The two of them grappled with the rifle, but it was a one-sided struggle and the outcome was never really in doubt. The soldier easily gained the advantage. He yanked the rifle round hard, sending Redlaw slithering backwards across the roof.
The piled-up snow saved Redlaw, slowing his progress, giving him the chance to catch himself before he toppled off the side. He dug in with his hands and feet and launched himself back at the soldier like a sprinter from the starting blocks. Jacobsen’s combat knife slid from its sheath.
The soldier stepped smartly aside. Redlaw slashed with the knife as he lurched past. Cloth tore. No wound. But that was fine. A section of the soldier’s trousers split open, revealing chocolate-brown skin.
The soldier chuckled.
“Missed!”
Then he cursed.
“Oww. Shit. Cocksucker. That smarts.”
Sun. Burning.
Redlaw doubled back, not so much running as scrambling on all fours. The bus was jouncing and swaying. It was tricky to stay upright.
The knife made a rent in the soldier’s sleeve.
“Oh, no. You did not.”
Before Redlaw could regroup for a third attack, the soldier reached out, astonishingly fast, and seized him by the neck.
“That’s quite enough of that, little man. My turn to bring the pain.”
He hoisted Redlaw up with one hand, throttling him. With his other hand he grasped Redlaw’s wrist, holding the knife at bay.
“Gonna squeeze the life out of you. Gonna pop that pointy head right off of its stem.”
Redlaw clutched the soldier’s goggles and pulled them down.
Instantly he was dropped. The soldier fumblingly clawed the goggles back into place. This gave Redlaw time to lunge for Jacobsen’s AR-15, which lay half buried nearby.
He fired the shot one-handed while lying on his side, propped up on an elbow. Not the ideal position if accuracy was your goal. His target was sizeable, and close, but still he managed only to wing the soldier, clipping his shoulder.
He didn’t get the chance to fire a second shot. The soldier hurled himself at him with a feral growl. He dived into Redlaw head-first and together they slithered on their bellies along the roof towards the rear of the bus. The AR-15 slid off the roof. Redlaw felt himself swinging outwards into empty air. He fell. The soldier fell with him.
Redlaw latched on to the top of the wide-open rear door with a flailing hand. The soldier did the same. For several moments the two of them hung off the door side by side, clinging on for all they were worth, legs dangling.
Then the soldier got his act together and started kicking Redlaw. He delivered two, three, four good heel-shots to Redlaw’s midriff and thigh. Redlaw could feel his fragile purchase on the door slipping. The Hummer was zooming up behind. If he lost his grip he would fall beneath the car’s wheels, or bounce brokenly off its bull bar.
The knife was still in his other hand. Somehow he hadn’t dropped it.
He reached across and sliced down through the soldier’s knuckles. Severed fingers flew in all directions. The man screeched and tumbled away from the bus, his immense bulk landing on the Hummer’s bonnet with an thunderous whump.
The Hummer braked sharply. With the soldier sprawled on its bonnet, it fishtailed on the snow, coming to a halt sideways across the road.
The bus lumbered onward. Redlaw, with tremendous effort, eased his legs through the doorway, then swung the rest of him inside. He hauled the door shut and lay in the aisle, panting and wheezing. His side, where he’d been kicked, throbbed. His neck felt mangled. His windpipe seemed to have been reduced to the diameter of a drinking straw.
“Redlaw!” exclaimed Tina. “God. Are you okay?”
“Never better,” Redlaw croaked.
She helped him to his feet. “Looks like you did it. You saw them off. They won’t be coming after us again in a hurry.”
“Don’t you believe it.” Redlaw hobbled to the front of the bus. “Miguel. I’m back. You’re relieved.”
They performed another rapid changeover. Redlaw stiffly took the controls while Miguel collapsed into the nearest seat.
“About time,” he gasped. “I’ve pretty much gone blind.”
It was no exaggeration. The skin around his eyes was seared black, and his eyeballs themselves were stippled with blisters, the irises opaque as though afflicted with severe cataracts.
