Page 44 of Trusted Instinct
“Striker Actual, Logistics began satellite surveillance of your area after shots were fired. Be advised, there is a serious accident on the northbound bridge, creating a pile-up in both directions. Our view is five minutes delayed. We are augmenting the visual with AI due to weather interference. At this time, AI estimates that there are fifteen or more vehicles involved. We have emergency response en route. Each car traveling on a northern path is adding to the numbers. We are standing by. Over.”
“Striker Actual, Copy. On it. Randy, stay where you are and direct cars only to the south. Strike Force rally at the transport.”
Creed did a quick calculation. Auralia and Doli had left over fifteen minutes before. He hadn’t gotten a text that they were introuble. He stilled and tried to get a sense of her. In response, he thought ‘car’ and then ‘concentrating.’ Both of those made sense in this storm, which seemed to follow a cycle of intense downpour followed by a light drizzle. The sun was just now getting swallowed by the tower of thunderheads.
The rain was just heavy enough that those traveling north would be hard-pressed to distinguish between a car that was moving and one that had come to a stop. Everyone would be riding their brakes down the hill, so a red light added nada to the equation.
With this kind of rain, the roadways became just slick enough for the tires to lose their grip. It was always the most slippery as the rain began washing the roads clear of accumulated oils and other fluids.
And it had been a long while since the last good rain.
And now that the torrent wasn’t filling Creed’s ears, he could easily pick out the scream of tires and the unmistakable sound of car bodies impacting way down the road.
Then the hits kept coming.
Creed locked eyes with Gator as he jogged up.
“Damned, it’s like live-action dominoes,” Gator said as he rounded next to Creed and popped open the back. He reached past Rou’s crate to grab up emergency response kits.
“Bowling pins dropping,” Deep said as he accepted the first bag and handed it over to Blaze.
Gator handed a pack to Creed. “She feels like she’s stressed out but not hurt. I tried to call her, but it went to voicemail.”
“I sent Auralia a text. She hasn’t answered. She never does when she’s driving.”
Gator held a hand up by his head. “You picking up anything?”
“Deep concentration?”
Gator stilled. “Yeah, that’s about right.”
Did that let Creed drop his worry meter? Maybe by a couple of degrees.
“Gentlemen, comms will be used uniquely amongst our Strike Force. Each of you has a Logistics professional dedicated to helping you accomplish your tasks that you’ll contact via cell phone. When you call in, you will automatically connect with your support staffer.”
There was another bash, and then another.
“Randy’s trying to warn people, but their nervous systems are so fried, they aren’t rolling down their windows, and they aren’t following his hand gestures. He’s even moved into the road with a high-vis vest on, and they’re maneuvering around him like he’s the escaping gunman, looking to carjack someone for an escape vehicle. It’s a shit show.” He turned. “Jack, you’re our tallest, and I hope our most intimidating. Get dressed head to toe in a high vis suit. Get some flares going, run up the street to let folks know this is a dead end.”
“That’s not optimistic-sounding.” Jack held his hand right in front of another car whizzing by. And all seven men waved and yelled, “Stop.”
The young female driver looked over at them with fear on her face as she accelerated.
The team held its breath.
Fourteen was the number Creed used when he was a boy to tell how hot it was. Creed would count the number of cricket chirps for fourteen seconds, then add forty to get the temperature. Today, he counted fourteen and then got a bang as the young woman’s car hit. From that measure, Creed could get a fair calculation of how long the pileup was growing.
The problem was that surviving the first impact meant you survived the first impact; as long as cars kept driving forward, the hits would keep coming.
“It’s on us, boys,” Striker said. “It’ll be a while before we have support.”
Creed reached past Rou’s crate to grab the suit for Jack.
“The two sheriff deputies?” Jack asked, tugging on his neon limon coveralls with reflective tape stripes and zipping them up to his neck.
“Their patrol cars were at the bottom of the parking lot by the security entrance. I don’t see how they’re getting out of there,” Deep said. “I didn’t see either deputy around.”
They were a team of seven that day, eight if you counted Rou. And as young and goofy as she was, Creed always counted Rou as a force multiplier.
