First Thrills - Lee Child [66]
LoLa’s driver swerved, but the sidecar still bore the brunt of the impact as Twinkle’s head slammed into the windshield and the bag he was holding burst open in a giant cloud of white powder.
With a fierce determination, the driver managed to maintain control even as the sidecar’s wheel crunched over Twinkle’s broken body. A windowless black van following behind didn’t even attempt to brake.
When the bike caught up to the bus again, its sidecar was dented and its windshield cracked. Streaks of blood dusted in powder flowed over LoLa’s leathers. Even her pretty silver helmet was webbed with gore.
Angry tears filled LoLa’s eyes when she raised her gun again.
Shorty threw a blue backpack at her. With its lightweight aluminum frame, the pack hit the pavement and bounced high, almost removing his former lover’s head from her compact body.
She fired in hasty retaliation, but the bullet pinged harmlessly off the side of the bus.
Shorty followed with a volley of a half-dozen open suitcases: boxer shorts, pajamas, blouses, underwear, a smart tuxedo, and a rubber diving suit all flowed through the doorway and sailed down the freeway.
LoLa and her driver backed off after the bike nearly went into the ditch, when a small blue box exploded and a flock of errant panty liners got stuck on the bearded monster’s goggles.
Best of all, Shorty found a large, unopened Toblerone bar. It was the size of his left arm.
As Shorty contemplated ripping open the triangular packaging, the dark, windowless van pulled up level with the bus. Its side door slid open to reveal three men dressed in head-to-toe body armor, complete with knitted balaclavas that showed only their eyes, and holding paramilitary-style submachine guns.
Shorty gulped and dropped the chocolate. “Y-you want the drugs?”
The three men nodded as one.
Shorty crawled back over the scattered luggage and pulled one of the black bags to the door. The van moved closer to the bus. One of the men grabbed the bag and yanked. Shorty instantly let his end go before he was pulled out of the bus along with it.
“Get the others,” yelled the shortest of the three. It was difficult to tell the man’s exact height, but in Shorty’s estimation anything over four feet was a waste of vertical.
Shorty retrieved the third bag, but this time, when he went to hand it over, the head of the reaching gunman imploded, his balaclava mask becoming a sieve of blood.
Gunfire and broken glass rained from the passenger compartment above. The other two gunmen quickly ducked inside the van and returned fire. Both vehicles swerved and the dead gunman slid out of the van to vanish in a pink mist, but he left something behind snagged in the nylon handle of the drug bag—his submachine gun.
With the sound of two-way automatic gunfire filling the air, Shorty picked up the gun and grunted. It was heavier than he expected.
Shorty had never fired a machine gun before, but he’d seen plenty of movies. Getting used to the weight, he turned it on its side. A small dial marked in red pointed to two symbols. One showed a single bullet, the other showed three. He reasoned this toggled the gun between single-shot and full- auto modes.
Shorty flipped the switch to full-auto and pointed its barrel out the open doorway. People were screaming in their seats above as the bus continued to barrel on at top speed and bullets flew in both directions. Shorty imagined the greedy driver, knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel, desperately searching for help and cursing the day he met a crooked dwarf with a Hollywood smile and an offer too rich to refuse.
Shorty drew in a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Rounds spat from the gun like a horde of angry wasps with lead stingers. His first bullets chewed up the road before the gun’s unexpected kick drew the muzzle skyward. Shorty released the trigger before a volley stitched the metal ceiling. Fortunately, the van had been an impossible target to miss. His stray bullets shredded its front tires, windshield, and roof.
Without tires, the van’s front