Road Rage Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Do You Want More Quincy & Floyd?

  Also by Paul Tomlinson

  About the Author

  Road Rage

  Copyright © 2020 by Paul Tomlinson

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, or used in any manner whatsoever, without the express permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in the context of a book review.

  Road Rage is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

  First published May 2021

  Publisher: Paul Tomlinson

  www.paultomlinson.org/outlaws

  Cover image and design © 2021 by Paul Tomlinson

  Dedication: For Brian Ireland

  Chapter One

  I was out of bed and pulling on my clothes before my eyes were fully open. Outlaw reflexes. I didn’t even know what had woken me. I slid open the window as quietly as I could, listening for some clue to the danger my sleeping brain had recognised. There was the creak of a floorboard in the hotel corridor outside my room.

  I leaned out of the window. No one in the dusty street below. I tossed my old kitbag up onto the roof and climbed up after it. There was a loud knocking on the door, but I was gone.

  Do you choose this kind of life or does it choose you? I’ve often wondered this and I don’t know the answer. I don’t do this because I’m lazy – it’s harder than any real job I’ve ever had. And I certainly don’t do it for the money. At least not recently. But I do like being my own boss and giving the finger to the taxman.

  On the downside, you risk becoming a target for law enforcement officers, bounty hunters, and disgruntled gangsters. I, Quin Randall, was a wanted man. I wasn’t sure which of those three interested parties were responsible for today’s morning wake-up call and I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. I picked up my bag and ran across the rooftop. The alley between the hotel and the next building wasn’t wide and I jumped it easily.

  Escape routes are something I identify without really thinking about it. There are always options and you learn to recognise them. Rooftops are an obvious choice and have all sorts of advantages. But in a little town like this one, they only get you so far. As soon as I could, I wanted to get down to street level and double-back for my Trekker. You can escape faster in a vehicle, especially if you’ve got a head start.

  I jumped across another alley onto a lower roof. I could hear shouting somewhere behind me. My pursuers had discovered that I’d escaped upwards and were coming up after me. I needed to get down before they began giving instructions to their colleagues on the ground. I dropped over the edge of the building and scrambled down the drainpipe. It wasn’t as firmly attached to the building as I might have liked.

  Reaching the dusty street, I kept close to the wall and jogged in the direction of the Trekker. If they had my car staked out, I would need Plan B, but I’d stashed it some distance from the hotel so hopefully they hadn’t found it.

  “He’s here!” Shouting behind me.

  Scrack! I ran. So much for my head start.

  I looked back. The man running after me was dressed in black – tee-shirt, boots, combat pants. He looked like he was private security. Or maybe an assassin. He had a bulky pistol in a shoulder holster.

  I’ve been chased by guys like him before. They’re like robots, they don’t give up. I much prefer being chased by old cops with beer guts and bunions. This guy’s biceps were as big around as my thigh and his thighs were the size of my waist. He was a big scracker. He had dark auburn hair tied back in a sleek ponytail. I wondered what it would look like spread across a pillow. I’m not sure why my brain does that.

  I heard the engine-whine of something big and risked another glance back. It was an ex-military 4x4, one of the BRZs, affectionally known as Bruisers. The chunky black tyres looked like they could crush anything. Including me.

  Driving the Bruiser was a big guy wearing mirrored sunglasses. He slowed the vehicle and threw open the passenger-side door so that the big scracker with the ponytail could clamber in. Then he jammed his foot down on the accelerator and the Bruiser shot towards me. I ran faster.

  My Trekker was a couple of streets east of us. They would be on top of me before I reached it. Perhaps literally. The Bruiser was big but it wasn’t slow. There was no way I could outrun them. But maybe I could use its size to my advantage.

  I tried to recall how I might have drawn the attention of these two, but nothing came to me. I’d only arrived in town yesterday. The only real interaction I’d had was with someone who tried to pick me up in the hotel bar. Her name was Lydia, she was dressed like a biker, and she’d been even more drunk than I was.

  “I’m a Medusa,” she said, slurring her words. Or maybe it was my ears that were blurred.

  I thought a Medusa was something red and spicy that you ate with rice, but apparently that’s a Madras. Medusa, she told me, was a mythological creature with snakes instead of hair. If a man looked at her face he was instantly turned to stone. I knew someone like that. The local motorcycle gang had taken their name from this Greek demoness and Lydia showed me her tattoo of the gang’s logo. She also offered to show me her piercing but I told her she probably shouldn’t be flashing something like that in public.

  “Do you want to go upstairs for a private viewing?” she asked, breathing whiskey fumes into my ear.

