escape."
I ponder this. They must know me, even better than Lenny thinks. How's that possible? Have I left that much evidence behind? I think of the Coliseum, the necks I broke, the javelins I threw. It's possible, I suppose.
"I am going to escape," I tell Lenny, picking up the dropped machine gun and shotgun from the front seats. I also yank a flak jacket off one of the men. "One way or the other."
"They'll open fire," Lenny protests.
"Let them." I take ammunition for both weapons from the unconscious men. I gesture to Joel, who is still getting adjusted to his vampire senses. He's staring around the interior of the van as if he's stoned. "Put on one of those flak jackets," I tell him.
"Does there have to be shooting?" he asks.
"There will be a lot of shooting." I speak to Lenny. "What's the top speed of this van?"
"Eighty miles an hour."
I groan. "I need a cop car."
"There are a lot of them behind and in front of us," Lenny says.
I peer at the chopper in the sky. "They hang close to the ground."
"They're heavily armed," Lenny says. "They won't let you escape."
I climb in the front seat beside him, shoving the men aside. The flak jacket is a little large on me. "You think I should surrender?"
"Yes." He adds quickly, "That's just my opinion."
"You just follow my orders if you want to live," I say, studying the cruisers in front, in back. Sixteen altogether--two officers in each, I know. Plus there are at least three unmarked cars--FBI agents. It continues to amaze me how quickly they took Joel into custody. They hardly gave him a chance to speak. I call back to him, "Come up here. We're going to switch vehicles in a few minutes."
Joel pokes his head close to my shoulder, flak jacket in place. "The chopper is a problem," he says. "It doesn't matter how good a driver you are or how many cop cars you disable. It'll stay with us, lighting us up."
"Maybe. Put on a seat belt." I brace a foot on the dashboard and point to an approaching alley. "There, Lenny, I want you to take a hard left. Floor it as soon as you come out of the turn."
Lenny sweats. "OK."
I start to hand Joel Lenny's revolver. "Don't be afraid to cover my back." I pause and catch his eye. "You are on my side, aren't you?"
Joel hesitates. "I won't kill anybody."
"Will you try to kill me?"
"No."
I give him the revolver. "All right." The alley closes. "Get ready, Lenny. No tricks. Just put as much distance between us and the procession as you can."
Lenny veers to the left. The alley is narrow; the van shoots through it at high speed, knocking over garbage cans and crates. The response from the cops is imme?diate. Half the cars jam into the alley in pursuit. But half is better than all, and locked in behind us as they are, the cops can't fire at us so easily.
Unfortunately, the alley crosses several streets. For?tunately, it's midnight, with almost no traffic. At the first street we're lucky. But we lose two police cars to a collision. At the second crossing we're also fortunate. But as we drive into the third cross street we smash sideways into the only vehicle on the street, an open produce truck loaded with oranges. The fruit spills over the van. Lenny has bumped his head on the steering wheel and appears to be dazed. He gets another bump on his head when a squad car smashes into us from behind. This is what I wanted--a pileup. "Come on!" I call to Joel. I jump out of the side of the van and raise the machine gun and fire a spray of bullets at the cars piled up behind us. They are pinned down, but I know it won't be long before a herd of fresh cars comes around the block. The suddenness of my attack causes them to scramble from their vehicles. Overhead, the chopper swoops dangerously low, the spotlight momentarily focused straight on me. I look through the glare of the light and see a marksman stand in the open doorway and raise a high-powered rifle. Pump?ing the shotgun, I take aim at him and pull the trigger.
The man loses the top of his head.
His lifeless body falls onto the roof of a nearby building.
I am not finished.
My next shot takes out the spotlight. My third hits the small vertical rotor at the