The Last Minute

49

I heard the distant pell-mell of shots. The space between them told me they weren’t fired with confidence. I hit the door and ran into the alleyway and headed toward the gunfire.

It was the battle of the hackers who couldn’t shoot straight. Leonie stood, discharging the weapon at the running Ming. She hadn’t hit him as far as I could see.

Two men in suits spilled out of a Lincoln Navigator, braked in the alley. I know Special Projects when I see it and these two were August’s men.

I hurtled past Leonie, told her to run, take cover.

Jack stopped, tottered, caught between the twin threats. One of the men seized him from behind as he turned back to Leonie – just as I ran past her – and levered him toward the Navigator. The other man – stocky, short, with a neck thick with muscle – raced toward us, aimed his weapon at me.

‘Don’t shoot!’ I yelled. ‘Holdwine is in trouble!’

And he paused. He knew me; we’d worked briefly in New York before Lucy and I moved to London. His name was Griffith. And that moment of recognition, tethered to doubt, bought me three seconds I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

‘He’s been shot by that kid!’ I yelled.

‘He’s lying!’ Ming screamed.

‘Stop,’ Griffith yelled. But too late: I slammed into him with a jump; if I’d stopped to throw a punch it would have telegraphed my half-truth of being on August’s side.

I knocked the wind out of his chest, tumbled to the pavement, rolled against a Dumpster. The other agent – who I didn’t know – strong-armed Jack toward the Navigator and aimed his pistol back across the hood at me. Jack fought him, and he had to turn his attention to Jack, to force him into the car, and I ran toward them both.

The agent shoved Jack into the driver’s side, then followed him into the Navigator.

He wheeled hard, rocketing out of the alley, backing into traffic with a blaring of horns. He had to wait several seconds to execute a U-turn. He was leaving Griffith and August behind. Which meant they were under orders that Jack Ming had to be protected at all costs.

I ran at full throttle. I hoped the adrenaline rush would make up for any lack of gracefulness like I showed in my sloppy running back in Las Vegas. I didn’t dodge into traffic behind them. I read the road, the direction they’d gone, with a glance – the level of traffic, the obstacles, the shifting pattern of the cars. You have to read the terrain in a parkour run and that’s why normally you only run where you’ve walked and explored, thoroughly. I was breaking a basic rule.

He was out in traffic, I couldn’t catch him. But. One chance. Insane but I did it.

Running at full power, I jumped onto the trunk and roof of a parked car next to the alleyway and launched myself, timing it to land on the side of a moving NY Metro bus barreling past, closing in on them. I gripped a side ad of the bus and clambered – past the astonished stares of the riders – onto the roof.

Everything hurt. Fingers, arms, chest, legs. Brain.

The bus driver, trying to figure out what that sound of an impact was against his bus, slowed. No doubt the passengers were telling him a crazy man was on board. I ran the length of the bus as it slowed, launching myself onto the roof of the Navigator.

Just one perfect shot and my son would be safe.

Training dictated that I eliminate the bigger threat: the other Special Projects agent. He could kill me before I got to Jack. And although I was willing to kill Jack I wasn’t eager to kill an innocent man.

The Navigator skidded into a parked car, on the passenger side.

I slid off the roof onto the trunk, on my knees, gun drawn. I emptied the clip into the windshield. The reinforced glass pocked but didn’t surrender to the bullets. I placed my shots hard and neat where Jack Ming sat and I swear above the roar of traffic and horns and the gun blasts I could hear Jack Ming screaming.

But the glass held. Through the blizzard of fractures in the windshield I could see Jack scrambling toward the back of the Navigator, squeezing between the driver and passenger seats. Wriggling toward the rear exit. Panicking.

The agent was brave. He was going to cover Jack Ming’s escape. Good guy, doing his job. My throat thickened at the thought of what I would have to do. He jacked down his window and he snaked an arm around the windshield to fire at me.

I dropped off the trunk, heard the first bullet kiss the paint. I was trapped in a narrow wedge between the parked car and the Navigator. The pavement was warm. The tire slanted toward me and I barely had room to curve and wriggle between the cars to get under the Navigator.

I started snaking toward the back. The car’s heat radiated against me.

To my left the driver’s door opened and I saw a foot hit the ground.

I shot the agent in the fleshy part of the calf. He howled and the leg withdrew into the car.

Ahead of me I saw red Converse sneakers hit the asphalt. Running. I writhed out from under the car, dodging through stalled and slowing traffic. The sidewalks had cleared at the first sound of the shots. Thank you, considerate, frightened pedestrians. But I had to dodge cars and Jack, fresh and unbeaten, bolted at full speed on the fast emptying sidewalks.

He rounded a corner and vanished.

I chased him. He glanced back, fear on his face. An ache tore through my ribs, in my chest, where August had dealt me a beating. Where I’d thrown myself against the bus. Trying to sneak up on them had hurt me.

A cheap street market loomed up ahead, one of those full of stuff like prepaid cell phones and knockoff purses and anything from lingerie to DVD players still in original packing, but not sold at original prices. People thronged between the booths, along the edges. Old folks, kids, babies in strollers, scatterings of families.

I couldn’t risk a shot at him. Not there. Too many people.

Jack dodged between the tables and the booths. Loud Chinese pop and a competing undercurrent of reggae thrummed the air. I risked a backward glance and saw Leonie, a few blocks back, weaving toward us. She’d had the presence of mind to hide the gun. I didn’t see either August or his men. But they would either be coming, very soon, or calling in reinforcements.

I tailed Jack Ming into the marketplace. He glanced back every ten seconds to see if I was following. We were blocks from where we’d started and this crowd was calm, and he wasn’t eager to panic them. He wanted them between me and him. He wasn’t screaming for help. Or for the police. He was determined to run. And he was determined to stay in a crowd.

The fear in his face tore at me. I didn’t want to kill this man.