  I was tempted. But despite the fact that I’d been flying solo for months, my heart wasn’t really in it. And it was nothing to do with the alcohol. The flesh was willing. Eager even. But I was still getting over my last ill-judged brief fling. Besides which, becoming entangled with someone from a biker gang seemed like a bad idea even to my drink-fuddled brain.

  Lydia quickly picked up on my lack of enthusiasm and drifted away. The last time I saw her, she had her hand inside the barmaid’s blouse – perhaps checking her for piercings. I’d gone up to bed soon after.
r />   The two guys in the Bruiser didn’t look like people Lydia would hang around with. The lack of motorbikes was a bit of a clue there. No, these two were hired muscle. But there was nothing to indicate who might have hired them.

  I have been told – more than once – that I have an uncanny ability to swazz people off. It’s not a deliberate thing. Usually. It just seems to happen. Without meaning to, I humiliated an ACID agent and she is now trying to catch me and lock me up. There is a bounty hunter called O’Keefe on my trail and he’s also conducting a sort of personal vendetta. And then there’s a certain Mister Big who is unhappy because I accidentally took something belonging to him. Well, I took it on purpose but I didn’t know at the time that it was his. There are probably others, but you get my drift. Add to that the various folk I have scammed during the two years I’ve been on Saphira and you begin to see why it’s hard for me to guess who is currently trying to run me down with a Bruiser. For all I knew they might be working for my ex-wife. Or my ex-husband. Or my other ex-wife.

  Despite several abrupt changes of direction and other attempts to shake them, the pair in the Bruiser were right behind me. Close enough that I could smell the rubber of their tyres. Just ahead of me was a big old warehouse and the alley next to it was too narrow for the Bruiser to enter. I ran towards it.

  I stopped in the mouth of the alley and turned to fire a shot towards my pursuers, hoping this would discourage them from following me into the alley on foot. The shot hit the ground in front of the Bruiser, sending up a spray of dirt. Apparently afraid that I would fire at them again, the driver jammed on the brakes and the Bruiser swerved. It slid past me and crashed into the wall of the old warehouse, turning the dry wood to matchsticks. I didn’t wait to see if they were okay – I ran. The sound of falling debris behind me suggested their car was still moving which meant the collision with the warehouse hadn’t been fatal.

  I kept running. There was a crash off to my left, somewhere inside the warehouse. And then another. Through the gaps in the old boards, I could see the Bruiser running parallel to the alley, keeping pace with me. It didn’t slow when it approached an internal wall, it just smashed through it.

  The Bruiser picked up speed, pulling ahead of me. There was a squealing of tyres at it spun through a half-circle and then it crashed through the wall sideways, coming to rest in the alley just ahead of me, blocking it completely. They sat facing me. I skidded to a stop. They would have to demolish more of the brittle wooden wall to reach me, but that would hardly slow them down.

  To my left, there was an ominous creaking and then the sound of snapping timbers. The warehouse wall leaned inwards and then the whole building collapsed in on itself, filling the alley with dust.

  The cloud thinned and there was more sunlight than there had been. Stretching out beside me was a wasteland of broken lumber.

  In front of me, the Bruiser’s windshield wipers came on, cutting two clear shapes in the snow-like layer of dust.

  There is only so much running away that a man can do. Eventually you just have to stand and fight. I planted my feet, raised my pistol and aimed it at the windshield.

  We faced each other in a classic standoff. Me with my arms stretched out in front of me holding the big dull grey revolver, them with the dust settling around their vehicle. I was close enough to see the expressions on the faces of the two men. And read their lips.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s crazy!”

  I expected the driver to stamp down on the ‘go’ pedal and head straight towards me. It was a bit of a surprise when the wheels spun in the dirt and the Bruiser shot backwards.

  What the heck, I thought, and fired the revolver anyway. I aimed for a point just above their front bumper.

  Vehicles don’t normally blow up when you shoot them. Especially ex-military ones. Except in the movies. But very occasionally a lucky shot will hit a battery or the hydraulics or something technical like that and then you get fireworks. Of course, this is only lucky if you’re far enough away to avoid being caught by the blast. Which I wasn’t.

  I turned and threw myself forwards, wrapping my arms over my head and burying my face in the dirt. I felt a wave of hot air waft over me.

  “Squee-it!” I heard one of my pursuers shout.

  “I skinned my scracking knee,” complained the other.

  They had both escaped from the exploding Bruiser. That was a relief. Probably. Killing people isn’t really my thing. But as a priority, it’s one step below staying alive.

  I could hear footsteps approaching. I spat out dust and blinked to clear my vision. Scratched grey metal feet stopped in front of me.

  “Graceful as always,” a familiar voice said.

  “Floyd?”

  I tilted my head, looking up. From my perspective, he looked very tall, even though he was shorter than he used to be. His metal face seemed to be scowling – even though I knew this wasn’t possible.

