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“It means switch radio channels,” he said, leaning over to click the channels controller to Tactical and picking up the hand mike.
“Central, this is Jax 180. Come back.”
“Jax 180, this is Six Actual.”
Six Actual was Mace Dixon.
“On that Suburban you just posted, St. Louis PD is asking for a ten-seventeen on that. Can you give us your twenty?”
Karras was getting a little bug-eyed but Redding didn’t have time for that right now. A 10-17 code meant maintain surveillance but do not stop the vehicle.
“Roger that, Central. Our twenty right now is southbound on A1A at Cedar Point Road. What’s up, Six? Plates come back No Wants No Warrants.”
“Roger that, Jax 180, wait one.”
Silence on the radio, and outside the windshield the weather was building up fast, the way squalls do along this coast. The traffic had thinned out, people looking at the skies and running for cover. In this part of the North Coast the A1A ran right along the shoreline, the ocean maybe a hundred yards away, booming and roaring.
On the west side, sprawling residential blocks, a few gated but mostly not, and beyond them, scrub forest, swamp and wetlands and then the Intracoastal Waterway, the inland canal that ran all the way from the Chesapeake to the Florida Keys.
The Suburban was speeding up, starting to pull away, which was okay with Redding. There was nowhere for it to go but south on the highway or turn off onto a side road, and they were all dead ends, either into the swamps to the west, or turn east and drive into the ocean.
“What’s going on, Sergeant Redding?” Karras asked in a tight voice.
“Call me Jack, okay? Dispatch is asking us to monitor that truck but not to spook them. St. Louis cops are following up for some reason we don’t know yet.”
Redding could feel Karras’s adrenaline rising. She had her hand on her sidearm and her skin was getting a tad pink.
“Are we stopping it later? I mean, what’s—”
“Not sure yet, let’s—”
“Jax 180, this is Six.”
“Six.”
“Yeah, look, Jack, what we have here is that the St. Louis PD is listing Gerald Walker and his wife and their three daughters as Whereabouts Unknown. Relatives up in Florissant have been trying to contact them for over ten days now. They were staying in their condo on Amelia Island. Management checked the condo and there’s nobody there. Signs that the departure was sudden. Clothes all over, dishes in the sink. Security logged the truck out of the north gate at 2013 hours ten days ago. Guard couldn’t confirm the occupants of the vehicle because of the tinted windows. Gate camera’s no help either, wrong angle. Family is not answering their cells. Can’t GPS them because their phones are turned off.”
“Roger that, Mace. Not getting the urgency. So they went for a shore drive, didn’t call the relatives. Maybe the relatives are all pains in the ass. I know mine are. Are they using their cards?”
“St. Louis says yes. Gas and motels along the coast. They were in the Monteleone in New Orleans seven nights ago. Then east along Ten... Ruby Tuesday and Holiday Inn and Denny’s along the way.”
“Any security video at the check-ins?”
“Not yet.”
“So we’re ten-seventeen on it until when?”
Dixon respected Redding’s gut feelings. He thought it over.
“Okay. Take your point, Jack. Just watch the truck for a while, see what develops.”
“Well, we maybe had an I Six on him. But he’s stopped doing that.”
Silence from Dixon. The CO was telling him to use his own judgment. Redding put the mike down, keyed it off. Thought it over. Stop or not.
Decided.
“Okay, Julie. Got an assignment for you.”
She came on point.
“Survey that truck. Gimme a plausible reason for making a stop.”
They were now in much thinner traffic. In this part of the coast, A1A ran on a kind of elevated levee. The palms and scrub brush along the shore were bending and whipping in the wind. The sky was closing down like a lid.
The Suburban was running straight and steady at 65 per. Staying in the curb lane. They were now about fifty feet back, and holding, with no other cars in the way. Karras was staring hard at the truck’s tailgate. She went on staring. Redding felt her pain, because she was about to say...
“I got nothing.”
Redding gave her a grin.
“Me neither. Maybe you could shoot out a taillight. That would give us an E twenty-one.”
She gave him back a look and a fake-perky tone.
“I think you should be the one doing that, you being, like, the responsible adult and all.”
Redding smiled.
“Hell, I probably couldn’t hit it from here,” said Redding. “I suck at rolling fire. Why don’t—”
And then the Suburban went full jackrabbit, a sudden growling roar from the engine, the rear end dropping, a burst of smoke from the exhaust as the driver just jammed it, accelerating, racing away up the highway, going away fast.
“Hit the lights,” Redding said, checking his side mirrors as he jammed the accelerator down, “and tighten your belt!”
“Fuck yes,” said Karras, as the roof rack lit up and the siren started to wail. “And on my first day too. Fuck yes! Thank you, Jesus!”
“Call it in.”
She snatched up the mike.
“Central, this is Jax 180—we are ten thirty-one in pursuit southbound on A1A at Flagler Beach of a black Suburban, Missouri marker four zero seven x-ray zulu tango. We have just crossed Eighteenth Street—”
She glanced at the speedometer.
“Speed ninety, Central.”
“Roger that, Jax 180, we have a unit northbound on A1A at Ocean Palm. Jax 250, come in.”
