A Way of Escape

I had spent most of my adult life inside luxury vehicles driven by professionals.

Men in tailored suits.

Quiet SUVs with tinted windows.

Security convoys that moved through downtown traffic with smooth mechanical precision while assistants answered emails beside me and sports radio argued in the background.

None of that prepared me for Gene.

The stolen SUV fishtailed across three lanes of freeway traffic at something close to ninety miles an hour.

Gene had both hands on the wheel.

That was the only reassuring part.

“Are you out of your mind?” I shouted.

He looked genuinely offended.

“I’m trying to help.”

The SUV clipped an orange construction barrel hard enough to send it cartwheeling into a closed lane.

Car horns erupted around us.

Bodhi twisted in the middle seat and looked through what remained of the rear windshield.

“We still have four SUVs behind us.”

“Four?” Gene glanced in the mirror. “Aw, they brought friends.”

I made the mistake of looking back.

Four black SUVs pushed through traffic with terrifying purpose.

No police lights.

No agency markings.

No attempt to look official.

Farther back, red and blue lights fought to make their way through the congestion, but the Order’s vehicles stayed between us and the legitimate police.

Armed men leaned from two of the windows.

Gunfire cracked behind us.

The rest of the rear windshield exploded inward.

I ducked as safety glass sprayed across my shoulders and lap.

Sasha barked.

“My God in heaven,” I whispered.

That morning, I had been trying to stop E. Shaw Alvarado from destroying his future.

Now I was trapped in a freeway gunfight with a private army.

God really did have a sense of humor.

Gene jerked the wheel and cut between a delivery truck and a commuter van with inches to spare.

I grabbed the handle above the passenger door.

“You’re going to kill us.”

Gene snorted.

“If I was gonna kill you, I wouldn’t use traffic.”

Another burst of gunfire punched into the tailgate.

A sedan in the next lane swerved away from us.

Gene saw it.

His expression changed.

“We’re getting off the freeway.”

Bodhi pointed behind us.

“They’re closing.”

“Then hold on.”

Gene crossed three lanes without introducing himself to a single turn signal.

Cars scattered.

Horns screamed.

A black SUV surged alongside us as Gene aimed for the industrial exit.

The passenger-side window lowered.

A man in tactical gear climbed halfway out.

One boot found the running board.

One hand grabbed the roof rack.

He reached across the narrowing space between the vehicles and caught the shattered frame of our rear window.

He wasn’t shooting.

He was trying to climb aboard.

Sasha reacted instantly.

She lunged across Bodhi and bit down on the man’s gloved wrist.

He screamed.

His grip broke.

He fell backward into the open window of his own SUV.

Sasha released him and spat a torn piece of black tactical glove onto the floor.

Bodhi looked delighted.

“Good girl.”

He scratched behind her ears.

“We’re putting that in the next book.”

The pursuing SUV accelerated again.

Gene waited until the last possible second.

Then he slammed on the brakes and cut across the exit gore.

Our SUV dropped onto the industrial ramp.

The vehicle beside us shot past.

Its driver had no room to follow.

One down.

Three to go.

Gene floored it again.

The SUV rocketed down the exit ramp toward a district of warehouses, freight yards, and fenced construction sites.

The legitimate police lights continued along the freeway.

The Order followed us down.

All three of them.

Rachel sat beside Bodhi, perfectly still.

Somehow, that frightened me more than the gunfire.

Everybody else looked adrenalized.

Frightened.

Furious.

Rachel looked peaceful.

Sasha pressed herself against Bodhi’s leg, keeping as much distance from Rachel as the crowded seat allowed.

Rachel lowered one hand toward her.

Sasha looked at it.

Rachel reconsidered.

Outside, warehouses streaked past in long gray shapes.

Gene took a corner too fast.

The SUV tilted hard enough to lift one side.

Then slammed back onto all four tires.

Kristy Lee braced herself in the cargo area and aimed through the missing rear windshield.

I glanced over my shoulder and understood something important about her.

I had made the mistake of measuring her by size.

By the pale skin and blue lips.

By the woman who had nearly died on my couch.

None of that changed the fact that Kristy Lee was military.

Real military.

Not the kind celebrities thanked during halftime shows.

The kind that did things nobody discussed afterward.

She tracked the nearest pursuing SUV.

Waited.

Then fired three controlled shots.

Measured.

Professional.

The SUV swerved.

Recovered.

Continued coming.

Kristy Lee adjusted her position.

“Back in the day, we got extra points if we disabled the vehicle without touching the windshield.”

Bodhi turned around.

“Who gave you points?”

Kristy Lee gave him a quick wink.

“That part’s classified.”

She looked toward Gene.

“Can you move left?”

Gene didn’t hesitate.

Our SUV lunged across the empty industrial road.

Kristy Lee’s rifle cracked again.

Something burst beneath the pursuing vehicle’s hood.

White steam swallowed its windshield.

The SUV lost speed, veered across the shoulder, and rolled to a stop in an empty gravel lot.

Kristy Lee settled back into her seat.

“Thank you.”

“Anything for you, baby.”

Gene grinned like a maniac.

“That’s my girl.”

Bodhi pointed between them.

“Can we turn the Tinder date off for five minutes?”

Gene jerked a thumb toward him while looking at me.

“Boy can’t handle all this machismo.”

I shook my head.

None of these people behaved like normal human beings.

