Tag: Futuristic

Hijack: Part 1

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

1.

The Kenworth W900 whined and whistled along I-70 East, bound for Oakton, Ohio. The long-haul rig dragged a 40-foot tanker filled with diesel from a Washington refinery. An exchange had been made near Seattle for a load of corn-oil. The diesel-delivery was assigned for four days to give better time for sleep and reduce the risks of accidents. Gail Wolfe was never one to wait though. As a driver, and owner of Oakton’s Lone-Wolfe Shipping, she saw it as her mission to make it into Oakton ahead of schedule.

For most, making such a long haul in a short time was dangerous. Back in the days before Unions fought for standardized breaks and drive time, countless accidents, incidents, and total nervous breakdowns had dominated the industry. The drivers that had built America through its shipping and transportation operations, and worked it for over a hundred years, were simply out of fuel. The profession itself had become so weighted under stereotypes, global economics, and international pressures, that no driver was immune. Even Gail admitted, once or twice, had she been driving then she’d have felt it too.

It was a different world now though, and even the old W900 felt it. The truck had been new twenty years ago, when Gail first built Lone-Wolfe, but they were older, slower, and just a little more tired with each haul that passed. What was worse, Lone-Wolfe seemed to be headed into the same downward spiral. It wouldn’t have been the first of the “old-timers” to go, but if Gail could help it, it would damn well be the last. She’d hold out until she croaked, stubborn to a fault.

Most other companies had been “acquired” by one corporation or another– the big ones, that wrote a lot of zeroes on checks to get their way. One of them, Mechanized Transports Incorporated, had even tried with Gail– Or rather, was still trying. She’d told the reps from M-T precisely where and how far to shove their offer.

The whole thing was a way to shut up people in power, and phase-out drivers for auto-drive software built into new, high-efficiency trucks, or retro-fitted into the older ones that didn’t offend bottom-lines too greatly. Gail had a hard time seeing how the buy-outs were anything less than bribes. Even the Unions were struggling to keep owners from taking them.

But Gail wouldn’t. In fact, if given a choice, she’d burn anyone that did– whether figuratively or literally. They weren’t worth the air in their lungs, let alone the sweat off her back. She’d fight to the death to ensure everyone knew that.

I-70 morphed into highway 127 South. The light of a new day rose to Gail’s left through a quilt of farm-land with river-like striations of trees along it. The rural road was vacant in the early morning, and even the best of GPS programs and software wouldn’t have foreseen how much time Gail would shave off her remaining route. That wasn’t the point though. She’d always gone into Oakton along the Masseville highway. Apart from its emptiness, it offered a modicum of serenity beyond the curtained sleeper-cab.

Fresh, cool dew clung to plants and matured crops near-ready for harvest. Dawn splayed through droplets, stank with the crispness of a new day beyond the cab’s open windows. Gail kept the radios low to soak in the beauty. The occasional murmur of other drivers or dispatchers mumbled from one radio while something old and vaguely folk-ish crooned from the other. The high-whine of the rig was the only other thing to break the still quiet. With that, it left waves of life in its wake, as if the harbinger of day arousing nocturnal dreamers from their slumber.

The rest of Masseville passed in similar fashion. A half-hour of winding roads and sharp-intersections forced Gail to downshift, then roar back up to speed again. To say she was somewhat of a romantic for Masseville’s views was to miss her otherwise utterly unsentimental nature. She couldn’t help but find a special place in her heart for the open road, however cold it was to everything else.

The quilted farmland began to degrade into the urbanity of Oakton’s outskirts. The shift had always been gradual, but there was no denying its jarring effect. Trees and fields turned to sparse homes and small office-complexes. Full-on city suddenly appeared, as if progress were shoved up to eleven to allow the metropolis to unfold.

The way in was clear enough that Gail hit only a pair of stop-lights before the diesel delivery-station. The place was a warehouse-sized shipping-receiver with a fleet of various rigs and trailers. She eased up to the guard house, diesel idle purring like a house-cat, and handed over her work order. A guard directed her across the lot near two other tankers. Before long, she had the trailer backed in, the work order signed, and the W900 ready to pull away.

