Kim Oh: Real Dangerous Ride Part 3

"Go!" He shouted to the driver, up ahead. "Get out of here!"

From over my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of the driver's panicked, wide-eyed gape then he recovered himself enough to whip back around in his seat and floor the accelerator.

The rear doors slapped back and forth as the van shot up to speed. I pulled my legs up just in time to keep them from whacking me in the knee. That left the problem of the guy with his arm around my throat. I let go of his forearm with my right hand, so I could spear his gut with the point of my elbow, then snap the back of my fist into his nose. The spurt of blood shocked him enough to send him sprawling back onto the floor of the van.

We were already going too fast, careening along the side of the freeway, for me to dive out the rear doors especially given that the driver might change into the right-hand lane at any moment and then really pick up speed. Plus, the guy who'd jumped me had recovered enough from my knee to his groin to take another run at me. He obviously had his own adrenaline thing going not just from the pain, but also from a girl having delivered it to him. His eyes were two narrowed slits as he lurched forward from his kneeling position, grabbed me around the waist, and knocked me onto my back.

I landed part way out of the van, the sill's bottom edge digging across my shoulder blades one of the rear doors slammed against my arm, then rebounded all the way open again. The gas cylinder, trailing its hose and face mask, rolled toward me. I grabbed it with both hands, figuring I could use it to club the guy as he leaned over me.

The stenciled cylinder markings, if I'd had time to read them, would've confirmed that these people weren't real paramedics. The stuff was cyclopropane, which hasn't been used in hospitals and emergency rooms for years. Yeah, it'll knock somebody out, all right, but it's majorly flammable and explosive which is how I knew about it, from the crash course I'd gotten from Cole on all the handy ways to blow stuff up. Wherever this bunch had scored the van and other equipment from, they must've gotten the outdated anesthetic thrown in with everything else.

I managed to get one good blow against the guy, landing the b.u.t.t end of the cylinder across his chest. Would've been better if I'd hit him across the face, which is what I was aiming for, but he was already too close for me to get that much of an angle on him. All I achieved was to p.i.s.s him off even more he lifted me up a couple of inches and threw me backward.

If he'd gotten a little more distance on his toss, I wouldn't have been able to keep myself from falling out of the van and landing hard on the pavement racing beneath its wheels. As it was, I twisted to one side, the sill jabbing against the bottom of my rib cage. I dangled head-downward, still holding onto the gas cylinder.

It slipped in my grasp, far enough for the release valve to strike and grind against the pavement. I could just barely hold on to the cylinder's rounded base, as the hose and face mask were ripped off and went flapping in the distance behind the van. The valve controls snapped off next, and the bare metal sparked as it dragged along the pavement.

That was enough to ignite the cyclopropane gas hissing from the tank's broken outlet. A fierce blue flame jetted out, nearly a yard in length.

I tucked the cylinder under one arm, so I had a hand free to grab onto one of the doors and pull myself up. The guy who'd tried to gas me before now scrambled back away from the flame searing toward him. Something like that tends to put you in charge of the situation. I climbed back into the van, aiming my accidentally improvised flamethrower right at him. I cut him off from the front seat area he had nowhere to get away except by flattening himself against the inside wall. His eyes widened in panic as I swung the cylinder around, bringing the flame up toward his face. He dived headlong toward the rear doors, trying to grab hold of one of them. He missed his grasp as the doors swung out on their hinges. Momentum carried him the rest of the way into the open air he seemed to hang suspended there for a split second, then he landed shoulder-first on the pavement, tumbling like a sack of discarded laundry.

There wasn't time for me to watch what happened to him. I charged ahead with the cylinder its flame shot between the van's front seats, spreading across the inside of the winds.h.i.+eld. The driver had enough presence of mind to slam on the brakes, hurtling me forward. I didn't have to bring the flame around toward him he was already throwing his door open and diving outside. I tossed the cylinder out after him it hit the ground and spun like a Fourth of July pinwheel and climbed into the seat.

