Sedona Law 6 by Dave Daren (best non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

He then fired the gun and hit the ground inches away from me.

“You better run, monkey, run,” he mocked and then shot at me again. “I’m only going to fire so many warning shots.”

Shit. I was in over my head. I started to retreat, and then, another vehicle pulled up and distracted the men. I made a break for it, but stopped on the other side of the well, when I noticed Tony Sanchez crouched behind it. He looked horrified.

“Hello, Tony,” I whispered.

“Mr. Irving,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Ya think?” I muttered. “Neither should you.”

It was a white unmarked van, and out of the driver’s seat, stepped none other than Irwin Montague. Fuck.

I pulled out my phone and called Agent Winslow.

“Agent Winslow,” she answered.

“Winslow,” I whispered. “I’m going to send my location. I’ve got Sanchez and Montague.”

“You’ve got Montague?” she exclaimed. “Where?”

“Universal Shipping,” I whispered. “They’re armed.”

“We’re sending a team out there now,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said and ended the call.

“Tony,” I whispered. “This is your make or break moment. You’re not going to get this opportunity again. You can either choose to come with me, or stay with them. What do you want?”

He looked torn.

“This path,” I said. “Leads straight to prison.”

“But your path leads to death,” he said.

“And yours doesn’t?” I snorted. “I just dodged about five bullets.”

He shrugged.

“I can get you out of here,” I said. “But you’re going to have to want to leave behind all of this.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “The shipment is worth a lot of money.”

“Alright, people,” Irwin clapped his hands. “Why have we been sitting on this shipment for two weeks?”

Irwin was tall, and swarthy, and wore a pink feather boa around his neck, and a red sequined shirt, and oversized sunglasses. He was dressed more ridiculous than the last time I saw him.

He was the one that saw us crouched behind the well.

“Fucking hell,” he said. “Henry Irving.”

I stood to greet him.

“Hello, Irwin,” I said.

He pulled back and punched me square in the face. I cried out as the blinding pain coursed through my face. I did not expect Irwin Montague to deliver such a solid punch.

“That’s for my mother, you asshole,” he said.

“Your mother was trying to protect you,” I said as I wiped blood from my nose, “because she knew you were in over your head. If you want to bring your mother justice, I’d suggest you walk away from what you’re doing. Otherwise, she went to jail for nothing.

The pain in my face subsided to a dull ache and I diagnosed the damage must be minimal.

“You know nothing about me or my mother,” he retorted with a flip of his boa.

“I know some,” I said.

“Hey,” the tattooed man yelled. “Didn’t I tell you to fuck off?”

“Horatio,” Irwin looked me up and down. “There’s too much trash in this field. I can’t breathe. Ugh. It’s clogging up my nostrils. Can you do something about that?”

Horatio laughed mirthlessly.

“Gladly boss,” he replied.

He raised his gun, and my instincts kicked in

“Run, Tony,” I yelled.

Both Tony and I ran as fast as we could. I zigzagged through the field to throw off their shooting, but they weren’t missing us by much.

We reached the building, and stopped under an awning to catch our breath.

“They’re not going to give up,” Tony panted. “They’re coming.”

“We just need to buy time,” I said.

“For what?” he asked.

At that moment, a dozen cop cars, Sedona Police, State Troopers, SWAT team, and an FBI van careened into the parking lot.

“For them,” I smiled. “The cavalry.”

The cavalry exited their vehicles, armed and decked out in riot gear.

“You see,” I told Tony. “That’s the thing about being on the good side. You’ve got them working for you, instead of against you.”

I went out to greet Agent Winslow.

“Up there,” I pointed and they all ran. The news had traveled up the hill and Irwin’s van and the pickup truck were moving. But, there was no way to get the street without coming back toward the building. There were unpaved paths up into the mesas the other way, but no ordinary vehicle could safely traverse that. They were blocked in and they knew it.

The cavalry stood near the building, and a SWAT officer yelled into a megaphone.

“Irwin,” he said. “We’ve got you surrounded. Give yourself up now. There’s nowhere to run.”

Maybe there was nowhere to run, but he didn’t say anything about driving. Irwin floored it, and careened back through the building alcove and through the parking lot at about eighty-five miles per hour.

The cavalry ran for cover, and one of the officers stumbled and tripped in the rush. He dropped his gun and it fell right at my feet. The van was racing up on us like a bullet, and so I didn’t think.

I grabbed the gun. As an adult, I’m a pacifist kind of guy that believes in gun control. But, as a kid, I grew up out here, shooting cans out in the Arizona desert.

This was the original old west, after all, and we were proud of our heritage and culture out here. Owning a gun wasn’t much of a moral dilemma in these parts. Everybody’s packing, completely apathetic to whether the White House says they should or shouldn't.

When I held that gun, the raw power, the rush, the feel of the cold steel from my childhood came back to me in a flood. And I followed the only logical thought that popped in my head.

I went for the tires.

Bam. Bam. The gun kicked back in my hand at each shot. The crippled van slowed, and Irwin tried to run it