“Ah. Never believe what you read in the papers.”
“How can they think I made it up? I gave them a video for crap’s sake.”
His bodyguard shrugged.
Josh shook his head. He was walking back in the direction of the hotel, but he was too mad to go back to his room — he needed to burn off some energy. He reversed course, steaming back past the bagel shop practically at flank speed.
“You can’t take shit like this personally, kid,” said the marshal finally. He was taller than Josh, but he seemed to be having trouble keeping up.
“You like being called a liar?” Josh asked.
“Well — ”
“Yeah. That’s exactly my point.”
12
Bowled over by his comrade, the second policeman sprawled on the ground. Zeus’s first instinct was to reach down and help him up, but as he did, the man began pushing himself backward to get away.
“It’s all right,” said Zeus. “This is all a mistake. It’s just a mistake.”
The frightened policeman had a whistle attached to a ring on one of his fingers. He put his hand to his mouth and began to blow.
“Damn you!” yelled Christian.
Zeus grabbed him before he could kick the policeman. He pushed Christian back against the wall.
“This is just a big misunderstanding,” yelled Zeus, still thinking he could calm the situation.
But it had gone far beyond that — the other policeman reached to his holster for his gun.
“We gotta get out of here!” yelled Christian. He slipped from Zeus’s grasp and ran down the hall toward the door.
Zeus saw the officer pulling the gun out. He took two steps and kicked it away. Then he started running. Shouts and whistles echoed through the hall. The passengers in the room crowded around the door, gaping as Zeus passed.
Christian flew through the door to the outside. Zeus followed. There was no other choice; running was the only option now.
Eventually, though, he was going to kick Christian’s head in.
Zeus hit the door with his left shoulder, jolting it open. The two policemen who’d been outside were yelling at Christian to stop. The one on the right raised his pistol to fire. Zeus launched himself at the man. He hit him hard in the back, toppling him over. The gun fired, then flew from the cop’s hand as he hit the pavement. Zeus scrambled after it, scooping it up in his right hand before jumping to his feet.
Zeus saw someone beyond the circle of light running behind the dark shadow of the nearby bus. He threw himself forward, tripping, but then regaining his balance. He pumped his legs. They felt as if they were thigh-deep in mud, each stride an effort. His heart pumped hard in his chest, the beats thick in his throat as he ran for the bus.
“Christian! For crap’s sake, where the hell are you!” he yelled. “Christian!”
There was no answer, or at least none that he could hear. But the second bus pulled out from around the first. Zeus veered toward it, still running at top speed. The bus lurched, then slowed, its door open.
Zeus heard a pair of gunshots just as he reached the vehicle. He grabbed the bar inside the door and pulled himself up, holding on as Christian stepped on the gas.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zeus yelled.
“Getting the hell out of here! You got any better ideas?”
They barreled down the apron area for a few hundred feet, lights off, then veered left as Christian ran out of pavement. The bus tipped hard on its wheels, squealing ferociously but remaining upright.
“Where are you going?” demanded Zeus.
“Out of here!”
“You’re heading for the runway.”
“Tell me something better.”
A white light cut across their path. The bus began to shake. The white turned black, then flashed red. A plane passed overhead so close Zeus thought it was going through them.
By the time Christian reacted the plane had already passed. He braked hard, then overcorrected as the bus veered left. They fishtailed back and forth. Zeus flew to the floor, arms curled around his head. He was sure they were going to roll over. But somehow the bus remained on all four wheels, weaving a little less wildly as Christian fought to find something approaching a straight line. By the time Zeus got to his feet, Christian had found a service road. There was a fence ahead; beyond it, an open field.
Christian headed straight for the fence.
“What!” yelled Zeus.
Christian didn’t answer.
“Stay on the road! Turn!” yelled Zeus.
Christian, eyes glazed, drove straight through the fence. The bus wheezed as it went down a short hill. Shaking and groaning, its front wheels sunk into the loose dirt as it hit the field, but the vehicle had enough momentum to keep going, plowing through a shallow irrigation ditch and then continuing into a field.
In better days there would have been wheat or soybeans here, but the land was dry and hard-packed by the lack of rain over the past two years. The bus plowed on, hurling dust in a whirlwind around them. They continued across for a good three or four hundred feet, until they drove into a second ditch. This one was deep enough for the front bumper of the bus to strike the embankment as it came to the bottom. The bumper ground into the earth like a spear and the back of the bus flew to the right. For a moment it seemed to Zeus that he was flying. Time stopped in midair, everything frozen. All of his thoughts were frozen before him, snippets and shards of ideas and sensations: the war, the U.S., his prize Corvette, Solt Jan — they were all there around him, like playing cards spread out on a table.
Then time went fast again. The bus crashed onto its side with a thud. Zeus sprawled against the glass, bashing his face as he fell. His knee hit the top of a seatback as he fell, and he felt his kneecap pop. He rolled through the bus, arms flailing as he tried to grab a handhold.
Zeus lost his breath, his side collapsing from a sharp blow against the side of something in the bus. He fell on his back, trying to will his diaphragm and lungs to work again. He squeezed and squeezed until realizing that was exactly the wrong thing to do. He relaxed and his breath came back.
His vision widened from the black dot it had fled to. He saw the bus’s interior, dust filtering in a yellowish-red glow that came from the dash lights and the LEDs on the floor and ceiling.
Christian groaned behind him.
“We have to get the hell out of here,” said Zeus, getting to his knees. He rose and moved tentatively down the row of windows to one marked with red LEDs. He put his hands on the bottom, and pushed. His left wrist hurt; he wedged his elbow against the frame instead and popped out the emergency window.
“You comin’?” he yelled, climbing halfway out.
Christian groaned in response. Zeus looked around. The airport was straight ahead, quiet in the distance, at least for the moment.
There was a highway not fifty yards away, up a slight hill.
“Come on,” said Zeus, ducking back into the bus. “There’s a road.”
Christian groaned on his right, near the back of the bus.