  “When you’ve finished examining the dirt, perhaps you’d like to get up and meet our client,” Floyd said.

  I looked past him and saw a handsome white-haired man in an expensive suit looking down at me. Behind him stood the two men who had chased me. Behind me, I could hear the crackling flames coming from their wrecked Bruiser.

  I got to my feet and dusted off my clothes.

  “Client?” I said.

  Chapter Two

  “I am sorry about the car,” I said.

  The white-haired man sat opposite me and I saw him try not to smile. If he found me amusing we could salvage this situation. Possibly.

  We were sitting in the dining room of the hotel having breakfast. Well, I was having breakfast. He was watching me eat, a glass of bourbon in his hand. I’d never really thought of whiskey as a breakfast drink, but I wasn’t one to judge the habits of others. He had a deeply lined, craggy face that was still handsome. I found myself wondering what he’d looked like as a young man. There was a hint of mischief in his eyes and when he smiled he had a lot of broad white teeth. He either had good genes or a great dentist. I think he probably smiled a lot – when he wasn’t trying to intimidate people. Not that I felt intimidated. Much.

  Floyd had introduced the man as Jacob Flint and at first glance I took him to be a big-shot crime boss, but Floyd assured me he was a big-shot businessman. Flint, it turned out, was a pig farmer. Among other things. My breakfast came from one of his pigs. Not the eggs, obviously. I didn’t ask if he’d given the pig a name, I just wanted to think of it as bacon.

  Mister Flint’s two goons, Sunglasses and Ponytail, were standing by the door and Floyd occupied a space on the other side of the room. There were no other guests in the dining area. I guess it wasn’t yet peak season in Gizzard Creek or whatever this hick town was called.

  “I like to see a man who can handle himself,” Flint said.

  Had he been spying on me last night? No, he was talking about this morning. Perhaps I’d passed some sort of test.

  “Again, sorry about the misunderstanding,” I said.

  He nodded. “You’ll do.”

  Jacob Flint’s voice was a deep rumble and I bet he had a great laugh. He looked like someone who knew how to have fun. I just hoped he wouldn’t have it at my expense. Presumably, he’d already discussed a business arrangement with Floyd. I had no idea what it might be. But since me and the robot now had a truck, it seemed a fair bet that he was looking to have us transport some cargo. I felt sure Floyd wouldn’t have mentioned any of my other skills. He didn’t think I had any.

  “Talk me through it,” I said, wiping egg-yolk off my chin and trying to sound business-like.

  Mister Flint set down his glass and leaned back, the chair creaking. “It’s a long-distance run,” he said. “I want you to pick up twelve hundred crates from the depot over in Roslyn and deliver them to New Grimsby.”

  “Twelve hundred crates of what?” I asked.

  “Let’s say that it’s medicine.”

  “Illegal pharmac
euticals?” I asked. I let my scowl tell him how I felt about that.

  “Not recreational drugs,” he assured me. “Just a linctus that is urgently required in New Grimsby.”

  “How urgently?”

  “Fourteen days from pick-up to delivery – not a day more.”

  I thought about that. New Grimsby was a city on the opposite side of the continent from where we were sitting. To get there in two weeks would mean covering something like 180 miles a day. Every day. Not impossible, but on a planet like Saphira you have to factor in the wild terrain and the fact that paved roads are the exception rather than the rule. And then there are the highway robbers who prey on vehicles out in the wide-open spaces in the middle of the country. I could see why he wanted a driver who could look after himself.

  “What are you offering?” I asked.

  “Four thousand upfront,” he said. “That’s a demonstration of my trust in you and it should also cover your energy and other expenses for the journey.”

  That was a fair offer. The panels on top of our trailer sucked in juice from the sun but we’d also need at least a couple of overnight stops to top-up the batteries, especially on the mountain stages. The four thousand would also allow me a few nights in real beds rather than the bunk in the truck’s cab.

  “How much on delivery?” I asked.

  “Ten thousand if you’re there within fourteen days.”

  “And if we don’t make it on time?”

  He stared straight into my eyes. A challenge. “You get nothing.”

  “Ten thousand Alliance dollars?” I asked, just to be sure.

  He nodded, his eyes never leaving mine.

  Ten thousand was a nice payoff. But I had to weigh that against the risk of failure and a big fat zero.

  “The deadline is pretty tight,” I said.

  “That’s why I’m offering ten thousand dollars.”

  I looked him in the eye. The deadline wasn’t the only reason he was offering it. Despite what Floyd might say, I’m not stupid. I knew there were things Flint wasn’t telling me. And that meant there were unknown additional risks to be taken into account. His opening bid told me there was more to this than met the eye. But how much more?