Page 61 of Agency
And, a second later, the explosion did come.
The force shook the earth itself, and seemed to send the buildings on either side wobbling as the SUV lifted off its rear wheels. But, still screaming, I gripped tighter and hugged closer, as what felt like the hand of God Himself pushed us down the alley. Then, seconds later, all four tires were again meeting the pavement, and the Tahoe was rocketing towards the street ahead.
Lifting my head from the hood, I looked into the cab of the SUV. Jericho was tense, but grinning. Morgan had covered Ambyr protectively. Then my gaze went beyond, to the wreckage of Ambyr’s stolen car, and the flames licking at its interior as the burned-out hulk blocked the alleyway behind us.
No secondary explosions. That was good, at least.
But then I remembered the flames and, again shouting wordlessly, ducked my head against the hood. A heartbeat later, the gas tank on her car exploded and sent chunks of steel cartwheeling past us.
The Tahoe suddenly slammed to a halt, and I went sliding.
“Goddamn it, Jericho!”
I spilled out across the broken and cracked pavement, Ambyr’s file and bag tumbling from my grasp as my palms and knee scraped across the concrete. I was back up less than a breath later and scrambling to collect everything. I threw open the passenger’s side door and hopped inside.
“Buckle up,” Jericho growled as I stuffed the recovered dossier and bag in the foot well, “because this isn’t over yet.” He slammed on the gas before I’d restrained myself, and we took off down the downtown road.
“On our six,” Morgan called as I strapped myself in.
“I see ‘em,” Jericho replied. “Friends of yours, Ambyr?”
“Kind of!”
Immediate chattering came from behind us, and angry hornets buzzed past us on all sides. Fully-automatic, submachine guns from the rate and sound of the caliber. Metallic smacks filled my ears as they peppered the backside of the Tahoe.
Morgan, then, returning fire from the backseat, the measuredcrack-crack-crackof his weapon louder by proximity.
Hands working on pure muscle memory, I drew my own weapon and chambered a round as I kept my eyes forward on the street.
“Heads up,” Jericho shouted as another sports SUV turned onto our street and came right for us.
“How do you know it’s one of them?” Ambyr shouted from the backseat.
“We’re on a one-way!” he called back as the other car cut to our left, pulling nearly perpendicular across our lane so that I could make out the driver despite their tinted windows.
“Andrew! Light ‘em up!”
I’d already begun rolling down the window and unbuckling my safety belt.
His foot slammed on the gas as he veered to our right, pointed us at their rear axle.
Feet hooked under the dash and practically hanging out the window with my pistol gripped in both hands, I aimed as a gunman in the other vehicle came rising up out of the Audi’s passenger seat. The hostile began to bring his submachine gun to bear across the roof of the car. Only his head and upper body were visible, along with the flat-black body of his weapon.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
My weapon kicked as I fired. The pistol spat hollow point after hollow point after hollow point, filling my ears with thebark-bark-barkof over a century’s worth of perfectly engineered violence.
The other gunman jerked three times and the weapon tumbled from his hand, straining at the strap around his neck. His head disappeared from view as Jericho slammed on the brakes, slowing us by half before gunning it again.
I slipped back through the window and belted myself in.
“Brace yourself!”
Our vehicle crunched and shook as, slow, methodical, inexorable, we rammed the other vehicle. My body thrust forward into the seat belt securing me, and the straps cut into my shoulder and waist as we vehicularly shoved our way through the impromptu roadblock.
More gunfire from Morgan. More bullets out the rear window.
I looked to my left as we pushed past. Right across Jericho and through the rear windshield of the other car. The driver was reaching over to his dead buddy.
