Typhoon Fury

33

Beth held on to the console in front of the fire truck’s passenger seat as it smashed through the front gate and careened onto the road. The terror that had gripped her before was now numbed, replaced by a resolve to get out of her predicament. Locsin, incandescent with anger, was driving so wildly that she had the urge to buckle her seat belt, but she decided she’d rather risk dying in a fiery wreck than go any farther with this madman. At her first opportunity, she’d open the door and jump out no matter how fast the fire truck was going.

Locsin seemed to read her mind.

“Don’t try to escape,” he said, brandishing the pistol in his right hand. “I never miss.”

Beth had no doubt that, even if he did miss, he’d turn the truck around just to run her down. Still, she had to try.

Locsin flicked on the emergency lights but left the siren off. The early-morning streets of Manila were nearly deserted, and the few cars that remained pulled aside for the approaching fire truck. When the cars were going too slowly, Locsin smashed them out of the way.

He thumbed the fingerprint reader on his phone and tossed it to Beth. Then he trained the pistol on her.

“Call the first number in the contact list and put it on speaker.” When she hesitated, he yelled, “Now!”

She did as he demanded.

“Tagaan here.”

“We were ambushed,” Locsin said through gritted teeth. The words almost seemed to pain him. “I’ll try to lose them, but I may not be able to.”

“Cabrillo?”

“Not him. New player. I need to meet the helicopter somewhere else.”

Another helicopter? Beth thought. The last thing she wanted to do was get in a helicopter with this guy, especially after he crashed his last one.

“Where?” Tagaan asked.

“We’re headed toward the Navotas Fish Port Complex. Tell the pilot to track my phone. I’m in the fire truck. He won’t be able to miss me.”

“And the meth?”

Locsin paused, then said, “We’ll make more.”

“But that’s fifty million—”

“I know how much it is!” Locsin screamed, before calming his voice. “Just get the Magellan Sun unloaded, and let me know how the Kuyog test goes. And get that helicopter here now!”

Locsin nodded for Beth to give the phone back to him and she did. He turned on the siren, emitting an ear-piercing wail.

They turned onto a wide road separated by a median. Beth recognized it from their drive to the mall earlier that evening and knew they were near the harbor. There wasn’t much time until they reached the fish complex, where the helicopter was supposed to rendezvous with them.

A siren behind them began to blare. Beth thought — hoped — the police were after them, but when she looked in the side rearview, she saw that it was the huge airport crash tender that had almost been used to blast her with water.

Streetlights lit up the driver’s face. It was Raven, her eyes laser-focused on her quarry.

Beth felt a sudden pang of guilt at getting Raven stuck with this mess. If she hadn’t rushed to get the eagle finial, which she realized now that they’d left back in the warehouse office, the two of them wouldn’t have gotten captured.

But Raven wasn’t giving up on her. And that made Beth even more determined not to give up, either, but the truck was going at least sixty on the four-lane road. Jumping out now would kill her for sure.

Two black SUVs came up fast and tried to pass the crash tender. Those had to be Brekker and his men. The smaller vehicles were more nimble than the crash tender, but one of them made the mistake of lagging behind to try to shoot out the massive tires. Raven wrenched the wheel sideways and crushed the SUV against a concrete wall abutting the street. Cinder blocks went flying as the SUV plowed into it.

The other SUV, however, managed to sneak by the crash tender and was approaching fast.

Locsin wasn’t about to let it get close. He weaved back and forth across the road in an attempt to smash it into a wall like Raven had. But the driver of this SUV had learned his lesson. He jumped the median and drove on the other side the wrong way.

Now Locsin couldn’t stop them from pulling up even with him.

Gunshots rang out from the SUV. Beth screamed and covered her face as bullets shattered the side windows. Several of them ricocheted around the interior and put holes in the windshield safety glass. Locsin returned fire with his pistol while he swerved all over the road.

Beth tried to hang on with both hands, but her right arm wouldn’t work. At first, there was no feeling in it, but then there was a stab of agony as her shoulder rammed into the door.

She looked down and got light-headed when saw blood soaking her shirt.

She’d been shot.

With the fire truck slowing down ahead of Raven as it weaved back and forth across the road, she caught up until she was right behind it. She saw Brekker reloading his weapon in the passenger seat of the SUV and knew it was only a matter of moments before he aimed a kill shot at Locsin. If it had been only Locsin in the pumper truck, she would have gladly let him, but Beth was in there, too. Raven had to do something to keep her from being badly injured or, worse, dying.

The eight-wheeled airport crash tender wasn’t much different from the trucks she’d learned to drive in the Army during convoy escort duty. The biggest distinction was the dashboard’s firefighting control system. From her seat, she could reach the joystick controlling the nose-mounted water nozzle, the one she’d used to take out Brekker’s sniper.

She aimed it at the open window of the SUV and pressed the trigger, unleashing a combination of water and foam.

Her aim was off, and the jet of liquid arced up high over the front of her target, spraying the road with the slick white foam. Brekker, who had finished reloading, saw the stream of water and turned to fire at her, but the SUV was having trouble maintaining traction.

She adjusted her aim down, and the foamy water hit Brekker square in the face, knocking him out of view and flooding the SUV. It spun as the driver lost control and plunged into a concrete wall. Probably not a deadly crash but enough to take the SUV out of the action.

Raven shifted her aim to the fire truck. The foam poured onto the top of the cab. She was hoping it obscured Locsin’s vision, and it seemed like it worked. The fire truck slowed enough for her to pull along the passenger side.

She eased closer, hoping to let Beth escape the truck and jump onto the airport tender. But when she saw Beth looking back at her, a grimace of pain on her face, she knew that wouldn’t be possible. Her shirt was covered with blood.

Locsin leaned forward and raised a pistol to fire at Raven. She ducked, but, to her surprise, only one bullet lodged in the cab door. She looked up and saw him disgustedly throw his empty pistol out the window.

Raven’s only hope was to run them off the road, disable Locsin somehow, and get Beth to a hospital.

She rammed them twice, but the fire truck was resilient and absorbed the blows without much damage. She was about to make a third attempt when the fire truck veered left.

The airport crash tender was less maneuverable, and she struggled to follow the fire truck into the Navotas Fish Port Complex, smashing through part of a run-down building as she heaved the steering wheel left to make the turn.

She saw where Locsin was heading. A helicopter was coming down up ahead. That was her new target. If she could take out the chopper, his only avenue of escape would be gone.

The fire truck turned into a narrow alleyway with stacked shipping containers on either side. Raven followed, but she soon realized that had been exactly what Locsin had been hoping she’d do.

The crash tender was far wider than the fire truck, and the sides impacted the containers, causing them to begin a cascade of falling steel.

Raven screeched to a stop and threw the crash tender into reverse just before it could be buried by the containers. They eventually settled into a jumble, blocking the alley. She backed out and turned to find a wider street that would let her through.

By the time she reached the complex’s boat storage facility, the only spot with space large enough for a helicopter to land, it was already taking off again. Locsin looked down at her with an expression of pure hatred before the chopper banked and took him out of view.

Raven pulled to a stop next to the abandoned fire truck, jumped out, and ran over to the passenger side. She pulled open the door, and her heart sank when she saw the interior.

Beth was gone. Only then did Raven notice the trail of blood leading toward the helicopter’s landing zone.