Chapter 109
MY FINGER TIGHTENED on the trigger as my mind whirled with thoughts, options, and dire consequences.
If I shot Cobb just as he was going out the door and I was lucky, he’d pitch forward and drop the grenades. What was outside? An alley? A parking lot? I had no idea.
In any case, it had to be better than the bombs going off in here. If I was really lucky, the door would shut behind Cobb before they blew. If I was unlucky, he’d crumple backward at the shot and drop the grenades, and I’d be shredded.
If they went off.
Cobb made the decision for me. He swiveled his head back at me and then made a quick jerking motion with his right hand, suggesting that he was going to throw the grenade at me. He sold the pump fake as well any NFL quarterback. I couldn’t help it. I cringed, shrank, just for a moment. But it was enough for the laser sight to slide off his head and for him to shoulder open the door and dart outside.
I fired at the last of him. The round struck the steel door right behind his back. The door started to swing shut. Without thinking, I took four big leaps, heard a clanking noise, and kicked open the door.
The second I saw the Dumpster directly across the alley from me I knew what Cobb had done and I threw myself sideways and down. The grenade defied time and blew with extraordinary force. I felt it like a giant hand slapping me, boxing my ears, deafening me, and dazing me.
But I wasn’t cut. The grenade had landed in the near-empty Dumpster. The heavy-gauge steel walls had contained the explosion, forced the shrapnel upward like a deadly geyser. Knowing that what goes up must eventually come down, I threw my arms over my head and struggled to my feet.
By the time I got oriented and turned, Cobb had exited the alley and was running diagonally across East Sixth Street. He disappeared from view. I felt slightly off-balance as I tried to sprint after him.
Where was Cobb going? Anywhere but here? Or to a car?
I got my answer when I reached the end of the alley and saw him running into a used-car lot on the north side of Sixth. I tried to aim but had no clear shot.
I ran out into traffic. I still couldn’t hear much, but then caught over the din in my ears the honking of horns and the screeching of tires as cars tried to avoid hitting me. Were those sirens?
My eyes were scanning back and forth from Cobb to the area around him. I reached the sidewalk just as he vaulted a fence and landed in a second used-car dealership. I crouched and scurried over to Atlantic, hearing shouts as I turned north, really hurrying now.
Ahead of me half a block a cement mixer was parked, turning, while three laborers who’d been laying new sidewalk were looking toward the car lot. I popped up, saw Cobb pulling a guy from a silver Chrysler convertible with a yellow balloon attached to its antenna. He jumped in and the car started moving.
At first I was sure Cobb was heading for the rear exit back into the alley. But he suddenly turned hard right, heading toward Atlantic.
I ran, screaming at the guys working the cement, “Get down! He’s got a grenade!”
Either they saw my gun or they understood and dove into the wet cement. The others were slower to understand and were still standing there puzzled when I ran past, gun up, just as Cobb nosed the car across the existing sidewalk, looking to pull out onto Atlantic.
I couldn’t have been more than ten feet from him when I yelled, “Cobb!”
He glanced at me, showed little surprise, and side-armed the second grenade at me.