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"Colorado doesn&039;t have a mandatory seat belt law?" Chapel asked

"Well noe do, but we can&039;t pull you over unless there&039;s so told him "Unless you&039;re under seventeen, we don&039;t evena s are a little different out west," Chapel said

"Sure are We all think of ourselves as having a little cowboy in our souls, still So we don&039;tus like children who have to be told what to do" Young clucked her tongue "Does et a report of some family of vacationers in a crashed car, and all you find is raspberry jelly all over the dashboard"

Chapel laughed, despite hiruesouess that&039;s e call dark huh our job You know You ever want to see grueso with me up in the ruesome for real, I&039;ll do just that," Chapel told her He turned his head and saw one of the sedans full of Reinhard&039;s goons just ahead of him and to one side "What about those?" he asked "Tinted windshields I thought those were illegal, too"

"It&039;s a kind of iffy thing You&039;re allowed to tint them down to twenty-seven percent, which h I&039;d say those sedans are pushing the liht? That&039;s ridiculous," Chapel said "How can they expect to see anything? They&039;rethree-quarters of their visual peri, now, that Mister Reinhard figures, if you can&039;t see in, you can&039;t tell who&039;s in the car So you can&039;t tell which car the judge is in"

"Unless you notice that one of the cars is a limo, and the rest are sedans," Chapel pointed out

"That is e reed

Chapel touched his hands-free unit "Reinhard, your people can&039;t see anything through those tinted s"

"Captain Chapel? I told you to keep your thoughts to yourself," Reinhard replied

"Have them roll down their s It&039;ll be windy but they&039;ll survive," Chapel ordered

"Those s are bulletproof, Captain They&039;re up for a reason"

Chapel griuy isn&039;t a shooter That&039;s not his style Roll down the damned s"

"Chapel, I swear, if you don&039;t clear this-"

Reinhard&039;s transht so, that Quinn had somehow disrupted their communications, but then he realized Reinhard had just e

"All right, Chapel," Reinhard said, after a while "The judge says I have to play nice with you I&039;ll make you a deal If I have them roll down their ill you promise to stay off this channel?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Chapel said

"I&039;ll hold you to that," Reinhard replied

Young laughed "That boy does not like you, he surely does not," she said "You&039;d think the two of youin the same line of work"

"Oil and water are both liquids, but they won&039;tall the sedans One by one they started lowering their s and he could see the black-suited security guards inside The guards blinked and squinted as the pure ht hit their eyes

"Tell the truth, now Did you do that just to annoy &039;e asked

"I think I&039;d like to have my lawyer present before I answer that-"

Chapel stopped talking, then

"So asked

"Yeah," Chapel said

One of the security guards, up in a sedan just ahead of Young&039;s car, didn&039;t squint or blink in the sun No, he didn&039;t need to

His third, black eyelid just slid down to protect his eyes

Quinn had been with theel? Angel, can you hear el, coh to the walkie-talkie systelanced over at hie Reception is still kind of spotty out here," she suggested

"Maybe," Chapel said Though he&039;d assunal was carried by the satellite network, not by cell towers She&039;d reached hie places

He tried the leader of the security guards "Reinhard, co in car three!" There was no response Just as there hadn&039;t been since he&039;d first called the man "Dauard wasn&039;t responding Maybe he&039;d been serious about clearing Chapel off his radio frequency Maybe he&039;d turned off his walkie-talkie

The tirabbed the handset of the radio unit built into the car&039;s dashboard He tried to raise anyone and heard only static in response

"That can&039;t be right," Young said "I ran a radio check not tenjust fine"

"So that made sense Except it made no sense at all "We have to let them know There has to be some way to communicate with them" Two of the sedans ay up ahead, one in front and one in back of the limo Car three, with Quinn in its backseat, was just ahead of Young&039;s car, which was trailing at the back of the convoy "Short of yelling at the said Chapel looked at her, having no idea what shewheel with both hands "I guess I&039;ve been doing this longer than you I remember back before we had cell phones, before we had wireless Internet, before-"

"Young? What are you talking about?"

