“Where’s Jourdain?” I asked.
“At the end of the circle,” Vosch said.
“A circle doesn’t have an end,” I pointed out.
“Or a beginning,” Vosch said.
He smiled a humorless smile and gestured toward the terminal doors.
“Shall we? We have a private jet with all the amenities.”
I looked at Samuel. He looked back at me.
“Which one do you want?” I asked him.
He cut his eyes toward Vosch. “That one.”
“Take the big one. Vosch is mine.”
Samuel’s chin dipped toward his chest. Mr. Flat-Face’s mouth came open and he said, “What?” Samuel punched him in the throat. Flat-Face fell to his knees, spitting and choking. Vosch’s right hand rose from his pocket. I reached behind my back. Vosch raised his gun toward Samuel.
I didn’t fumble. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t weigh the odds. Nueve would have been proud.
I shot Vosch point-blank in the chest.
He fell straight back, landing hard on his butt, his shot going wild and puncturing the ceiling tile. Flat-Face reached inside his coat. “Sam,” I called softly, tossing the gun from my waistband at him as I rushed toward Vosch. Samuel caught the gun and swung the muzzle against Flat-Face’s flat face.
I straddled Vosch’s chest and put the end of my gun against the end of his nose.
“Get his gun,” I called to Samuel.
Behind me, I heard someone yell, “Call security!”
I pulled the gun from Vosch’s hand and shouted, “Somebody call the paramedics! This guy’s been shot!”
I bumped Samuel in the shoulder as I pushed off Vosch’s chest. Sam was holding a gun in each hand just like me, the one I threw him and the one he took from Flat-Face.
“We go,” I said.
He took it in quickly: the terrified onlookers, the red emergency light pulsing, the alarm howling in the distance. He didn’t need me to explain it to him: Vosch was down and Flat-Face was in no shape to chase us. Time to haul it, not kick it.
We burst through the doors into the biting cold. A taxi was parked next to the curb, engine idling so the driver could run the heater. The only other vehicle nearby was one of those big tour buses. Samuel dived into the front seat of the taxi; I took the back. He put one of the guns against the startled driver’s temple and told him to get out. No big surprise when he did. Samuel slid over, slammed the door the cabbie left open in his haste, yanked the gearshift into drive, and floored the gas. He merged without looking into the driveway leading to the exit, scraping the side of a minivan that had slammed on its brakes to avoid running over the terrified cabdriver.
I twisted around to look out the back window. Vosch and Flat-Face came out of the building. Flat-Face pointed at our cab and Vosch didn’t hesitate—he made straight for the bus.
“What is he, Superman?” I wondered. “I shot him pointblank.”
“They’re wearing Kevlar vests,” Samuel said in his trademark deadpan.
“You could have told me.”
“I didn’t know you were armed.”
We roared past a sign for the I-15 ramp.
“Get on the interstate,” I said. “They’ve hijacked the bus.” The taxi was old—it smelled like stale cigarettes and coffee and the seats were torn—but I figured even this old rattletrap could bury a big bus at high speed. He grunted something at me in appreciation for my grasp of the obvious and ran the red light for the southbound lanes, barely missing a pickup truck. The bus behind us didn’t—and didn’t let the truck concern it: the Vosch Express slammed head-on into its side, sending the truck into a spin, tires screaming in protest as they slid sideways across the asphalt.
I rolled down the window as Samuel accelerated onto the lane.
“Don’t waste bullets!” he shouted over the whipping wind.
The bus lost some ground making the grade up the ramp, but once it hit the highway it began to make it up. I heaved myself through the open window, planted my butt on the doorframe, and twisted to my right toward the bus. I could see Vosch at the wheel as it barreled straight toward me. I tried for the tires first. I didn’t want to fire at Vosch. Not that I had deep feelings for him, but if I did take him out, the bus would wreck and might hurt some innocent person. Then I saw the door on the side of the bus slide open and Flat-Face leaning halfway out, taking aim at me with what looked like a rifle.
I dove back into the cab and yelled at Samuel, “He’s got a rifle! Where the hell did he get that?”
“Under his coat!” he yelled back.
“I told you to take his gun!”
“I did!”
“But you left the rifle!”
“My hands were full!”
The window behind me exploded. Glass rained down, dusting my head and shoulders.
“Thanks, Mr. slitty-eyed flat-faced big hulking fatso palooka man,” I muttered. I kneeled on the seat, pressed my chest against the back and, holding the gun with both hands, leaned out the busted window, resting my elbows on the trunk to steady my aim.
“Alfred!” Samuel shouted. “Get down!”
I ignored him. Maybe Vosch was out of season, but Flat-Face was fair game. I fired at him; he fired at me; and neither one of us scored a hit.
We were slowing down. Flipping around, I peeked over the back of the front seat. We were coming up on a bottleneck: a car in the left lane was trying to pass a flatbed semi in the right, so both lanes were blocked.
“Take the emergency lane!” I shouted in Samuel’s ear.
Too late. When we slowed down, Vosch floored the gas, sending the front of the bus into the back of the taxi at seventy miles per hour. Samuel’s chest smacked into the steering wheel, mine into the front seat, and the cab’s rear bumper crumpled like tinfoil. The passenger headrest, about three inches from my head, exploded into a mass of cheap vinyl and yellow foam cushioning: Flat-Face had scored a hit.
Samuel yelled at me to get down again and this time I didn’t ignore him. I threw myself onto the floorboards as he whipped the cab into the emergency lane.
Suddenly the back of the car slung hard to the right, as if punched by a gigantic hand. Samuel fought the wheel as the cab filled with the acrid smell of burning rubber. He eased off the gas.
“Got the tire!” he shouted.
I peeked out the right window. Showers of sparks danced in the billowing smoke rising from our back bumper. I looked up, saw the big flatbed cruising in the lane beside us, then reached over the seat and tapped Samuel on the shoulder. He was hunched over the wheel, knuckles white as he fought to keep us from running off the road.