Hunt the Dragon Read online

  “Lead the way.”

  They pushed past crowds of gawkers clogging passageways to the back of the casino. Nelson knew a shortcut down a hallway, out an emergency exit, down a long concrete corridor, and up a flight of stairs.

  “This way.”

  He held a flashlight to illuminate the floor in front of them as they ran. Crocker found his cell phone and hit Manny’s number on speed dial.

  “Boss, where are you?” Mancini answered.

  “Headed for the garage. You?”

  “Reserved parking, level two.”

  “Jeri told us C.”

  “There is no C. It’s level two.”

  “Two. Copy.”

  “How far away are you?”

  “I think we’re close. Hang on.”

  He stopped and turned back. Nelson, who had been lagging with the flashlight, stood ten feet behind him clutching the back of his leg.

  “What’s the matter?” Crocker asked.

  “I think I pulled a hamstring. You better continue without me. There’s an elevator at the end to the right. The security code is 9114.”

  Crocker nodded. “I’ll radio Jeri and tell her to send someone.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll be okay.”

  “I’m calling her now.”

  He held down the button as he ran. “Jeri? It’s Crocker.”

  “This is a fucking disaster. What the hell is happening?”

  “I’m about to find out. Nelson pulled a muscle. I left him in the security hallway to the right of the casino. He’s near the ground-floor elevator.”

  “I’ll tell Walker to send someone if I can fucking find him.”

  Emerging from the elevator Crocker realized he was unarmed and wearing his best shirt, pants, and new John Varvatos shoes. Not that it mattered. He heard the echoes of men shouting, the squeal of rubber against concrete, a car horn blaring.

  “Manny, position?”

  “Cars are exiting onto Frank Sinatra Drive, black Escalades, Arizona plates.”

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “What’s your position?”

  At the emergency stairway, he turned left toward the sound of shrieking tires. Saw a black Cadillac Escalade forty feet away whip around the corner and down the exit ramp. Mancini ran out from behind a pickup to its right and lunged toward the partially opened rear window of the SUV. Seeing him, the driver turned sharply right, smacking him with the right rear bumper and tossing him against the grille of a parked Mercedes. He bounced off and hit the pavement.

  Crocker found him bleeding from the nose and disoriented. “Don’t move,” he instructed.

  “Fuck that.” Mancini pushed himself up onto all fours, rolled to his right, and stood in a crouch. “Which way did they go?”

  “I only saw one.”

  “One individual?”

  “No, one Escalade.”

  Crocker punched in the side window of a Ford pickup with his elbow, got in, and loosened the ring around the ignition switch with his pocketknife. Once he got the ring off, he pulled the switch out of the dash and unplugged it as Mancini slid into the passenger’s seat.

  “You okay?” Crocker asked.

  “A little woozy. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Anyone following them?”

  “Don’t think so. CP security is totally overwhelmed.”

  “What about the Treasury guys?”

  Mancini shrugged and rubbed his ribs.

  “Take the push-pull. Tell Jeri what’s happening. Tell her to send a team with wheels.”

  He found the red wire with the green stripe around it and the black one, and stuck them both in the hole at the back of the plug, touching the red one to the one that started to crank the motor. Then he held the black one to the other wire until the engine started. He pressed down on the gas and unplugged the red one.

  Mancini, who had been talking on the radio, lowered it into his lap. “Ixnay on the follow team, says Jeri.”

  “Why?”

  “All focused on hotel security.”

  “You armed?” Crocker asked as he backed the truck out of the spot and Mancini wiped a stream of blood from his nose with the back of his sleeve.

  “No. You?”

  “Negative. Which way we going?”

  “Turn right toward the back exit. There!” Mancini grimaced and pointed.

  As Crocker turned onto Frank Sinatra Drive, he swerved to avoid some guy with a camera, who shot him the bird.

  “Fuck you, too. You see ’em?”

  “Right. Bear right,” Mancini said. “Stay on this road and give me your iPhone.”