The s.p.a.ce at the side of the freeway was too narrow to do a three-pointer and turn the van around. So I slammed it into reverse and punched the accelerator pedal, one-handing the steering wheel as I twisted around to look back over my shoulder. The van's right side sc.r.a.ped along the guardrail as I fought to keep from fishtailing out of control.

Through the flapping rear doors, I spotted the guy who'd tried to knock me out with the cyclopropane gas. Blood streamed down the side of his face as he got to his feet, wobbling and dazed. Then he turned his head and spotted the van hurtling toward him too late, though, because I wasn't stopping. The van's left rear corner clipped and tossed him in a cartwheel to one side.

The others spotted me as well. They'd just about finished whatever they needed to do, to get the drone set up and operational. It sat on the pavement between them, one of the pair kneeling down and tightening the final bolts on the four rotor struts sticking out from the center. Both guys glanced up as they heard the van barreling in their direction, slamming into the rail every few yards as I wrestled with the steering wheel. The one standing up had a remote control box in his hands, with a long whip-like antenna he shouted something at the other guy, that I couldn't hear.

Tossing the wrench away, the one who'd been working on the drone now reached over and grabbed the backpack my delivery package by one of its straps. Just as I piled on the van's brakes, the rear tires skidding and smoking, he finished fastening the backpack to the hooks on the drone's underside. He jumped back as the other guy punched b.u.t.tons on the metal box in his hands.

Against the noise of the freeway traffic streaming beside us, the whir of the drone's rotor blades went louder and higher in pitch. The guy with the remote control was using the joystick in the box's center now the drone rocked back and forth on its short metal legs, then lifted away from the ground and wobbled into the air.

I had a stroke of luck as I pushed my way past the paramedics van's front seats and ran, head lowered, toward the open rear doors. I spotted my .357 on the ground where I'd dropped it, when the mask hooked to the gas cylinder had been slapped on my face. As I jumped out of the van, I bent down and came up with the gun in my hand.

From the panicked looks on their faces, the two guys were obviously afraid that I was going to start firing on them. If they'd been smart, they wouldn't have left the gun where I could grab it but they'd been in a hurry, counting on the other guys in the van to knock me out of commission so they could just work on getting the drone ready to go.

One of them took off running, down along the side of the freeway. The one with the remote control box stayed where he was, working the joystick. He looked away from me and up at the drone, which was rising higher into the air and above our heads.

I didn't bother with him. The drone was my target. I turned, raising the .357 straight out, as the drone tilted and began swooping away from us.

The shot I fired off didn't hit the drone. The guy with the control box shoved the stick hard to one side, veering the drone away from my aim. It slammed into the side of a freight truck rumbling past us in the right-hand lane. One of the drone's rotors disintegrated on impact, the blades spinning off in all directions. The other three rotors were still functioning, but the drone's lift capacity was affected, especially with the load of the backpack tethered beneath. Even with the remaining rotors maxed out, it could barely struggle up to about eye level.

Plus, its maneuvering was completely whacked. Control Box Guy frantically worked the joystick as the drone veered away, swooping from side to side like a wounded bird, slapping into the windows of the cars in the nearest lanes. Some of the drivers were startled enough that they nearly lost control as well, jamming on their brakes hard enough that the vehicles behind smashed their tail lights. Or they cranked their steering wheels and bashed into the fenders and doors of whatever was beside them.

I didn't have time to listen to all the sheet metal getting beat up or to mess with the guy standing a couple yards away from me. I swung the .357's muzzle toward him. "Drop it "

The box with the whip antenna landed at his feet, and I put a bullet through it, bright bits and pieces scattering across the pavement. They crunched beneath my boots as I ran toward my bike, where I'd left it against the guardrail. I hadn't wanted to risk any chance of the guy somehow regaining control of the drone, but now that was taken care of, my interest in him was at an end. Catching up with the drone before it wound up under the tires of some eighteen-wheeler was my only concern now.