"Just hold on," she said, and floored the accelerator

The patrol cruiser shot forward, swerving to narrowly miss the rear buh the driver flashed his lights and honked his horn Young ignored him "There&039;s a pen and paper in the door pocket by your right hand," she told hie, quick"

Chapel scrabbled for the items-a ballpoint and a citation book He scrawled out the words ASSASSIN IN CAR THREE CALL REINHARD while Young pulled up alongside car two, directly behind the lirabbed the citation book She flicked her siren on and off until the guard in the passenger seat of car two looked over in their direction She held the citation book up to her"Is he looking?"

"Yeah," Chapel said, watching the passenger&039;s face "Yeah, I think he&039;s got it He&039;s shouting so rolled down herAir burst into the car, ruffling the pages of the citation book

"I said," the passenger shouted, "are you nuts?"

Chapel gri shouted back

The passenger in car two rolled up his tinted

"I don&039;t think they&039;re taking us serious," Young said Her face was i he was

They were a guard detail for a ht doubt what Chapel had to say They e the detail But there was no excuse for not being cautious and heeding what he said

"We have to assu his words carefully "We have to assuo that far," Young replied

"We have to assu to take any action," he went on

"That&039;s what I&039;," she said

Chapel nodded He had a coupleto say out loud He had to assume that Reinhard-and his entire security crew-already knew that Quinn was in car three, and that they were on his side On the side of the Voice and the chimeras They were in on the assassination plot

Chapel also had to assu wasn&039;t in on it, too If she was, this was going to be over very quickly

"The judge is in danger," Chapel said

"Yep"

"Are we going to do so flipped on her lights and sirens and stamped on the brakes

IN TRANSIT: APRIL 14, T+58:59

The sedans-cars two and three-shot past the cruiser as Young ain, straddling the two lanes Chapel saw her plan iht lane open so car three couldany room for them to fall back As soon as the cruiser was clear of car three&039;s buain, until they were separated by only a single car length&039;s distance

She grabbed the microphone and switched on her loudspeakers "Car three, break off from the convoy immediately," she said, and Chapel heard her voice repeated so loud outside the car it made the windshield rattle "Move to the shoulder and stop your vehicle You have ten seconds to comply" She switched over to the radio, but held her pallanced over at Chapel "I know I can trust my fellow troopers I&039;ve worked with soe saying he&039;d worked with Reinhard for years, too But they needed allies There were three troopers onits advance, and twoan eye on their tail "Call theot on a state police restricted channel "This is Sergeant Young, calling all motorcycle units Have identified that car three is a threat, repeat, car three"

"Tell theet it off the road if they can," Chapel told her

"Forward units, protect the principal, and get it to safety," Young said into her microphone "Rear units, close this road to traffic! Fall back and deploy flares Calling headquarters, calling headquarters We have an immediate need to close the northbound lanes of I-36 south of Broomfield Repeat, we need an immediate road closure of I-36 northbound south of Broomfield" Almost instantly the units ahead of the li&039;s orders and would do what they could At least the troopers were paying attention

Chapel leaned forward to peer through the windshield Car three hadn&039;t changed its speed or position at all Neither had the other sedans All three of theh He couldn&039;t see anything through the tinted glass

"Do we hail &039;e asked "I don&039;t want to start shooting out tires or running anybody off the road if we don&039;t have to"

"I think-" Chapel said, but he didn&039;t get to finish his thought

Up ahead the rear passenger-side door of car three popped open, and a man in a black suit flew out He bounced off the asphalt and caht toward the patrol cruiser

"Mother Mary!" Young shouted, and whipped her wheel over to the side, narrowly avoiding rolling right over the security guard

Chapel spun around in his seat to watch as they raced past the et to his feet in the hway It looked like he had a broken leg