“You did a great job,” Redlaw reassured him. “Can’t fault it.”
“We haven’t stopped them, though.”
“Afraid not. Paused them, given them something to think about, but no, they’re hardly out of action.”
“Damn. I guess it was too much to hope.”
We’ve also lost Jacobsen’s gun, Redlaw thought.
They had gained a reprieve. And some ground.
The chase, however, was far from over.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
BERGER AND GIACOIA helped Child into the back seat.
“Goddamn sonofabitch motherfucking motherfucker!” Child was clasping his fingerless hand to his chest with his forearm.
Also on the back seat was Abbotts. He had both hands cupped over his groin, holding a wad of blood-soaked surgical dressing in place. A shot of morphine from the first-aid kit had blunted his pain. One side of his face was a lattice of criss-crossing wound closure strips.
“What’re you bitching about?” he snarled at Child.
“Asshole took my fingers off.”
“Yeah? So what? He blew off one of my nuts. My fucking nut!”
“Not as if you need it. Ugly-ass cracker motherfucker like you, never get laid anyway.”
“Yeah, well, you ain’t got no right hand to speak of any more,” Abbotts shot back. “Can’t even jerk off now, bruh.”
“Don’t you ‘bruh’ me.”
“What, you’d prefer ‘dawg’? ‘My nigga’? How about ‘boy’?”
“Now listen up, you inbred piece of—”
“Enough!” Berger snapped. “You two stop the baby-whining. You’ve both got boo-boos, we get it. Now man up, shut the fuck up, and listen. Maintain pressure on those wounds. You’re going to live. But we can’t afford to take you to a hospital right now and get you seen to. We do, and we lose Redlaw, maybe for good. Doctors’ll have to wait. You sit tight while we see this thing through. Got that?”
Child and Abbotts nodded.
“Good. Lim, morphine Child up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Berger slid back behind the wheel of the Hummer and reversed at full tilt. The rear fender banged into a parked car, setting its alarm whooping. Berger yanked the wheel hard round and sped off after the school bus, still just in sight.
Berger watched the Hummer narrow the gap between it and the bus. If Redlaw’s intention was to escape from Manhattan and do it fast, then he was on the wrong side of the island. The exit routes along the West Side were all tunnels until you reached the George Washington Bridge way up in the upper hundreds.
A bridge was a pinch-point. A tunnel even more so.
Pinch-points were where escapees got caught.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
10.15AM EASTERN STANDARD Time. Late night in Japan. Farthingale hated himself for phoning Uona now, at his home. He knew how pathetic it looked.
“Moshi-moshi,” said a woman, sounding sleepy and unimpressed.
Uona’s wife. What was her name again?
“Izumi. Howard Farthingale. Good evening. I’m sorry for—”
There was a string of Japanese from Mrs Uona, the tone shrill and irritable. He couldn’t tell if it was directed at him or not. Then he heard the sound of a phone receiver changing hands.
“Howard,” said Uona. “If you have forgotten the time difference between the East Coast and Tokyo, let me remind you. We’re ten hours behind. Or fourteen ahead, allowing for the date line. Either way, it’s gone midnight here.”
“Yukinobu, please, I’m in real trouble.”
“You know?”
“Before I turned in for the night, I received information from certain sources that your Red Eye operatives have—how to put this?—disenfranchised themselves and gone independent. I’m also led to understand that your chief executive has washed his hands of you.”
“He’s going to throw me to the wolves.”
“That would seem likely, yes.”
“You knew all this, and you didn’t get in touch?” Farthingale tried to keep the hurt out of his voice.
“What would have been the advantage in that?”
“You could have offered to help.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Somehow. At least showed some support.”
“Do you wish me to help?”
“Yes! Why the hell else do you think I’m ringing you?”
“But what can I do?” said Uona. “Your part of the world. Your people. Your pet project. I’m seven thousand miles away. It’s a whole different day here. Your today is my yesterday. Do you expect me to wave a magic wand from such a distance and make everything all right again? I am not your fairy godmother. Your mess. You clean it up.”
