“Regan!” I yell, whipping my aim from the flamethrower to his head. Now he knows he can’t fire on Henry without taking a shot from me.
But it’s Henry we’re all watching: he’s much too close now for Brody to fire the flamethrower without risking self-immolation.
Their collision is anticlimactic: so weakened is Henry by his wounds that the older man easily absorbs the shock without falling. Even encumbered by the Flammenwerfer’s cylinders, Royal is clearly the stronger of the two on this night. Any second he will knock Henry to the floor, where he can be easily dispatched by Regan. Yet he doesn’t. Henry clings to Brody with fierce tenacity, and for the first time I see panic in Royal’s eyes. As they tear at each other, Brody’s face tightens like that of a desperate fighter who feels his strength ebbing. Henry’s face shows strain but not fear, and conviction blazes in his eyes.
At last Regan turns fully away from me, trying to find a safe shot at Henry. Should I fire into Regan’s back and hope to hit his heart? The .22 wouldn’t likely pierce his back muscles—
“Don’t!” Regan shouts in a high-pitched voice. “Brody, look out!”
Henry’s left hand has disappeared between the two wrestling bodies.
“Henry, don’t!” I scream. “HENRY!”
The instant he finds the flamethrower’s trigger, Henry pulls it, and a white-orange sphere of burning tar and gasoline engulfs the two men. A screech of agony splits the air, then dies as the windpipe that produced it melts shut. The blast of ignition throws off a broiling wall of heat, driving Regan backward with his gun arm raised as a shield against the blast.
I fire the derringer between his shoulder blades a half second before his back crashes into my chest, knocking me to the floor and driving the breath from my lungs. With his full weight crushing me, I can’t get a breath. For a couple of seconds he seems dead, but then he jerks as though coming awake and roars in pain. Desperately aware of the pistol in his right hand, I drop the derringer and push my arm between his arm and body, grasping for his wrist. If I hadn’t shot him before he landed on me, he would already have blown my brains out. But there’s no guarantee that the little .22 slug will do more than stun him. I’ve got to kill Regan before he can recover his senses.
As my right hand closes around his thick wrist, I clamp my left forearm around his throat and try to cut off his oxygen. This triggers a thrashing movement, as though I’m trying to throttle an alligator and not a man. Regan’s muscles strain with frightening power as he tries to bring his pistol up to my head. I squeeze his neck as hard as I can, but trapped beneath him as I am, it’s hard to get enough leverage to completely cut off his air with only one arm. With a whiplike motion he raises his head, then slams it back into my face—once, then again. White stars explode in my field of vision. I feel his pistol rising to my head, but I can’t stop it. He’s simply stronger than I am.
A deafening blast of flame and thunder scorches my face, and Regan tries to twist from my grasp. If my strength fails now—if he moves the gun another inch upward—I will die. There’s no way I can strangle him before he brings that pistol to bear. Purely out of instinct, I release my forearm lock from his neck, then chop the inner edge of my hand back down on his injured throat with all my strength. His body jerks, and the power in his gun arm wavers. Before he can recover, I drive my hand down three more times, each blow harder than the last. Cartilage crunches beneath my final strike, and then both Regan’s hands fly to his throat, the gun forgotten.
With a single heave I roll him off me, then grab his gun and scramble to my knees. Smoke is billowing through the basement tunnel. Regan’s mouth gapes as he gasps for oxygen, his eyes wide with terror. As I aim the pistol at his chest, he claws the air like a drowning man grasping at a rescuer. Then he slowly drops his arms and goes still.
Sprinklers in the ceiling have begun spraying water like rain. Fans must be churning somewhere, but I feel like I’m choking on soot. The heat and smoke will soon overwhelm me. Laying the muzzle of Regan’s pistol against my leg chain, I fire. The first bullet fractures one link; the second severs the chain.
Getting to my feet in the smoke, I make my way to Caitlin’s pole. Freeing her proves more difficult, but a third and fourth bullet snap the ropes, and she stumbles away from the pole.
“We’ve got to get out!” I shout. “Now!”
“Make sure Johnston’s dead!” she cries, lifting the fire extinguisher and stumbling downrange to where the bank boxes still burn.
I turn and find my way to Sleepy’s body, then drop to the floor and press two fingers into his neck, searching for a carotid pulse. I feel nothing at first, but as I dig for any pressure, he says, “I can’t move, man. I think my back’s broke.”
“He’s alive!” I shout, scarcely able to believe it.
I whip my head back and forth, trying to find Caitlin again. Then the smoke parts, and I see her charging toward me with a charred box in her arms. Beyond her, orange flame still rages in the smoke. At the center of a burning sphere, two black figures appear locked in eternal combat, like soot-shadows seared onto a Hiroshima wall.
“Is Mr. Royal dead?” Sleepy Johnston rasps from beneath me.
“Yes,” I assure him, squeezing his hand.
The black man settles into a deeper stillness.
The charred banker’s box drops heavily to the ground beside me, then Caitlin falls to her knees. “We’ve got to get him out,” she says.
“We can’t move him. His spine’s hit.”
“He’ll burn alive!”
She’s right, of course. I must be in shock. We’re all about to burn.
“I’ll take his arms!” she says, scrambling to her feet and the suffocating smoke. “You get his legs. I’ll do what I can.”
“What about Henry’s files?”