Black Rain

Farther on, they reached the oldest section of the waterfront. Here the jetties were little more than a tangle of crooked, wooden fingers. The small boats crowded them from all directions, like worker bees surrounding their queen. Two, three, even four rows deep, so many boats that some could not even find space on the dock for a rope and had to tie off to other vessels. Danielle imagined the congestion in the morning, the chaos of an aquatic rush hour that she and her team would slip away in.

Medina made a right turn, away from the crowded edge and down a patchy, uneven road that led inland. A half mile later, he stopped beside a black steel gate, waiting as it slid backward along a greased metal track. When it had retracted far enough Medina drove through.

Danielle moved the Rover up to the track.

She looked around. The area was cluttered with vehicles and pieces of construction equipment. Stacks of oil drums vied with containers and other bits of junk for space. “A lot more commercial than I’d have guessed.”

Down at the waterline, a group of men worked beside a small boat, beneath the glare of two floodlights. “I guess that’s your boat,” Hawker said.

“And if we want it, we have to go inside.” She took her foot off the brake and, with two bumps, they eased across the track and the steel gate began to close behind them.

Medina, now out of his car, directed them across the lot to park near an old white pickup truck. Danielle pulled in next to the truck. She turned toward Hawker to speak, but didn’t get the chance.

With his left arm Hawker reached out and slammed her back against her seat. His right hand came up, a heavy black pistol in his grasp, swinging toward her face. She turned away and shut her eyes. In that split second of darkness she heard an explosion and felt a flash of heat across the side of her face.

She opened her eyes to see a man falling away from the Rover, an Uzi machine pistol in his hand, a fedora hat falling to the ground behind him. Stunned and immobile, she heard Hawker shouting at her through the fog. He fired at another target and she grabbed the gearshift, threw it into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The wheels spun and the Rover shot backward.

“Go!” Hawker yelled, firing again.

Looking over her shoulder, Danielle aimed straight for the closed gate and continued to accelerate. With the engine roaring, she slammed it dead center. The heavy gate shuddered, bending backward at a thirty degree angle. Chunks of concrete flew out from the retaining wall and the gate’s wheels ripped clear of the tracks, but, somehow, the mangled hunk of iron held them in.

She put the transmission in drive but the engine had stalled. She threw it into neutral and twisted the key. Just as the big V-8 turned over, the windshield shattered from a hail of bullets.

As the glass rained down, she and Hawker ducked for cover. Hawker raised his arm above the dashboard and fired back, five shots sent out blindly. In the restricted cockpit of the Rover the sound was tremendous, but the incoming bullets stopped and Danielle had enough time to shift into drive and hit the gas once again.

The Rover lunged forward for thirty feet before Danielle stomped on the brake and slammed the transmission into reverse. By now Hawker had his bearings, snapping off shots into the darkness. One man went down and then another, while the other assailants dove for cover.

The Rover thundered backward, hammering the gate a second time, blasting it from its moorings and sending it flying across the road in a shower of sparks. Danielle turned the wheel and the nose of the vehicle swung to the left, pointing in the direction of safety.

She jammed it into drive and hit the gas, accelerating away as renewed gunfire poured from the gated area. Flying lead tore into the vehicle, punching holes in the sheet metal and shattering the side and rear windows, even as Medina’s car, now driven by someone else, accelerated hard in an effort to cut them off.

Hawker targeted the driver’s area of the oncoming vehicle. As his shots hit the windshield, the sedan swerved, crashing into what remained of the gate’s retaining wall. Whether the driver was dead, injured or had just turned wildly to avoid being hit, they would never know, as the Rover accelerated away and the scene passed quickly out of view.

With the throttle wide open the big vehicle gathered speed at a surprising rate, barreling down the same road they’d come up only minutes before. At the first corner, Danielle turned hard and the big SUV leaned over, threatening to tip then straightening out and roaring off down a long, unfamiliar street.

They sped through a dark canyon now, a narrow street running between the connected buildings on the left and the great slab walls of the warehouses on the right. The alley was unlit, except for pale swaths where other streets crossed it. Danielle watched the intersections ahead, expecting a car to block their way at any moment. It didn’t matter, she wasn’t stopping.