“Another one!” Fontana said over the radio. A van swerved into the highway’s left lane, forcing somebody in a Pontiac to jam on his brakes. “Let’s get ’em.” They were both young officers and while, contrary to legend, the State Police didn’t assign ticket quotas to its officers, everyone knew that one sure way to promotion was to write a lot of them. It also made the roads safer, and that was their mission as state troopers. Neither officer really enjoyed giving out traffic citations, but they enjoyed responding to major accidents far less.
“Okay, I got the Porsche.”
“You get all the fun,” Fontana noted. He’d gotten a quick look at the driver.
It was a lot harder than one might imagine. First they had to clock the speeding vehicles to establish how far over the limit they were going — the greater the speed, the greater the fine, of course — then they had to close and switch on their lights to pull them over. Both subject vehicles were two hundred yards ahead of the police cruisers now.
Cathy checked her clock again. She’d managed to cut nearly ten minutes off her trip time. Next she checked her rearview mirror for a police car. She didn’t want to get a ticket. There was nothing that looked like a cop car, only ordinary cars and trucks. She had to slow as the traffic became congested approaching the Severn River bridge. She debated getting over into the left lane, but decided against it. Sometimes it was hard to get back into the right lane in time to take the Route 2 exit. Beside her, Sally was craning her neck to see over the dash, as usual, and playing with the seatbelt buckle. Cathy didn’t say anything this time, but concentrated on the traffic as she eased off the pedal.
Miller slipped the door latch and moved the door an inch backward. Another man took hold of the door as he knelt and thumbed the safety forward on his weapon.
He couldn’t get her for speeding now. Trooper Waverly noted sourly. She’d slowed before he could establish her speed. He was a hundred yards back. Fontana could, however, ticket the van for improper lane changing, and one out of two wasn’t bad. Waverly checked his mirror. J-19 was catching up, about to pull even with his J-30. There was something odd about the blue van, he saw . . . like the side door wasn’t quite right.
“Now!” Alex called.
Cathy Ryan noted that a van was pulling up on her left side. She took a casual look in time to see the van’s door slide back. There was a man kneeling, holding something. There came a chilling moment of realization. She stomped her foot on the brake a fraction of a second before she saw the white flash.
“What!” Waverly saw a foot-long tongue of flame spit out from the side of the van. The windshield of the Porsche went cloudy and the car swerved sideways, straightened out, then slammed into the bridge’s concrete work at over fifty miles per hour. Instantly cars in both lanes slammed on their brakes. The van kept going.
“Larry, shots fired — shots fired from the van. The Porsche was hit!” Waverly flipped on his lights and stood on his brakes. The police car skidded right and nearly slid sideways into the wrecked Porsche. “Get the van, get the van!”
“I’m on him,” Fontana replied. He suddenly realized that the gout of flame he’d seen could only mean some kind of machine gun. “Holy shit,” he said to himself.
Waverly returned his attention to the Porsche. Steam poured from the rear engine compartment. “J-30, Annapolis, officer reports shots fired — looked like automatic weapons fire — and a PI accident westbound Route 50 on Severn River bridge. Appears to be serious PI. J-19 in pursuit of vehicle 2. Stand by.”
“Standing by,” the dispatcher acknowledged. What the hell . . .
Waverly grabbed his fire extinguisher and ran the fifteen feet to the wreck. Glass and metal were scattered as far as he could see. The engine, thank God, wasn’t on fire. He checked the passenger compartment next.
“Oh, Jesus!” He ran back to his car. “J-30, Annapolis. Call fireboard, officer requests helicopter response. Serious PI, two victims, a white female adult and a white female child, repeat we have a serious PI accident westbound Route 50 east side of Severn River bridge. Officer requests helicopter response.”
“J-19, Annapolis,” Fontana called in next. “I am in pursuit of a dark van, with handicap tag number Henry Six-Seven-Seven-Two. I am westbound on Route 50 just west of the Severn River bridge. Shots fired from this vehicle. Officer requests assistance,” he said coolly. He decided against turning his lights on for the moment. Holy shit . . .
