Inheritance: A Novel Part 11

"What?" Paul said. "What happened?"

"The guys in the Monte Carlo just scored. That's what I've been waiting for."

"Okay," Paul said. "Now what?"

"Now we go take them down." Mike was sitting up in his seat now, his eyes sparkling with antic.i.p.ation. "This is what I want you to do. We're gonna roll up on them as fast as possible. When we do, you jump out, knock down the closest one to you, and grab him by the throat and squeeze. Don't let go until he spits out the dope, you hear?"

Paul looked at Mike like he'd just grown four heads. "You're kidding?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

Paul decided that he didn't. Of course, with Mike that didn't necessarily mean anything one way or the other.

"Can we do that?" Paul said. "I mean, just start choking people."

Mike grew very serious, and suddenly there was no doubt that he meant exactly what he was saying.

"Look," he said, "we play dumb jokes on each other all the time, but when it comes to dealing with the dope dealers, the fun and games stop. Those guys over there don't give a rat's a.s.s about you, and they don't care whether you go home in the morning or not. If they can kill you and get away with it, they will. Do not let your guard down for a second. I mean that. You keep choking that motherf.u.c.ker until he gives up. If you don't, he'll know you're weak, and not only will he swallow the dope, but he will proceed to f.u.c.k your world. We clear on that?"

"Yeah," Paul said. "We're clear."

"Don't think it's like the Academy, where you let the other person tap out because you think they might get hurt. Out here, you go full tilt. You hear?"

"I hear you."

"Okay. You ready?"

No, Paul wanted to say. Suddenly things were going way too fast for him. But he nodded. "Yeah, I'm ready."

That was good enough for Mike. He dropped the Crown Victoria into gear and charged out of the alleyway under full acceleration, closing the distance to the dealers in a matter of seconds.

The three men scattered. They were already running by the time Paul and Mike jumped out of their car, but they were hardly a match for Paul. Paul had played college football for a Division II school, and you don't make it to that level without being graced by a few rare gifts. He had size and raw physical strength and agility and above all speed. Plus, he was still close to his physical peak. The heroin dealer was not. One of them tried to feint left, then veered right, cutting a diagonal across Paul's track. Paul wasn't fooled for a second. He moved quickly and overtook the man within a few steps. Paul grabbed him around the neck and slung him face first into the asphalt.

He rolled the dealer over and dropped down on top of him so that he was straddling his chest. Paul pushed his hand under the man's chin and found the windpipe. His fingers closed down around it and he squeezed. He squeezed as hard as he could.

The man grabbed his wrist with both hands and tried to pull his hand away, but Paul kept up the pressure. He could feel the resistance in the muscles and the tendons beneath the man's skin. The man's jaw was clenched so tightly it seemed like his teeth might shatter in his mouth.

"Spit it out!" Paul yelled at him. "Mother f.u.c.ker, spit it out."

Paul didn't even realize he was banging the back of the man's head on the asphalt with every word. There was too much adrenaline coursing through him for him to do anything else but squeeze.

The man was trying to speak, but no sound came out. Finally, after what seemed to be forever, the man rolled his head to one side and spit out four small, brightly colored balloons. They looked like gumb.a.l.l.s.

"All of them!" Paul said, and squeezed harder.

Two more balloons came out.

The man wasn't breathing. His eyes looked as if they might turn up into his skull. Paul let go, and the man sucked in a huge lungful of air. His eyes regained their focus. But before the man could completely regroup, Paul flipped him over and forced one arm behind his back.

"Put your other hand behind your back," he shouted. "Sir, put your hand behind your back."

"f.u.c.k you," the man wheezed.

Paul dug his knee into the man's back. "Put your hands behind your back. Now!"

The man kept his left arm tucked under his body, using his weight to keep it from Paul. There was no way he could get up, because Paul had him pinned, but he was still fighting to stay out of the cuffs. Paul rose up a little and then rammed his knee down into the man's spine.

"Give me your hand. Now!"

The man just grunted. He kept his left arm hidden under his body. Paul twisted the man's right arm further up behind his back, wrenching it so hard the man had to arch his back to fight against the pain.

"I'll break it," Paul said. "I swear I will. Now get your other hand-"

The high-pitched, metallic-sounding pop pop pop pop pop pop of a small caliber semiautomatic pistol erupted somewhere to his left. It was like a car backfiring, only faster, more purposeful.

Paul looked in the direction of the shots. His grip on the dealer slackened. The man jumped at the opportunity and started fighting. By the time Paul could regain his hold, the man had already squirmed out from beneath him and was up on his feet. He took off running, the cuffs still dangling from his right wrist, and didn't look back.

