Fast (49 page)

            The hammer
whooshed
past inches from Coleman’s right shoulder, caving in the toolbox. The terrorist overbalanced forward, his face level with Coleman’s right shoulder.

            Grabbing both ends of the pinch bar, Coleman drove it sideways across his body, ramming the curled end into the man’s head. The stunning blow tore a hunk of cartilage from the man’s ear. His head snapped savagely to one side.

            Before he could recover, Coleman shoved him with the pinch bar.

            The man cartwheeled off the truck and hit the floor badly.

            If the fall wasn’t fatal, then the massive chunk of concrete that rolled over him must have been.

            What the…?

            Coleman did a double-take. King was towing a huge ball of concrete behind the scorpion truck. As King snaked the steering wheel left and right, the massive weight swung like a pendulum behind the truck. King had partially lowered the truck’s pneumatic struts to avoid rolling.

            The quad bikes couldn’t get near the rolling menace.

            Coleman couldn’t tell if King was trying to lighten the truck’s load or if the maneuver was intentional.

            He didn’t have time to make a decision either way. The second terrorist had finally managed to withdraw whatever he had been searching for through the tray-back’s webbing.

#

From high in the cab of the A-frame truck, Bora tracked the swing of the huge wrecking ball.

            The ball cut a devastating path across his driving line. It tore chunks from the floor like Morse code.

            Even had he not seen the big Marine jump into the scorpion truck, Bora could have predicted who controlled the wrecking ball. Only one person could be at the wheel of that rolling menace. Few men would even have the upper-body strength required to control the steering wheel. Bora imagined the Marine’s smirking satisfaction as he sent the wild obstacle tumbling around the quad bikes.

            It’s always something with you, isn’t it? It’s not enough just to get away, you have to smash everything to smithereens in the process.

            Bora had never witnessed such a display of merry-mayhem in his life. He was reluctantly impressed. The ball bounced once, twice, and then
crashed
clear through the corner of the admin hub. The corner exploded in a spray of glass and tangled aluminum frame.

            Bora dropped his foot from the accelerator. He needed to keep the A-frame behind the ball’s destructive path. He knew how quickly the Marine could get the ball back into play.

            Already one quad bike rider had learned the hard way, coming to a pulverizing end under the roaming obstacle. Another had fallen from the tray-back and been smeared like a grape under a bowling ball. Now all the quad bikes buzzed in a loose pack around Bora’s A-frame, only zooming forward to harry the scorpion truck when its massive pendulum was demolishing the amenities on either side of the pedestrian loop.

            Bora ignored the quad bikes and studied how the Marine expertly snaked the truck left and right. He used the truck as a counterweight to keep the cumbersome wrecking ball in motion.

            Bora needed to get around that big stinging tail to bring the A-frame into the action.

            The key to the massive weight’s trajectory was telegraphed by the scorpion truck. As the wrecking ball tore free from the admin hub, Bora saw the driver correct his steering to counter the ball’s momentum and start dragging it back the other way.

            Bora pumped the gas, testing the responsiveness of the giant A-frame. The truck lurched forward with a satisfying roar.

           
This baby’s got some grunt.

            Bora tracked the ball.

            Wait for it…wait for it…now!

            As the ball cut back across the A-frame’s path, he punched the gas pedal. The A-frame accelerated smoothly through the danger zone and drew level with the scorpion truck.

            Bora grinned down at the surprised driver.

            He pointed ahead of both trucks towards the tray-back. The tray-back was what the Marine in the scorpion truck was trying to protect. Bora had known it all along.

            Bora pointed at the tray-back and then made the cutthroat gesture with his hand.

            I’m going to kill your friends.

            Powering straight after the vulnerable tray-back, Bora relished the look of impotent frustrations in the Marine’s eyes.

#

Coleman eyed the terrorist with the long-handled pick.

            The pick was what the man had been searching for under the webbing. The tool looked even heavier than the hammer. Its curved head had wicked points at both ends. Holding the pick in two hands, the terrorist assessed the bouncing rocks under the webbing, choosing his attack angle.

            Coleman kept his knees bent, rolling with the movement of the tray-back. He waved the terrorist forward.

           
Come and get it.

            He didn’t have long to wait.

            The man heaved the pick in an overhead swing.

            Coleman calculated the weapon’s effective range. Like the hammer, the long-handled pick could deliver a devastating blow, but was unwieldy and cumbersome. The pick was slowest at the beginning of the attack, and faster and more deadly at the end. Coleman had two options. He could try to dodge the attack, or he could move inside the weapon’s danger zone.

