Wired - Douglas E. Richards [3]
She said it with such chilling conviction that she gave Callan pause. But this was her intention, he realized. She was bluffing. Trying to get him to second-guess himself.
“So you’re taking me to them now?” said Kira.
He nodded. “That’s right. At a location I specified,” he said.
“They insisted I had to be delivered alive and well or the deal was off, didn’t they? They told you that if you screwed up and I ended up dead, your own funeral wouldn’t be far behind. Didn’t they, Bill?”
“So what?” he said dismissively, trying not to show how much she was beginning to unnerve him.
“Any idea why they were so adamant?” she pressed. She shot him a look of disgust, as if unable to believe the depth of his stupidity. “Of course you don’t,” she continued, not waiting for an answer. “Because you have absolutely no clue as to what you’ve gotten yourself into. If you want any hope of living through the night, you’ll let me go now and disappear.”
Callan’s eyes narrowed. She was probably bluffing, but could he afford to take that chance? Maybe he was in over his head. As eager as he was to get his hands on the rest of the money, with stakes this high, perhaps it did pay to interrogate her properly and gain a clear picture of what he had gotten himself into. He could always reschedule the handoff. They wouldn’t be happy, but they’d go along with a short delay. He’d bet they’d do almost anything to get her.
“Turn the car around,” he said finally. “We’re going back to your house. Since you’re so eager to tell me what’s really going on, I’m going to give you that chance.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What’s the matter, Bill?” she taunted. “I thought you didn’t give a shit who I was or why they’re really after me.”
“Turn around!” he barked angrily.
They drove for several minutes, maintaining a tense silence. They were in the far left lane, slowing for a red light that shined like a beacon against the night sky, a hundred yards distant, when Kira pressed the button near her waist, retracting her seatbelt.
“Put it back on,” ordered Callan.
“You bruised my shoulder and the belt is aggravating it,” she said.
“I said, put it back on!”
“Okay, okay,” she said as they neared to within fifteen yards of the intersection, reaching for her belt.
But she never touched it.
She threw the door open instead, and without a moment’s hesitation launched herself from the car onto the grassy median that paralleled the road. She tried for a gymnastics roll, but hit hard on her right shoulder and half rolled, half skidded into the trunk of a small palm tree planted in the median.
Callan was stunned by her audacity. He could have shot her as she dived from the car but he couldn’t risk killing her; something she must have counted on. He frantically released his own belt and hurled himself toward the driver’s seat to take control of the runaway car, when he realized with a sinking feeling that he was too late. Kira’s rudderless Lexus shot through the red light, and Callan heard the wail of a horn and the screeching of tires coming from his right. The driver of the oncoming car, a small Honda, managed to reduce his speed considerably, but couldn’t stop from slamming into the passenger door of the Lexus, creating a violent and unmistakable explosion of sound that could only arise from the collision of two steel-and-glass missiles, each weighing thousands of pounds.
The collision occurred just as Callan was reaching the driver’s side to take control of the car, and it threw him violently against the side of the steering wheel, fracturing one of his ribs. While the air bags had inflated instantly, Callan had been unbelted, and in such an awkward position they had been unable to prevent injury.
He shook off the severe pain, put the car in park, and stumbled out of the door as the air bags began deflating automatically. He spotted the girl running out of sight through a brightly lighted gas station on the opposite corner, noting with satisfaction that her daredevil