Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Page 21

  Cause you’d be in way over your head

  Cuttin’ heads

  With the living dead

  B.B. may play sittin’ down

  But Slow Hand can’t ever take that crown

  Cuttin’ heads

  Cuttin’ heads

  The two guitars then swirled in a duel of their own. Whether either one of them could have stood toe-to-toe with any of the guitarists they’d called out was unlikely, yet there was still something admirable in the intensity of their attempt.

  Now, Danny, you played your part too

  You whored your soul

  You know it’s true

  And when your world came crashing down

  You’d given up your solid ground

  So now you’re going to have to run, my friend

  If you ever want to see your cash again

  I’m certain you know where to go

  Sweet home, Chicago

  The guitars took their last swings at one another and then the whole number came to a four-count, sudden stop.

  “They’re not bad,” the bartender commented, handing the disc back to Daniel.

  “No. Trust me,” Daniel said, slipping the disc back into his coat with the others. “Whoever they are, they’re all kinds of bad.”

  In the post-9/11 world, the NTSB has managed to make everyone who flies commercial airlines feel like a criminal. It’s an annoyance for the innocent but makes air travel an absolute impossibility for subjects of federal manhunts.

  Rental cars require a check of driver’s licenses and credit cards, a problematic procedure when the hired killers hot on your trail can trace those kinds of things. A bus ticket can be bought with cash and without clearing a security screening. But the trip from Nashville to Chicago—with about a hundred stops in between—takes fourteen hours. Daniel wasn’t sure he had that kind of time to waste.

  The idea of a train briefly seemed like a possibility, but there hasn’t been passenger service to or from the Music City since the Floridian was cancelled in the 1970s.

  There was one last option. But at 472 miles, it’s a long walk from Nashville to Chicago.

  Afternoon slipped into evening. One by one, the honky-tonks and bars lining Broadway lit up their neon signs and readied themselves for another night. Daniel stood beneath their glow, cursing his predicament. He knew he had to head to Chicago and he was fairly sure where he’d find the next clue once he got there, but he had absolutely no way of getting to the Home of the Electric Blues.

  The sidewalk traffic along Broadway had increased significantly, swelled by a hardworking legion just looking to take the edge off another day in the trenches, and by some others who were looking to get an early jump on the reason they’d be calling in “sick” in the morning. Stunned by his predicament, Daniel stood statue still, ignoring the jostling crowd as it bumped and bustled by him. He was so oblivious to the constant stream of commotion behind him that he was never sure whether it was an accident or the unseen hand on his back purposely intended to shove him out into the street.

  Caught off guard and off balance, he stumbled a step or two and then looked up at the chrome grill bearing down on him. A horn like a thousand vuvuzelas sounded. Tires screeched. Breaks hissed. The truck and trailer came to a frame-rattling stop as Daniel stood looking up at the Peterbilt badge not more than a foot from his face. It gave him an ingenious idea.

  What started as an angry exchange between driver and almost-victim quickly turned to a discrete negotiation. It turned out the driver was headed in a most convenient direction. For one hundred and five dollars—all the money he had left—Daniel got a cozy bunk in the sleeper cab and a handshake promise they’d be in Chi-town before midnight.

  “Doncha worry,” the heavyset man with the full red beard assured him, “I’ll get ya dere befores youse knows it. Trust me!” And with that sterling guarantee, Daniel closed the curtain on the sleeper cab, stretched out on the bunk and drifted off to sleep.

  The images were so oddly striking that Daniel was aware he was dreaming even while he was shrouded in its veil. He was in a mid-century bungalow in Echo Park, the one he’d bought with Connie as newlyweds. He wandered from room to room, unsure what he was looking for but desperately searching. Through the windows he could see a lion on the front lawn, agitated and impatiently pacing back and forth. It stopped when it saw him and called out in a voice, deeper and louder than any roar, “You’re gonna haveta come out sooner or later. Get out before it’s too late.” He turned and there was Connie holding a gun in one hand and Randy’s hand in the other—the rest of Randy was not attached. She stood there, pointing them both at Daniel. He turned and ran toward the door, less afraid of the lion than he was of staying in the house.

