Chapter 11 - The Hammer on the Overpass
The rain over the Hackensack marshes turned into an unrelenting torrent that hammered against the shattered steel of the Route 3 causeway.
Smoke from burned tires and punctured radiators rolled across the four lanes of stalled traffic, mixing with the sharp ozone stench of gunpowder.
Lucas Brooks slammed his back against the crumpled passenger seat of the Suburban, his hands moving with practiced, robotic precision to slap his final twenty-round magazine into the Glock's grip.
Behind him, Maya Stone lay curled into a ball on the rubber floor mats, her knuckles bloody where she had scraped them against the seat anchor bolts.
She was not screaming anymore.
The sound of high-velocity rifle fire had deafened her left ear, leaving only a high-pitched, ringing whine that vibrated through her jawbone.
Through the splintered gap in the armored windshield, three masked gunmen in tactical vests advanced behind the cover of the jackknifed gravel truck.
"Cover the right side!" the lead Romano enforcer shouted, raising a suppressed carbine to sweep the Suburban's roofline.
"Don't shoot the girl! Frank wants her breathing! Kill the driver and drag her out!"
A bullet punched through the Suburban's side pillar three inches above Lucas's shoulder, spraying hot lead fragments into his wool overcoat.
Lucas exhaled slowly through his teeth, preparing to kick the driver's door open and draw fire away from the girl on the floor.
Before his boot could touch the release lever, the ground beneath the overpass shuddered with a deep, concussive rumble.
It was not thunder.
It was the enraged scream of a supercharged marine diesel engine running at redline.
From the access ramp behind the concrete recycling plant, a heavily reinforced black industrial transport truck roared up the embankment at fifty miles per hour.
The massive steel cow-catcher welded to its front bumper sheared through the aluminum guardrail like paper, sending showers of sparks flying into the gray mist.
The vehicle did not slow down.
It hit the first Romano chase van broadside with the force of an artillery shell.
The white van crumpled instantly into an accordion of crushed sheet metal, spinning three hundred and sixty degrees before flipping onto its roof against the median.
The cab door of the transport truck kicked open before the vehicle had even come to a complete stop.
Andrew Carter hit the wet asphalt running.
He was dressed in a black tactical vest over his dark sweater, his eyes devoid of fear, rage, or hesitation.
In his hands, the combat shotgun spoke with an ear-shattering, percussive boom that echoed off the concrete sound barriers.
A heavy twelve-gauge slug tore through the engine block of the second Romano van, fracturing the cylinder head and blasting a plume of boiling coolant into the face of a waiting shooter.
The man shrieked, dropping his rifle to claw at his blistered eyes.
Andrew stepped past him without breaking stride, driving the heavy steel stock of the weapon into the man's temple with a sickening crack.
The remaining two gunmen behind the gravel truck spun around in sheer panic, caught completely off-guard by the sudden violence at their rear.
"Carter!" one of them yelled, swinging his rifle barrel toward Andrew's chest.
Andrew did not seek cover.
He advanced directly into the firing line, racking the shotgun slide with a crisp, terrifying rhythm.
The second blast caught the shooter squarely in the center of his ballistic vest.
The sheer kinetic force lifted the man off his feet, hurling him backward through the shattered windshield of a parked civilian sedan.
The third shooter turned and tried to sprint toward the highway exit ramp, throwing his weapon onto the pavement in desperation.
Andrew lowered the shotgun, pulled the suppressed Sig Sauer from his belt with his right hand, and squeezed the trigger twice.
Both rounds took the fleeing man through the back of his thighs.
The enforcer collapsed to the wet asphalt, skidding across the road grime and screaming into the rain as blood pooled around his knees.
Silence descended over the causeway, broken only by the hiss of escaping steam and the distant wail of emergency sirens still miles away in Jersey City.
Andrew walked to the driver's side of the crumpled Suburban.
His hand caught the bent door frame, ripping the crushed metal outward with a brutal jerk of his shoulders.
Lucas looked up through the shattered window, his face smeared with soot and sweat, but his eyes steady.
"You're six minutes late," Lucas rasped, holstering his empty sidearm.
"The bridge traffic was heavy," Andrew replied, his voice completely level.
He looked down into the footwell behind the front seats.
Maya looked up at him.
Her face was chalk-white, her clothes covered in shattered polycarbonate crystals and dirt, but her skin was unbroken.
She saw the cold, ruthless killer who had just slaughtered four men on an open highway without raising his pulse.
Then she saw the way his jaw softened when he looked at her eyes.
She recognized the look.
It was the same fierce, protective fire she had seen in her sister Cindy’s eyes every time someone tried to take advantage of them.
"Are you Maya?" Andrew asked gently, offering a large, gloved hand down into the darkness of the ruined SUV.
Maya swallowed hard, wiping cold rain from her eyelashes.
"Yes," she whispered, her voice shaking violently.
May you like
"Your sister is waiting for you at the house," Andrew said, his fingers closing around her cold, trembling hand and lifting her effortlessly out of the wreckage.
"Let's go home."