Lone-Wolfe’s headquarters were partitioned to a large, industrial lot on the city’s West side, just a few miles from the delivery location. Making it to the garage from anywhere in the city was more habit than anything, and when the truck finally came to a rest amid Lone-Wolfe’s fleet vehicles, Gail was ready for the business-end of things before finally conking out– probably hours after her return.

The interior of Lone-Wolfe was more like a repair garage than anything. There was enough space for three rigs, loads of diagnostic equipment, toolboxes and the like, and some vending machines with couches and coffee tables to one side. One of the drivers, Carl Reyer, was passed out on a couch, his face hidden under a trucker-cap as he snoozed away.

Gail ambled past. Carl was the type to be on the road more than home. Most of the time that meant he was or crossing the country, long-hauling haz-mat cargo or the occasional low-boy with hired hands flagging ahead and behind. Like Gail, he had a sort of love for the open road that kept him running when he should’ve been at home, in bed. Even his wife had gotten tired of it, left him. Since then, he’d taken his sleep in his cab or on one of the garage-couches. Gail empathized, if little else.

She strolled across the smaller section of the garage to the offices in its opposite corner. Carl’s snores followed her in to the first section. The two desks, back-to-back, were reserved for the dispatchers running tracking and comm software, and monitoring traffic and weather with real-time uplinks to NWS and various news-agencies. From the two desks, the company’s six, dispatchers could communicate with and track the dozen drivers Gail employed 24/7. Apart from one or two other, necessary upgrades, Dispatch was the only thing Gail had let progress seep into. Even the rigs themselves were elderly by most standards. If it weren’t for Darian Foster and his crew, the fleet would’ve been dead years ago.

Darian was the highest paid employee at Lone-Wolfe, and for damned good reason. He had more mechanical expertise than a submarine full of engineers, and a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. If it weren’t for the dire, crushing debt he’d had a decade ago, Gail would’ve never survived. She’d hired him in on basic salary in a downsizing economy, and before she could get out the door on her next haul, he’d proven himself worthy of a raise.

Presently though, Gail was focused on the back-office and the silhouette behind its frosted glass. She stopped to hand a file to Walt Thacker, a dispatcher with a beer-gut larger every time she saw it.

“Latest pay,” Gail said unceremoniously. “Make sure Brianne gets it before shift-change.”

He grunted an “eh,” in reply.

Truth was, she didn’t care to hear his Hutt-like wheezes anyhow. She glanced at the frosted glass, checked her watch, 7:30 on the dot, “Who’s here?”

Xavier Knaggs replied, “Suit.”

Gail’s face turned red, and she stormed for the office, “Son of a bitch!”

She burst into the office to find a pair of suits sitting in the chairs before her desk. A third one stood behind and between them like a guard dog. Something about the two men and woman said they felt accosted by the sheer thought of sitting in a dingy office like Gail’s. Part of her wanted to keep them there for that fact alone, but the rest of her won out.

She stepped around the desk, nostrils flaring. The woman in the chair extended her hand, “Missus Wolfe, I’m Eleanor Tyler, Mechanized Transport’s Acquisitions Department.”

It took all of Gail’s sense not to punt the scrawny bitch through the frosted glass– that, and the obvious bulldog look of the blood-thirsty lawyer between her and the window.

“These are my associates,” Tyler said with a gesture. “Lloyd Wembley and Matthew Benton–”

“I don’t care,” Gail snapped. “Get out of my office.”

“Missus Wolfe–”

“If you’re going to patronize me, at least get my fucking name right. I was married once, I’m not now. At no point during was my name Wolfe.”

The scrawny bitch recoiled from her own faux-pas. A mental flash of her arcing backward through the glass almost caused Gail to smile. She didn’t though, especially not now. Instead, she stiffened up, arms crossed, “I’ve told your company, I’m not for sale. Keep this up, and I’ll sue your asses for harassment.”

The bulldog’s ears perked up. Gail could’ve sworn she saw his ass wiggle like a tail. “I assure you, Mizz Wolfe, that these meetings are more than legal by any definitions of the law.”

Her eyes sharpened to pointed knives, “I may not be a lawyer, Mr. Benton, but the last time I checked, trespassing wasn’t. This is private property owned by Lone-Wolfe Shipping, and if I say leave, I mean it. Now go, before we see who’s right.”

