Page 93 of Unmade

He turned to me as I started running after. The man wasn’t out for a leisurely jog; he was wearing a leather jacket and jeans, and he ran as if his life depended on it. He also looked back over his shoulder every now and then, so I decided he was involved somehow. It was too suspect.

I had to push it. He was a solid hundred feet ahead of me, and I couldn’t allow myself to lose sight of him.

Coach was surprisingly fast for his age, ’cause he ran up next to me and inserted an earbud. “Seven-two-zero-four-four-one, this is Coach. Recruit Leighton Watts and I are in pursuit of a lone male, brown leather jacket, blue jeans, shaved head.” He started panting. “He’s running up South Eads toward the DoubleTree hotel, and we request immediate backup, over.”

The street was heavily trafficked, and judging by how the man kept looking for a way to cross, it was clear he had a destination in mind.

I sucked in a breath and pushed myself further, and Coach and I shifted closer to the edge of the sidewalk to prevent collisions with oblivious pedestrians.

Now.

I pointed as the man sprinted right into traffic, and we crossed at the same time farther down the road. But we were catching up. I estimated we had about fifty feet to go.

A truck honked at us, and we kept running.

“The dark blue van parked over there,” he panted, pointing toward a loading zone near the hotel. “Back doors are open—you see the guy?”

I saw the guy. He was in the back of the van, holding the doors open, and he wasn’t wearing any kind of worker’s clothes, uniform or whatever.

“We gotta go faster,” I said, my breathing becoming labored. “Any orders?”

“Just stay behind me when we get there.”

“Wilco.”

Our suspicions were confirmed when the guy in the van yelled for the runner, so they clearly knew each other. Additionally, he’d yelled in German, and it couldn’t be a coincidence. This was connected to Beckett’s case.

“They’re gonna give up on him,” Coach grunted. “Few more seconds. We go after the vehicle anyway.”

I didn’t have to ask what his plans were for the runner. He took out his gun and aimed without slowing down, and he fired three shots in quick succession. People around us screamed and scattered, and some cars skidded to a halt near the median of the road.

The runner went down with a loud cry, and blood poured from two wounds in his right leg.

I saw the gun tucked into his jeans, and I bent down and grabbed it as we ran past.

“Good job, kid.”

The man in the van slammed on the side, presumably to alert a driver to take off, but we were right there. A few more feet. The engine started, and Coach threw himself into the back of the van, with me following.Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. I gnashed my teeth as my knee hit the floor with too much force. We weren’t alone back here. One man shouted in German—Coach was fighting him—but what shocked me were the six—no, seven. Seven other people. Immigrant workers?Theyhad uniforms. They looked like they all worked in maintenance or gardening. What the fuck was this? No actual seats, just two benches along the sides.

I tucked the German’s gun into my pants and registered fear and confusion in their faces, and there wasn’t a chance in hell they were the target here. They cowered away from us.

Coach let out a growling sound, grabbed the other German by his jacket, and literally kicked him out of the moving van.

As he managed to shut the doors, we were blanketed in darkness. There was no window into the driving cab; we couldn’t see if there was more than one guy up there. Hell, we couldn’t see shit.

I heaved a breath and dug out my pencil flashlight, and I turned it on and tested sticking it to the ceiling. Awesome, it actually worked. Most cars these days weren’t magnetic anywhere.

Coach grabbed on to a handlebar and squatted at the middle of the floor, and he faced the seven men trying to move away from us.

“Do you speak English? Are you here willingly? Spanish?”

One of the men nodded cautiously. He was older, around fifty or so. “Only a little English.No nos deporte, por favor. El señor Schulz les va a mandar dinero a nuestras familias.”

I had no clue what was being said, and Coach didn’t make it easier for me when he switched to Spanish too.

“No estamos aquí para lastimarlos ni deportarlos. Sobre el dinero, no creo que el señor Schulz vaya a mandar nada a nadie. ¿Se saben la dirección del lugar donde se están quedando? ¿Saben quién está manejando?”

Needing to feel useful, I pulled out my phone and scrolled till I found the number to Hillcroft’s dispatch, and I hit call. First day of training, we’d received all the “important contact information,” and I’d never thought I’d need to use it for as long as I was a recruit.

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