The truck tilted beneath him. The static flared as Peter’s muscles responded. He dropped to his belly and wedged his feet farther under the conduit. Then reached into the control box, through the wires, to the big battery. Grabbed it hard and maneuvered it out from beneath the bundled wires.
Boomer had actually soldered the power wires to the battery’s terminals in great greasy conductive lumps. The white static burned cold as he wrapped the wires in his fist and pulled.
Trying to free them from the big battery.
Hoping to hell there wasn’t anything else he should have done instead.
55
Lewis
Here we go, kid. Hang on to that dog. Remember, do what I tell you.”
Mingus growled over the roar of the engine as Lewis turned the wheel and punched the Yukon’s front end hard into the Mitsubishi’s driver’s-side tire. He saw Dinah’s face in her window, her eyes wide. Metal shrieked and the seat belt bit into him.
The Yukon’s nose dropped as the bigger truck crushed its front suspension, then pushed it hard away. But something had broken or bent at that side of the Mitsubishi, the tie rod or axle, forcing it into an abrupt turn. The right-side tires left the ground as the truck began to tilt.
“Charlie, you okay? Charlie?”
No answer from the backseat. The Yukon sputtered and died.
Lewis looked through his cracked windshield to see Dinah in the cab of the Mitsubishi, wrestling with the skinny guy in the uniform for the gun. The big truck heaved across two lanes of traffic and up a curb to smash its passenger side into a lamppost.
“Charlie, get out right now and run away as fast as you can.”
Lewis slipped off his seat belt and climbed out of the ruined Yukon to help Dinah. He looked over his shoulder as he ran and saw the black Ford pull up a block away.
The scarred man had something in his hand that looked like a cell phone.
Even at that distance, Lewis could see the look of rapture on the scarred man’s face as his thumb stabbed down on the keypad.
Lewis sprinted around the front of the Mitsubishi and hauled open the passenger door.
56
Peter
The detonator phone’s screen flashed white as an incoming call activated the vibrator.
The circuit closed. The vibrator hummed.
But the wiring hung torn from the big battery like a broken spiderweb.
Peter remained miraculously alive.
“Go go go,” he said as he pulled his feet from under the conduit and jumped to the plank floor. Midden was kicking the twisted roll-up door free of its broken latch, sheared off by the impact of the collisions.
Together they hauled up the door and saw the scarred man standing outside the Ford SUV, pressing a button on his cell phone again and again. Midden took a target pistol from his coat pocket and shot out two tires on the Ford without appearing to aim. Boomer looked up from his phone, startled.
A dog growled low and deep.
Peter knew that growl.
The growl sounded like his white static felt. Like overwhelming fury harnessed to an unrelenting will.
“Mingus, get him.”
Not that the dog was waiting for permission. He bolted past the open roll-up door, all fluid muscle and flashing teeth and orange polka-dotted fur that shone somehow bright under the pale November sky.
Boomer’s eyes grew wide, and he turned to run. Mingus growled happily at the sight.
Mingus wouldn’t actually eat the man, would he? Although Peter hoped the dog would at least chew on him some.
Behind the big Ford, a black unmarked police car glided to a halt, a cockeyed gumball flashing red on its roof. Lipsky unfolded himself from behind the wheel with his pistol in one hand and his badge in the other.
“Nobody move!” he shouted. “You’re all under arrest!”
Lipsky looked good, Peter had to admit. The detective clearly had his survival strategy worked out. He’d be the good guy. The savior of the city.
But the man in the black canvas chore coat reached out his hand, the target pistol like a pointing finger. The single report was surprisingly quiet in the still air.
A faint red hole appeared in Lipsky’s forehead.
He looked vaguely surprised, just for a moment. Then he dropped like a stone.
Peter jumped to the ground and ran around to the cab of the truck. Thinking of Dinah up there with Felix.
But Peter was too late.
Felix lay curled into a ball on the median. Lewis held Miles securely in his arms, grinning wide while Charlie helped his mom out of the truck.
As it turned out, Lewis was a hero after all.
“The cop is dead, and the bomb’s out of commission,” said Peter.
“That’s good,” said Lewis, “’cause this kid’s heavy.” Although the way he held the boy, hands locked tight together, face half buried in his hair, it looked like he’d never let Miles go.
Peter had wondered what Lewis would do if he had the chance. If Lewis would step into that empty space.
He felt happy for Lewis, and for Dinah. This might be the best possible result.
For himself, he felt only relief as the pressure began to ease in his head. The white static deflating like spent foam from a fire extinguisher, leaving behind it only the shakes, the beginning of a killer headache.