The bulldog-face crumpled together. He muttered something and signaled a rise from the other two. Tyler followed Benton out immediately, but Wembley laid a card on the desk and gave a smug bow of his head. He followed deliberately, steps paced as if he owned the joint. She slammed the office door hard enough to rattle loose its panes of glass in their fittings.

She fell into her desk-chair, palm to her forehead, and glanced at the card. “Lloyd Wembley,” sat above “Board of Directors, Mechanized Transports Inc.” A phone number and a few other lines of contact filled out the corner. The only thing missing was the word “Prick” next to his name. Gail hoped someone was fired for the oversight.

Poetry-Thing Thursday: LCD Calamity

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

LED.
Technology.
When you’re in,
think of me.

Virtual Insanity.
LCD Calamity.
When you’re out again,
forget how to be.

For the ‘net is quite large,
and has a lean to take charge.

Electricity.
Bit currency.
Arcs in light we see,
to throttle us with ferocity.

When corruptibility,
is formatted glee,
we’ll be forced to take knee,
risk our lives or flee.

Then will float a barge,
with our corpses as its only charge.

Corporatocracy.
High-Velocity.
Suicide-society,
burning to ashes around me.

Cyberpunk scene.
Streets unclean.
Veins of pink and blue and green,
striate what little Humanity can glean.

Web 2.0 turned to dust,
in favor of corporate lust.

Insanity.
Corporate manatee.
Greed vanity,
ruling iron-fistedly.

Where poverty,
becomes artistry,
only to utterly,
destroy equality.

Beware of the creature,
of man-made feature,
and hydra-headed preacher,
for it is no teacher.

Instead,
listen to your head,
or you’ll find dead,
those liberty bred,
from the LCD,
Calamity,
and Cyberpunk dread.

Short Story: Bad Business

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 4 Comments

Rain pelted the ground in sheets of cascading waves just beyond the alcove of the Flaming Hat Pub & Grub. The place was one of those dives built on sincerity and hope, and when that died, it attracted the same flies every elderly tavern’s corpse was prone to.

Yan Federoff wasn’t one of the flies though. In fact, he hated bar flies and the Flaming Hat more than most people stuck there against their will. Part of it was the name; it was a stupid name, more than likely a contributor to its own downfall. It was never intended as a homosexual establishment, and that made “Flaming” all the more pointless– especially given the bigoted owner that often tended the bar.

Maybe it was the air that always stank of stale beer and stagnant piss. That seemed more likely, Yan thought. He exhaled a long plume of smoke through the waterfall pouring out decades-neglected gutters. His smoke disintegrated into the sheeting rain, and he suddenly knew that was it.

The place was like an old cesspool of bile and death, and you couldn’t smoke in it. That was why he hated the place. It didn’t help that every time he was supposed to contact someone there, everything inevitably went tits-up.

His mind started to broach the subject, but he stopped before it could. Too many bad memories, too much life left to live. Dwelling wouldn’t change the past, and he didn’t believe in regret anyway. As he saw it, if you hated life, you changed it. Otherwise, quit bitching, ’cause hindsight’s always 20/20.

A new-model auto-car rolled along the street from somewhere in the distance. It was sleek, all curves and plastic, like a beauty pageant contestant with more intelligence. The door opened unceremoniously. In the dim recesses of the car’s rear bench-seat, an old, white-haired man was leaned sideways. He looked into Yan’s eyes, gestured him into the car.

Yan did his best to appear formal and stiff as he plunged through the storm for the car. Last thing he wanted was to be wet, but appearing soft in even the slightest way could spell death for his business. The last thing he needed was someone joking with wannabe world-dominating buddies about the guy “afraid of a little rain.”

He slipped into the car, directed to the bench-seat opposite the man’s. Even after twenty years, it was eerie to sit in a car with no driver or cock-pit. All of that stuff had been phased-out, replaced by state-of-the-art computer processors and navigation software. Most cars were just a couple of bucket-seats and a pair of doors now, everything else was under the hood. Pissed the auto-mechanics off something fierce when their industry went totally belly-up, save those few lucky enough to be employed by corporate garages.

