The Lost Child On The City Bus And The Father’s Photo
CHAPTER 2: THE LIBERTY BRIDGE STAND
Gage Thorne didn’t need to ask who the two men were. In the military, you learned to read predators by the way they balanced their weight on the balls of their feet, the way their eyes swept the terrain for exits before checking faces, and the subtle bulge of a concealed nine-millimeter beneath the left armpit.
“Ruth,” Gage murmured, his voice as calm as an evening fog, not shifting an inch on the vinyl seat. “Slide to the floor between the seats. Keep your head below the window line.”
Ruth didn’t hesitate. Seeing the sudden, terrifying shift in Gage’s posture—the way his shoulders expanded and his jaw locked into an impenetrable wall of granite—she slid off the vinyl bench and huddled on the rubber floor between the seats.
Mia sat quietly on Gage’s lap, her tiny arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her cheek pressed against his beard. She had stopped crying; she could sense the immense, unyielding strength of the man holding her.
The two operatives moved down the aisle with deliberate, rhythmic steps, ignoring the other passengers. The lead man was tall, sharp-featured, with slicked-back blonde hair and cold, reptilian blue eyes. He stopped three feet from Gage’s row, glancing down at Ruth huddled on the floor, then looking into Gage’s unblinking gray eyes.
“Sir,” the blonde man said, his voice polite, clinical, and completely devoid of human warmth. “The elderly woman and the child are involved in an active corporate custody dispute. We are court-appointed protective escorts. Hand the child to me and step aside.”
The blonde man reached his gloved right hand toward Mia’s yellow cardigan.
He never touched her.
In a blur of motion that defied his massive size, Gage’s left hand shot out like an iron clamp, his fingers wrapping around the operative’s wrist. Gage twisted the joint forty-five degrees with a brutal, sickening torque. The operative let out a sharp, choked gasp of agony as his knees buckled, his fingers involuntarily opening as a concealed Glock 19 slipped from his shoulder holster and clattered onto the rubber floor.
Gage kicked the handgun under the rear seat with his heavy engineer boot, his right hand grabbing the front of the operative’s tailored wool jacket, hauling the two-hundred-pound man off his feet until their faces were inches apart.
“Marine Corps combat engineering doctrine, son,” Gage whispered, his gravelly baritone vibrating in the man’s skull. “Never reach for another man’s family without expecting to lose your arm. Who sent you?”
The second operative drew a suppressed automatic pistol from beneath his coat, raising the muzzle toward Gage’s forehead.
Around them, the bus erupted into shrieking pandemonium. Passengers screamed, throwing themselves onto the floor and scrambling toward the front windshield as the bus driver slammed on the brakes in sheer panic.
The bus screeched to a halt in the center lane of the Liberty Bridge, suspended two hundred feet above the dark, churning waters of the Monongahela River.
Gage didn’t wait for the gunman to fire. Using the first operative’s body as a human shield, Gage shoved the blonde man forward with explosive force, slamming him directly into the second gunman. Both men crashed into the rear emergency exit door, their heads striking the reinforced steel frame with a hollow CRACK.
The second operative dropped his pistol, groaning on the floor, while the blonde man scrambled to his knees, his broken wrist dangling limp at his side.
Gage hit the emergency red release valve above the rear exit door with the heel of his palm.
HISS-CLANK!
The heavy pneumatic door swung outward into the rainy gale. With two swift, contemptuous kicks of his heavy steel-toed boots, Gage launched both corporate enforcers out through the doorway, sending them rolling across the wet asphalt of the Liberty Bridge into the bridge median barrier, completely disarmed and battered into submission.
Gage grabbed the yellow emergency release handle, hauled the door shut, and locked the manual dog latches.
Outside, through the rain-streaked rear window, two black GMC Yukons with dark tinted windows and commercial plates screeching around the traffic lanes, pulling up behind the bus. The driver of the lead Yukon threw his transmission into gear, accelerating directly toward the rear bumper of the bus.
BOOM!
The three-ton SUV rammed the heavy steel bumper of the transit bus, jarring the sixty-foot vehicle and sending a shudder through the chassis.
Mia whimpered, burying her face into Gage’s neck.
Gage pulled out his heavy-duty Kyocera ruggedized smartphone, keying the speed-dial for the Iron Forge MC emergency dispatch channel.
“Preacher. Tank. Bear,” Gage commanded, his voice cutting through the roar of the idling diesel. “Code Red on the Liberty Bridge. Corvus Environmental has armed hit squads on transit bus 61. Ruth and Lucas’s baby are with me. Roll the pack now.”
Within four seconds, Preacher’s deep, gravelly voice crackled through the phone speaker: “Rolling four bikes from the Strip District, Anvil! ETA ninety seconds! Hold that bridge!
Ruth pressed her hands against her ears, shivering on the floor as the bus engine groaned beneath them. “Lucas tried to go to the state attorney general, Gage,” Ruth sobbed softly into the floorboards. “He documented every forged chemical shipment for eight months. When Sterling discovered the breach, he sent armed men to our home. Lucas threw Mia and me into the cellar, barricaded the door from the outside, and told us to run for the bus. He gave himself up so we could reach you.”
Gage’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He looked down at Mia, whose small fingers were still clutching his leather lapel. “Lucas is family, Ruth. And around here, family is defended to the last breath.”