Paul started after him, but stopped after only a few steps. Even as the man was breaking away from him, Paul heard the sound of an engine revving up, and a moment later a beige Cadillac Deville skidded around the corner. It turned toward them, but the driver slammed on the brakes at the sight of the police car. The driver put the car in reverse and burned out backwards down the street. As Paul stood there watching, too startled to move, the car spun around and took off the other way.

"Come on, dammit!" Mike yelled at him.

He had already let his guy go and was running to the car.

Paul followed him. He jumped into the pa.s.senger seat as Mike threw the car into gear. They crashed down over the curb and fishtailed onto the street, the Cadillac's taillights disappearing around a corner two blocks down.

Mike keyed up the car's radio.

"44-70," he said.

Mike sounded perfectly calm, like he was ordering a cheeseburger at the drive-thru. Paul was shaking like an epileptic.

"44-70," Mike said again.

"Go ahead, 44-70," the dispatcher answered.

"44-70, we got one running. Westbound on Wedding from Hall Street. Approaching Ash Street now. Still westbound."

"10-4, vehicle description?"

"Beige four door Cadillac. Late model, rear end damage. Texas plate four-whiskey-golf-hotel-three-nine."

"Copy that, 44-70. What's he running for?"

"On Ash Street now, going southbound."

"10-4," the dispatcher answered. "Southbound on Ash Street from Wedding. 44-50, 44-60, start that way. What's he running for, 44-70?"

"We're westbound again. On Clarke Street now."

Paul noticed the way Mike's voice got much quieter when he was excited. As he worked the car through the neighborhood, all the way on the gas, then all the way on the brakes, then back on the gas again, shuffle-steering around the corners, hitting the apex of every curve with surgical precision, he still managed to call out their position with perfect clarity. And then, somewhere between watching Mike work the Crown Victoria like a race car and holding onto the dashboard for dear life, it dawned on him that he was in the middle of his first bona fide car chase.

At the Academy, Paul had taken eighty hours of performance driving training. The cadets learned how to take corners at high speed, how to shuffle steer so the radio cord doesn't get tangled around your hands, how to use the car's weight and power to your advantage. There was even a twenty-four hour long segment on how to do the Pursuit Interdiction Technique, or PIT maneuver.

But the most important lesson the instructors had tried to convey was the need to stay calm. Think about fist fights you've been in, the instructors had said. It doesn't matter how good you are, everybody gets scared. Everybody. We all feel the same sense of nausea, the same tightening of the muscles, the same tunnel vision. It's completely natural, even when you've done it before. The same thing happens in vehicle pursuits. No matter how much training you have, or how many times you've done it, you still feel that giant fist squeezing around your belly, taking your breath away.

The trick is to use that feeling, channel it, focus it, make it work for you and against the bad guy. You start by breathing slowly and regularly. You keep your head moving, your eyes scanning the road in front of you and beside you. That way, you avoid tunnel vision, and you decrease the chances of running headlong into an accident.

Paul was dimly aware of all that somewhere in the back of his head, but he was a long ways from applying it. He kept his eyes on the Cadillac's taillights, oblivious to almost everything else that was going on.

They chased the Cadillac through a maze of smaller streets, but Mike stayed with them, calling out street names and directions of travel without ever having to look at the signs. Paul wasn't able to keep up with the course they had taken. He occupied himself with holding onto the dashboard, ready to bail out when the foot chase started.

When they turned onto Wintertime Avenue from Vance Alley, Mike said, "He screwed up. If he doesn't turn off before the bridge, he'll end up in the train yard."

The driver of the Cadillac seemed to realize it, too, though he couldn't stop in time to make the turn. He rocked the car to the left and then tried to make the right turn, but he was going way too fast for that. The back end kicked out and he started to fishtail. He locked up the brakes, which was the wrong thing to do, and the car spun up over a curb, landing in the gra.s.s about twenty feet to the left of the street where he had planned to turn.

Mike brought the patrol car up to the curb near the turn off, blocking the Cadillac from cutting through the gra.s.s and getting to the street that would have taken them out of the area. But the Cadillac wasn't done. The driver put it in reverse and backed up, grinding the tailpipes on the pavement as his back end went over the curb.

"Continuing eastbound on Wintertime," Mike said into the radio. "Looks like he's gonna go into the train yard."

"10-4, 44-70, still eastbound. What's he running for?"

"He did a drive-by at the Witherby Courts. Somewhere around Wedding and Hall."

"10-4," the dispatcher said. "I'm getting that call now. 44-100, are you monitoring, sir?"

Garwin's voice came over the radio.

"10-4, 44-100. Speed and traffic conditions?"

"Speed and traffic, 44-70?" the dispatcher asked.

"We're going over the bridge now," Mike said. "Speed's about eighty miles per hour. No traffic."

"Copy that, 44-100?" the dispatcher asked.

"I copy," said Garwin. "See if we can get Hawkeye Bravo overhead. Pursuit is authorized."

Mike laughed. "Way to go, Garwin."

