“Don’t say anything, you hear?” Evans again. “You hear me?”
There was the snick of metal against leather. Cooper spared a quarter second to glance in the rearview. Evans had turned into a statue, his eyes rolling but muscles locked. Bobby Quinn didn’t look away from the pistol he held to the man’s temple. “Go ahead, Coop. I think the backseat is out of opinions.”
“Thank you.” Cooper put on his best mild grin. “Now. We know you planted the bomb.” They hadn’t, of course, until Gary confirmed it a moment ago, but there was no point saying that. He pulled past a sedan, saw a patch of blessedly empty straightaway and floored it. “These are the things I need to know. Where exactly is it? What kind of bomb? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”
Gary moaned and rocked forward, his hands clenched over his left thigh. The backs of his hands were caked in dried blood. His features were pale. “Jesusgod this hurts. I need a doctor.”
“Elevate it.”
The man looked at him, and Cooper nodded. “Go ahead.”
Gary fumbled to undo his seatbelt, then spun so that he was leaning against the side door. He raised the leg awkwardly, bracing a boot against the console and moaning as he did.
“Better? Good. Now listen. Where exactly is the bomb? What kind is it? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”
“I don’t.” He gasped as the Escalade hit a pothole at 112 miles an hour, bouncing on the heavy shocks as they blew past a tour bus. “Goddamn it! Take me to a hospital.”
Cooper glanced over. Gary Nie-whatever’s long hair was scraggly and matted with sweat. His body was broadcasting agony, all of his muscles tensed, and trying to read the subtleties beneath that was dicey at best. One thing was for sure, though, the man looked smaller when he wasn’t holding a shotgun.
Slowly and carefully, he asked again. “Where is the bomb? What kind is it? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”
Gary looked over, his eyes glossy with tears. His lips quivered, and then he whispered something.
“What?”
“I said.” The man fought a breath in. “Screw you, Gas Man. I am John Smith.”
The road was two lanes of blacktop in each direction under steel-gray skies. Half a mile ahead a bridge stretched across the listless brown of the Passaic River. Cooper checked the side mirror. Clear.
He leaned across Gary Nie-whatever’s chest and yanked the door handle at the same time as he jerked the steering wheel left. Centripetal force and the weight of the man’s body threw the door open.
For a fraction of a second, Gary hung weightless as a balloon, his mouth open, arms in front of him, the chain of the handcuffs still swinging between them as a roar of wind filled the world.
Then Cooper jerked the wheel to the right, narrowly dodging the lane divider. The door slammed shut. In the rearview mirror Gary’s body hit the pavement at a hundred miles an hour, smearing and bouncing. There was a squeal of air brakes as the tour bus behind them fought to stop, and then his body vanished beneath its wheels.
Quinn said, “Jesus Christ! Cooper—”
“Shut up.” Cooper looked in the rearview. Dusty Evans had both hands to his mouth, the muscles of his throat twitching. His eyes stared, unbelieving. Cooper waited until he turned back to the front, locked gazes. “Now. Where exactly is the bomb? What kind is it? How powerful? How is it detonated? When?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN