The Vigilantes

[FIVE]

The first thing Matt Payne saw when he came running out of the row house was a huge, nasty-looking garbage truck. It was stopped right beside the PECO van, and Payne realized that if he didn’t run faster to reach the Crown Vic, the truck was going to move up and block him.

As he ran, he yelled “Stop! Police!” to the driver, holding his left-hand palm out, anxiously signaling him to stay put. But after he got in the car and finally had it moving off the sidewalk, he saw the last plastic garbage bag from the corner being tossed into the back of the garbage truck as the truck moved forward.

Matt hammered the heel of his right hand on the horn as he floored the accelerator. Yanking the steering wheel to the right, he had to hop the curb to narrowly miss both the front of the garbage truck and the rear of a parked car.

Payne pursued the Ford minivan as it raced up Richmond Street.

He thought about calling in for backup, but dismissed that immediately.

No police radio. And I’m not about to try juggling my cell right now.

He flipped down the sun visors, then reached down and plugged in the emergency lights and threw the switch for the siren.

Two cars were stopped up ahead, waiting for the traffic light at Allegheny Avenue. He watched as the minivan’s brake lights came on for a second, then went off. The van then swung into the oncoming traffic lane to get around the two cars. Then it blew through the red light, cutting a hard right and going down Allegheny Avenue.

Matt came up on the two cars but could not pass because a pickup truck had just turned down Richmond, blocking his way. He could see the red-and-blue strobes reflecting off the back glass of the vehicle ahead of him. He hammered the horn out of habit, but its sound was mostly lost in the loud whoop-whoop of the siren.

The traffic light cycled to green, the first car started to roll, then both finally moved quickly out of the way.

Matt made the corner just in time to see the tail of the minivan going up an on-ramp, headed southbound on the Delaware Expressway.

He pulled on the gear-selector stalk on the steering column, dumping the transmission into second gear, then floored the accelerator.

Just before the ramp at the next block, with the high-revving engine roaring, Matt tapped the brakes once before turning, then put the Police Interceptor into a squealing right turn. He corrected the skid, then floored the accelerator again and bumped the transmission into high gear.

This section of Interstate 95 was four lanes in each direction, and Matt saw that the minivan was weaving through the heavy traffic.

Sonofabitch is using all the lanes!

The other vehicles were quickly becoming aware of the reckless minivan. Just past the point where the expressway became elevated, some began moving out of the wild driver’s way. Matt figured that the driver of a full-size Dodge SUV must have seen the Ford minivan flying up on its tail. It tried to move quickly into the lane to its left-and immediately sideswiped the Honda Accord that was traveling in that lane.

Oh, shit!

The impact from the heavier truck forced the lighter compact car into the far inside lane, which fortunately was unoccupied.

That Honda was damn lucky it didn’t slam into the concrete divider.

Or completely lose control.

The Ford minivan, apparently anticipating the Dodge SUV swerving back into its lane, then darted through a gap in the right lane. It flew past a half-dozen vehicles before again having to brake heavily, this time almost at the Vine Street Expressway.

After checking the nearby lanes for traffic, Matt calmly steered to follow it.

I wonder how many violations I’ve made so far of our department’s pursuit policies.

Plenty, I’m sure.

And I’m also sure someone will be more than happy to point them out as we review the video of it in the ECC.

His cell phone began ringing, and he dug it out of his pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Payne was amazed the earbud was still in his ear. When he answered the call, he wondered if all Harris would hear would be his siren wails and horn honks.

“Tony, how’s Charley? All okay?”

“He’s fine. We’ve got the scene under control. Where the hell are you?”

“Southbound Delaware Expressway, about to Vine. Hot on the tail of the white minivan. You want to call in for units to try to head off this guy? He’s running hard, and about to make a big mess out here.”

Payne, closing the distance between them, watched the Ford minivan make jerky movements as the driver tried getting around four vehicles that were driving abreast and effectively forming a wall across the expressway. They did try to get out of the way, but every time a driver anticipated the minivan’s next move, another driver wound up blocking him again.

