

She shrugs.

“Army communications.”

“Remind me never to piss off your radio operators.”

We run deeper into the smoke.

Chains swing.

Batons crack.

Sirens scream.

Pepper spray burns the air.

A food-truck horn blares Shave and a Haircut like the apocalypse needs a soundtrack.

Ted’s men spill out of the lobby in black suits and expensive shoes, trying to fight cops, bikers, and anyone else dumb enough to get close.

One comes at me with a telescoping baton.

I step inside his swing and drop him with a right hook.

My broken pinky throbs sympathetically.

Another grabs Kristy by the shoulder.

She spins, drives her elbow into his throat, and leaves him making sounds like a drowning goose.

Then she freezes.

Looks left.

Smiles.

I follow her gaze.

Tim.

A square bandage hangs half-peeled from his forehead.

Beneath it, fresh red letters spell one beautiful word.

JACKASS

Tim recognizes Kristy.

His face goes pale.

“Oh no.”

Kristy smiles like Christmas came early.

“Hey.”

Tim takes one terrified step backward.

“Remember me?”

Her boot comes up fast and mean.

Tim folds like cheap lawn furniture.

I wince.

“Little high.”

She shrugs.

“Little personal.”

We keep moving.

Toward Ted’s doors.

Toward the finish line.

Toward whatever kind of insanity waits inside.

Then a hand touches my shoulder.

Gentle.

Calm.

Wrong.

I spin.

John.

Of course.

He stands in the middle of tear gas and chaos like he’s been there all day.

No mask.

Not a scratch on him.

Not even winded.

I stare.

“What are you doing here?”

John smiles.

“You two did good.”

“You just show up out of nowhere?”

He looks toward the doors.

“Mind if I help with the next part?”

I frown.

“What help?”

I point toward Ted’s lobby.

“All we have to do is take the elevator.”

John motions through the glass.

I follow his gaze.

My stomach drops.

Men and women wait inside the lobby.

Dark suits.

Silver pins.

Weapons held low.

Cold eyes.

Too still.

Too calm.

Too many.

John smiles.

Almost sadly.

“Might be a little harder than that.”

He loosens his cuffs.

“Gene. Kristy Lee.”

A strange light moves behind his eyes.

“You’re about to meet the Order of the Veil.”

He looks back at me.

“Don’t worry.”

Then he turns toward the doors.

“I’ve dealt with these guys before.”