Sasha nudged the torn tactical glove with her nose.

Bodhi looked down at her.

“Seriously. Next book.”

The words scraped against something in the back of my mind.

A name.

A conference room.

A stack of projections.

An animated princess riding an animal that talked too much.

I turned toward him.

“Wait.”

Bodhi looked up.

“Princess and Mr. Sullivan.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve met.”

He studied my face.

“I don’t think so.”

“My company was considering financing the animated series.”

Something changed in his expression.

Recognition came slowly.

“Callahan Equity.”

I nodded.

“You were in one of the early meetings. My people handled most of it, but I stopped in near the end.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“You looked different.”

Bodhi glanced toward Rachel.

His face tightened.

“Before everything.”

He stopped.

Then rubbed at the beard covering his jaw.

“Before I stopped getting haircuts.”

“Sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

He looked through the shattered rear window.

“I barely recognize me either.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Gene’s voice cut through from the front seat.

“Hey, ladies. Can we cut the girl talk? We’re in the middle of something.”

The pursuing SUV rammed us from behind.

Hard.

The entire vehicle fishtailed across the industrial road.

My shoulder slammed against the passenger door.

“Oh, Lord—”

Gene fought the steering wheel.

Tires screamed against pavement.

Another hit.

Two SUVs remained.

One behind us.

One pulling alongside.

“We’re getting boxed in!” Bodhi shouted.

I saw it too.

A warehouse wall to our right.

Concrete barriers to our left.

Heavy construction equipment narrowing the road ahead.

No room.

Then Rachel spoke.

Softly.

“There.”

She pointed toward a gap between a concrete divider and a parked excavator.

It wasn’t a lane.

It wasn’t even a convincing suggestion.

It was several feet of bad judgment pretending to be an escape route.

Gene saw it and smiled like a man having a spiritual experience.

“No,” I said immediately.

“Oh, yes.”

“You cannot fit through there.”

Gene floored the accelerator.

“Dan, you gotta start believing in yourself.”

“I’m not driving!”

“Then believe in me.”

“That seems worse!”

The SUV launched forward.

I genuinely stopped breathing.

Metal screamed against concrete as we shot through the gap.

The passenger-side mirror exploded away.

The entire vehicle shuddered.

The SUV behind us tried to follow.

It didn’t fit.

Its front corner struck the barrier.

The vehicle spun sideways into the empty construction lane, scattering traffic cones and temporary fencing.

No explosion.

No fireball.

Just several thousand pounds of Order money grinding itself to pieces against concrete.

Bodhi stared through the rear opening.

“That seems expensive.”

“Cult money,” Gene said. “Very underrated.”

For one brief moment, the road behind us cleared.

I exhaled.

Then headlights appeared through the dust.

The last black SUV forced its way around the construction barrier.

Still coming.

“How many of these people are there?” I asked.

“More than we need,” Gene said.

Gunfire erupted again.

A bullet punched through the passenger door beside my leg.

That changed something inside me.

Not the fear.

The hesitation.

I looked down at the duffel bag between my feet.

Gene had thrown it to me while we escaped the house.

Weapons.

Ammunition.

Equipment taken from the Order.

Bodhi noticed me staring.

“You know how to use any of that?”

I unzipped the bag.

“I grew up in Texas.”

I pulled out a rifle.

My hands remembered the weight.

The balance.

Tin cans on fence posts.

Coyotes at the edge of Mama’s cattle.

An old rifle that had already belonged to two generations of Callahans before it reached me.

Mama standing behind my shoulder, reminding me that a firearm was a tool and any fool could pull a trigger.

Respect mattered.

Control mattered.

What stood behind your target mattered most.

I checked the road.

Warehouses on both sides.

Empty gravel beyond them.

No civilian traffic.

Nothing behind the final SUV except construction equipment and dust.

Gene glanced at me.

“You seriously got this?”

I looked through the broken passenger window.

Measured distance.

Vehicle speed.

Movement.

Everything slowed the way it used to before a snap.

Like my mind already knew where everyone would be before they got there.

“I learned how to do this before I learned how to sack a quarterback.”

I steadied myself against the window frame.

Exhaled once.

Then fired.

The first shot struck metal.

The second disappeared into the front grille.

The third produced a burst of steam and smoke beneath the hood.

The pursuing SUV lost power.

Its headlights dipped.

The driver tried to keep coming, but momentum was all he had left.

The vehicle rolled off the pavement and sank into a wide gravel drainage area.

It came to a stop beneath a cloud of dust.

I slowly lowered the rifle.

Silence filled our SUV.

Not real silence.

The engine still roared.

Broken glass rattled beneath our feet.

Everybody breathed hard.

But nothing followed us.

Not anymore.

Bodhi looked at me differently.

Not like an outsider.

Not like luggage.

Like someone useful.

Rachel smiled faintly.

“That was impressive.”

My hands started shaking now that it was over.

Delayed adrenaline.

I swallowed.

“Two intersections ahead,” I said. “Take a left.”

Gene glanced at me.

“Why?”

“There’s a general-aviation airport in Otay Mesa. Brown Field. I keep a plane there.”

Gene turned left hard enough to throw all of us sideways.

“You got a plane?”

I nodded.

Gene barked out a laugh.

“Man, how rich are you?”

I looked out at the warehouses streaking past us.

“You have no idea.”