The Treasures of Saint Germain

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The rearmost white truck veered violently across the road, bouncing back off a carved cliff face, barely staying upright. Men and crates spilled inside the back, coming together with a crash and a crack and agonized screams. Two whole crates slid clear of the truck, smashing apart against the asphalt and spilling dozens of rifles and magazines. Callahan rode right over them, unable to safely avoid the obstacle. Karin changed her clip and sighted again, ignoring the questions that arose at her back.

“What happened?”

“Did we get it?”

We?

“Take ’em out, Blake.”

She squeezed off more shots, hitting crates and one man’s leg. The sitting ducks in back of the truck were now screaming at their driver to turn on the speed, realizing they were facing at least one trained shooter. Still they scrambled to and fro though, returning fire and rummaging through open crates to see what weapon they could take up next.

Screaming sirens filled her ears and, closer, the comments of her team. Karin caught Callahan’s eye as the driver turned momentarily, nodded at the mouthed ‘thanks’, and told their co-driver to hunker down. The tires, she thought. Time to end the chase.

It had begun in east LA, a white gang taking delivery of weapons under the watchful eye of the DEA. Challenges had been issued and an assault made but the gang had proven too well-armed, and had made off toward the city. Several miles later they’d passed Karin’s team involved in their own exercise up in the hills, and Callahan had tuned the army radio to take in the police band. A quick decision and they had joined the chase, radioing in along the way and receiving criticism from every angle. Nevertheless, once engaged they hadn’t deemed it right to back off. Cop’s lives were at risk and the Army couldn’t lose face. The bandits were incredibly well-armed.

Karin squeezed off a shot at one of the rear tires, and saw her bullet take a chunk out of the road surface. Palladino breathed into her ear.

“I’d have made that shot.”

Karin sighed. “Even with luck? Not a chance.”

“Always better than you, Blake. Always. You know it, girl.”

The friendly rivalry was out of place. Karin ignored it and re-sighted. The jolting of the truck, the bouncing of the wheels, the flitting back and forth of the men in back and their attempts at shooting, were mere disruptions to the deep inner and outer focus required to pull the shot off. If she…

Then everything changed.

One of the gunrunners smashed open a random crate and started shouting in his excitement. Karin took her eye off the tire to watch it play out. Other heads whipped toward the man. When his arms came up, scooping out dozens of small black objects, Karin turned quickly to Callahan

“Get ready to ram him.”

The Irish driver was already goosing the gas pedal, on the same wavelength. The truck lurched, sending everyone staggering except for Karin. As she watched, the man with the grenades threw them haphazardly to friends and colleagues, an insane grin on his face. Then, before Callahan could close the gap, he hurled one at the approaching truck.

It bounced off, clattering down the road and into the grass verge.

“Forgot to remove the pin.” Callahan shook his head in disbelief.

The next arced high into the air, triggering a violent reaction from the driver. He wrenched the wheel to the left, sending even Karin staggering.

“What the fu—”

“Take it easy, man!”

The loud protests went up. Karin regained her balance. The grenade exploded as they passed, shrapnel peppering the side. After that it grew quieter inside as the men realized what had almost happened.

“Nice moves, Callahan,” Palladino muttered.

Karin regained the viewing panel, knowing it was far from over. Callahan had the gas pedal mashed almost all the way to the floor; the faces of the men in the truck ahead all too visible. It was do or die as they moved within easy throwing range.

“Ahead,” Karin said.

Callahan nodded in grim relief. A sharp bend lay just a few seconds away.

“Hang the fuck on,” he grated.

The white truck flung itself at the bend, barely slowing, but Callahan sped up. In a second, their truck smashed the rear side of the other as it turned, flinging it into a broadside. Men sprawled and collapsed in the back, grenades flying up into the air and among the crates. At least two of the men’s faces creased in terror.

“Nooooo!”

The cry echoed across the small distance as Callahan continued to push the truck into a spinning broadside. Crates and arms and legs rolled, spun and twisted in every direction, smashing against each other. The truck reared up on to two wheels. Karin screamed a warning at Callahan.

“Back off!”

It exploded three seconds later, the fireball washing over Callahan’s cab and starting mini-fires inside the cabin. Both driver and co-driver covered up, bellowing as the flames came close to them, hairs singed, but came out the other side with barely a scratch. Karin swung away, grabbing Palladino and hurling him aside. A tongue of flame shot through the small gap for a heartbeat’s span and then vanished. Karin elbowed Palladino.

“Saved your pretty face.”

“I knew you had the hots for me, Blake.”

But Karin was already back at the viewing panel, trying to take in the nightmare ahead. The shockwave generated by the truck’s explosion had shunted their own truck sideways, off the road and across a sharply angled grass verge. Now Callahan was desperately trying to keep them running around the tight bend, their left wheels scrabbling along a narrow dirt track, their right several feet above that on the grass verge itself, their cab canted at a crazy angle.

To their left: a hundred feet of vertical drop-off.

Karin felt her stomach lurch; mouth suddenly dry as old bones. Above, still on the main road, the blackened, flaming hulk of the white truck lurched to and fro, the screams of its surviving occupants tearing at the hills. Black-and-whites flashed by, sirens whooping it up. Karin watched Callahan struggle with the wheel and the curve of the path ahead, all their fates in his hands.

“Shit.”

She ran to the right-hand side, pushing at the metal side, screaming at her colleagues to do the same. Palladino was on it in an instant, the rest just a moment behind. They could all feel the sway and roll of the body. Their efforts threw the truck to the right just as a left-hand camber would have sent it tipping to the left and into the yawning valley below.

“Keep at it,” Karin said, then leapt back to the viewing panel.

“Good job.”

Callahan, sweating, bloodied and bruised, now flung the wheel to the right as a narrow gap appeared, bouncing and jarring off either side, but sending the truck through. Back onto the road. Cop cars littered the highway, swerving out of the way as the army truck bounced among them.

“Thought we were dog food back there,” Callahan said.

“Not this lot,” Karin said. “They ain’t tasty enough.”

“Thank God you didn’t say ‘too young to die’. They all say that.”

“We’re too old for that,” Karin said emotionlessly. “And we don’t cry. So let’s take this last mofo out.”

Callahan sighted between two cop cars at the last white truck ahead.

“Like your style, Blake. I really do.”

Karin checked her gun.