First time I'd ever ridden a motorcycle without a helmet you can believe me about that. Unlike a lot of girls, I consider my head to be the most important part of my anatomy. But I didn't have time for it now the drone was nearly out of sight, as it continued to flap and bash its way down the streaming lanes of traffic. I quickly straddled the Ninja, switched it on, and revved the engine. My helmet rolled off the seat behind me as I kicked the bike into gear and shot forward.

The fake paramedics van blocked the side of the freeway right in front of me, so I had to lean the bike to the left and dart into the right-hand lane as soon as I could. I cleared the rear corner of the van by less than a foot as I flattened myself behind the windscreen and dove the bike into the gap between two cars. I couldn't see the drone from that angle, so I rolled on more throttle and edged into the middle lane. It had to be up there somewhere . . .

SIX.

I spotted the drone ahead, more by the commotion it was causing than by the glimpse of its white metal-and-plastic frame. Still fluttering and swooping, it bounced off the side of an SUV hard enough to gain a couple of feet in alt.i.tude, the backpack swinging below by its straps. The driver freaked maybe he thought he was under attack by terrorists or something and cranked his steering wheel hard to the left. That move resulted in him sideswiping the sedan in the lane closest to the freeway divider. This was all happening right in front of me, so I had to quick roll off the throttle and pile on the rear brake without losing traction and going into a skid. I tilted the bike, diving into a gap in the right-hand lane, just as the SUV bounced back into the center its tires smoked as it spun around ninety degrees and rocked to a halt.

As I pa.s.sed the SUV, its hood pointed toward me, I heard the crunching steel noise of first one car slamming into its right side, then the next two vehicles' screeching brakes, followed instantly by their own crumpling fenders, one after the other. A clamor of skidding wheels and shrieking horns came from farther behind.

I didn't even bother glancing at my handlebar mirror my sight was locked on the drone ahead, still swooping from side to side, not much more than a couple of yards above the pavement. The tangled multivehicle collision it'd left behind acted as a barricade, emptying out a stretch of the freeway. I had a clear shot back into the middle lane, following behind the drone's erratic flight. In my head, I was trying to calculate my next move, whether it would be better to try and catch up with it, or just keep it in sight until it finally crashed to the ground. If I got close enough to reach up and grab one of its struts, or the backpack dangling and swaying beneath, I didn't know if it might pull me off-balance, cras.h.i.+ng the motorcycle onto its side with me aboard. That wouldn't be pleasant.

My thoughts along those lines came to a sudden halt when I heard the roar of a big-cylindered engine coming from behind. I recognized the snarling noise even before I caught sight of the car in my right-hand mirror it was that G.o.dd.a.m.n Dodge Challenger, doing a quick swerve close to the guardrail and snaking past the pileup in the center of the freeway. When I'd chased its driver off, just before the crew of phony paramedics tried to gas me, he must've shot ahead and exited the freeway at the next off-ramp. Then he'd circled back on the surface streets running alongside the freeway and gotten on again so he'd be able to take another shot at me. Had to give the guy points for persistence Or at least I would've, if I hadn't been preoccupied with figuring out what to do about him now. Then again, it struck me as I straightened back up behind the windscreen, the Challenger guy probably wasn't interested in me at all he'd only messed me up because he wanted to get the backpack. Only now I didn't have it on me it was up ahead, flopping around beneath the drone as it swooped and careened like a wounded bat. One corner of the drone's white frame rattled across a stretch of the chain link mesh dividing the freeway, before the device spun around and yawed back out toward the empty middle lane.

I heard the Challenger's engine roar louder, the ba.s.s rumble swamping the Ninja's higher-pitched snarl. A second later, the muscle car pa.s.sed me on the right, the fury of its rush nearly enough to suck me and the bike under the rear wheels. I caught a glimpse of the driver, slit eyes focused on his target. I was right. He wasn't interested in me the drone, and the backpack dangling beneath, were all that he cared about.