"Copy that, 44-70?" the dispatcher asked. "You are authorized to pursue."

"We copy," Mike said. "We're over the bridge now. Looks like he's gonna be entering the train yard."

The road ahead of them was completely dark, save for the Cadillac's red taillights bouncing all over the place. They were leaving the regularly traveled part of the road behind and entering the service drive to the train yard. Paul had only the vaguest idea of what that meant and what the train yard was, but from the way Mike was acting, Paul expected the chase to be over real soon.

They hit a b.u.mp and the car bottomed out. Paul's soda went flying out of the cup holder and rolled under the cage and into the backseat foot wells. Mike cursed under his breath as he struggled to maintain control of the car over the rutted road.

"44-70," Mike said. "Advise our cover they're entering the train yard. They're probably gonna try and bail on us here real soon."

"10-4, 44-70. 44-50, 44-60, you copy that?"

The others acknowledged the dispatcher.

"Get ready," Mike said. "They won't be able to get very far inside with the car."

Paul was watching the taillights eagerly. Once they got inside the train yard, his view widened to include a little more of their surroundings. The train yard was exactly what it sounded like. As far as he could see in both directions were rusted-out boxcars on rust-colored tracks crisscrossing the yard. The road they were on went straight into the center of the yard, up a fairly steep, but not very high, embankment, and disappeared on the other side of an engineless line of boxcars.

"Hawkeye Bravo to East Patrol Dispatch, be advised we are overhead and the cameras are rolling."

"10-4," the dispatcher said. "All units, be advised, Hawkeye Bravo is ten-six over the location. Hawkeye Bravo, you will be calling the pursuit."

"10-4, Hawkeye Bravo, we have the ball."

Paul tried to hold onto the dashboard, but Mike's driving was throwing him all over the car, even with his seatbelt on.

Mike steered the car around a curve, turning into the skid to hold the road.

He said, "When they run for it, if your guy gets too far away from you, just backtrack to the car and let Hawkeye use the FLIR to find him. That way we can get some cover out here. Remember, they're armed."

Paul nodded, then held on tight and waited for the end.

Just ahead, a line of boxcars was blocking the road. The flutter in Paul's stomach started up again. The end was almost here.

But instead of stopping, the Cadillac veered to the right, off the roadway, and drove down a dirt path parallel to the tracks. Mike followed, bottoming out the police car as he dropped them into the ruts in the road. He backed off on his speed and let the Cadillac pull ahead. Paul knew what he was doing. He'd heard it plenty of times in the Academy's driving course. Whenever possible, let the bad guy screw himself up. You don't have to drive up their tailpipe to be effective in a pursuit. Just back off and wait for them to lose control.

The Cadillac pa.s.sed the last boxcar and then did something unexpected. The tracks were elevated above the road on a bed of white limestone rocks about the size of golf b.a.l.l.s, and after pa.s.sing the last boxcar in the line, the Cadillac turned into the embankment and tried to drive up and over the tracks. Its front wheels slid into the rocks and then got airborne for a moment, landing on top of the tracks and grinding to a stop, so that it was high-centered across both rails.

Mike guided the patrol car to a stop. Both front doors and the back door on the pa.s.senger side of the Cadillac flew open. Three teenagers jumped out and ran in different directions.

"Here we go," Mike said over the radio. "They're on foot now."

"Hawkeye Bravo, we've got a good visual on all three."

"10-4," the dispatcher said. "44-50, 44-60, let me know when you're out with them."

Mike took off after the driver. The two from the pa.s.senger side went in different directions. The guy in the front seat ran off into the tall weeds to Paul's right. The guy in the backseat still had the gun in his hand, and he ran into the train yard.

Paul went after him.

He chased the kid-for he could tell now that he was a kid, no more than sixteen or seventeen, at the most-across the tracks and down the other side. The kid was fast, and he had a pretty good lead on Paul, but Paul was faster. He closed the gap quickly, gaining on him as they rounded the back corner of another line of boxcars and jumped over a large cement block that must have been a loading ramp at one time.

The kid let out a startled whine when he saw Paul closing in, and he turned and pointed his pistol at Paul. Paul ducked between two boxcars and pulled his own pistol. He was breathing hard, but he wasn't winded. If anything, he felt wide awake, hyperaware of his surroundings. Hawkeye Bravo was overhead, its spotlight filling the gap between the two lines of boxcars with a flickering blue light. Paul could hear the rotors thumping against the air. He could see skeins of dust moving snakelike across the ground. He could smell his own breath, hot and dry. And though the rotors were making a huge noise, he could still hear the sound of the kid's sneakers slapping the ground as he ran. He was in the zone.

Paul ducked down and looked under the boxcar. He caught a glimpse of the kid jumping into another boxcar further up the row. He waited a second to see if the kid would stick his head back out.