Yan took his seat across from the man whom thumbed a cell-phone to punch in an address. Its information was transmitted via wi-fi to the car, read by the processor, and its door shut. A short ding sounded, and the car began to roll forward.

“Mr. Federoff,” the old man said. His voice was gravel in a tin can, rattling out sounds rather than speaking. “You have something for me?”

Yan reached into his jacket pocket, produced a small flash-drive. He handed it over, “As requested, everything to be found on Moscow’s heads of state.”

The old man took it, slotted it in the car’s armrest. A holo-screen appeared in front of him, projected from a diode in the ceiling. It tracked his eye movements as he shuffled through active windows for the drive’s contents. He settled on one, nodding slowly to himself. Sub-folders opened in a cascade of detailed documents and various, image files.

“Very good, Mr. Federoff,” he rattled off. “Very good, indeed.”

“And my payment?” Yan asked, his face blank.

The old man fished a similar flash-stick from his front blazer-pocket, leaned through the projected screen to hand it over. Yan took it. The car rolled to a stop and the door opened on pouring rain.

“Thank you for you work, Mr. Federoff,” the old man said stiffly, cutting off the diode’s projection. “Now, please leave.”

Yan remained still, indifferent, “After I verify the credits.”

He dug a cell-phone out of his pocket, hovered it over the flash-stick. The old man chewed his teeth with a half-snarl, aggravated at the implication that he might stiff a man for his work. Yan didn’t care. He’d seen enough weasels in high-end cars with caviar tastes on off-brand, box-wine budgets to know cred-transfers were the only ways to verify their stories.

A bar flashed on the screen to acknowledge the old man’s claim. Yan leaned forward and half-walked along the car and out into the rain. He stepped out, instantly soaked by the storm.

“Pray we never meet again,” the old man warned.

If Yan were younger and more flagrant or arrogant, he’d have laughed at the insinuation. It was posturing, a lashing out of wits at his implication. Yan had learned the hard-way what that could do to future prospects though– or even present bodily blood-content. Instead, his jaw tightened, added a harsh angle to his left jaw. He gave a micro-nod, and the door shut. The car pulled away along the street.

Yan stood, drenched, on the sidewalk to rubberneck the area. A couple of younger Asian women were hobbling together beneath an umbrella, trying to keep in-step with one another, but it was otherwise empty. He slipped into the shadows of an alley before they could get a glimpse of his face or figure, keyed up his internal comm with a thought, and dialed a number from his mental directory.

A tone sounded a few times before a tin-rattling gravel voice answered. He was silent as the old man repeated “hello” a pair of times.

He sensed the tone about to go dead, “Izmennik.”

Thunder cracked as if a lightning had struck the street ahead. A fireball erupted through the downpour. Windows shattered along the buildings. Glass shards melded with rain, indistinguishable. Screams from the Asian women told Yan all he needed to know. He slipped under a door-way’s overhang to light a cigarette, then fished the hood of his sweatshirt from beneath his jacket, pulled it over his head.

“Piz da,” he muttered.

How could the guy have really expected him to blackmail every one of the heads of state? That was as good as declaring war on Russia. More importantly, it was putting himself directly in the cross-hairs of every agency in the country. He needed them more than the payday. The SVR alone was one of his best suppliers of information, his trade. The last thing he needed was some brown-nosing rich bastard trying to make a name for himself by outing politicians, or worse, puppeteering events through them.

But he couldn’t turn down the money. Who could? Who would for that matter? Instead, he cooked up the scam with a few friends in the FSB, fattened his bottom line, and took out a problem for the government. No one would be anymore the wiser for his betrayal, and if it did come out, it would only seem logical. After all, anything else was just bad business.

Hot Iron: Part 7

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

13.

The guy was built like one of those Harley thugs from street-gang movies. In other-words, a brick shit-house that might’ve given Juan Torres a run for his money. That is, until he was slammed backward against a wall of shelves by the tiny, blonde NSA agent. Barnet watched with an almost sick satisfaction, smirking at the debilitated pain in the guy’s face. Sarah pressed a gun to his head with one hand, twisted his testicles with the other.