Once he was in front of me, it wasn't hard for him to match speed with the drone. Its flight grew increasingly erratic, barely covering more than a few yards a second. Its square white frame tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, swooping in a low arc along the left-hand lane. The corner with the broken rotor sc.r.a.ped across the pavement, causing the whole thing to pinwheel end-over-end, like a four-sided card table that somebody had tried to fling into a landfill. My sped-up heart skipped when the backpack, still tethered to the drone's underside, slapped into the concrete hard enough for it bounce upward, the shoulder strap going from taut to slack. But the momentary loss of the backpack's weight enabled the drone's three functioning rotors to rev up again, and it wobbled higher into the air, looping at an angle toward the middle lane Which put it right in front of the Challenger, as its driver cranked the wheel and cut sharp across the lane before me. The car's rear end fishtailed as he piled on the brakes with its b.u.mper rus.h.i.+ng toward me, there was no way for me to hit either of my brakes without dumping the bike into a low-side spin on one of the footpegs. Instead without even thinking but just letting my body do the reacting I pushed down hard on the left handlebar grip, leaned the bike over, and swerved around the Challenger's fender with barely an inch to spare. A split-second later, I was jamming my other hand down on the opposite grip and s.h.i.+fting my weight racer-style, pulling the bike upright to avoid the freeway center divider. The side of my boot sc.r.a.ped across the strip of white-painted steel, as I swung back parallel with the Challenger.

Turning my head, I could see through the side window as the driver glared at me with even more murder in his eyes than the last time I'd gotten this close to him. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel even tighter, his shoulders bunching up under his muscle s.h.i.+rt as he prepared to swing the car into my lane and slam me against the divider. I'd have to hit the brakes hard and drop back to avoid getting crushed against the metal.

But then, I didn't need to suddenly, in that heartbeat moment as our gazes locked on each other, the flailing drone swooped down and crashed onto the Challenger's hood, then bounced and struck the dark-tinted winds.h.i.+eld. I ducked down lower, chest against the bike's gas tank, as another one of the drone's rotors disintegrated from the impact, the white plastic blades spinning past my head like knives.

That took the driver's attention away from me and whatever he'd been planning to knock me out of the chase. His wide-eyed gaze shot away from me and focused on the battered drone a little distance away on his winds.h.i.+eld. It was still in one piece barely but it wasn't going to be flying away again anytime soon. There were wires and sparkly electronic bits dangling out of the cracks in the drone's hub, and the two remaining rotors at opposite corners weren't turning anymore. The thing was dead.

Which meant there wasn't anything to keep it from sliding across the winds.h.i.+eld, away from the driver and toward the car's pa.s.senger side, dragging the backpack with it.

That was the last thing the driver wanted. If the drone dropped off the car's right side, I'd have a chance of swooping over, past the Challenger's rear end, and s.n.a.t.c.hing it up. Even if he stood on his brake pedal, it'd be yards and yards of skidding and smoking tires before he'd be able to come to a halt and then come back at me.

The calculation went through the driver's head in no time at all he hit the brakes while cranking the wheel over, whipping the car's tail to the right, the drone sliding back across the winds.h.i.+eld to the left. Before the side window was halfway down, he had his arm out, reaching to grab any hold he could on the damaged drone.

I was reaching for it, too. Matching speed with the Challenger as the driver straightened it out, I brought the bike within inches of the front left fender. The sleeve of my jacket slipped along the guy's sweating bare arm we were that close to each other. He could've turned and spat in my face if he hadn't been gritting his teeth so hard.

The bike lost speed when I took my hand from the throttle grip, straining for any jagged angle of the broken machine as it tumbled toward the winds.h.i.+eld's corner. The Challenger jumped a couple of feet ahead of the Ninja; at the same time, the driver's fist seized hold of the white ring surrounding one of the rotors. He jerked his arm back with the prize.