“You get her?” Alex called back.
Miller was breathing heavily. He wasn’t sure — he wasn’t sure about his shots. The Porsche had slowed suddenly just as he squeezed the trigger, but he saw the car hit the bridge and spring up into the air like a toy. No way they could walk away from that sort of accident, he was sure of that.
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s boogie.” Alex didn’t let his emotions interfere with his work. This job meant weapons and money for his movement. It was too bad about the woman and the kid, but it wasn’t his fault that they made the wrong kind of enemies.
The Annapolis dispatcher was already on his UHF radio to the State Police helicopter. Trooper-1, a Bell JetRanger-II was just lifting off from a refueling stop at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
“Roger that,” the helicopter pilot replied, turning south and twisting the throttle control to full power. The paramedic in the left seat leaned forward to change the transponder “squawk” setting from 1200 to 5101. This would inform air traffic controllers that the helicopter was on an emergency medivac mission.
“Trooper-1, J-30, we are en route to your position, ETA four minutes.”
Waverly didn’t acknowledge. He and two civilians were prying the driver’s side window off the car with a tire iron. The driver and passenger were both unconscious, and there was blood all over the interior of the car. She was probably pretty, Waverly thought, looking at the driver, but her head was covered with glistening blood. The child lay like a broken doll, half on the seat, half on the floor. His stomach was a tight cold ball just below his pounding heart. Another dead kid, he thought. Please, God, not another one.
“Trooper-2, Annapolis,” came the next call to the dispatcher.
“Annapolis, Trooper-2, where are you?”
“We are over Mayo Beach, northbound. I copied your medivac call. I have the Governor and Attorney General aboard. Can we help, over.”
The dispatcher made a quick decision. Trooper-1 would be at the accident scene in three more minutes. J-19 needed backup in a hurry. This was real luck. Already he had six state vehicles converging on the area, plus three more from the Anne Arundel County Police station at Edgewater. “Trooper-2, contact J-19.”
“Trooper-2, J-19, please advise your location,” the radio squawked in Fontana’s car.
“Westbound Route 50, just passing Rowe Boulevard. I am in pursuit of a dark van with a handicap tag. J-30 and I observed automatic weapons fire from this vehicle, repeat automatic weapons fire. I need some help, people.”
It was easy to spot. The Sergeant flying Trooper-2 saw the other helicopter circling over the accident to the east, and Route 50 was nearly bare of cars from west of the accident to Rowe Boulevard. The police car and the van were on the back edge of the moving traffic.
“What gives?” the Governor asked from the back. The paramedic in the left-front seat filled them in as the pilot continued his visual search for . . . there! Okay, sucker . . .
“J-19, this is Trooper-2, I got you and the subject car visual.” The pilot dropped altitude to five hundred feet. “Trooper-2, Annapolis, I got ’em. Black, or maybe blue van westbound on 50, with an unmarked car in pursuit.”
Alex was wondering who the car was. It was unmarked, but a cheap-body car, with dull, monocolor paintwork. Uh-oh.
“That’s a cop behind us!” he shouted. One of Miller’s men looked out the window. Unmarked cars were nothing new where they came from.
“Get rid of him!” Alex snarled.
Fontana held at fifty yards from the van. This was far enough, he thought, to keep himself out of danger. The trooper was listening to continuous chatter on his radio as additional cars announced that they were inbound on the call. The distraction of the radio made him a second late on seeing the van’s door fly open. Fontana blanched and hit the brakes.
Miller handled this one too. The moment the door was open, he leveled his machine gun and loosed ten rounds at the police car. He saw it dip when the driver tried to panic-stop, swerve sideways in the road, and flip over. He was too excited even to smile, though inwardly he was awash with glee. The door came back shut as Alex changed lanes.