Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [94]
Morneau pressed a button on the defibrillator and set the paddles on Drummond’s chest. The charge wasn’t as percussive or otherwise dramatic as on TV medical dramas—the jolt of electricity merely quivered Drummond, but a healthy pink returned to his face. He opened his eyes.
“Pulse is much better,” Morneau exclaimed.
“Dad?” Charlie cried, his excitement tinged by disbelief.
“I’m fine,” Drummond said, obviously as white a lie as had ever been told.
Still, the words were music to Charlie. He crushed the accelerator and, with a screeching slide that pushed the van to the brink of capsize, swung onto the street, remarkably with no more disturbance than a compartment door swinging open and a spool of gauze rolling out.
The sideview mirror showed the black Fiat rocketing after them, however.
The Fiat was catching up. Charlie saw Stanley at the wheel, face speckled with blood, but as determined as ever. In the passenger seat, Lanier squinted against the onrushing air, aimed a preposterously large assault rifle through the cavity in the windshield, and fired.
The bullet hammered through the back of the ambulance, struck the metal handle of the open compartment door, and ricocheted into a computer display, smashing it to pebbles. Morneau regarded the computer with heightened dread.
“It’s okay,” Charlie said. “The bullet didn’t come close to us.” He shifted into second and made for the well-lit cross street about half a mile ahead; it appeared to be bustling with pedestrians and other vehicles.
“I just thought of one problem,” Morneau said. “In your Al Capone story, the vehicles were not carrying highly flammable oxygen tanks.”
Charlie nodded. “That is a problem. Pass me the defibrillator?”
Although clearly puzzled, Morneau handed the device forward.
Charlie rolled down his window, causing an eruption of blood from the gunshot wound in his shoulder and pain to match. Alternating glances between the Fiat and the road ahead, he tried to aim the defibrillator at the large cavity that had formerly been the Fiat’s windshield.
“The big red button puts this thing in zap mode, right?” he asked the paramedic.
“Yes, but it can’t shock anyone unless both paddles are in contact with the body simultaneously, forming a circuit.”
“Well, what are the odds he’ll know all that?” Charlie let the defibrillator fall out of his window.
It wobbled backward through the air, its paddles flapping wildly, toward the Fiat.
Eyes wide, Stanley spun the wheel to avoid the device, sending the Fiat crunching into a parked delivery truck. The Fiat’s hood crumpled, Stanley slumped in his seat, and the fender flopped onto the asphalt.
“That sounded good,” said Morneau.
“Yeah …” Charlie hesitated at the sight of Lanier climbing out of the sports car, leveling her assault rifle.
A monster bullet punched through the rear of the ambulance, sounding as if it had exploded on impact. The entire vehicle jumped.
“The oxygen tank!” Morneau shouted. “We need to get out!”
Flames began to sprout throughout the ambulance. Charlie hit the brakes and punched open his door. He clocked the wheel so that the driver’s side would face away from Lanier, allowing the ambulance to provide cover for their egress.
Morneau hauled Drummond to his feet and dragged him toward Charlie.
Before Charlie could help, a bigger explosion spat him out the open driver’s door. The ambulance itself disappeared in a blob of fire. Scalded, Charlie fell backward, landing on the asphalt, on his spine, the pain unbearable, then even worse as Drummond and Morneau slammed into him. He was pleased, though, because neither appeared seriously injured. At the same time, shock tugged him toward unconsciousness.
He would have allowed himself to glide there if not for the click of Lanier’s heels.
Scrambling out from the tangle of limbs, Charlie grabbed for the Glock beside him.
The Glock that had been beside him.
Now,