  The truck’s cab door slamming shut sounded like a shotgun blast in the otherwise silent night. Daniel awoke with a start, not sure if he’d been shot. It took a moment before he realized where he was. And why.

  “Are we here?” he asked groggily.

  Silence was the only response.

  And then from just outside the cab, he could hear muffled voices. He assumed one of them must be the driver’s. He couldn’t make out every word, but every now and again he could catch bits and pieces of the conversation. The trucker said something about not being a public servant and wanting his goddamn money.

  Whoever he was speaking with said something about getting “back behind the perimeter.”

  The driver answered with something garbled, though Daniel thought he heard “be careful of my goddamn truck.”

  It struck Daniel as strange, but none of it made any sense.

  Confused and still half-asleep, Daniel pulled back the curtain between the sleeper berth and the truck’s main cabin. He yawned, unable to shake the grogginess from his aching head. He looked around the cab. He was alone.

  He glanced casually through the truck’s windshield, hoping he might spot some landmark that would offer a clue as to where they’d stopped. And why.

  The skyline in the near distance confirmed they were in Chitown, all right, and apparently parked in the middle of a seemingly abandoned freight yard. Daniel guessed the “why” had something to do with the two dozen CPD squad cars strategically positioned as cover for the officers who had taken aim on the truck cab.

  Somewhere just beyond this wall of black-and-whites, a bullhorn squawked and an authoritative voice called out, “You in the truck. This is Agent Gerald Feller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Place your hands out of the window and prepare to exit the vehicle.”

  There was nothing Daniel wanted to do more. He was tired and hungry and sore and scared. He’d grown weary of the malicious game he’d been dragged into and tired of running for his life. If it had been up to him, he would have happily put up his hands and given up then and there. Maybe—with a good lawyer—he might even be able to explain the reasons for why he’d done it all.

  There was, however, more than just his life at stake. If he surrendered now, there was nothing ahead of him except a brief stay in the infamous Cook County Jail. And then it would just be a matter of waiting for one of Filat’s messengers with a sharpened spoon or the pointy part of a broken toothbrush to finish his ordeal. And while Daniel was lying on a slab in the morgue, Filat Preezrakevich would have his men out looking for Zack.

  Daniel didn’t give a shit about himself anymore, but if he was caught now, his son was a dead man too.

  And so, he simply had to find a way out.

  In all the times he’d lovingly told his son, “There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you,” Daniel had never once anticipated that life might actually call him on his paternal promise or that fulfilling his vow might include driving a stolen tractor-trailer through a hail of bullets and a wall of cop cars.

  Still, he’d meant what he’d said; besides, he couldn’t think of another way out. He climbed awkwardly into the driver’s seat. There were no keys hanging from the ignition, but he found the spare behind the ov
ersized sun visor. He slipped it in and turned…but nothing happened.

  “Daniel Erickson,” Agent Feller called again, making his order more personal and direct. “Place your hands in plain sight and prepare to exit the vehicle.”

  Maybe it was the clutch. Daniel pressed it in and tried the key again. Still nothing.

  “This is your last warning!”

  Daniel noticed a button marked START. This time he turned the key, depressed the clutch, and pressed the button. The third time was a charm. The engine coughed, sputtered, and then roared to life.

  “Turn off the engine!” Agent Feller ordered. “Turn off the engine and exit the vehicle. Now! You are surrounded and we are prepared to use deadly force!”

  Daniel knew he should be feeling something—there were dozens of appropriate emotions, a full gamut from terror to regret—but all he felt was determined. He focused on the street at the far end of the freight yard. If he could make it that far, he might have a chance of getting free of the trap that was closing on him.

  “This is your last chance!” Agent Feller screamed, clearly agitated that his directive was being ignored. “Exit the vehicle! Now!”

  Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He pictured his son, and then the little boy his son had been. The most subtle of smiles turned the far corners of his lips as he forced the stick up into first gear. The grinding gears made a high-pitched sound like a mechanized banshee as the truck jumped, jerking against the weight of the trailer still hitched behind it.

  Most of the CPD officers had expected the fugitive to surrender. They all had their weapons drawn and aimed at the truck, but none of them was truly prepared for the truck to start moving forward. When it suddenly lurched toward them, it startled all them—but one of them more than the rest.

  A single shot rang out. And that startled the other officers too. A second panic shot went off. Then a third. The night sounded like popcorn beginning to pop. An instant later, there was a sustained volley of shots as Agent Feller scrambled to figure out who’d started shooting—and why. And to stop the others.

  Shots went high. Shots went low. Some struck the tractor’s engine block and others shattered the windshield. But none hit Daniel, who crouched behind the steering wheel and reached for second gear. There was another pained wail of grinding metal as he made the shift, and then the truck began to pick up speed as it rolled closer and closer to the wall of squad cars.

  Fifteen miles per hour may not be very fast, but it’s plenty fast enough if the moving force happens to be a Peterbilt tractor. The truck barreled through the blockade like it had been hastily constructed of cardboard boxes as the police officers hiding behind them jumped clear of the collision. The truck pushed squad cars out of its way like a bully at the beach, driving them into one another like it was knocking over a set of automotive dominoes.

  The officers who’d dived for cover righted themselves and resumed fire on the truck as it rolled past their positions. Their shots buried themselves in the trailer, but it was too late to stop it. Daniel kept his foot pressed to the accelerator and tried to shift up to third. The transmission protested, but he made it. He kept his eye on the chain-link fence at the far edge of the freight yard.

  Thirty yards.

  Twenty yards.

  Ten.

  The truck rolled over the fence and Daniel couldn’t resist reaching for the air horn to sound a celebratory “Honk! Honk!” The tractor’s suspension bobbed slightly as it climbed over the curb and headed out toward Grand Avenue. He’d made it. He was free.

  There was another “Honk! Honk!” This one wasn’t celebratory.

  Fifteen miles per hour may not be very fast, but the Freightliner headed west on Grand was doing almost fifty. It collided with Daniel’s hijacked Peterbilt with a force of impact that wrapped the tractor trailers around one another like two Transformers in love.

  Glass shattered and steel groaned. Tires smoked and squealed as the now-fused trucks spun wildly in a death spiral down Grand Avenue. The spinning wreckage came to a rest with a final collision that sent Daniel sailing across the cab. He landed with a groan in the truck’s passenger footwell.

  There were sirens in the near distance and the sharp hissing of steam escaping from the trucks’ engines, but everything else was perfectly silent and still. For an instant.

  And in that perfectly preserved moment, Daniel realized, “I’m all right.” He pulled himself up off the cab floor and tried to clear his spinning head. “I need to go. Now.”

  Without another competing thought, Daniel forced open the passenger door and climbed down out of the truck. He looked over his shoulder and was relieved to find that the wreckage obscured him from the contingency of cops who’d gathered to arrest him.

  He started running toward Westheimer Road as fast as his shaky legs would go. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly fast enough.

  “There he is!” a cop screamed.

  Daniel looked over his shoulder again and this time saw two overachieving officers sprinting toward him, closing the gap fast. He tried to run faster, but it was all he could do to simply stay on his feet. His lungs burned until he feared he might not be able to draw another breath. Ever.

  His frantically falling footsteps and heavy breathing were all he could hear, until he realized the footsteps and breathing weren’t just him. He looked back again and saw the faces of the two cops who were now just a step or two behind him.

  It was no use. He was as good as caught. There was no escape from this. He’d failed his son. And the heaviness of that thought slowed him to a stop.

  The cops slowed too. One of them reached out for Daniel.

