When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [111]
Then somebody shot Kit. He was hit. Kit fell to the ground and Max remembered how horrible it was to be struck by a bullet. She felt it, experienced Kit’s pain. The wound was in his neck, and he wasn’t moving, wasn’t saying anything. Max felt as if she’d been shot again herself.
“Kit!” she screamed from the sky. “Kit, get up. Please get up.”
She power-dived at one of the gunmen. Forty miles an hour—at least that. She hit him hard with the sweep of one wing. He went down and she was glad. Not glad that she’d hurt the man, but that she’d stopped him from hurting anyone else. She still couldn’t conceive of hurting somebody without a good reason. It wasn’t in her nature. She wasn’t like “them,” the keepers, maybe the whole human race.
Max was suddenly aware of more choppers following her, arriving from the east. More “good guys.” There were three of them now approaching the house at high speeds.
They shuddered and thundered, whipping up the air terribly, rippling the leaves and branches of trees, and even the tall grass. At first there had only been one news helicopter, but then the others had seen the news and joined in pursuit. The helicopters she had brought, the “good guys,” were filming everything. The names were brightly emblazoned on their sides. KCNC-News 4. KDVR-News 31 Fox. KMGH-News 7. KTVJ-News 20.
A “bad guy” helicopter started to lift off from behind the house. They have no right to get away, Max thought to herself. Those bums have no right to fly. No right.
She leaned her body into an even steeper dive. Maybe too steep.
Suddenly she was at three-quarters throttle, doing as much as sixty miles an hour. Too much, way too much speed. Scary. It was as if she were standing on her head.
She was dive-bombing straight for the windshield of the rising black helicopter. She couldn’t let them get away, though.
They have no right to fly.
They mustn’t escape.
And then she saw something coming fast at the rising helicopter from the opposite side, rising out of the fir trees. What a great surprise. The best thing she had ever seen.
“Matthew!” she screamed.
Chapter 119
CAROLE O’NEILL and her two girls, Meredith and Brigid, were camping along a wide, bubbling stream in the Gunnison National Forest. They had brought along a small Sony TV. They had the set turned on, the volume as loud as it would go, but even that wasn’t loud enough, and the picture was way too small.
“It’s Max! And there’s Aunt Frannie!” Brigid shrieked, as they watched the live news report inside their RV. “Mom, what is going on? What’s happening? Can you believe this?”
“Shhh. Shhh,” Carole spoke above the TV and her daughter. “I want to hear this. Shhh, girls.”
Carole did a lightning-quick station check on the TV. The same startling, mind-blowing pictures were on every channel she reached. Something incredible was going on at Gillian Puris’s house. What was it? Carole couldn’t believe her own eyes. Of course, she hadn’t been able to believe her eyes for the past twenty-four hours.
Max was doing a dangerous kamikaze dive at a helicopter. She was going to crash right into the chopper. Carole winced and she held her breath.
What was going on?
Frannie was punching Gillian Puris. Could that possibly be? Why would her sister hit Gillian?
Oh my God! It looked as if Kit had been shot. He was lying on the ground. He wasn’t moving. Men with rifles were running everywhere.
Thousands and thousands of TVs in the populous greater Denver area were receiving the same live pictures with a voice-over description. Thousands more sets were switched on as word of the newscast traveled. Entire families gathered around their TVs. Late sleepers were hauled out of bed to come see. People surrounded TV sets at hotels, breakfast cafés, early-bird taverns, places of business.
Within a few minutes, the networks had patched in the live news feed from the Denver stations. Excited newscasters delivered the story in either high-pitched or very hushed tones.
The amazing, stunning pictures of the flying girl began to be