Free Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset by Roger Hayden, James Hunt Page B

situation here off old Route 44. Requesting backup.”
    Nervous, Greg leaned back and gripped his seat. He tried the door, but it was locked. “Hey. Hey, Sergeant Lutz!”
    “Quiet down back there,” Lutz said, holding the mic.
    “This is two-two-four, what’s your situation?” a voice asked over the radio.
    The locals were out in full force—both men and women of all ages. They looked angry and riled up. An uproar began among the crowd once the Dodge got closer, people yelling, whistling and brandishing their weapons.
    “Pedestrians intentionally blocking the road,” Lutz responded. “Failure to heed command to clear.” Though the command had yet to be given.
    “Turn around!” Greg demanded.
    Lutz slowed to a stop a fifty feet from the barricade. The mob immediately moved toward them, their eyes widened with hatred and rage.
    “Are you out of your mind? Turn the fuck around!” Greg shouted.
    “Shut up!” Lutz said, turning his head. He then spoke into his mic. “They’re surrounding the vehicle. We’re outnumbered here. Requesting immediate back-up.”
    A rock smashed across the windshield, startling both passengers. The mob encircled the car, hitting the back and side windows with baseball bats, smashing out headlights, taillights, and side windows. Lutz panicked, and looked around all sides of the vehicle while unfastening his pistol from its side holster.
    Greg crouched down in the back, covering his face with his arms. “I told you to back up and get us the hell out of here!”
    The officer radioed in for back-up again, shifted the car into reverse, and drove backward, though the assaults kept coming. The windows on all sides were cracked and spider-webbed. The front windshield was nearly ready to let go. Some men moved out of the way behind the car, but others jumped on the hood and started to go to town on the rear window.
    Greg slumped further down into his seat as the relentless pummeling of the windows continued. He looked up to see Lutz pointing his gun toward the back window, where two large men were riding the trunk.
    A tire iron smashed into the windshield. Lutz swerved to the left and slid into a side railing. His head whipped hard against his window. The gun flew out of his hand and into the back seat. Glass from the windshield and rear window exploded into shards. For a moment, everything was still and quiet.
    Greg opened his eyes. Shooting pains wracked his neck and back. The police radio blared with cross-chatter. Lutz snapped out of his daze and tried to shift the car into drive. The mob took no time swarming the car. There was no stopping them. They reached in through the window, unlocked Bentley’s door, swung it open, stuck a gun to his face, and yanked him out.
    Cheering, a group of men threw Lutz onto the road, holding their guns on him. He pleaded, warning them that backup was on the way. The men didn’t seem worried. Theirs was a justice that had existed outside the law for generations.
    Running out of options, Greg grabbed Lutz’s 9mm pistol from the floor and held it up. He looked behind him and saw a man climbing through the back window where it had been smashed out. He fired two shots into the man’s head. The people gasped as the man flew back, slumped over, and rolled off the car. If they were angry before, Greg had seen nothing yet.
    They smashed the remaining windows out of both doors with crowbars. From the floor, Greg tried to hold the gun steady as a bearded man yanked the door next to him open. But before he could fire, he felt an electric shock hit him, throwing him back against the seat as it surged through his body, immobilizing him.
    He screamed out in pain, realizing that a Taser clip had lodged into his chest. His pistol fell to the floor. Hands grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him out of the car in a fury, his head bouncing against the door panel on the way out, and then the ground. He screamed as they dragged him across the pavement on his back, elbows