  And that was when the black Cadillac came out of nowhere. It drove straight toward Daniel and then screeched like a demon as it turned tightly and stopped just a foot or two from him.

  The two policemen dove to the pavement for cover.

  The door of the Cadillac flew open and a voice inside called, “Gef en da ca’!”

  Moog Turner prided himself on his self-discipline, both on the job and off. Still, even a man of tungsten-steel resolve has a temptation or two he can’t resist. One of Moog’s just so happened to be located in Chicago’s South Side.

  He sat behind the wheel and devoured a third Big Dat, the signature pastry of Dat Old Fashioned Donut. The big man was stressed and cold and tired, but temporarily none of that mattered. He’d been transported to heaven on angels’ wings and they were made of yeasty, fried goodness and glazed in sugar.

  “You really gonna eat all of them?” Rabidoso asked, more annoyed by the display than amazed by the feat.

  “Mmm-hum.” Moog’s mouth was too filled with bliss to say anything else.

  “Come on,” the little man whined. “You got a dozen of those big-ass doughnuts. Let me have one.”

  “Weren’t you there? Didn’t you walk into the Dat with me?”

  “Yeah?”

  It was simple. “Well, then you coulda bought your own.”

  “You were buying a dozen,” Rabidoso squealed. “I didn’t you think you were gonna eat them all, you know?”

  “That’s ’cause you never had one. If you’d had one, you woulda known I was going to eat the whole dozen and you woulda got a dozen of your own.” Moog licked his fingers clean. “I don’t know what to tell you except, ‘Now you know.’”

  “That’s cold, man.”

  Moog looked lustfully at number four and held it out for the runt to see. “Nooo, baby, that’s still warm.”

  “I don’t even understand what we’re doin’ out here in the first place.”

  “We’re trying to save our asses,” the big man told him, finishing off number four and reaching for number five.

  “How you figure?”

  “I figure Ruffy, my man in Memphis, told me he’d gotten word someone called in to dime out Erickson and collect on the reward. He let me know Mr. FBI had set up this little get-together with the help of Chicago’s beasts in blue.”

>   “So what are we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Moog was confident he’d have a plan when it was time to get it done, but for the moment all he could do was take on Big Dat number five.

  “It doesn’t make any sense just sitting here freezing our asses off,” Rabidoso complained.

  “Then open the door and go. But quit bitch—” The big man’s mouth dropped.

  Rabidoso didn’t ask why. His own eyes widened with shock. “Holy shit!”

  Moog couldn’t help but echo the sentiment. “Holy shit!”

  “Is that tractor moving?”

  Moog nodded in disbelief. “That crazy sonofabitch gonna roll them right over.”

  “Whoooo!” Rabidoso cackled as the night lit up with a furious volley of gunfire. “Man, that little pendejo gone loco! Look at those cops scatter!”

  With half of number five in his mouth, Moog started the engine and shifted the Cadillac CTS they’d stolen to replace the BMW into drive.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Ge’ing ’eady?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Wha’ver com’ next.”

  The two men stared in stunned silence as the truck Daniel was driving gained speed, rolled through the chain-link fence that surrounded the freight yard, and pulled out onto Grand Avenue.

  Rabidoso excitedly pointed at the tractor trailer as it turned onto Grand. “He’s making a run for—”

  “Honk! Honk!” the tractor boasted.

  There was a response, “Honk! Honk!” but neither Moog nor Rabidoso saw the collision coming. The unexpected impact was so viciously violent that they both instinctively flinched, ducking down behind the dash for cover, even though they were fifty yards away.

  The remnants of number five fell from Moog’s mouth as it contorted in shock. “Holy shit!”

  “He’s dead,” Rabidoso announced with premature finality. “He’s gotta be—”

  “No, he ain’t! Look at that!” Moog screamed, pointing out the figure lurching down the street through the darkness.

  “That little fucker’s tougher to kill than he looks,” Rabidoso admitted.