But despite all the gun waving and posturing, no one was going to shoot; they all knew that. The only danger was if one of them fired by mistake.
“Which one of you guys has the key?” one of the fake cops asked out of desperation. “We’re from EOD; we can make a deal with you.”
Twitch kicked one fake cop in the ass and yelled “We got the key … but we know none of you girls will shoot us for it.”
But no sooner were those words out of his mouth than bullets started flying.
Twitch was the first to get hit. He was knocked off the side of the road and into the ditch below. The driver of the Rolls went down next, then the three fake policemen.
In a surreal moment, Batman found himself standing alone, with writhing bleeding bodies all around him. Yet he had no gun—and it wasn’t like the fake cops or the fake cab driver had shot anyone.
He turned to see a large dark-skinned man standing behind him. He was the player at the gagnant, the guy with all the rings on his fingers. He was holding a smoking Lugar-style pistol. Now he pointed it at Batman and pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit Batman square in the chest. He was thrown backward and slammed against the side of the Rolls taxi.
Crumpling to the pavement, the last thing he saw was the man’s hand, with silver rings on every finger, taking the Z-box key from his bloody shirt pocket.
22
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean
NOLAN KNEW HE was dead because an angel was looking down at him.
She was smiling and laughing and he could see her wings. There was a halo around her head and a bright white light behind her. This light was as bright as the sun and it felt warm and safe and it made Nolan feel like he’d wasted way too many years suffering on Earth, when the afterlife was so much better.
In the next second, though, he was awake for real, feeling cold and wet, with just about every body appendage feeling like it was falling off.
But … still, there was an angel hovering over him.
The blond hair flying everywhere. The enormous blue eyes. The wide smile …
It was Emma.
Alive, somehow …
As soon as he opened his eyes, she hugged him as hard as she could. He thought she would squeeze out what little life he had left in him.
“How?” was all he could mumble through his salt-cracked lips. “How…”
“I swam here, silly,” she replied, squeezing him even tighter.
“I mean, how did you make it off the boat?”
“The fat guy threw me on a life raft just as the other boat shot at us,” she explained breathlessly. “But when he tried to jump on, he missed—and that was the end of him. The raft had some bullet holes in it, but it got me far enough away so I could swim for it.”
She finally released him from the monster embrace and touched his face.
“At least I was dressed for it,” she said, referring to her very brief bathing suit.
At this point, at least one of Nolan’s appendages was beginning to get some feeling back.
“How long was I out?” he asked her.
“A few hours at least,” she replied. “I looked all over for you.”
Nolan wiped the grit from his eye. “At least I got some sleep,” he mumbled.
“Think you can stand up?” she asked him. “You’ve got to see what I’ve found here.”
“Please tell me it’s a bottle of scotch…”
“We’re not that lucky,” she replied. “But I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.”
She got him to his feet and steadied him.
“Where are we?” he asked her, looking around as his faculties slowly came back to him. The island was like something from a travel brochure, all palm trees and lush tropical vegetation.
“I’ve got no idea,” she replied. “We traveled a long way last night. I was trying to keep track. I wish I knew how to navigate by the stars, but I think we were going north. Then that storm blew up—and then we got sunk. So, we’re lost, I guess. We could be anywhere.”
“Sounds like something from a film,” he said, only half-kidding.
She nudged him. “Please,” she said. “That’s now a four-letter word in my book.”
They walked up the beach and over a rise. On the other side they could see the northern tip of the island. It was made up of a small lagoon bordered on three sides by tall palm trees