Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) (23 page)

“Maybe they’re taking us to another truck,” Vick suggested.  “We can
hardly just walk onto a cargo plane.”

It was possible, Gray thought, but he wanted to hear it from the horse’s
mouth.

“Ask them what’s going on,” he said to Sonny.

Baines turned and tapped the elder passenger on the shoulder.  “Where
are we going?”

The man blew a cloud of cigarette smoke in Sonny’s face and began gesturing
out of the front window while rattling off a barrage of Cantonese.

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” Sonny said.  The teenager
joined in, a malicious grin on his face as he looked Sonny in the eye and added
his two cents worth to the conversation.  He was silenced by a dig in the
ribs from his elder.

Baines shrugged noncommittally and went to sit down next to Smart.

“I think we’ve got a problem,” he whispered.  “From what little I
understood
,
the kid is looking forward to having his way
with Vick before he kills us.”

A look of horror crept over Vick’s face and Gray quickly pulled her head
into his chest, just in case her reaction drew any unwanted attention.  He
kissed her hair and whispered for her to stay calm.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he promised, and threw
Baines a stern look.

“I thought you only knew a few Chinese phrases,” Len said quietly.

“I do,” Sonny said.  “I know when someone mentions sex, and I also
know when they want to kill me.  That kid ticks all the boxes.”

“Even I know that in most languages, words have several meanings,” Len
said. 

Sonny knew the point was valid, but he had an uneasy feeling.  “The
old guy was carrying a crowbar,” he pointed out, “and there was no sign of the
truck driver.  Surely they would have got him to open the container
instead of breaking the lock off.”

“You think they killed him?”  Gray asked.

“It would explain this,” Sonny said, waggling his feet and drawing their
attention back to the blood stains.

Gray considered the options, and came up with just two:  take the
Chinese men on, here, on the road; or wait until they reach their destination
and see what happened.  If they chose the latter, there was no way of
knowing how many people they’d have to face if Sonny had correctly understood
the kid’s intentions.  On the other hand, if Sonny had got his wires
crossed, they could end up blowing their only chance of getting home.

With every passing second they were motoring towards option
one,
and Gray knew they’d have to make a decision.  He
asked his friends for their thoughts, and not for the first time, they were in
agreement.

“It’s your call, Sonny,” Gray said. 

“I know what I heard,” Baines said flatly, and the others nodded. 
Each of them looked around for a weapon, but the van was sterile.  They
were going to have to use their bare hands, but there wasn’t enough room behind
the seats for them to effectively tackle the Chinese one-on-one.

“I’ll take the kid and the one on the right,” Len said.  “Tom, you
take the driver.”

“Aren’t we forgetting someone?”  Gray asked, gesturing towards
Vick.  “It’ll be dicey while we’re moving.  Let’s see if we can get
them to stop first.”

The others agreed, and Gray asked Vick to pretend she needed a rest
stop.  As it wasn’t the hardest acting job in the world, she squeezed her
knees together and put on a pained expression.

Gray tapped the kid on the shoulder and nodded towards her.  “The lady
needs to go to the toilet.  Can we pull over?”

The teenager spoke quickly to the older man and got a bark in reply. 
He looked at Gray.  “You wait.  Go soon.”

“She can’t wait.  She’s gonna piss all over your nice clean floor.”

The youth ignored him, turning his attention back to the front
window.  Gray sat back down next to Vick and explained that things might
get a little bumpy.  The van had a series of webbing restraint straps down
each side, and Gray told her to grab one and hold on with all her might. 
He saw the look of apprehension, but assured her it was going to be okay.

Still uncertain, Vick clutched the nearest strap as tight as she could and
nodded.  Gray gave her a smile and kissed the top of her head, then knelt
behind the driver.  Smart got down on one knee, two feet to his right.