  “Why? You calling takeout?”

  “So I can find the fuckers.”

  “How the hell you gonna do that?” Crocker asked.

  “When the second SUV sped past, I tossed my Android in the open rear window. Made sure the volume was muted and the GPS engaged.”

  “What’s your Android gonna do?”

  “Watch.”

  “How many targets you see total?”

  “Three subjects in the first vehicle. Two in the second. All male.”

  As Crocker cranked the pickup up to eighty, he saw Mancini to his right punching something into his iPhone. “What the fuck you doing now?”

  “Accessing my InstaMapper account. You got a text from Cyndi. She wants to know where you want her to wait, at the Bellagio or Caesars Palace.”

  “Leave my shit alone!”

  “Relax. She’s waiting for you, buddy.”

  “Focus.”

  Mancini held the little screen to the right of Crocker’s face. It showed a map with a red dot moving down a highway. “See that?”

  “That them?”

  “Brilliant, right? They’re headed north on 15 toward Salt Lake City. You enter up ahead.”

  Crocker swerved left up the ramp and merged into traffic at ninety miles an hour. Multiple car horns screamed behind him.

  His mind was spinning, trying to figure where the diplomats/counterfeiters were headed and how they might stop them. All they had were the phone, a pocketknife, a walkie-talkie, and the truck, which had a quarter of a tank of gas.

  “Check the glove compartment,” Crocker barked.

  “Turning off on state route 95, toward Indian Springs.”

  “I see ’em.”

  He spotted the black Escalade two hundred feet ahead, burning down the left lane. The other Escalade was another two hundred feet ahead of it.

  “Got ’em both.”

  “Cool. Nothing here but registration cards and a bottle of perfume,” Mancini reported.

  “Perfume? Radio Jeri. Tell her to contact the Las Vegas police and tell them we need help.”

  Mancini tried the walkie-talkie. “We’re already out of range.”

  “Call her on my cell. Her number’s on my contact list.”

  “You’re real fucking demanding.”

  Manny didn’t sound good. Crocker glanced right and saw blood trickling out of his ear.

  “You get rung up pretty good?”

  “Don’t worry about me. Jeri isn’t answering. You want to leave a message?”

  “Hang up and try again.”

  Mancini glanced at InstaMapper on the phone and exclaimed, “Yo, yo, yo, cowboy! They’re exiting ahead onto 95 north toward Reno.”

  “No problem. Keep trying Jeri.”

  Chapter Seven

  A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

  —Duke Ellington

  They were twenty miles past the city limits, and the landscape had become shades of black. No moon to help out. Just the occasional pair of headlights on the highway and a canopy of stars. Polaris ahead at ten o’clock. The escaping SUVs had extinguished their lights. So had they, for that matter. The cab illuminated by the blue glow from his iPhone, Crocker leaned forward to check the gas. It was an eighth of an inch away from empty. Probably another gallon or gallon and a half, which would get them twenty more miles, max.
r />   Manny’s breathing was labored. In the glow from the little screen, Crocker saw that the left side of his face had swollen up. His eyes didn’t look right, either.

  They’d never gotten hold of Jeri, nor had they gotten through to an operator when they dialed 911. The city behind them was still dark.

  “Dude, you remember your name?” Crocker asked. “You okay?”

  “Still smarter than you, asshole, with half my brain working.”

  “More like a tenth, seems to me.”

  “Pay attention,” Mancini growled as he looked at the screen. “They’re turning off.”

  “Where? You see a road?”

  “Up ahead to the right. Slow down!”

  Crocker let up on the gas, applied the brake, and peered right into the darkness. All he saw was furry black and the sharper outline of a ridge in the distance.

  “Turn here!” Manny shouted.

  “Am I looking for a road?”

  “No road. Just turn.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes!”

  The truck bounced so hard across the shoulder that they had to hold on to prevent banging their heads on the ceiling.

  “Motherfucker!”