The minivan was in the far right lane, and when it came up to the two-lane split leading to the exit for the Vine Street Expressway, it shot the gap and accelerated.

“Tony, he just took the Vine exit. Hell, we’re almost to the Roundhouse, about a quarter-mile out. Maybe he’s going there to give himself up.”

He heard Harris snort, then start relaying that updated information.

Payne made the exit for the Vine Street Expressway, and as the two lanes of the elevated concrete thoroughfare widened to four, Matt looked in the distance and saw the minivan heading toward the Center City skyline.

Also ahead, at the point where the expressway crossed over Fourth Street, there was a series of flashing caution lights and signage that read: CAUTION! ROAD REPAIR AHEAD! YO, GIVE US A BRAKE!

The minivan was now just passing the first of the flashing lights.

The lights and signs became thicker as the expressway approached the Fifth Street overpass, and Payne remembered that that was where two eighteen-wheelers had collided a few weeks earlier. The mass of them together had taken out five sections of the three-foot-tall concrete divider that separated the eastbound and westbound lanes.

As a temporary patch, a double line of fifty-five-gallon drums, orange with reflective tape, had been put in place with more caution signage. And a temporary speed-limit sign had been posted.

Matt saw ahead of the Ford minivan that traffic in all the westbound lanes was slowing to a stop just past the construction crew.

“Looks like the Vine Expressway is shut down, Tony.”

The minivan was beginning to make jerky moves from lane to lane, looking for a route around the slow traffic.

Matt moved into the far outside lane behind the minivan and eased up on the accelerator as he closed the distance between them.

No exit here. Nowhere to run.

Looks like the end of the road.

But then he saw that not only was the minivan not slowing to the posted twenty-five miles an hour, it was accelerating.

And then it suddenly shot from the right lane and across the other three-then went right through the orange barrels, scattering them and causing the construction workers to dive for cover.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

“What, Matt?”

“He just crossed into the oncoming lanes.”

“How the hell did he do that?”

“He blew through a hole in the construction zone.”

More important, how the hell did he miss those oncoming cars?

At least they’re driving slow because of the roadwork.

The minivan then drove to the far left of the expressway and turned left onto a lane that was carrying oncoming traffic coming off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The vehicles swerved to miss hitting the minivan head-on.

“Jesus! And now he’s headed the wrong way toward the Ben Franklin Bridge!”

Payne, with his hands on the steering wheel at three and nine o’clock, looked over his left shoulder, then cut across the westbound lanes of the expressway, stopping in the hole that the minivan had plowed through the rows of orange drums. Then he checked for a gap in the eastbound traffic. There wasn’t one immediately, but as he waited, one driver, then two and three and more, began to heed the siren and red-and-blue strobes, either slowing to a crawl or coming to a complete stop.

Jesus! Here we go!

Payne put his right foot to the floor, and the Crown Vic burned rubber as it shot forward.

The minivan had momentarily disappeared around the curves of the turns leading up to the bridge. But its tail came back into view as soon as Payne reached the first overhead gantry.

The five vehicles that had just crashed also came into view.

Payne steered around them and headed for the bridge.

The eighty-year-old steel suspension bridge spanned the Delaware River, connecting Center City to Camden, New Jersey. It had a total of seven lanes for automotive traffic. Separating the east- and westbound lanes was an articulated concrete wall called a “zipper” barrier. Depending on traffic demand, the three-foot-tall zipper could be moved to create more or fewer lanes in either direction.

Payne saw that the zipper had been positioned so that there were four lanes westbound.

Which gives me more room.

The minivan was going right down the center white-dotted lines, the oncoming cars parting to either side. That created a path for Payne, and he gunned the Crown Vic, closing more quickly than before.

Need to do this PIT fast.

He pulled up almost to the minivan, setting up with his reinforced front bumper to the left rear of the minivan, just forward of its rear bumper. Then he quickly turned the steering wheel to the right, causing his front bumper to smack the minivan’s rear-and the minivan to suddenly break loose and skid sideways.