The youth felt their presence and was turning around to decline what he
thought was another toilet break request when Smart cupped his hands around the
elder’s forehead and pulled down and back sharply.  The crack was clearly
audible over the roar of the diesel engine and the man fell forward, his body
held in place by the seatbelt, head hanging at an unnatural angle. 

Smart turned his attention to the kid, anticipating another easy kill, but
the youth recovered quickly from the shock of the initial assault.  As he
wasn’t wearing a seatbelt he was able to swivel and face Smart, eluding his
grasp and pulling his knife from the sheath on his belt.

Gray had his man in a headlock and was shouting for him to pull over, but
the driver ignored the order and yanked the wheel to the right, trying to
unbalance Gray. All he succeeded in doing was to throw the teenager off
balance, and instead of the blade driving through Smart’s throat, it glanced
the side of his neck, drawing blood but doing no serious damage.  Smart pulled
back, wary of the knife, and the kid turned his attention to helping the
driver. 

Switching the knife to an overhand grip, he brought it down hard, aiming
for Gray’s head.  Tom saw it coming and jerked away from the blade but not
far enough to prevent it slicing through his upper arm.  Blood gushed from
the wound but he didn’t even have time to register pain before the knife
came
flashing down again.  Gray jerked the driver
backwards and the van jerked violently to the right once more, throwing the
youngster off balance.  He fell into the driver, the strike missing
everyone and deflecting off the side window.  He was righting himself when
the van bounced onto the median and he was thrown up against the roof of the
van before collapsing in the foot well.

Smart came to Gray’s help, delivering a powerful
punch that took the last of the fight out of the driver.
  He went limp and Gray let him go,
reaching over him to grab the wheel.  He had one hand on it when they hit
a huge rut and the wheel tore from his hand.  He was thrown upwards,
slamming into the roof before collapsing in a heap next to Vick.  The van
rolled, throwing the occupants about like socks in a tumble dryer as it spun
across the grass before ending up on its side.

They untangled themselves and took stock.  Vick had a cut on her cheek
and a sprained ankle where someone had landed on her.  Smart and Baines
had minor scratches and a few bruises, but Gray was worst hit.  Blood
poured from the wound on his arm and he was lying motionless near the back doors,
which had torn open during the crash.

Smart went to tend to him, checking for and finding a faint pulse, and he
tore Tom’s T-shirt and used it to create a tourniquet.

  Vick cradled Tom’s head.  Tears were streaming down her face,
partly due to Tom’s condition, but ultimately brought on by the ferocity of the
brief, chaotic exchange.  Her body shook as she fought for control, her
breath ragged and
laboured
. 
Sonny saw the signs and went to comfort her, trying to calm her down before she
went into shock.

Behind them, in the cab, the youth wiped the blood from his face.  A
three-inch gash in his forehead leaked crimson into his eyes, but his focus was
on the four
gweilo
. 
There was no thought of running, taking flight so that he could live to
fight another day, despite being outnumbered.  Instead, he weighed up the
opposition and decided that the larger man was the more dangerous.  He
would die first, followed by the by the little fair-haired one and then the
female.  He wouldn’t get his few moments of fun with the woman, but he’d
complete the task the team had been assigned and his stock would rise as a
result.

He got quietly to his feet,
knife in hand, and took two silent steps towards Smart.  Vick caught the
movement from the corner of her eye but the warning shout stuck in her throat
as she froze in terror.  The knife hand came up as Baines saw the look on
her face, and he snapped his head round as the teenager took a final step to
get within range of Smart’s back.  Sonny thrust a leg out at the side of the
boy’s kneecap and the snap of bone and cruciate ligament resounded through the
vehicle.  He collapsed, dropping the knife as he fell.  Sonny grabbed
it and knelt on the adolescent’s arm and stomach, clamping his hand over the
kid’s mouth.

Taking prisoners was out of the
question, and there was no way they could simply let the Chinese kid go. 
Sonny looked behind him and saw that Vick and Len were watching him. 