  Crocker applied the brake and eased the pickup down an embankment. They found themselves on relatively flat desert terrain interrupted by the occasional boulder or shrub.

  “You trying to flip this thing over?” Mancini asked.

  Crocker picked up speed. It was hard to see through the dust and darkness ahead.

  “Any idea where the fuck these guys are going?”

  Soon as he posed the question, automatic fire rang out to their right and bullets shattered the side window and windshield. Crocker ducked behind the dash and turned left as more rounds ripped into the pickup’s door and bed.

  The vehicle hit a rock, dipped precipitously, and went downward fast.

  “Fuck!” Mancini shouted.

  “Hold on!”

  They were airborne, but Crocker remained calm enough to check that both their seat belts were buckled. Twisted his torso hard right so it almost faced the seat and covered his head. Watched as Mancini did the same.

  “Clench your teeth!”

  The grille hit the ground hard, then the vehicle flipped over, spinning slightly right, and landed with a bang on the right side of the bed. Then it rolled onto the roof and was stopped by something hard that blew out the passenger-side window. Bam!

  Crocker unclenched his teeth, exhaled, and shook the glass off.

  “Manny?”

  All he heard was a groan. Then he smelled gas.

  “Manny, you all right? You hear me?”

  The pickup had come to a rest on its side at a forty-degree angle, with the driver’s side up. He pushed open the door with his left foot, unbuckled his seat belt, then turned to attend to Mancini. He seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness, but was breathing freely and his pulse was only slightly slower than normal. Crocker unbuckled his seat belt, then felt carefully along his neck and back to check if anything was broken. His spine was intact.

  “You hear me, buddy?”

  No response, so he wrapped his arms around him and slowly lifted out the bear of a man—230 pounds of bone and muscle. Crocker managed to lug him a safe distance away from the vehicle and set him on the ground.

  “Manny, can you hear me?” he whispered.

  After a ten-second pause, Mancini groaned and responded, “Yeah.” Then, “Fuck. My head hurts. What happened?”

  “We crashed. I’m going to look for the phone and call for help.”

  He inspected Mancini more closely and found multiple cuts to his right arm and side, and a large contusion near his right eye. He didn’t have the iPhone in his pocket or clutched in either hand.

  “Wait here,” Crocker whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

  Turning and looking over his shoulder, he saw that they had fallen into a twenty-foot-deep gulch. As he took a step toward the pickup, he heard helicopter rotors echo off the incline ahead.

  He scurried upward across the dirt and rocks on his hands and knees, looked up and followed the sound. The helo was drawing closer. He made out its dark form in the night sky. It hovered with lights out. Then suddenly the bright landing lights came on, illuminating a wide circle five hundred feet ahead and to the right, temporarily blinding him.

  “Fuckers!”

  It was descending, looking for a place to land. To the right of the circle he made out the two black SUVs. Men with automatic weapons stood around them.

  “Now what?”

  Without thinking he broke into a sprint, keeping his eyes on the ground ahead of him, juking to avoid boulders, holes, shrubs. Focused on his target and calculating that he should swing right of the SUVs and approach from behind. His legs and lungs burning, he pushed with everything he had left, making sure to land on the balls of his feet to minimize the sound.

  The helo engines were idling now. He heard voices ahead, echoing off the mountain. They seemed to be speaking a foreign language. Sounded like barked instructions, said with urgency.

  He felt urgency himself, pushing harder and closing within two hundred feet. Men were carrying suitcases from the Escalades and loading them into the helicopter. He ran as fast as his legs could take him, fighting through stiffness and pain, remembering Mancini and the pickup past his left shoulder, ignoring all the warnings that flashed in his head.

  He looked up again. Saw the sides of the SUVs from a hundred feet, then the bottom of his right loafer slid across something and he lost his balance and fell forward. He tried to break the impact with his hands, but still hit his chest and chin hard enough that his teeth smacked together and he lost his breath. Ten seconds later he had recovered. He tasted blood in his mouth and felt it dripping down his chin. More alarming was the sound of the helo engine revving up as if it were about to take off. Again he ran, hobbling this time, ignoring the pain from his knee, mouth, and lungs.