“Kieran Walters, asshole! Where is he?”

“Bitch, I… don’t know who you’re… talking about,” he said an octave higher than expected.

She gave an angry twist, “Tell me, or I rip ’em off!”

Barnet was leaned against a car a few feet away, its hood open. He crossed his arms, casually, “You might wanna’ do what she says. I’m not sure she can do it, but personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing her try.”

“Sick fucks, both of–” A twist and a sharp inhale cut him off. His voice was even higher, “Alright, alright.” Sarah released him enough to speak. “I seen him come in here. He wanted a fleet of SUVs. Yah. And when I asked him to sign the paperwork, he dropped a briefcase full’a money on the table.”

Barnet moseyed over, “We’ve found the fleet, all twelve of ’em.”

He spoke through curled, nicotine-stained lip, “What about the last one? Thirteen?”

Sarah readied to squeeze again, glanced back at Barnet, “What d’you think?”

“Walters seems like the type to account for this.”

They exchanged a glance and looked back to the guy for an explanation. He shrank away as best he could. “The guy… Walters… didn’t know, but I had trackers in the trucks. Just in case… something happened.”

He grit his teeth, fearful of another twist. The two agents had a silent conversation of tilted and raised facial features. Finally, Sarah looked back, “Give us the tracker’s I-D frequency, we pretend this little infraction never happened. We’ll even keep your parole officer from hearing about it.”

“Yeah?” She raised an eyebrow. “And I can keep the money?”

Barnet shook his head pitifully, “The NSA doesn’t give a shit about Walters’ money, or yours, just quit jerking us around.”

The guy swallowed hard, nodded. Sarah released him, but kept her gun up. It followed his half-limp around and into a nearby office. He sat behind a desk, nursed himself with a gentle hand and typed with the other.

“Fuckin’ bruised ’em, I think.”

“Poor baby.”

He switched out hands to scribble down a series of letters and numbers on a memo pad, then tore off the page for Barnet. He went back to cradling himself, with both hands this time, “That’s it. Feed it into any GPS monitor and it’ll show up the next time the truck starts.”

“Why the wait?” Barnet asked.

He shrugged, breathed carefully, “I dunno. That’s just always how the system’s worked…. I’d say I wish I could offer more help, but we’d all know it’s a lie.”

Sarah safetied her pistol, slid it into her hip-holster, and stepped away. Barnet moved to leave, nodded at the guy, “Best to get some ice on ’em before too long.”

“Yeah. Right. I’ll do that.” The door to the office shut. “Asshole.”

A bucket of ice water splashed Kennedy’s face and torso. She choked and coughed, gasping for air and spitting out inhaled water. Walters’ fingers nursed his wounded neck as she shook water from her face, opened her eyes to see him lean in at nose-length again.

“That wasn’t very smart. Try some it again, I’ll strip you naked and feed you to my men.”

Her eyes burned with hatred. Her emotional control had returned in full-force, and was currently tempering her fear into active hatred and undeniable logic. “No. You won’t. Not if you ever hope to get anything out of me. My guess is, until then, you’ll keep me as safe and sane as possible. Otherwise, you. Are. fucked.”

Walters straightened from his lean and began to laugh. He looked back at one of his men, “Maybe I was wrong about this one. Maybe she is a smart girl.”

Walters nodded to the man. He stepped to a nearby door and threw it open with one hand, the other clasped around a Kalashnikov. Someone was thrown toward him. He dragged them in, forced them forward at rifle-point. The person stumbled, hands bound with rope and mouth gagged with a swath of cloth.

Kennedy’s eyes widened at Melissa Fannon. Juan Torres’ bombshell sister looked like hell. She’d passed the point where any amount of time could make her look whole again, no matter her skill with make-up.

Walters smiled with a sadistic satisfaction, “Now, my bows, they’ve already had their way with this one. I figure though, you’re a… medical professional, took an oath to “do no harm–” He felt at his neck with a sickly wince. “And my guess is, that extends to this–” He knelt down, grabbed Melissa by the back of the head, “this poor, cowering creature here.” He threw her head forward, stood up, and pulled a gun from his hip. He stopped between Kennedy and Melissa, gun aimed at the latter, “Now, she doesn’t know where they’re holding her brother, but you do. You can see where this is going, I imagine. In case you don’t, let me just say, I have no problem killing her to get you to talk.”

