Page 53 of Go First
Monty kept both hands on the wheel, eyes flicking from the road to the men beside him.He heard his own heartbeat in his ears.Protocol was clear, unequivocal.There’d be an enquiry, one he didn’t need, not after that business with the missing Percocets.But a life was a life.A man could die.
And a man could so easily live, too, go on to know his grandchildren, with just a single, simple, two-minute procedure.
“We’re supposed to—” Gus began.
“I know what we’re supposed to,” Monty snapped.He tasted copper.“But fuck it, Gus.We’re not a DoC taxi service, we save lives.And we don’t let a man choke out in front of us.”
Another blast of the cruiser’s horn.The driver gestured, frantic.
Monty exhaled.“Hold tight, man.I’m pulling over.”
+ + + + +
Kate gripped the wheel tighter as Marcus’s voice buzzed in her ear.
“So they’ve both gone dark,” he said.“Cox and Santos.”
“Cox and the person claiming to be Santos.”
“On the plus-side, the ambulance and the cop car have trackers.Currently looks like they’re close together on the northbound lane of Route 202.A lay-by.”
“I’m twenty minutes away.”
“Make it ten.I’m closer.We’ll meet when we’re in range.”
The call clicked off.Kate swallowed the bitter taste rising in her throat and pressed harder on the accelerator.
+ + + + +
Monty nudged the ambulance into the gravel lay-by.The cruiser swung in behind, its lights still flashing.Gus hopped out, carry-bag in one hand.Speed was of the essence.
“This is the right thing to do,” he said, as Monty stepped down from the cab. “Keep an eye on Papillon, will you?”
The cruiser door opened.The man who’d been slumped—they called him Danny—stumbled forward, hand to throat.
“This way,” Gus called, already pulling a syringe from his kit.
Bill straightened, the motion too smooth.The gun came up, black and dull.Two shots.Gus dropped.Monty barely had time to turn before the second shot slammed into his chest.
Cox stepped down from the ambulance, shaky and slow, but calm.The three men from the cruiser turned to him—the driver Franko, the gunman Danny, who’d masqueraded as Santos, and the quiet, stocky one they called Jakes.
Franko’s grin was almost servile.“Mr.Cox.Sir.We—”
The shot cut him off mid-word.Franko folded, eyes wide.Danny barely flinched before Cox swung the barrel and fired again.Blood sprayed the gravel.
“They were useful,” Cox said, voice low and almost kind.“But to everything there is a season.”
He turned to Jakes.“Unlike you.You will have a bright future.Your kills were… they contained a spark of the divine. Wait and see what we will build together, Jakes.”
Jakes’s throat worked, but no sound came.
Cox lifted his face to the sky.“Let’s give thanks.”
The two men knelt on the sharp gravel and bowed their heads.Cox, in thin prison-issue pyjamas, winced a little as the stones pierced his kneecaps, but the words rolled soft and certain, nonetheless: thanks for success so far, a plea for protection in the final stages.Jakes’s lips moved, but his mind roared with a single thought: he could trust in God.But could he trust Elijah Cox?
Then the ambulance engine suddenly coughed and roared to life.Monty, bloodied but breathing, was behind the wheel.The rig jolted forward, tires spinning, slewing across the lay-by before bursting onto the highway.
Jakes flinched.Cox didn’t even glance back.