In a flat arc, the drone slid free of the winds.h.i.+eld. That momentum, combined with the car's speed, whipped the attached backpack toward the bike's headlight. Pus.h.i.+ng against both footpegs, I lifted myself forward and off the seat, far enough that I could reach past the backpack, looping the crook of my right arm through one of its dangling shoulder straps. The backpack flopped onto the tank as I pulled myself back and grabbed the throttle, rolling it on again.

I had to speed the Ninja up once more, because the Challenger's driver and I were now linked to each other by the battered carca.s.s of the drone, hooked to another one of the backpack's straps. He was still holding onto the piece he'd grabbed if I didn't keep up with him, he'd be able to pull me off balance, toppling the bike over. At the speed we were traveling, and me without a helmet I wouldn't survive a crash like that.

A second more, and he'd either slam on his brakes or swing the car into me either would take me out, with the bike's pieces and my remains cartwheeling down the pavement.

I didn't wait for him to make his move. Instead, with my right arm still holding onto the backpack, I took my left hand from the handlebar grip, reached into my jacket, and tugged out the .357. The driver's eyes widened in panic when he saw me swinging it around toward him.

We were still so close to each other that I could've put the gun right into his face, then pulled the trigger Which would've sent the Challenger spinning out of control on the freeway, wiping me out with it. So instead, as I kept the bike's throttle to its max, I s.h.i.+fted the angle of the .357's muzzle a few degrees and pumped three quick shots into the drone.

It was already pretty beat up, from its careening flight and cras.h.i.+ng into vehicles along the way. The bullets ripped through the remains of the device, sending splinters of white plastic in all directions. A couple of pieces struck my forehead and jaw, before falling behind the Ninja. That didn't matter to me all I cared about was that the circular segment the Challenger driver had been holding onto came loose in his hand. With the backpack's other strap dangling free, I could hit the brakes without toppling the bike over or being pulled off it.

The Challenger shot ahead as I dropped back behind it. Raising my head above the windscreen, I could see other stuff happening, all of which meant trouble. In the bike's mirrors, red lights were flas.h.i.+ng, somewhere beyond the tangle of wrecked trucks and cars we'd left behind us, and I could hear the thin wail of police sirens. All this action, starting from when the Challenger driver first blindsided me, had brought the attention of the authorities which I majorly didn't want right now. I'd gotten my delivery parcel back into my hands, but I didn't feel like explaining to anyone especially the police what I was doing with it. I needed an exit strategy, immediately.

Or just an exit. As soon as I spotted the off-ramp at the right side of the freeway, I didn't have to think about it. I leaned the Ninja over as far as I could, taking me in a tight, flat curve across all the lanes. The angle was so extreme that I didn't have to clamp my arm against myself to keep the backpack at my side. I wound up overshooting the start of the off-ramp, heading into the triangular barrier section where it peeled off from the right-hand lane. I hit the brakes, then dragged my right boot sole against the concrete to keep from toppling over as I scrubbed off as much speed as I could.

I heard another skid, which had nothing to do with me or the motorcycle. I glanced over my shoulder the Challenger was heeling onto its left-hand tires, as the driver wrestled it into a hard spin. The car's rubber shredded as it kept skidding sideways for a few more yards. It rocked back down on all four tires, then the rear tires dug in and smoked. With a lurch, the Challenger leapt across all three lanes, straight for me.

Or for where I'd been I was already moving, pus.h.i.+ng the bike upright, then rolling on just enough throttle to get me back to the off-ramp I'd overshot. The rear wheel swung in a short arc as I wrestled the bike around, getting it pointed down the ramp's sloping curve If I'd taken an instant more to shove the Ninja into gear and jam the throttle on full, tucking my elbow tighter against the backpack at my ribs, I would've been flattened by the Challenger jumping the raised concrete corner of the off-ramp. Tucking myself down behind the windscreen, I didn't see but heard behind me the crash of the car's right fender against the guardrail. Metal screeched against metal as the driver pulled the car back in line. In one of the bike mirrors, I had a quick glimpse of the car's remaining headlight and steam boiling up from the fractured radiator and across the buckled hood. The driver ground the gears, ripping away a section of the rail and leaving it dangling at the side of the off-ramp as the car gunned ahead, only a few yards away from my own rear fender. Behind the wheel, and the clenched hands that looked like they were about to snap it in two, the driver had the blood-crazed expression of a predator about to rip the haunch off its fleeing prey.

