She tried. Katia pulled herself out into the aisle as her foot tugged and strained at the end of the ankle chain.
Daniela crawled forward down the aisle. She gained two or three feet, threw her body flat out on the floor dragging Katia with her. She stretched, reaching for the rifle on the first dead man. But the slack on the chain wasn’t enough. She needed at least another foot. She yanked frantically on the waist chain as Katia tried desperately to pull herself farther out.
The woman continued to scream.
“Shut up.” Daniela looked up at her. “Get the rifle. You can reach it,” said Daniela. “Just hand it to me. That’s all you have to do.”
The woman didn’t look at her. She stared out at nothing. Her face was being scratched by the frantic action of her own grasping finger as her frenzied screams reached fever pitch.
“Please!” cried Daniela. “Just lean over and hand me the gun. You’ll be fine. I can keep them away from us if I have the gun,” she pleaded.
One of the other women ten or twelve rows up crawled out from between the seats, looked back at Daniela, and then reached out and grabbed the assault rifle on the other dead man. She grasped it with one hand.
Daniela looked at her and smiled. “Good! Now pass it to me.”
The woman carefully slid the shoulder strap off the dead man.
“See if you can reach the bag on his other shoulder. It should have loaded clips,” said Daniela.
The woman reached out and got the bag. She looked inside, reached in and pulled out one of the clips, holding it up for Daniela to see.
“Good,” said Daniela. “Toss the bag first. Then the gun.”
The woman looked at her as the other one continued to scream. “How does it work? Do I just pull the trigger?”
“No, don’t do that,” said Daniela. “See the lever on the right, on the side above the trigger? Push it all the way up until it’s pointing in the same direction as the barrel. That will put the safety on.”
The woman found the lever and pushed it up.
“Good. Now throw the rifle back here.”
“No,” said the woman. “You’re too far back. You can’t protect us from there.”
“I can,” said Daniela.
“
The woman stopped screaming.
“We don’t have all day,” said the man.
“Throw it to me,” said Daniela.
The woman holding the rifle looked frantically back toward her. As she turned back toward the door, she seemed to freeze.
“The police will be here any minute.”
The man bounded up the steps and into the bus. “What’s taking so long? Let’s move.” He looked through the cage door down the aisle. The first thing he saw were the two dead button boys lying on the floor. Next he saw the muzzle of the rifle aimed at his chest.
For an instant she hesitated. Then she pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She had forgotten to flip the safety lever down.
Daniela reached back on the floor behind her for the Walther, but it was too late. She touched the handle of the gun just as the ear-splitting sound of the man’s Kalashnikov and the odor of burnt nitrates from the gunpowder filled the bus.
Daniela got only a glimpse as the opening spray of bullets caught the woman holding the rifle full in the chest. It lifted her off the floor, leaving the rifle in midair, as if it were wired in place, for a full second before it fell. The impact threw her lifeless body across the seat and she collided with the wall of the bus.
Daniela hugged the floor, Katia right behind her, their heads down as the guy emptied the full banana clip into the passenger section of the bus. One of the rounds ricocheted off steel and caromed off the floor.
Katia flinched as she felt something hit Daniela.
It caught her at the top of the shoulder, snapping bone and missing her head by inches. She winced in pain as she heard the quick screams and the dull thud of bullets as they made their marks on others.
When the firing stopped Daniela lifted her head. The woman who had been screaming was sitting straight up in her seat, staring off into the distance. The wall of the bus behind her had more holes than a saltshaker, but the woman hadn’t been touched. It is true what they say, thought Daniela, God protects those who are crazy.
The shooter stepped back, away from the cage. Daniela saw him slip down behind the metal partition and into the well of the stairs. Then she heard the click of metal as he changed out clips. He called out to his friends outside and told them to come. There was trouble in the bus.
“If we want to live, we have to move,” she told Katia. They crawled on their knees back between the seats, dragging the clinking ankle chains with them. “Whatever you do, stay down,” said Daniela, “as close to the floor as you can.”
“You’re bleeding,” said Katia.
“I know.” Daniela’s right arm hung limp. The right shoulder and chest area of her jail jumpsuit were already soaked with blood.
The sirens were now closer than before. From the direction of the sound, they might be approaching on the freeway.
“We’ll be okay,” said Katia. “I know we will.”
They could hear the muted voices of the men as they talked just outside the door to the bus. They were frenzied, in a hurry. They had to know they were running out of time. Katia and Daniela could hear shooting in the distance, somewhere behind the bus.
“If they come again they will come very quickly,” said Daniela. “There may be explosions in the bus. It’s very important to stay down low, as close to the floor as you can get. In the confusion and smoke they may not see you. If you can survive for the next five minutes, you’ll be okay.”
Katia looked at her. Her friend’s eyes had a distant, glazed look to them. The blood from her shoulder had soaked much of the top of her blue jail jumpsuit. Katia reached down to the bottom of her own pants leg and pulled hard at the stitching on the inseam until the threads holding it together ripped. She quickly opened eight inches of the seam and then was tearing the fabric from around the bottom of her leg until the cloth came free. She folded it into a compress.
“Daniela, we have to stop the bleeding.”
“Katia, you need to know. My name is not Daniela. It’s Carla Mederios…”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Katia. “What I know is that you are my friend. The only friend I have.”
THIRTY
I don’t want excuses,” said Liquida. He and the explosives man conversed over the walkie- talkies. “Take the bus and do it now.”
