struck the car as the tow truck butted it from behind. Glass shattered, metal crumpled.
Steve had his seat belt on, but even so, he received a hell of a jolt, a real bone-jarring thud. For an instant, he saw the world in triple images before his eyesight came back into focus.
Another slug from the gun wielded by the Crown Vic’s driver tagged the sedan’s windshield, disintegrating it. A hail of crystal cubes of safety glass pelted Steve, as if a couple of shovelfuls of rock salt had been flung into the front seat.
He was bent forward, almost doubled over from the force of the rear-end collision, so most of the glass hit the back of his neck, shoulders, and upper back, stabbbing them with dozens of needles of stinging pain.
His car was moving now, sliding forward as the tow truck pushed it, shoving it with its massive oversized reinforced-steel front bumper. The tow truck driver must have been stomping the gas pedal because Steve could hear the engine whining higher and louder in a steady, rhythmic rise and fall.
More bullets tore through the sedan, this time coming from behind, from the tow truck.
The tow truck’s front met the sedan’s rear at an angle. Instead of pushing the car straight forward, it pushed it at an angle. Tortured metal yowled as the sedan’s right front fender ground against the ramp’s outer stone retaining wall. It caught in place, arresting its forward motion.
Steve hit the seat belt release. For an awful, heart-stopping instant, nothing happened, and he was seized by the fear that it had locked up; then there was a click and the belt came undone and he was shucking it open and off himself as he rose, springing up from his seat.
The Crown Vic killer had done him a favor by shooting out the windshield, because there was nothing in Steve’s way to stop him as he scrambled over the top of the steering wheel and dashboard and through the big gaping slot where the windshield had been. Slithering like a snake across a hot rock, he lunged across the buckling car hood, dropping down on the driver’s side of the pavement.
The rib of a vertical abutment stood out from the inner side of the ramp wall a few feet away. Steve rolled toward it. Oil and gas were leaking from the underside of his wounded car. A fusillade of bullets from the tow truck ripped harmlessly overhead.
More rounds came came his way from the Crown Vic’s driver. Steve caught a glimpse of him standing with his gun hand braced against the car roof, muzzle flashes spearing from the tip of the weapon.
Bullets thunked into the driver’s side of the sedan as the killer tried to get a bead on Steve. One tore out a palm-sized chunk of pavement near Steve’s head, spraying his neck and shoulder with rock chips.
Then Steve reached the shelter of the abutment, crouching, getting his back against the square-edged side of the pillar. Taking him out of the Crown Vic driver’s line of fire. He reached for his hip, and the gun was out of his waistband and in his hand fast. He was facing the tow truck. It was white and painted on the front in big red letters was the legend BELTWAY TOWING.
It held a two-man crew, a driver and a shooter. The shooter was hanging out of the passenger side of the cab, way out, holding on with his left hand and wielding a big-caliber gun in his right. A skinny ferret face showed beneath a flat, narrow-brimmed forager’s cap. He was angling for a shot at Steve, but the sedan was in his way. He kept leaning further and further out, trying to find the range.
The sedan worked both ways, blocking Steve from getting a clear shot at the gunman. He had a nice clean firing line on the driver, though. He squeezed off a couple of rounds, putting them in a tight group through the windshield and into the silhouetted outline of the figure hunched above the top of the steering wheel.
The driver slumped forward. His foot must have come down hard on the gas pedal because the tow truck gave a sudden lurch forward into the side of the sedan. The frame snapped and the car folded into a V-shape, arresting the tow truck’s forward motion so that it jerked to a halt, stalling out.
The shooter lost his grip and, with a cry, fell out of the cab to the pavement. He fell hard, dropping his gun. It skittered across the asphalt, sliding under the sedan. He crouched on hands and knees beside the tow truck. Steve could see him beneath the vehicle’s undercarriage; at least, his hands and arms, and his folded legs.
Steve shot him in the leg. The shooter flopped facedown, writhing on the pavement. Steve put another shot into his side, under his arm. He stopped thrashing and lay still. His forager’s cap was still jammed tight on his head.
Smoke rose from the crumpled sedan; unseen flames crackled. Steve turned his attention to the Crown Vic’s driver and threw some slugs his way. The guy jumped behind the wheel and sped off.
Steve fired a few more rounds at the vehicle’s rear, but scored no hits. The Crown Vic rounded a corner, out of sight.
Steve now knew that there’d been a flaw in his calculations. Apparently, the killer had been aware that Steve was tailing him after all. No doubt he’d used his cell phone to contact his buddies in the tow truck to help prepare a surprise party for Steve. Turned out the surprise was on them, though.
Steve ejected the empty clip and slammed home a full one. On foot in this neighborhood, he’d need it.
He wanted to put some distance between himself and the sedan before the fire really got going. He reached the bottom of the ramp and was a half block away before the gas tank blew up.
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