The Judas Strain - James Rollins [32]
Gray had both feared and hoped for some distraction from her. He’d kept ready for it, legs braced. Before the gunman’s body even hit the ground, Gray leaped straight back. He had been watching the Asian woman’s form in the polished chrome of the rear bumper.
The loud gunshot and the sudden backward leap caught her by surprise. Gray raised his right arm and hooked her arm, the one holding the Sig Sauer. As he struck her, he smashed his boot onto the inseam of her foot and cracked his head backward.
He heard something crunch below and behind.
Ahead, Kowalski had already elbowed his gunman, grabbed him by the scruff, and slammed his face into the edge of the convertible’s door.
“Eat steel, jackass.”
The gunman dropped like a sack of coal.
Without a pause Gray cradled Anni’s captured fist and swung her arm toward Dr. Nasser. He squeezed the woman’s finger against the trigger. She fought. Compromised, Gray’s aim was off. His shot struck the brick wall with a ringing spark.
Still, it succeeded enough. Dr. Nasser ducked to the right, diving into the bushes that fronted the house, vanishing away.
Gray yanked the pistol from the woman’s grip and back-kicked her away from him. She stumbled but kept her feet. Bloody-nosed, she twisted around and fled toward the van, sprinting like a gazelle, oblivious of her smashed foot.
Going for more weapons.
Gray did not want an encore of Anni Get Your Gun.
He raised the pistol toward her, but before he could fire, a round sizzled past the tip of his nose. From the bushes.
Nasser.
Startled, Gray stumbled backward, going for shelter under the porte cochere. He fired blindly into the bushes, not knowing where the bastard hid. He backpedaled until his calves struck the rear bumper of the T-bird. He fired another two rounds toward the med van.
But Asian Anni had vanished inside.
His shots ricocheted off the van. Like the president’s med van, this one was armor-plated.
Gray yelled. “Everyone inside the car! Now!”
His mother appeared at the kitchen door, holding a smoking pistol. She had her purse over her other arm, as if she were going out for groceries.
“C’mon, Harriet,” his father said. He reached up and hauled her toward the passenger door.
Kowalski leaped headlong into the backseat. Gray feared his bulk might finish Seichan off quicker than anything Nasser planned.
Gray vaulted over into the front seat and crashed hard. He twisted the key, still in the ignition, and the hot engine roared.
The passenger door slammed. Both his parents crowded the one seat.
Gray glanced into the rearview mirror.
Anni stood braced in the opening of the van. She balanced a rocket launcher on her shoulder.
The show is Anni Get Your Gun—not rocket launcher, you bitch!
Gray shifted into gear and slammed the accelerator. Three hundred horses burned the rear tires, rubber smoking and screaming.
His father groaned from the next seat—Gray suspected more about the wear on the glossy new tires than his own safety.
The wheels finally caught a grip, and the Thunderbird leaped forward, crashing through the wooden gate to the backyard. Once through, Gray yanked the wheel hard to avoid hitting a massive hundred-year-old oak. The tires dug a half-doughnut trench across the rear lawn, then sped them deeper into the yard.
Behind them, a sonorous whoosh was followed by a fiery explosion.
The rocket struck the large oak, blasting it to a ruin of flaming branches and bark. Blazing debris shot high. Smoke rolled.
Without glancing back, Gray punched the accelerator.
The Thunderbird smashed through the back fence and barreled into the woodlands of Glover-Archibold Park.
But Gray knew one certainty.
The hunt was just beginning.
4
High-Sea Piracy
JULY 5, 12:11 P.M.
Christmas Island
BOXERS AND BOOTS.
That’s all that stood between Monk and a sea of cannibal crabs. The feeding frenzy continued throughout the jungle, fighting, clacking, ripping. It sounded like the crackle of a forest fire.
Stripped,