if not for him, she would be nowhere near the predicament from which he was now trying to extract her.
He was at the left turn now, leaving more screaming and shouting and horn honking behind him. He pulled too hard for the turn, and the little two-stroke machine rocked high, its left rear wheel off the ground for a few seconds before banging back to the dusty pavement, causing the cab of the vehicle to bottom out with an ear-piercing scrape. Gasoline sloshed on his pants leg, but he’d managed to save eighty percent of the contents of the bucket by lifting his opposite knee to compensate for the tilting in his seat.
And then there it was, right ahead of him and on the right. The wall was lower than he had expected, and the building was taller and a bit more ornate than he had envisioned. There was an access gate with a guardhouse on the near side of the road, and some sort of tin-shack bunker on the far side.
And there was the NSS car, about to make a right turn at the intersection ahead, just beyond the entrance to the Ghost House.
Shit, thought Court. Not going to make it.
But he floored the little rickshaw and leaned forward, hoped against hope something would slow down the sedan’s advance on the entrance.
A donkey pulling a cart overladen with plastic watering cans entered the intersection in front of the NSS sedan, causing it to slow and honk. It was twenty-five yards tops to the entry drive of the Ghost House, and Court knew this was his chance, he would get to the sedan in time, though his odds for success at any part of his plan after that were still pretty lousy. He grabbed the bucket of gas by its rickety handle, held the rickshaw straight by its throttle, and barreled in on the stationary car. Just as the donkey cart began rolling out of the way and the sedan started to drift forward again, Gentry let go of the handlebar, spun out of his seat, and leapt out of the rickshaw. Though he stumbled forward and splashed another twenty-five percent of the gasoline from the bucket, he remained on his feet, running into screeching and honking traffic.
The rickshaw slammed into the front passenger-side door of the NSS car at twenty miles an hour, jolting and denting the car with a crunching crash and knocking it into the wooden cart in front of it.
TWENTY
Horns honked at Gentry, at the accident itself, in annoyance of the delay this would surely cause. Animals brayed at the loud noise of the crash and the ensuing protesting blarings.
The NSS car had stopped in the middle of the intersection, its headlights reflecting off of steam pouring forth from its grill. The rickshaw had bounced away and rolled on its side in the street. Gas flowed from its open tank.
Court arrived at the passenger-side door just as the dazed NSS commander kicked it open. Gentry grabbed the small bespectacled man by his necktie and pulled him free of the wreckage and then let him go, using both hands now to douse the bucket of gasoline over the man’s head.
The two soldiers were piling out of the back of the car, and the driver was slowly exiting his side, when Court pulled the road flare from his pants pocket, pulled the lid off the top, and struck the wick on the head. With an explosion of fire and sparks, he held the flare far away from his body with his left hand. With his right he grabbed the NSS commander by his collar and pulled him tight in a headlock.
The soldiers from the back of the car leveled their guns and screamed at him.
The NSS subordinate moved around the car, his pistol high in his hands, and screamed at him.
Three uniformed guards from the Ghost House approaching the wreck lifted their rifles to their shoulders and screamed at him.
Court stood in the middle of the intersection, holding the commander tight by the neck. He spoke softly into his ear in English.
“Reach for your gun, and I burn you.”
The man said nothing, but his hands pushed out wide from his body, away from the holster on his hip under his suit coat.
Court whipped the sparkling flare close to the man and then jerked it away quickly. “If they shoot me, I drop this. If I drop this, you die. Understand?”
The man clearly understood. He raised his arms high