“This is Jax 250. Ten-four lighting up now.”
“Jax 180, we have County units available too.”
“Tell him no thanks,” said Redding.
Karras clicked the button, said, “Negative on County, Central.”
“Roger that.”
Karras wanted to know why they didn’t call in some Flagler County Sheriff cars on this pursuit.
“Because so far this is containable, and highway pursuit is our thing, not County’s. They’re good folks, but in a car chase they go all squirrelly because they don’t train for it. We do.”
“Got it,” she said.
What little traffic there was veered right and left out of the way as Redding closed in on the Suburban, which was whipsawing as the heavy truck lurched in and around other vehicles.
A pickup truck popped out of a side road, almost T-boning the Suburban before the driver wrangled his ride into a ditch, the guy getting out to shout something at Redding as the cruiser flashed by. Karras stayed on the mike, calling the cross streets—Nineteen, Twenty-One, Twenty-Three—as the Crown Vic’s Interceptor motor rapidly overtook the Suburban, the siren howling.
Gusts of wind were lashing the highway, and now the white squall hit, sideways rain and clouds of sand, shredded palm fronds and scrub branches tumbling across the highway, flying through the air.
Redding put the wipers on full but they could hardly see the truck through the rain. The truck was not slowing down, although visibility had dropped down to twenty yards. Karras strained to read a street sign as they powered past it, keyed the mike again.
“Central, this is Jax 180. We are southbound A1A at Twenty-Seventh still in pursuit—”
The Suburban’s brake lights flared on, bright red smears in the driving rain, the truck tilting wildly to the left as the driver bulled it into a right-hand turn. The right side wheels of the truck actually lifted off the road for a second, and Redding tapped the brakes, falling back, waiting for it to roll, but it didn’t.
The wheels came back down with a thudding impact, the truck wobbled and weaved as the driver fought for control, got it back, and now the Suburban was accelerating down a residential street lined with ranch-style summer homes and palm-shaded yards.
“Central, vehicle made a right turn onto Twenty-Eight.”
“Roger that. Copy that, Jax 250?”
“Jax 250. Ten-four copy we are a half mile out.”
The Suburban almost took out three kids in wetsuits walking in the street, carrying surfboards, shoulders hunched, heading home to beat the storm. They dropped the boards and dodged as the Suburban blew by them. It struck one of the boards, smashing it into shards, and one of the larger pieces flew up and smacked into their windshield, making them both flinch away. The truck reached an intersection—South Dayton—veered hard right again, accelerated away, now headed back north.
“Shit,” said Karras. “He’s going to kill somebody. Should we back off?”
Redding flashed a sideways look at her.
“You wanna?” he said. “Remember we have a dash cam. This goes south we might be in the barrel.”
“We? Or just you?”
Made him smile.
“Me. I’m the one in charge.”
“Then fuck no,” she said, looking back at the truck, her right hand braced on the dashboard.
She keyed the mike again.
“Central, target is now northbound on South Dayton—we have just crossed Twenty-Seven.”
“Copy that.”
South Dayton was a long residential street that ran along the edge of a shallow slope covered with trees, a few large summer homes on the east side, no one on the streets now that the storm had hit and hit hard, the branches on the trees thrashing in the gale, the undersides of their leaves showing silvery white. A palm frond struck their windshield, got jammed into their wipers.
Redding swore, jammed the car to a stop, jumped out and tore the frond away, leaped back into the vehicle before it stopped rocking, accelerated hard, the tail end sliding on the slick tarmac.
“Ask Jax 250 where they are,” said Redding, fighting the wheel as they hit a pothole in the road and the Crown Vic slammed through it, bouncing crazily, the rear end coming loose.
Karras keyed the mike again.
“Jax 250.”
“Roger, Jax 180.”
“What’s your twenty?”
“A1A northbound crossing Twenty-Eight.”
In this section South Dayton was a straight run, and the truck pushed it to a flat 100 miles an hour. Jesus, thought Redding, this is not good.
“Ask Jax 250 to go to afterburners, get north of us and turn left. If they really punch it, they might be able to block the guy off there.”
“Roger, Jax 250, can you shoot up to block at Nineteen and South Dayton?”
“Ten-four, Jax 180.”
“Roger that.”
The truck blew through stop signs, almost nailed a van pulling out of a driveway, braked crazily and spooled it right back up to 60...70...
The Suburban’s brake lights flared up and beyond it they could see the flicker of red and blue lights and the glare of headlights as Jax 250 squealed to a skidding halt that blocked the intersection. The truck slid to a stop, sat there for a brief moment, wavering.
They were almost on it.
The brake lights flicked off, the truck swung a hard left and punched it, racing west toward the swamplands and the Intracoastal.
“There’s nothing down there but South Palmetto,” said Redding. “It’s a crescent, no way out. Nothing west of that but swamplands. Guy’s trapped.”
“Unless he breaks into a house along here, takes a whole bunch of hostages.”
Redding shot her a look. She was having the time of her life. Hell, so was he. Who didn’t love a totally batshit car chase? Was this a great country or what?
“Jeez, Julie. Don’t even say that.”
