The impact sounded like the vehicle had been broadsided by a wrecking ball.
Still sheltering inside the truck box, Bandana Top discovered that it wasn't bulletproof as he thought as Colonel Paz fired a burst through the walls and into him. He spun around in a half turn, falling from the truck into the street.
The two-gun kid with the glasses was in a tight spot, caught between the twin fires of Paz and the CTU agents. He alternated, firing one gun at Paz and the other at the agents, hitting neither. It was a technique that worked better in the movies than it did in real life.
Pete Malo threw a couple of shots his way and missed, shooting out a headlight and windshield of a car behind the one where the kid was sheltering.
The kid sent one Jack's way, coming so close that Jack could feel the passage of the round whizzing past his head. Jack fired back, Pete joining in.
A round tagged the kid on his left side, spinning him. His feet got tangled with each other and he tripped, falling sideways into the street, shooting away as he toppled.
He was still jerking the triggers when he caught the slug that finished him.
Absence of gunfire brought a sudden silence to the scene, leaving Jack's ears ringing. He became aware that Colonel Paz's machine pistol had stopped its chattering some seconds before the finale. He turned and looked just in time to see Paz round the front corner of the Golden Pole building and disappear, the soles of his shoes slapping the pavement as he ran away.
Jack stayed in place, focused on the immediate scene. It could be fatal to assume that all the downed were dead, rather than playing possum and waiting for the chance to take down one or both of their opponents.
As it happened, the downed were dead, all of them: Baca, Espinosa, Dixie, Herm, and the backup trio. Seven corpses.
Jack and Pete stood over the two-gun kid. There was no mistaking a telltale roundness and swelling at the breast and hips of the deceased. The agents exchanged glances.
'He's a she,' Pete said. 'A girl. And not so girlish, either. Up close, she looks a lot older than she did from a distance. She could be twenty-five, thirty, maybe.'
Jack said, 'That's a break. It narrows the search for her identity. There can't be too many like her on file.'
'I hope not. One was too many,' Pete said.
'Tell me about it. She damned near took the top of my head off with one of her shots.'
Pete looked around at the carnage-littered street. His free hand, the one not holding a gun, rubbed the top of his head, while he frowned, puzzled. 'What the hell happened here?'
'Offhand, I'd say somebody doesn't much like Colonel Paz,' Jack said.
Vikki Valence's apartment was like the dancer herself — flamboyant and overstuffed.
Jack was in the living room, holding his gun in a two-handed shooter's grip, his knees bent in a combat crouch.
Behind him, the door to the balcony gaped open, hanging halfway off its hinges. It had been locked, compelling him to make a forced entry. A couple of stomp-kicks had done the trick.
Daylight shone through the open doorway, illuminating the cavelike dimness of the interior. The windows fronting the balcony were screened by both blinds and heavy drapes. Even the wan light of an early, overcast morning was a help.
Jack stood to one side of the open doorway, to avoid outlining himself in it and making a better target for anybody who might be lurking around inside. It seemed like the shooting was over, but… maybe not. Whoever was behind the attack on Paz might have decided to have Vikki taken care of at the same time.
Opposite the balcony door, on the far side of the living room, another door opened on a dark hallway inside the building. The door was partly ajar. As soon as he saw it, Jack figured that Vikki had fled that way, but he was taking nothing for granted. The apartment had to be cleared.
The premises showed all the signs of recent occupancy. The air conditioner was going full-blast. Coming in from the stifling heat and humidity outside, Jack could feel the sweat on his body turning cold.
The living room held a couch, several armchairs, and a coffee table. The plush couch was the size of a compact car; each plumply cushioned armchair looked big enough to swallow a medium-sized man. The furniture was festooned with lots of lacy black shawls and leopard-print coverlets.
The air was thick with the mingled scents of tobacco smoke, whiskey fumes, perfume, and sweat. The coffee table was crowded with bottles of booze, some empty, others half full; drinking glasses, an ice bowl, and a half- dozen or so bottles of club soda and tonic water for setups. Vikki and the Colonel must have had themselves quite a party.
The living room was empty of persons living or dead. To Jack's right, a short hallway opened onto several rooms. Doors opened on the right and left; at the far end of the corridor lay the bedroom. With his leveled gun leading the way, he padded soft-footed into the passageway.
On his left was a kitchenette. Jack looked in. There was a small, square table with a couple of straight- backed armless chairs, some cupboards, and a refrigerator sandwiched into an alcove. The sink and sideboard were covered with dirty dishes.
On the right was a bathroom. It was hot, steamy, cloyingly fragrant from the combined scents of dozens of bottles of creams, lotions, cosmetics, gels, hair sprays, and other beauty products. He looked behind the shower curtain to make sure nobody was hiding in the bathtub. Nobody was.
The inside of the shower curtain was dripping with moisture; the mirror over the sink was fogged with condensation, indicating that someone had taken a shower in it not long before. Vikki, the Colonel, or both.
A light showed in the bedroom, the glow of a bedside night-table lamp. The gun entered the room, Jack following it, moving light-footed, alert.
Dominating the space was a big brass bed slightly smaller than Cleopatra's barge, its pink satin sheets rumpled and sodden. Hanging on the wall above the ornate brass headboard was a painting of Vikki in the nude, all glossy pink and rendered on black velvet.
A flash of movement glimpsed in the corner of his eye jolted Jack, causing him to whip his gun around to cover it.
He realized that what he'd seen was merely his own reflection, imaged in a wall-length mirror. The looking glass was marbled with spidery gold veins. He grinned tightly, slowly letting out his breath.
He looked under the bed to make sure no one was hiding there. It was an old gag, one of the oldest in the book, but the reason it had lasted so long was that it worked. After the big gun-down outside, he wouldn't have been surprised to find a body, alive or dead, but it came up blank.
A walk-in closet held racks of garments, dresses, blouses, skirts, lingerie. The floor was covered with massed ranks of women's shoes. There was enough stuff inside there to stock a boutique, but no space for anybody to hide in.
Jack gave the room a quick scan, looking for anything that might prove useful in tracking Vikki down: an address book, diary, stack of letters, pocketbook, or anything along those lines. Later a CTU forensics team would go over the place with a fine-tooth comb. But he didn't want to take a chance on overlooking something that might turn out to be a vital clue. Nothing relevant showed up during his swift survey.
The main object of his search had been Vikki herself; his first impression was that she'd taken it on the run, but he had to be sure. He couldn't afford to linger overlong in her apartment, but he couldn't move on without clearing it.
Well, it had been cleared now. Jack retraced his steps, back into the living room. He crossed to the door opening onto the interior of the building, approaching it at an oblique angle that would keep him out of the firing line of any hostiles lurking on the landing.
Flattening his back against the wall, he used his foot to ease the door open all the way, then darted through the doorway.
He stepped into a long hallway, lined on both sides with closed doors. Sparsely placed ceiling lamps provided