At the bottom of the ramp, the stoplight shone red as I hurtled toward it worse, there was a near-solid stream of traffic in the surface street beyond. If I'd backed off my throttle, the Challenger would be on top of me.

Instead, I sped up, pressing myself flat against the bike's gas tank and urging the last bit of power out of the engine screaming beneath me. I spotted a gap in the street traffic, or at least the nearest lane of it, that might be just big enough for me to thread the bike's needle through or it would be if none of the vehicles' drivers glanced over and saw me racing banshee-like down the off-ramp, toward them. If any of them panicked and slammed on their brakes, or swerved or took any kind of evasive action, I'd be screwed. You don't walk away from a tumbling hit like that.

I lucked out. Either none of them caught sight of me, or their reaction times weren't quick enough to do anything about it.

The gap was almost two car lengths wide as I hit the bottom of the ramp's curve, straightened the bike up, and shot past the stoplight. That would've been a lot of room, with a couple yards of clearance on either side, if the vehicles had been stopped or even just crawling along. But the street traffic was coming from the underpa.s.s below the freeway at about thirty miles per hour, which tightened things up for me a lot. I had to aim the Ninja at a white delivery van's rear b.u.mper, clear it with a couple of inches to spare from my right footpeg, then get my rear wheel across the street divider just before the vertical ma.s.s of an eighteen-wheeler could clip the bike and send me flying.

I just made it, with the blast from the truck's air horn slamming through my head. And caught another break zooming down the off-ramp at maximum speed, I hadn't been able to see what was happening on the farther side of the surface street. But the arrow signal had come on for the traffic wanting to turn left onto the ramp heading up to the freeway. That resulted in there being no vehicles in the lane I shot into. I was able to lean the bike over before I hit the curb and ease on the brakes to avoid going down in a skid.

My pursuer wasn't so lucky. There was no way his wide-stanced muscle car could make its way through the gap my skinny little Ninja had managed. If the gap had still existed too bad for the Challenger guy, but the delivery van whose rear b.u.mper I'd sc.r.a.ped by, so close I'd almost abraded my knee on its license plate, was brought to a screeching halt by its driver. The flash of my Ninja in his rearview mirror must have startled him into that automatic reaction. The eighteen-wheeler's chrome radiator grille crumpled the van's rear doors like tin foil.

All of which left a solid metal wall in front of the Challenger, as it followed me out of the freeway off-ramp. On the other side of the street, my view was blocked by the truck, but I could hear the shriek of car tires as its driver desperately cranked the steering wheel uselessly, at that speed. From the sound of the impact, he must've been able to get the Challenger turned ninety degrees, so its pa.s.senger side hit the side of the truck, rather than going head on into it.

The noise of disintegrating gla.s.s and metal bounced off the underpa.s.s, close to where I'd brought the bike to a halt. I didn't feel like sticking around to see what'd happened to the driver or what kind of shape he was in now. Up above me, the freeway was bright and loud with the flas.h.i.+ng lights and sirens of the police who'd already arrived on the scene they'd be boiling down here onto the surface street before too long.

One of the backpack's straps was still intact. I slung my delivery parcel over my shoulder, kicked the Ninja into gear, and shot through the underpa.s.s, heading for whatever might be on the other side.

SEVEN.

"You're bleeding."