“Look away, Vick,” he said, and
Smart shielded her while Sonny administered the
coup de
gras
,
plunging the knife into the boy’s heart and twisting.  When the life
finally drained from the young killer’s eyes, Sonny withdrew the knife and
wiped it clean before putting it in his inside pocket.

“We’re getting lazy,” he said to
Smart.  “We should have made sure they were all dead before we did
anything.”

Smart agreed, and it struck Vick
just how little she knew these men.  She’d listened to their tales over
the last couple of weeks, how they’d fought their way out of seemingly
countless situations — and taken a Thai brothel apart with their bare hands in
one of their less sober moments — but the stories didn’t convey the ease with
which they could take another human life.  Those stories had seemed
so…detached from reality, as if she’d been watching a movie or reading a
book.  Sonny, who she’d thought of as a loveable rogue, had just turned
dispassionate killer in front of her eyes and...

Her thoughts were interrupted by
the sight of the armed figure standing near the twisted back doors.  Smart
followed her gaze, and when he saw the Chinese features his shoulders sagged.

*
* *

Kyle Ackerman had watched the
four people climb down from the truck and pile into the van, and was surprised
to see a woman amongst their number.  Regardless, he knew these had to be
the people Owen and Harvey were looking for, and he reached for his phone,
stabbing the preset number.  The van took off across the median, heading
back the way it had come, and by the time he got to the Jeep he saw the
distinctive Evo pass by in pursuit.

It must have been a team effort,
with the Mitsubishi setting the trap and the van picking up the pieces. 

He climbed into his own vehicle
and backed out onto the tarmac, then crossed over into the southbound
lane.  He was about to turn the headlights on, then thought better of
it.  He could see the tail lights of the vehicles ahead and there was no
point announcing his presence, especially with so little traffic on the road.

He followed for three or four
miles, constantly hitting the redial button on his mobile but getting no
further than the electronic voice asking him to leave a message.  He’d
done so once, and that was enough.

Without warning, the van veered
into the right-hand lane before correcting itself, and Ackerman knew something
was amiss.  He toyed with the idea of pulling them over, but he had no
idea if they were armed beyond the teenager’s knife, and he was outnumbered at
least five to one if he included the two in the Mitsubishi. 

He was trying the mobile for the
umpteenth time when the van skewed to the side once more and bounced onto the
grass.  He watched it nosedive before bouncing onto its side and rolling
half a dozen times. 

Ackerman pulled up against the
side of the road as the van settled on its side.  His first instinct was
to get out and go to their aid, but then he remembered the Evo.  It had
stopped in the inside lane and he saw one of the occupants get out, drawing a
weapon and approaching the wreckage.

He pulled out the Glock but knew
it would be useless at this distance, and going on foot was not an option as
there was no cover to hide behind if it turned into a gunfight.  He was
wondering how close he could get in the Jeep before they heard him when an idea
struck.  It was a downhill run to the van, so he put his vehicle in first
and gently popped the clutch.  It rolled forwards, and once he’d built up
enough momentum he selected neutral and turned the engine off, coasting towards
the Evo.  At the last moment he tugged the wheel to the right until he was
on a collision course with the van.

The driver of the Mitsubishi saw
him and leaned out of the window, shouting a warning to his accomplice. 
The gunman heard the shout but didn’t understand the message, and he shouted
back over his shoulder for the driver to repeat it while keeping his eyes on
the
gweilo
.

It was the right thing to do if
he didn’t want to get jumped from the front, but it still cost him his
life. 

At the last moment he caught
sight of the Jeep barrelling towards him, but there was little time to react. 
Instinctively he turned and aimed the gun at the windshield, getting off a
single, wayward round that flew harmlessly high.  Ackerman ploughed into
him at just short of thirty miles an hour and the man disappeared beneath the
front of the wheels, his body mangled as the combination of ground and
undercarriage chewed him up and spat him out the back.