The Indestructibles (Book 2): Breakout Read Free

lunatics was difficult enough, but being the unofficial press liaison was the part that was really going to drive her insane.
         

 
     
     
    Chapter 2:
    Solo performance
         
         
          Kate Miller, the vigilante known to the public as Dancer, waited like a gargoyle on the edge of a building in the City's Factory District. The whole area was made of sooty and aging red brick, a dead zone in the city's economy, old warehouses and mills vacant and underutilized. There was talk of turning them into condos or an artists' community or both, but for now, the district served as a place to get things done you don't want law enforcement seeing.
          Kate counted cars. Three vans, an old black Cadillac, a high-end sports car, two motorcycles. The Caddie arrived last, with the stereotypes. Old school gangsters in suits, the guys in charge of this entire grubby operation, come downtown out of their shiny towers in the Financial District where they monitor their white collar endeavors to check in on their grunts.
          The last man to exit the Caddie wore a three-piece, pin-striped suit, like he was playing a character in a movie. Kate had been following him for months. She knew it was an act, the way he dressed, but she also knew that Jimmy "The Teeth" LaCoste was one of the most dangerous men in the City. He pretended to be a silly mobster stereotype because people were less likely to wonder how many bodies he'd buried.
          LaCoste and his two bodyguards walked into the nearest warehouse. Kate had the place bugged, but she already knew what they were talking about inside. Guns.
          Illegal guns run up and down the coast under LaCoste's orders. Inside were lieutenants and mercenaries, frightened curriers, a couple of representatives of the local biker gang who helped move the wares over state lines. Bringing guns into the City and putting them in the wrong hands. Kate's city. And she was tired of it.
          "Look at these jerks," Kate heard LaCoste say as he walked in. The reception through her earpiece was remarkable. She's borrowed the microphones from the Tower's stash of gear from questionable places. Neal had indicated the equipment wouldn't be invented for another ten years. Another relic of the future found aboard the Tower.
          "What are you going to do about our problem?" another voice joined in. As she listened, Kate skirted the rooftops of the parking lot until she reached the main building where her targets were gathered, a cement block of space lined inside with industrial-sized storage racks. Cheap, grimy skylights on the roof allowed her to look inside.
          The second speaker was Dusty, real name Frank Wilson, one of the biker gang reps. Dusty was the antithesis of LaCoste — slovenly where LaCoste was pristine, loud instead of soft-spoken, and presenting a clear level physical threat that LaCoste hid in himself. Both men were capable of incredible brutality. Kate had witnessed their handiwork firsthand.
          "You're telling me you can't handle her?" LaCoste said. He sat down at the end of a makeshift table, a long plank of plywood supported up by a pair of metal drums. One of his bodyguards put a Starbucks coffee cup down in front of him.
          "Your boys aren't doing much better," Dusty said. "How many shipments have you lost this month?"
          "Including the two shipments your guys abandoned on the side of the road so they could run from some high school girl in a costume?"
          Dusty stood up, his chair squeaked loud and sent feedback through Kate's earpiece.
          "I've gotta take a leak. It was a long ride to come listen to you insult me," Dusty said.
          Kate scurried along the rooftop, trailing Dusty's path to the men's room. She wanted him out of the action first because despite his uneducated demeanor he was one of the two most capable fighters in the room. Things would move more smoothly if she