“Buckwheats,” Eric muttered. “I saw that movie too. Never did it. Wasn’t my style.”
“Nor mine,” Jai said direly, “but I am well and truly pissed off now, and I am in the mood to be cruel.”
Brady wanted to laugh, because the conversation wasfunnierbecause they were bothkillers, get it? But he was stuck on the radio chatter.
“Okay,” he said. “Hang on. Guys, Ace is nearing the north-south roadblock. What do you think will—”
The radio erupted into chaos, and Brady had to hold it away from his ear.
“Never mind,” he muttered, because mostly what he was getting was, “Holy fucking shit that asshole went WHERE?”
“He is still fine?” Jai asked, and while he tried to make it sound casual, Brady knew it was anything but.
“Yes,” Brady answered, and at that moment, Jai peeled to the side of the road, where the highway workers were gathered, looking perplexed and worried.
Well, who wanted to set up a construction site in the middle of a bloodbath?
“You stay here,” Jai said thickly. “Have your gun ready, but mostly? I think this takes conversation.”
Brady pulled out his 9 mm and rested it on his lap, watching as Jai walked up to the burly bunch of construction workers and spoke briefly.
He didn’t even touch the gun at his hip, just gestured at the flatbed and held out his hand.
And was rewarded with the keys.
“How did he do that?” Eric muttered.
“I got nothin’,” Brady said. “I am about as useful here as tits on a bull.”
Eric let out a chuff of what could have been laughter—or could have been pain. “Don’t kid yourself, bull-tits—the big shit is coming.”
As if to prove him right, there was a sudden skidding of dust and speed to the left of the car as it sat facing the wrong way, and Brady looked up in surprise to see a… well, mostlyillegalstreet machine leaning on its kickstand in a swirl of descending dust.
As if to punctuate the fairy-tale quality of this particular vehicle, the driver side door of the SUV opened and a phantom in black leathers slid behind the wheel, holding out a laptop and a phone.
“Holy fuck,” Brady said, because he’d eaten at this man’s table, and it was like sitting next to Batman after breaking bread with Bruce Wayne. “What in the hell are youriding?”
Burton chuckled, almost like a proud teenager. “She’s glorious, right? Technically street legal, if it’s street legal to go 250 miles per hour fully loaded. Anyway, I set up the laptop, and the phone is unlocked—I guess Ace did that for us. All we gotta do is upload the phone’s info and let Eric send it to all the IPs in the browser. Eric, you still alive for that?”
“Mostly,” Eric said, sounding tired. “Nothing a few units of A-neg won’t fix.”
“I’ll have Amal stock some for you,” Burton said soberly. “You hang in there, brother.”
“Will do,” Eric said. “Hand me the shit.”
“Once he’s done with the upload,” Burton said, “you’re putting the spare helmet on and getting on the back with me. I’ll take you to the FBI office in LA, and that’s where your real work begins.”
Brady wanted to protest. “Leave Eric?” he whispered, glancing with tortured eyes toward the back. “Ace and Sonny? All of you all? Just leave?”
“You can come back,” Eric murmured. “Don’t worry, baby. My door is always open, okay?”
But I haven’t done anything! Brady wanted to shout, and at that moment, Burton said, “Wait a minute. What in the fuck isJai doing? And who are those people coming in from the north road? And—oh shit. Ohshit! What in the hell is going on?”
Brady glanced out to the interstate, to the northeast, where he saw more lights and sirens, probably in pursuit of a dark green Forester, and to the west, where the last sorry batch of Arlen Cuthbert’s deputies was cherry-topping its way toward them.
And then toward the flatbed, which was now very specifically, very dangerously placed between both sets of vehicles.
“I think,” Burton said slowly, “Ace is about to pave the way for us. Eric, how you doing with that send?”