“You’re not uninvolved in this,” Farthingale said. “You have interests. Shares in my companies. As I do in yours. I go down, you go down too.”
“Oh, Howard. Hasn’t our experience with Nathaniel taught you anything? We profit from one another’s gains, but also from one another’s losses. A catastrophe for you would be a prize opportunity for me.”
“You vulture. Would you really—”
“I’m sorry, Howard, but this conversation is over. I have a very upset Izumi in bed beside me. She does so hate having her sleep interrupted. I shall be soothing her for the next half-hour at least.”
“Yukinobu...”
“Don’t beg. It’s undignified.”
“Yukinobu, please. There must be something you can do. Go on, throw me a bone.”
A continent and an ocean away, Uona appeared to be thinking.
“Anything at all,” Farthingale went on. “Picture me prostrating myself in front of you. Humiliating myself.”
“And losing all face,” Uona said.
“I’m a gaijin. We don’t have any face to start with, do we? Not as far as you’re concerned.”
“Reverse psychology. Doesn’t always work.”
“How long have we known each other?”
“Nor does appealing to commonality.” Uona seemed to soften, taking pity on him. “I will give you something. How useful it will be is up to you. Check your email inbox shortly. But remember, Howard, whatever happens to you will not automatically happen to me. I am far ahead, already moving on. I repeat: your today is my yesterday. It’s always been thus.”
FARTHINGALE MONITORED HIS inbox obsessively, waiting for Uona’s address to pop up in the new-email window.
Come on, come on.
He was seething about the way Uona had treated him—the sheer callous indifference—yet he was also desperately hopeful that his Japanese colleague would prove to be his saviour. They were peers, but Uona was older, wiser, marginally wealthier. Perhaps he had a right to look down on Farthingale.
One thing Farthingale was certain of. If Uona ever came crawling to him asking for a lifeline, he would sure as hell think twice before throwing it.
That was assuming he managed to get through this whole clusterfuck intact. Which was far from guaranteed.
A soft ping. The email finally arrived.
No covering message. No attachment. Just a link.
Farthingale clicked on it.
He was taken to a site called Tick Talk.
Home-video footage of vampires. So goddamn what?
He nearly closed the window. Was this some kind of joke? Was Uona having a laugh at his expense? Sticking the knife in and giving it a good twist?
Almost on a whim, he played one of the video clips.
And another.
And then another.
Holy shit.
Redlaw. And Colonel Jacobsen. And the rest of Team Red Eye. And not just any bunch of vampires but the very ones Red Eye were pursuing.
There was somebody with Redlaw, then, filming his exploits and posting them online for all to see.
Meaning either Redlaw was the arrogantest, biggest-balled bastard on the planet, or he was unaware that the footage had been broadcast.
All the evidence suggested the latter.
So this woman, this Tina Checkley, she behind the camera, was a kind of spy in the enemy camp. At the very least, a conduit linking Redlaw to the outside world without his knowledge.
An asset.
And assets could be bought. They invariably had a price.
Farthingale, for what felt like the first time in months, grinned.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
MIGUEL WAS FADING fast. His wounded leg was crumbling, slow-burning with a sickly smoky-barbecue stench. His fangs were bared and clenched.
Yet, between feverish groans, he was still able to argue with Tina.
“Eleventh? Don’t be dumb. Eleventh isn’t—isn’t two-way this far south. Stay on Tenth... until Thirtieth Street. That’s the best route.”
“But the Eleventh entrance is quicker.”
“But it’s for cars only. Don’t you know anything? I’ve been driving these streets for years. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Well, I still say we should take the Holland Tunnel anyway.”
“Listen, chica, the Lincoln has a bus lane. A bus lane. And this is a bus.”
“What, and you think somehow that’ll stop those psychos following us? ‘Oops, we can’t go down there, we don’t have a bus.’ I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but they don’t give a damn about the law.”
“I’m just—just trying to gain us an edge,” said Miguel, and he hissed as another spasm of pain wracked him.