“What if I don’t?” Kennedy asked, eyes locked on Walters’.

He cocked the pistol’s hammer, “Maybe we should find out.”

Kennedy grit her teeth. Walters hesitated. Melissa’s eyes were stuck in a traumatized stare. She’d clearly been through something. Kennedy hoped, whatever it was, Walters was lying about it. All the same, she was at a loss. If she gave them the information, they’d have no use for her anymore, and they’d kill her. Then, they’d kill Melissa, raid the NSA Safe-house, kill Mendez, Torres, and whomever else got in the way.

She looked up at Walters, “How do I know you won’t kill us afterward just for the fun of it?”

Walter’s head tilted in agreement. He knelt to match his height to hers, eyes boring holes into her own, “Well, I suppose, that’s just the risk you take.”

Kennedy inhaled a sharp breath. Her stomach churned. “Alright. No games.”

She took a breath, and relayed an address. Walters immediately ordered his men to ready up over a two-way radio, put the man in the room on guard and left. It was only a matter of time before he realized the address was a fake. With any luck, the real NSA safe-house next door would intervene.

14.

Sarah’s sedan pulled into a space a few places down from the Dentist’s car. He’d been and gone since lunch, and was currently inside working on one of his patients. Barnet and Sarah eased from the car, neither much in the mood for talking. They still had to get upstairs, begin monitoring the GPS signal, and hope, when it registered again, it would lead to Kennedy… and that she’d still be alive.

They pushed into the building as a vehicle rolled up behind them. They ignored a shout as four doors opened. The building door shut, and Barnet’s mind blocked it out. He was too focused on finding Kennedy. Upstairs, they had only the vaguest sense that something was off. A loud crash sounded, but given the place below was a bar, it was neither uncommon nor alarming.

Sarah took a place at her laptop, keyed in the GPS ID the ex-con had given them. Barnet stood before the two, scarred patients with his arms crossed. His thoughts were only of Kennedy and an undeniable guilt at involving her. She’d only been gone a few hours, but she could be dead by now, maybe worse. In his line of work, death was quick, simple, with no time for undue suffering. More often than not though, guys like Walters excelled in make suffering a deranged art. He didn’t want to admit any of it to Sarah, as her hope kept him going, but his own was a facade that could easily disintegrate if not careful.

Kennedy Hart. She shouldn’t be here. She was a nurse, not an agent. Hell, she hardly had a life outside work. To think it might be over so young, so needlessly, wounded him. He may not have put the gun to her head, but he’d damned sure put her in position for Walters to. He and the Agency– the NSA, that was prepared to disavow Barnet’s entire operation if things went sideways and the wrong people found out what was going on. Barnet wasn’t even sure anymore, not really.

He’d sussed out what he could from what he hadn’t known. Hot Iron had never been solely about locating and eliminating Walters. That was the one thing he’d lied about. The NSA was intent on taking Walters in, interrogating him with prejudice, and getting everything from him they could. They’d charge him in a secret court, and shove him in a cell so deep underground he’d be dead a decade before anyone learned he’d been caught. In the meantime, they and the other acronym agencies would use whatever they’d learned to forward their own, particular agendas.

It made him sick to think of it. Half truths and white-lies. That was what he’d given to Kennedy. There was no way to avoid the guilt. He’d been as honest as he could be, told her enough to know to keep herself safe, protect her job from the people holding it hostage. It wasn’t enough. It never could’ve been. He doubted full-fledged field-training would’ve put her in the right place to take on Walters. The man was a trained, ex-mercenary on a warpath. The entire CIA hadn’t been able to keep him leashed, even then the NSA hadn’t been able to catch him. What hope could Kennedy have in his hands?

It was on Barnet’s watch that Kennedy had been hit and captured. Her T-boned Taurus was still being combed for clues at the crash-site. What a waste of effort and time. It could’ve been better directed elsewhere, at finding her, at squeezing every last resource the agency had to do so.

“It’s in,” Sarah said.

