He was lying in the back of the orange and white van, the sound of its siren blasting in his ears, his body wracked with pain. His good eye was bleary and he could barely turn his head. But still, through the van’s back window, he could see the reflection of the trouble lights spinning on top. He was also being tossed around violently as they were traveling very fast—again. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but guessed it was only a few minutes. Twitch was sprawled beside him, still out cold.
Though groggy and aching badly, Nolan was nevertheless formulating a new plan. It would be a simple one. Once they got to the hospital, he would grab Twitch and run. Back to the ship to regroup and escape. There was nothing wrong with this approach. When the shit has unquestionably hit the fan, you take what you’ve learned, correct your mistakes, adjust your tactics, and live to fight again—that had been the old Delta Force way. Translation: They would come back to whack Sunny Hi another day.
Nolan opened his eye again. His vision cleared a little and he realized some things didn’t seem right. Neither he nor Twitch was on a stretcher, and no one was attending them. They weren’t bandaged; no IVs were stuck in their arms. And hanging on the interior walls of the van were not medical devices, but rows of carving knives and meat cleavers.
What the hell kind of ambulance is this? Nolan thought.
He saw more unusual things around him. Styrofoam coolers. Bags of ice. Boxes of rubber gloves—not the kind surgeons might wear, but industrial-strength gloves that a clean-up crew might wear.
That’s when it hit him.
Jesus Christ …
How tall are you? How much do you weigh? Do you pee regularly? How’s your eyesight?
He painfully reached around his back and made sure there wasn’t a gaping hole where his kidney should be. He did the same thing to his good eye, as nonsensical as that might have been. He was bruised and battered and still under the influence of the Chinese LSD—but he knew what was happening here.
Your liver is worth more than a kilo of cocaine. Your kidney is worth its weight in gold.
Humans hunting humans …
Looking for body parts.
He started shaking Twitch, but this only alerted the two men riding up front in the van. The man in the passenger seat looked back at him and saw Nolan was awake. He tapped the driver and pointed back at him. The driver grunted once and sped up, turning up the volume of the siren as well.
Then the first man started to crawl back toward Nolan. He was holding a large carving knife.
Again, Nolan could barely move, could barely see, and was without a weapon. The man with the knife looked fierce, determined and capable of carving him up. This would not be a fair fight.
But then—Nolan heard a strange pinging noise.
In his altered state, he didn’t recognize the sound at first.
Ping … ping … ping.
It was loud enough to stop the man with the knife from crawling into the back of the van, at least for a moment.
Ping … ping … ping.
Then a shaft of light fell on Nolan’s face. It was alternating blue and red. Another shaft of light appeared—same colors, same frequency. Then came another and another.
Nolan looked up at the van’s walls and saw a dozen holes that weren’t there just a few seconds ago.
There was more pinging, and more holes appeared. They were big enough to stick a finger through and they were smoking around the edges.
Ping … ping … ping.
Nolan managed to sit up a little—and that changed the whole acoustic dynamic.
Suddenly the pings sounded more like bombs going off and the holes were getting bigger and bigger.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Even Nolan was able to figure this out. Someone was shooting at them.
The driver increased the already-breakneck speed, but it did no good. In seconds, the van had been absolutely perforated by some kind of high-powered weapon.
The plan to relieve Nolan and Twitch of their kidneys, their eyes and their spleens had been interrupted. And now there was much confusion inside the van. The driver was no longer expertly cruising at high speed through the narrow streets; he was in a full-blown panic, weaving wildly around people, trucks and other cars.
A brutal crash—Nolan’s second this long night—seemed just microseconds away.