  Out of breath, he ducked behind the first SUV. The whine of the helo engine was deafening, the light it emitted blinding. The rotors kicked up a violent swirl of dust that stung his skin. They seemed to be waiting. Crocker saw someone emerge from the back of the other SUV carrying a suitcase and hurrying—a short man with a wrestler’s body wearing a black tracksuit.

  Crocker got up and sprinted toward him. Halfway there, someone screamed from the helo. Shots rang out. He fixed his eyes on the man’s legs and launched himself. Hit the back of the man’s knees hard and saw stars.

  They were grappling in the dirt, dust in his eyes and mouth, more swirling around him, the man screaming and swearing in a language that sounded like Chinese.

  Crocker located the man’s head with his hands, delivered some quick, short blows to the front and right. Then the man twisted violently and kicked him in the groin. All the air went out of Crocker, and the pain was so intense he couldn’t help but loosen his grip just enough for the man to squirm away.

  He reached for him blindly, ignoring the pangs that shot up his back and down his legs. The helo started lifting off. Shots rained down on Crocker, tearing up the ground around him. He rolled under the helo and looked for the man but couldn’t find him.

  As the helicopter rose, he rolled left, then got to his feet and zigzagged sharply left and right. The helo stopped at thirty feet and hovered. Automatic-weapon fire poured from the doors and windows on both sides—like a wave of deadly bees.

  Seeing a boulder ahead, he dove behind it and hugged its base, heart pounding, dirt in his mouth. The firing paused momentarily. He thought of Cyndi waiting. Jenny, Holly. Maybe the guys in the helicopter had lost sight of him. Maybe they were going to wait for him to give up, which would never fucking happen.

  While the helo continued to hover as though the men inside couldn’t decide whether to land and eliminate him or fly away, he quickly considered his options. There weren’t any.

  Past the bottom of the boulder he saw a glint from the chrome har
dware on the black Pelican case the man had been carrying. Either Crocker had managed to wrestle it away or the man had left it. Didn’t really matter.

  Maybe the guys can’t see it ’cause it’s black and covered with dirt?

  He hoped so as he looked for a route of escape. Any movement of his part would involve tremendous risk, so he waited, hoping that the next moment would reveal a solution, the tension stretching tauter by the second.

  Looking at his dirt-covered hands, he realized he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. He felt for it in his pocket.

  Yeah, it’s still there.

  Moments like this distilled existence to its essence—life and death, good and evil, love and hate. He loved Holly and always would.

  Imagine thinking of her with my last breath.

  The sound of the helo engine deepened. He saw the landing lights wash over the landscape.

  Taking what he knew was a foolish risk, Crocker snuck a look. The helicopter was landing, which meant he was fucked. They would see the boulders. They would figure it was the only place in the vicinity where he could be hiding.

  Just as he expected, shots rang out and pinged off the rock. He glanced behind him, looking for the route of escape. Facing forward again, he saw the flicker of flames in his periphery near the SUVs. Seconds later the sky lit up with a massive explosion that shook the ground and pushed the helo up and to the left like a toy. A large piece of metal from one of the Escalades clanged off the rocks. The closer SUV was engulfed in flames.

  Manny? WTH!

  He held his breath as the helo spun left. He was praying for it to crash, but the pilot managed to level it. The engine whined higher and the helo ascended and banked left. He followed its dark shape along the ridge of the mountain as the Escalade continued to burn.

  He waited a minute until the sound of the rotors chopping the air receded and was replaced by the hiss and crackle of flames.

  “Manny?” he called.

  “Boss.” His small, pained voice tripped across the landscape to his right.

  He found Manny lying on his side, his face glowing orange in the reflected light.

  “You saved my ass, buddy. You torch that vehicle? How?”

  “Matches and my shirt.”

  “You better?” he asked, his chest heaving and sweat beading on his forehead.