Matt slammed both of his feet on the brake pedal, which triggered the chattering kickback of the antilock-brake system.

He watched the minivan slide sideways toward the concrete zipper barrier, then go into a counterclockwise spin. On its second almost complete revolution, the right front bumper impacted the zipper barrier, then the whole right side of the vehicle slammed into it, forcing the van to almost flip over into the eastbound lanes. The impact moved the zipper barrier into them, causing two cars to collide on that side.

Payne let off the brakes and, dodging an oncoming Volvo, its woman driver looking terrified, drove beyond the minivan. He nosed the Crown Vic against the barrier at an angle so that it would serve as a buffer. As he got out, he saw that the minivan driver had already fled the vehicle and now was running with the pistol in his right hand. He also saw that blood flowed from a gash on his forehead.

It was a feeble escape attempt. He almost immediately tripped in a crack just before an expansion joint in the suspension bridge, and bounced as he landed on top of the joint. When he hit, he loosened his grip on the pistol-and it slid toward the gap in the expansion joint.

That Glock’s going to fall into the Delaware!

But then it kept sliding and stopped in the middle of the westbound lanes.

Payne then suddenly heard the horrible roar of screaming tires behind him, and he immediately ran to the pocket that the minivan had made by moving the zipper barrier. When he turned, it was just in time to see a woman in a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser slam into the side of the Crown Vic, the SUV’s windshield instantly filling with multiple inflated air bags.

Jesus!

Guess the car can go back to the feds now…

Payne looked back at the black male. He was still trying to get up.

Payne ran toward him, his pistol aimed at his back.

He shouted, “Police! Don’t move!”

But then the black male did move, bolting toward the zipper barrier.

Now Payne no longer had a clear field of fire; there were countless vehicles zipping by in the three eastbound lanes just beyond the man.

“Stop!” Payne yelled again as the man went over the low barrier.

The man paused there on the other side, waiting for a gap in traffic- and causing a six-wheeled big box delivery truck in the inside lane to lock up its brakes trying to avoid hitting him.

That suddenly slowed traffic, and there was a gap, and the black male decided to make his dash across. But as he bolted into the next lane, the large profile of the delivery truck obstructed his view-and he ran right into the path of a fast-moving, low-profile sports car.

Payne watched as the car hit him in the lower legs. The impact caused him to tumble like a rag doll over the top of the sports car. He flipped through the air twice before hitting the bridge decking and then being run over by three other vehicles, including a bus.

Traffic came to a stop.

Matt Payne shook his head. He decocked his Colt, then slipped it back under his blazer and beneath the waistband of his woolen slacks. He could hear the sirens of the squad cars that Harris had called in screaming toward him and what sounded like the heavy horns of the fire department’s rapid-intervention and major crash-rescue vehicles.

Then he saw one of the Aviation Unit’s Bell 206 L-4 helicopters approaching from the north.

Glancing at the overhead traffic cameras, he thought, Kerry probably called in every last one of the cavalry, too.

Standing there in his navy blazer, his gray woolen cuffed trousers, a once crisply starched light-blue shirt with a red-striped tie, and his highly polished black shoes all scuffed, he forced a smile and waved at the cameras.

And Rapier and Ratcliff and whoever the hell else is in the ECC.

The eastbound traffic slowly parted, and two Philadelphia Police Department Chevy Impalas rolled up to the dead black male. The blue shirts began routing traffic around the scene. Another Impala arrived and went to the cars that had stopped after hitting the man. And there were paramedics talking with the woman sitting behind the wheel of the SUV that had hit the Crown Vic.

Payne turned and walked back to the minivan.

The window on the sliding center door had popped out on impact. Payne looked in through the hole. The first thing he saw was a plastic sign with the FedEx HOME DELIVERY logo. And then he noticed on the floorboard several scattered rounds of. 45-caliber GAP hollow-points.

There’s the rest of Will Curtis’s story.

So the pop-and-drops are over…