Side by Side

54

The pursuing Tahoe came to a stop, and the driver got out to look at the wreck. He spoke into his cell phone. “Massey’s done. Truck’s finished. We’ll just make sure and we’re out of here. Yeah, I know how dangerous he was. You get Blocker out of the street, we can handle this. Meet you back at the place in an hour.”

The passenger climbed out of the Tahoe and walked in front of the headlights, carrying an MP5-SD. The driver came slowly around the SUV holding a tactical shotgun with a high-intensity flashlight mounted under the barrel.

After the killers crossed the ditch and were advancing toward the overturned truck, Winter sat up behind them. He had been lying on his back since jumping out into the mud as the truck left the ground. Silently, he put a pair of.40-caliber rounds into the back of the SUV passenger’s head. As the driver pivoted at the sound of his shots, Winter put one into his right ear and a second into his neck below his jaw. He knew neither man was Randall or Sarnov because he’d seen them in the headlights.

Winter sprinted to the running Tahoe, turned it around, and drove away. He needed to catch Max Randall before he picked up the run-over corpse and left. When Winter got there, Randall was gone. Only a dark circular oil-slick-looking stain showed where the dead man had been. Winter itched to chase Randall down and kill him, but he had more important things to do. He had to find a pay phone.