Chapter 9 - The Blue Line
The glare of the high-intensity LED headlamps completely swallowed Claire’s vision.
The deafening roar of Michael’s supercharged V8 engine drowned out the pouring rain and the idling diesel semi-trucks.
The Connecticut State Trooper—a broad-shouldered man in a high-visibility yellow rain slicker—reacted with instantaneous, trained precision.
He dropped his heavy aluminum clipboard onto the wet concrete.
His hand went straight to the retention holster at his right hip.
“Driver, stop the vehicle!” the trooper bellowed, his voice booming across the scales.
Julian did not touch the brakes.
The front bumper of the SUV was twenty yards away, hurtling at forty-five miles per hour across the painted weigh-in lanes.
Claire grabbed Anna by the collar of her sodden coat and threw both of them violently behind the thick, concrete-filled yellow steel security bollard guarding the station entrance.
The trooper unholstered his department-issued Glock 22 in a single, fluid motion.
He did not dive for cover.
He stepped to the side, cleared the trajectory of the fleeing women, and raised the weapon with both hands.
“Stop!” the officer screamed.
The SUV barreled straight at the concrete apron.
Julian realized in a fraction of a second that the heavy steel security bollards would stop the truck dead and crush the engine block into the passenger compartment.
At the very last millisecond, Julian yanked the steering wheel hard to the right.
The SUV’s tires broke traction on the slick, diesel-stained asphalt, the entire three-ton vehicle sliding sideways in a violent four-wheel drift.
The heavy rear quarter-panel slammed into the side of an idling flatbed trailer with a deafening screech of ripping sheet metal.
The impact spun the SUV one hundred and eighty degrees, sending sparks spraying across the wet concrete.
The trooper fired three rapid rounds through the driver-side window of the vehicle.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The tempered glass shattered into thousands of tiny, diamond-like pebbles.
Julian ducked low across the passenger seat, threw the transmission into reverse, and slammed the accelerator down.
The damaged SUV lurched backward, spinning around the back of another commercial semi-trailer and disappearing down the long exit ramp toward Interstate 91 South.
The red taillights vanished into the blinding wall of rain within five seconds.
The entire weigh station fell into a stunned, terrifying silence, broken only by the hiss of truck air brakes and the pouring rain.
The trooper kept his weapon raised for five long seconds, his chest heaving under the yellow slicker.
Then he holstered the firearm, reached for the radio microphone clipped to his shoulder epaulet, and pressed the push-to-talk button.
“Troop H dispatch, this is Unit 412, priority ten-zero, shots fired at the Northbound Weigh Station at mile marker forty-two!”
“Suspect vehicle is a late-model black full-size SUV, heavy rear-end damage, shattered driver-side glass, traveling south on Ninety-One at high speed!”
“Driver is an adult male, armed and extremely dangerous, suspect in an attempted vehicular homicide on an officer!”
The trooper released the mic, exhaled a long breath of steam into the freezing air, and turned around to look at the two women huddled behind the bollard.
Claire was kneeling on the freezing pavement, her bare feet bleeding from the run through the briars, her fleece jacket zipped tightly around her chest.
Anna was sobbing quietly into Claire’s shoulder, her fingers locked around Claire’s sleeve like iron clamps.
The trooper walked over, unbuttoning his heavy yellow slicker and pulling it off to drape it around Claire’s shivering shoulders.
“Are you ladies injured?” the officer asked, his voice firm, steady, and deeply reassuring.
“My name is Trooper Marcus Reynolds.”
Claire looked up into the officer’s stern, weathered face.
She slowly pulled the front zipper of her fleece down by three inches.
She reached inside and carefully withdrew the molded foam tray containing the three glass test tubes of dark cardiac blood.
“Trooper Reynolds,” Claire said, her voice shaking violently from shock and hypothermia, but her eyes locked dead on his.
“My name is Claire Morgan.”
“This is Anna Vance.”
“The man driving that black truck just murdered Dr. Arthur Vance in his clinic five miles back.”
“And that man is currently using the legal identity of my deceased husband to steal fifty million dollars in commercial assets.”
Trooper Reynolds looked down at the cold, labeled blood vials in her hands, then at the blood on her bare feet, then down the empty highway ramp where the SUV had vanished.
His radio crackled to life with dispatch responding to his emergency call.
“Unit 412, all regional units have been notified, Hartford PD and State Police cruisers are establishing a roadblock at Exit thirty-eight.”
Reynolds keyed his mic without looking away from Claire.
“Dispatch, cancel standard traffic stop protocol on that SUV.”
“Notify the Major Crimes Division and the State Medical Examiner’s office immediately.”
May you like
“We have a confirmed homicide and an active multi-state fugitive investigation.”
“And get two paramedic units to my location right now.”