I'd heard that before. One of those fake paramedics, back on the freeway, had said it to get me to climb into the back of their equally fake van. Granted, I hadn't been at the top of my game when that jerk sucked me in with that one a bike crash will do that to you but I was still kicking myself about it.

But these were different circ.u.mstances. I wasn't at the side of the freeway, next to a steel guardrail, and with the traffic streaming by. My Ninja was parked in the narrow s.p.a.ce between a cinder-block wall and a garbage dumpster that smelled of overripe garlic and tomato sauce. Plus, I could put my hand up to my face, take it away, and see the bright, wet red on my fingertips. So I knew this particular guy wasn't lying to me, at least.

He sat on an overturned plastic beer crate, smoking a cigarette held between nicotine-yellowed knuckles. Skinny arms, blued with jailhouse tattoos, stuck out from his grease-stained T-s.h.i.+rt. Faded jeans and a pair of dilapidated work boots showed beneath the bottom edge of his kitchen ap.r.o.n as he leaned back against the wall.

"Yeah," I said. "Not much I can do about it right now, is there?" I'd wiped my forearm across my brow, but that hadn't done anything to slow the trickle I could feel coming down the corner of my jaw.

"Stay here." He stood up and ground out the stub of his smoke beneath his boot sole. "I'll be right back."

I did what he said. Enough time had pa.s.sed that the silvery lights were starting to come on at the top of the poles studded across the strip mall's parking lot I could see their cold glow past the roof of the chain restaurant I'd taken refuge behind. Inside, there probably were families working their way through the all-you-can-eat pasta bowls, or whatever suburban people ate after their kids' softball games. Not really anything I'd know much about. Off in the distance, traffic faintly rumbled on the freeway, the mess I'd helped create finally having been cleaned up.

The kitchen guy came back out from the restaurant's alley door, carrying in his hands a white metal box with a red cross on the lid. He came over to where I was perched sideways on the bike seat, and squatted on his worn-down boot heels in front of me.

"Lean forward "

I did that, too. I was in this far already with some fellow I'd never met before, so why not? The hospital-like smell of the disinfectant flared my nostrils as he opened the brown bottle from the box he'd set down beside himself. He took a sterile cloth from its wrapping, tipped the bottle into it, then started dabbing away at my forehead. It stung bad enough to make me wince.

"Don't be such a baby." He squinted at his work. When the thin pad was soaked pink, he tossed it aside and got out another one. "If this is the kind of trouble you're going to get into, ya gotta expect to get dinged up once in a while."

"Believe me," I said, "I've been dinged up before. And exactly what kind of trouble are you talking about?"

"Give me a break, sweetheart." The rasp in his voice sounded as though he'd started smoking back in some hospital neonatal unit. He was a lot older than me, with that leathery look that comes with doing major jail time could've been anywhere past forty, for all I could tell. "This kind of trouble."

He reached his free hand forward and tapped at my jacket, just above my ribs. That's where the .357 was tucked away. Where I'd figured n.o.body would know it was there. But this guy knew.

"Name's Mason." He'd finished with the disinfectant and now fished a big square adhesive bandage from the first aid kit.

"What Mason?" I hadn't asked him, but had just gone quiet after he'd nailed me about the piece I was carrying. "Or is that your first name?"

"Just Mason." He smoothed the unwrapped bandage into place, just above my left eyebrow, then let my hair fall back over it. Picking up the kit, he set it on his knees and started tucking its contents into place. "That's all."

I went silent, feeling an odd sense of ease from being around him. I figured that was probably because he reminded me of some people I used to know. People in the same line of work I was in. Maybe from not that long ago, but it seemed like a lifetime, almost this kind of thing takes it out of you. When I'd started it, after I'd kinda lost my first mentor Cole I could still see his body slumped in that hallway, with his eyes empty and the blood everywhere I'd hooked up with some other professionals, doing some personal security work that had gotten seriously heavy. But that was what everything I'd learned from Cole had qualified me for. Of course, I'd had to prove it to those sonsab.i.t.c.hes working with a girl wasn't anything that'd come naturally to them. But I'd finally managed to pull it off.

