Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel by Sean Black Read Free Book Online Page B

we’ve spotted them,’ he said, switching lanes suddenly, and pulling in behind a black Volkswagen Bug. He checked the mirror again. He had a visual on the driver of the Accord. White or light-skinned Hispanic. Early twenties. Kind of scruffy. Keeping a real sharp eye on them but trying not to be too obvious, and doing a bad job of it.
    From what Lock guessed the LAPD’s profile of the stalker was, he imagined that several boxes had just been checked. There were other possibilities as well but in these situations it was always safer to assume the worst and work back from that point.
    He sank back in the driver’s seat, watching the traffic behind them in the side mirror as the Honda moved up on the outside. The driver had his eyes on them, no doubt about it.
    In an ideal world, he would have had time to get a full briefing from the LAPD so that he could run a full risk assessment. He would have been able to go over Raven’s daily routine, bolster the security at her house, make sure they had the appropriate men and equipment, including up-armored vehicles if they were required. He could have studied her plans for the week and recced every venue ahead of time so that there would be no surprises. But the world wasn’t ideal. If it had been, the job he did wouldn’t exist.
    Normally Lock would have been reaching down to rack the slide on his SIG Sauer 226, but this was Los Angeles and a concealed-carry permit for someone not resident in the state of California was almost impossible to come by. You could carry illegally, but if you were stopped and caught without a permit you were probably looking at jail time. So, given the risks involved in the job he had flown out to do, he had chosen to forgo his usual weapon. And right now, legal or illegal, he was starting to regret it. Los Angeles was the city of the car gun and the bad guys tended not to worry about administrative details such as concealed-carry permits.
    He looked over at Raven. Her face was pinched and anxious. ‘Do you have a number for Stanner or any of his people in the TMU?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Like an emergency number?’
    She snapped open her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘I thought that’s why you were here. In case there was an emergency.’
    ‘Do you have one or not?’
    ‘If I felt scared and I wasn’t near the panic alarm, they told me to call nine-one-one.’
    Of course they did, he thought, taking out his cell and putting in the call himself. He gave the dispatcher their position on the freeway, which was about two miles from the Sepulveda exit, and jammed the phone back into his pocket. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the Accord in the rear-view as the driver waved at him to pull over.
    ‘What’s he doing now?’ Raven protested.
    The Honda was a single car behind them and, from the brake lights of the other cars around him, making moves to get closer. Lock tensed. There was still no sign of the Highway Patrol or any other members of law enforcement, and if their pursuer was going to do something to harm Raven, he was her only defense
    As the Honda moved up on them, he got a better look at the driver. Long, greasy hair, a hipster patch of facial hair below his bottom lip, and a pair of chunky earrings.
    Up ahead the traffic was beginning to concertina to a halt, hardly an unusual occurrence in a city where the freeway system regularly ran at over ninety per cent of full capacity. The next exit where, presumably, the Highway Patrol would be waiting for them was still a half-mile away.
    Lock nudged ahead of a soccer mom who was driving her Saturn with her elbows while applying lipstick with one hand and talking on her cell phone with the other. He edged into the inside lane.
    The driver of the blue Honda was still muscling his way through the columns of slowing vehicles towards them. Lock watched him as he took one hand off the wheel and started to rummage around on the front passenger seat.
    Eyeing the breakdown lane next to