Barnet nodded. Another crash sounded below. Four doors slammed shut outside. An SUV ground to a start.

“Hold on, we’re getting something,” Sarah said, the screen before her triangulating with a progress bar.

Barnet heard doors slam and suddenly knew.

“It’s–”

“Here.”

His pistol was out, legs pumping for the building’s entrance. He threw himself through the office-door, bounded down the steps, then crashed through the building’s entrance. Tires squealed as he burst outside. His pistol rose, barked rounds. The SUV’s rear-window shattered. A tail-light burst. Sarah was out behind him, diving into the car. Barnet aimed one last shot, blew out a rear-tire on the SUV. It fish-tailed away over metal grating asphalt. Three tires screeched, whipped it around a corner. Sarah threw the car through a reverse 180, door open. Barnet reloaded as he jumped in. Rubber burned and peeled away after the SUV, the force slamming the doors shut.

They blazed through an intersection. Sirens blared and began to scream along behind them. They galloped forward, engine whining, pursuing the wounded truck. Barnet leaned from his window, fired wildly into the rear of the truck. Blood sprayed a window and someone in a rear-seat slumped sideways, dead from a stray round. Another person turned around.

“Down!” Barnet yelled.

He shoved Sarah beneath the dash. She fought to keep the car straight, blind. A Kalashnikov chattered, and spit ammunition and shell casings out the back window. Divots danced across Sarah’s hood and windshield. A double triplet of fire shattered the window over them. The sedan chirped and barked, weaved to dodge more fire. It died for a reload.

Barnet was up, “Keep it steady!”

He took a deep breath, aimed at the figure in the backseat. It fumbled with a new magazine. Timed slowed. Barnet breathed, squeezed. Blood and brain splattered from an exit wound. It spit across seat-backs and the windshield, threw the SUV into a frenzy as the driver struggled to wipe it away.

Time resumed. Screaming sirens and the squeal of sparking metal sounded over the bark of Barnet’s gunfire. The truck threw itself around corners, used its fish-tails to dodge the shots. A helicopter thumped into view overhead. Squad cars behind them suddenly surged forward to come even with them– the cops would have run their plates, deduced what was happening. The day’s earlier events assured everyone knew the NSA and FBI were hunting someone. The chopper pulled ahead with a bloodthirsty vengeance above, then sank like a stone to cut off Walters’ SUV.

The chase diverted into an alley, rocketed out the other-side into heavy traffic.

Walters ducked in the front seat, phone to his ear, “Kill them. Line them up and kill them both.”

The man in the room before Kennedy thumbed his phone, shoved it into a pocket. He advanced with his rifle on her. A hand grabbed Melissa, threw her at the far wall across from Kennedy. She knew what was about to happen, had only one chance to stop it. She was a nurse, knew human anatomy better than most. She’d have to put it to the test. But how? Could she? She was sworn to help people, but this was different, wasn’t it?

The man unlocked her first cuff. She had to wait until she was up. She couldn’t risk not having full leverage. There were a million ways to kill a person, probably more. Most of them she’d seen, either as attempts, or eventual successes. They all required both hands.

“Beside her, now!” Her second hand came free and he pulled her up.

Nothing mattered now except survival.

She straightened to step forward. His rifle was low, its butt even with his diaphragm. It wouldn’t take much. She moved to step. A fast grip and heavy jolt; the rifle-butt slammed his diaphragm. He fell back, breathless. She wrestled the rifle away. A heavy jerk broke it free. A moment later the butt crushed his throat. A crunch, and he was dead, spinal cord severed.

Kennedy’s chest heaved from the effort, mind still reeling. A flit from Melissa forced her into action. In a flash, she was beside her, rifle in hand, fighting knotted rope at her wrists. She freed the gag from Melissa.

“Y-you k-killed him,” she said, traumatized.

She fought the rope, “These knots. The rope’s too tight.”

“He h-has a kn-knife,” Melissa said, eyeing the body.

Kennedy hurried over to search him, found a pistol and a large survival knife. She slid the pistol into the waistband of her scrubs, then sliced through the binds on Melissa’s wrist.

“Ready?” Melissa nodded. “Stay behind me. We’ll get out of here. I promise.”