And then we'd all been friends. Or at least as much as people who made their living by killing people ever got cozy with each other. I missed those guys, Foley and Earl and Curt Heinz I knew I'd never see again, since he'd wound up dead on that job we'd all been on.

This guy in the alley behind the c.r.a.ppy Italian restaurant? He'd obviously come out of the same world as those pals of mine. In the life, so to speak. The game. Except they'd done better at it, or had better luck, or things had just broken better for them. So they hadn't done the same kind of time Mason had. Or even any my pal Elton, who I actually did keep in touch with, had never gone into the joint. I was pretty sure he wasn't lying to me about that. But that was the kind of smooth redneck operator Elton was.

So when this Mason fellow had come out of the back of the restaurant, lugging a garbage can full of microwaveable shrimp scampi bags that gone too old to heat up and serve to even the local Boy Scout troops, I'd figured I didn't have anything to worry about. As soon as he'd tilted back the dumpster lid and let it fall behind with a thudding metal clank, he'd discovered me there. Hiding out, making myself scarce from any police who might've been looking for a motorcycle and rider who matched me and the Ninja. Things had gotten so frantic up there on the freeway, especially when I'd been running down the malfunctioning drone before the guy with the souped-up Challenger had been able to grab the backpack from it, there was no telling what the witnesses in the cars and trucks might've said about me. Until I was sure the cops didn't have a bulletin out for me, I was laying low.

Which was the logical reason for not doing anything that might make him rat me out. Yeah, as soon as this Mason spotted me, I could've pulled out the .357 from inside my jacket and silenced him for good. But as long as I had a gut feeling that he was what was known in the life as good people the kind, that is, who wouldn't say squat to the police then why buy myself more trouble? Leaving corpses behind restaurant garbage dumpsters that's the sort of thing that can eventually catch up with you.

"Thanks." I poked the bandage on my brow as I watched him snap shut the first aid kit. "You need to go back in?" I nodded toward the building's back door.

"Nah." Mason lit up another smoke. "They don't care what kinda breaks I take. My parole officer set up this gig. Work release they get me for free, basically. So what've they got to b.i.t.c.h about? Long as I'm checked back into the halfway house before midnight, I'm good."

I didn't ask him what he'd gotten sent up for. It didn't matter.

Same as he didn't ask me at least, right off the bat what kind of trouble I was in. Instead, he sat back down on the plastic beer crate, meditatively watching the clouds of tobacco smoke he exhaled.

Finally, he spoke up. "So " He studied the glowing tip of the cigarette. "Now what're you gonna do?"

"Head on out, I guess." I shrugged. "I've got a delivery to drop off." Picking up the backpack from the bike's seat I'd laid it on top of the other one, that had my own stuff packed in it I held it up and gave it a little shake. "If I'm going to get paid."

One of Mason's eyebrows lifted as he gazed at the dangling backpack. "That's not a lot you're toting." He easily could estimate the bag's slight weight as it swung back and forth. "How much you getting for this job?"

I told him the details, of what I'd be getting paid upon delivery up in San Francisco.

"Hmm." Another long drag, then slow exhale. "You know that's kinda hinky, don't you? n.o.body pays like that, for just muling s.h.i.+t from one point to another. Not in eensy amounts like that. That's the benefits of a market economy, sweetheart there's so much around nowadays, price for courier services has gone way down." With his cigarette, he gestured toward the distant, unseen-but-heard freeway. "If you were running a double tractor-trailer, loaded to the top with pharmaceutical-grade blow, maybe you'd get paid half that amount. Maybe a quarter, even I dunno. Been a while since I've done anything in the transport line."

I stayed quiet while he was talking. Since it wasn't anything I hadn't already considered. I'd accepted the oddball nature of the job when I'd taken it, figuring the money made it worthwhile. Now I was having second thoughts about that.