Three other gunshots followed in quick succession.
“Yeah,” Tyler said. He swore vehemently. “He’s a crazy son of a bitch, Kate. If it’s movin’ out there in the brush, he’s shootin’ at it. Damn wonder he ain’t shot nobody. He’s an anesthesiologist, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Something tells me that man’s been raidin’ his own goodie box.”
“Give me fifteen more minutes,” Kate said. She put her foot down harder on the accelerator, getting ready to pass the D.O.C. bus. “I’ll be there.”
Another gunshot echoed over the phone connection.
“Sure,” Tyler said sourly.
Kate pulled alongside the D.O.C. bus. She couldn’t help glancing inside the vehicle.
Nearly a dozen men sat in rigid-looking seats behind a wire mesh screen that protected the driver and the armed guard in the front.
One of the prisoners sat at the window. Sunlight glinted from his unruly shoulder-length blond hair, picking up the streaks that summer had burned into it. His face was chiseled with a few days’ dark beard growth lightly covering his cheeks and jaw. Wide-spaced hazel eyes peered out from under dark brows that arched with sardonic amusement. Despite the shaggy look, the dimple in his chin showed plainly. He wore the familiar orange inmate jumpsuit.
He glanced at his watch, then back at Kate. The amusement left his features and concern filled them.
“Just do what you can,” Kate said into the phone. She tried to shake the prisoner’s gaze but found it hard to look away. The man was handsome and she couldn’t help wondering what he had done to get locked up. “I’ll be there as soon as—”
The double explosion ripped through the Jeep’s interior. At the same time that she realized the sound had come from beside her and not from the cell phone, Kate saw the bus’s front tire shred and come apart. Chunks of rubber flew through the air and slapped against the Jeep, knocking bug debris from the windshield.
Throwing the cell phone down, Kate put both hands on the wheel and tried to speed up as the bus crossed the dotted lines. Before she was able to get clear, the bus slammed against the Cherokee’s right rear quarter panel.
Although the collision barely caught the Jeep, the vehicle wobbled and the tires tore free of the highway pavement. Kate tried to shove the transmission into four-wheel-drive with the shift-on-the-fly selector but by then it was too late.
The Jeep swapped ends, spinning out of control. Metal screeched as the bus slammed into the smaller vehicle again, driving it like a battering ram, striking again and again. The passenger window shattered and fell away. The side mirror crumpled inward and fell off.
Kate struggled to recover, jerking the steering wheel and alternately hitting the brakes and the accelerator. Evidently the bus driver was trying to do the same thing because the bigger vehicle tore free. As she tried to regain control of the Jeep, Kate watched in horror as the D.O.C. bus fell over on its side.
Careening wildly across the two lanes, the bus left a trail of sparks. The sound of tortured metal shrilled over the area, startling dozens of birds from the trees and filling the sky with feathery clouds for a moment.
Then Kate lost sight of the bus as the Jeep left the road and skidded into the swampy treeline. She held on grimly as the vehicle crashed through the brush. The seat belt felt as if it was cutting her in two as it restrained her. She came to an abrupt stop against a cluster of knobby-kneed cypress trees in black water.
Even though he’d been prepared for the explosion and the eventual wreck, Shane still jumped at the sound. Seated in the stiff seat, he grabbed hold of the chains secured to the D-ring in the floor between his feet. He lifted a foot and jammed it against the seat in front of him.
Some plan, he told himself. You’re going to be lucky if you don’t get somebody killed.
That wasn’t the plan. The plan was all about escape. For himself and for the men he’d fallen in with while in prison. The man who had rigged the explosion worked in Hollywood doing elaborate movie stunts for guys like Richard Donner and John Woo. All stuff with big explosions and flying cars.
It’s a hell of a lot easier watching a stunt like that than being involved in it, Shane thought as the bus started to flip.
All around him, the prisoners cried out, scared and surprised.
Except for Raymond Jolly. The big man sat braced in his seat, broad face implacable. He glanced at Shane with those dead eyes. “You ready?” he asked.
Shane leaned forward to reach Jolly’s hands and took the lock pick he’d fashioned from a piece of wire he’d snared while the prisoners had been at the hospital. They’d been tested for an outbreak of the latest flu everyone was talking about in the media. Shane’s nose still hurt from the deep swab.
Working quickly, he picked the lock. The cuffs fell open. By the time the bus was sliding along on its side, finally slowing with a deep grinding noise, he had his legs free.
He pushed himself up and checked the driver and the guard. The guard’s attention was locked on the wounded driver. Shane walked across the seats, duckwalking from seat to seat as he used his hands on the seats above him.
Reaching the wire-mesh door, he used the lock pick again. The guard heard the noise a beat too late. Shane opened the door as the guard started to raise his shotgun. Grabbing the weapon’s barrel, Shane shoved forward, closed his hand into a big fist, then hit the man in the face.
The guard stumbled backward, releasing the shotgun.
Grabbing the shotgun, Shane rammed the butt into the side of the guard’s jaw. Go down! Shane thought.
The man’s eyes rolled up inside his head and he sank into a boneless heap.
Shane breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to kill anyone.
“Shane!” Jolly yelled.
Reaching down, Shane took the guard’s keys and tossed them back to Jolly.
Jolly caught the keys and quickly uncuffed himself. He handed the keys to the prisoners next to him, then he made his way forward and joined Shane.
“Gonna have to climb out the window.” Jolly plucked the sidearm from the fallen guard. He grinned crookedly at Shane. “Woulda been better if the bus had fallen the other way.”
“Would have been worse if my buddy hadn’t been able to rig the bus,” Shane pointed out.
“Yeah.” Jolly looked at the two fallen guards.
Shane knew the man was thinking of killing them. Raymond Jolly was a merciless man and had killed before. “If you kill one of them,” Shane said in a calm, non-threatening voice, “I guarantee you’re going to amp up the pursuit. Escaping prisoners is one thing. Escaping prisoners who capped guards while they were helpless is another.”
Jolly hesitated for just a moment, then nodded. “Let’s hit it.” He shifted his attention to the driver’s-side window and surged up.
Shane’s