            He stepped into the attack.

            Still holding the pinch bar at both ends, he locked his arms straight up.
Crack
– the steel pinch bar collided with the wooden handle. The impact jarred down his body. He’d caught the pick at the apex of its swing.

            In one deft motion, he rotated the pinch bar around the handle. The curved end of the pinch bar acted like a heavy knuckle-guard. Coleman rammed it straight into his attacker’s mouth.

            Four of the terrorist’s top teeth ripped from their gums. Coleman had focused the full twisting weight of his body into the surprise counter-attack.

            As the man’s teeth exploded into the back of his throat, Coleman followed through with a shoulder ram. His shoulder caught the man right in the solar plexus.

            The man reeled back, but didn’t go down. He gathered himself, spat a mouthful of bloody teeth onto the webbing, and then launched another frenzied attack, this time making a wide scything swing at Coleman’s neck.

            Surprised by the quick recovery, Coleman jerked back and felt his tailbone crack into the toolbox. Arching his back over the cab’s roof, he
just
managed to slip under the attack. The pick head grazed the front of his body armor, tearing off a velcro ammunition pocket.

            As the terrorist’s weapon swept past, Coleman rolled onto the tray-back’s cab. Now occupying the high ground, he crouched on the roof and swung the pinch bar sideways like a club.

            The terrorist tensed his arm and absorbed the blow on his shoulder. Before Coleman could swing again, the terrorist swept the pick over the cab at Coleman’s ankles.

            Coleman jumped straight up in the air.

            At the peak of his jump above the tray-back’s cab, he realized he’d underestimated this particular man.

            The frenzied-looking attack was a feint.

            The terrorist held the pick crossways under Coleman’s feet, and
just
before Coleman’s boots landed, the terrorist yanked his feet out from under him.

            Coleman
whumped
down onto the roof, flat on his back, spread-eagled like a human sacrifice.

            With the upper hand now, the terrorist swung the pick through a massive overhead attack.

            The descending pick would pin Coleman to the cab like a mounted butterfly.

            He desperately kicked out with both legs, driving his boot heels into the terrorist’s stomach. The kick couldn’t stop the attack, but it didn’t need to. It pushed Coleman further over the cab roof. During the last second of the weapon’s decent, Coleman used every ounce of leverage in his body to squirm backwards.

            The pick pierced the cab right between his legs. An inch from his groin, the pick had punctured straight through the cab roof.

            Vanessa cried out from inside the cab.

            Feeling himself sliding backwards down the
windshield
, Coleman groped for something to halt his fall. The top of the cab was completely smooth.
The pick!
The pick’s steel head was embedded into the cab’s roof like an ice-anchor.

            He tensed his stomach and lurched at the pick.

            As his fingers curled around the pick head, everything happened at once.

            Bora veered in from the left and slammed into the tray-back.

            The impact from the giant A-frame felt like a meteor strike. The tray-back careened wildly under Coleman. The passenger-side door crumpled into the cab. The pick-wielding terrorist stumbled towards the edge of the tray. The tray-back veered straight towards the outer wall of the pedestrian loop.

            Coleman felt his fingers slip from the pick head.

            As Vanessa struggled to correct the tray-back’s steering, Coleman slid ass-first down the
windshield
. He grabbed the windshield wipers. The tray-back was going to hit the wall. The fragile
windshield
wipers would snap off like dried twigs, but there was absolutely nothing else to hold. He braced himself for the inevitable collision.

It never came.

            Instead, something flew over Coleman’s shoulder. He raised his head and looked over the cab roof for whatever had just bounced over the hood. It was a cane chair. It spun over the cab and disappeared.

            A split-second later, two more chairs and a cane coffee-table rebounded off the front of the tray-back. Looking over his shoulder, Coleman saw what had happened.

            Bora had rammed them into a side arcade.

            The arcade was just a broad half-circle recessed in the eastern wall. Wall-to-wall shops crammed the crescent arcade. The tray-back ploughed south-bound through the arcade’s central eatery. Coleman judged the entire arcade was fifty meters long.

            Bora had timed the collision perfectly.

            The A-frame truck was paralleling Vanessa’s trajectory to block any escape from the arcade. Bora was using the A-frame as a mobile roadblock. Vanessa would be trapped if she couldn’t beat Bora to where the southern end of the arcade cut back onto the habitation level.

            She saw it too.

            She didn’t slow one bit.

            She tore through the arcade like a mini-tornado. Chairs and tables crunched under the swerving wheels. Coleman’s legs sprawled over the hood. Abandoned drinks rained over his head.