“Tina, leave him be,” said Redlaw. “If you want to be useful, go to the back and look out.”
“No way. The back is where the bullets come in. I’m not planning on getting shot.”
“I’ll shoot you if you don’t do as I ask.”
Tina glared at him. “You know what the trouble with you is? I can never tell whether you’re joking or not.”
“Presume I’m not and act accordingly.”
Tina stomped to the rear of the bus and cautiously put her eye to one of the bullet holes in the paper. “Yup. They’re still there. Gaining on us, but slowly.”
“Can you tell what avenue we’re on? Is it Tenth?”
“Looks like it. I think that’s Chelsea Park we just passed.”
“You ‘think’?”
“Everything looks different in the snow. And I’m not a fucking tour guide.”
“No, a tour guide wouldn’t resort to profanity all the time.”
“You’re calling me on that?” Tina shot back. “Even now? Bunch of trigger-happy goons gunning for us and I’m still not allowed to swear?”
“You two, get a room,” gasped Miguel.
And then he screamed in pure, all-consuming agony. The decaying process had abruptly accelerated, an exponential increase achieving overload. His body hurtled towards dissolution. He became a shuddering, smouldering thing, fiery blackness spreading through him, his clothes disintegrating with the heat. Sinews tightened, turned brittle, snapped. Bone was reduced to cinder. Hair crackled to nothingness. All at once his writhing form collapsed, spilling across seat and floor as just so much incandescent dust.
“Oh, my sweet fucking Jesus,” Tina breathed.
“No!” sobbed Diane. “That was ghastly. No.”
Anu had his ears covered.
Patti turned her face away, dumbstruck, appalled.
The vampires had seen many of their own number annihilated during the past twenty-four hours, but Miguel’s demise seemed to hit them particularly hard. It had been so protracted, so clearly excruciating. Not the instan
taneous oblivion offered by an injury to the heart.
“You’re supposed to be our shtriga,” said Andy to Redlaw. His voice quivered with fear and indignation. “Supposed to be protecting us. Good job you’re doing of it, huh? You ‘protected’ Miguel pretty well, didn’t you?”
“Hey!” said Denzel. “You stow that shit, you Tim Burton reject. Man’s doing his best. Just put his life on the line climbing on top of the bus. Show some goddamn respect.”
“I’m just saying, Father Tchaikovsky would never have let Miguel get shot like that.”
“Father Tchaikovsky’s not here. We got to make do with what we’ve got. You want to go it alone? Fine, be our guest. First chance we get, we’ll drop you off. See how long you last.”
“Yeah, I might just do that. Cindy’ll come with me. Won’t you, Cindy? We can make it on our own, the two of us.”
“Uh, actually, Andy,” said Cindy nervously, “I think I’d be better off with Mr Redlaw. Not being mean or anything, but he’s a whole lot tougher than you are, and he seems to know what he’s doing.”
Andy goggled. “Cindy, I’m your sire. I made you. You’re beholden to me.”
“I’m not completely sure what ‘beholden’ is,” the girl vampire replied, “but I’d much more like to be it to Mr Redlaw than to you. Sorry, Andy.”
Andy’s doughy features set into a glum pout. “This would never have happened to Lestat,” he murmured.
Redlaw said, “I’ve just seen a sign overhead on that railway bridge. ‘Expressway To Lincoln Tunnel,’ right.” He made the turn. “Tina? What’s the status on our pursuers?”
“The status,” Tina said, peering out again, “is that they’re still behind, but kind of keeping their distance now.”
“Of course they are. They can afford to. We’ve just tipped our hand, and they think we’ve trapped ourselves. Which we may have. This tunnel. Just so we’re clear. There aren’t any barriers or tollbooths?”
“Not going west. You pay to enter Manhattan but not to leave. Because nobody’d pay to go to Jersey.”
“So we’re not going to be forced to slow down or ram through anything,” said Redlaw. “Good. But the Hummer wouldn’t be hanging back if the soldiers didn’t believe they can use the tunnel to their advantage.”
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