The Ram’s rear door flew open and Diamondback burst out like a Jack-in-the-box. He saw the three men and aimed his revolver—
Eddie tackled Grant, wrenching him from the cop’s grip as Diamondback fired. The bullet caught the cop in the chest. Blood spurted out as he crashed to the ground, his gun bouncing away and sliding under a stalled taxi. Its driver ran for cover.
Hauling Grant with him, Eddie dived over the cab’s bonnet as Diamondback fired again, the taxi’s windscreen exploding. He shoved Grant against the front wheel, spotting the cop’s gun near the back.
Diamondback jumped down from the Ram. He fired another two shots at the cab, blowing out windows, then snatched up the TEC-9.
Eddie threw himself into a forward roll to the rear wheel and grabbed the gun, a Glock-19 automatic. He pressed his back against the wheel and checked on his charge.
Grant was shuffling towards him—
‘Back!’ Eddie yelled, diving at the actor as Diamondback opened fire on full auto. A string of ragged bullet holes blew open in the doors just behind him as he knocked Grant back. More bullets ripped into the front of the cab, piercing the thin steel bodywork - before clanging ineffectually against the solid metal of the engine block.
‘Cars are concealment, not cover!’ Eddie shouted at the shaken Grant as the onslaught stopped. ‘Didn’t they teach you that at action movie school?’ He popped his head up. The snakeskin-jacketed gunman was out of ammo, dropping the TEC-9 and switching back to his revolvers. Nearby, the bald man, face a patchwork mess of cuts and grazes, staggered to his feet.
‘Eddie!’ a woman shouted. He looked round and saw the uniformed Amy approaching in a rapid crouch, her partner behind her.
Diamondback fired again, forcing everyone down. His companion drew a pistol as they retreated. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Amy demanded.
‘Ask them!’ he replied, gesturing towards the gunmen. ‘They’re the twats who just tried to kill my wife!’
Another shot punched through the cab, spitting shrapnel. Grant yelped, and Amy flinched. ‘NYPD!’ she shouted. ‘Drop your weapons!’
More bullet hits on the cab, the sharp crack of an automatic joining the revolvers’ louder blasts. The two men weren’t receptive to orders. Eddie looked under the taxi’s front bumper to see them hurriedly backing away as other cops returned fire. With an officer already down and civilians at risk, they were shooting to kill - but he needed at least one of the gunmen alive to learn why they wanted Nina dead.
He hefted the Glock - and fired it under the car, the bullet tearing a bloody hole in the bald man’s right ankle. He fell, screaming. Eyes narrowed to agonised slits, he looked up at Diamondback. ‘Help me!’
Diamondback returned his gaze . . . then without even changing expression shot him in the head. A sunburst of blood sprayed the street beneath him.
‘Jesus!’ Amy gasped as Diamondback took refuge behind the overturned Ram. Then she realised what Eddie was about to do. ‘No, wait!’
But Eddie had already sprung out from behind the taxi, running at the pickup with the gun raised. His target was behind the Dodge . . . and it was no more bulletproof than the cab. He aimed low, hoping for a leg shot as he blew a line of holes from the back of the truck to the cabin—
Diamondback dived out from the front of the truck - and fired.
But he wasn’t aiming at Eddie.
The shot hit the hot dog cart’s gas cylinder - which detonated like a bomb.
The concussion knocked Eddie off his feet. By the time the roiling explosion dissipated and the cops recovered from the shock of the blast, Diamondback had sprinted away down 43rd Street, shoving through the fleeing crowd.
Eddie swatted away a burning hot dog bun and stood painfully. Amy hurried to him, other cops running past them - some to help the injured officer, the rest in fruitless pursuit of the killer. ‘You okay?’
‘I’ll live,’ he grunted, looking at the bald man. ‘Unlike him.’
Amy shook her head, still stunned by what she had just witnessed. ‘Cold-blooded murder, right in front of a bunch of cops? That guy’s insane.’
‘Maybe, but he’s good at what he does. I don’t think your guys’ll catch him.’
‘We’ll see,’ Amy said with wounded professional pride - but also a certain resignation.
Grant came over, face white. ‘Whoa. Man. You, you . . .’ He pumped Eddie’s hand vigorously. Amy’s eyebrows shot up as she recognised him. ‘You saved my life, man! I’d be dead now if you hadn’t been there!’
Eddie decided not to mention that it was Grant’s own fault he’d become a target. ‘All part of the job.’
‘No, man, seriously. Anything you want, anything you ever need, just let me know. It’s yours.’
‘How about your Lamborghini? Kidding,’ he clarified, seeing from Grant’s face that ‘anything’ didn’t literally mean anything.
‘Man!’ said Grant, gazing at the Murciélago. ‘I can’t believe it. You said not a scratch, and damn, you did it!’
Even with the scrapes it had taken the Lamborghini appeared unscathed, reflected firelight gleaming off its paintwork. ‘Yeah. Normally anything I drive gets totalled. Must have got lucky this time . . .’
The trickle of gasoline from the wrecked Ram reached one of the burning buns.
‘Buggeration—’ Eddie began, throwing Grant and Amy down as a line of flame scurried back to the pickup’s fuel tank—
The Ram exploded, somersaulting end over end through the air - to smash down on top of the Murciélago, crushing it flat.
Eddie sat up. ‘And fuckery.’
Grant gasped plaintively at the sight of three hundred thousand dollars of scrap metal. Somebody on the bus took another photo. ‘Oh, man!’
‘You had insurance, right?’ said Amy.
His expression gradually relaxed. ‘Yeah. Huh. Good point. And I wasn’t sure about the colour anyway.’
‘Eddie!’ Eddie got up as Nina ran to him. ‘Oh my God, you’re okay!’
‘Forget me, it’s you I was worried about.’
They embraced, then she looked back at her battered cab. Macy had done as Nina told her and run off, but there was still someone in the vehicle. She turned to Amy. ‘You’ve got to get an ambulance. The cab driver got shot.’
‘I think we’ll need more than one,’ Amy told her, radio already in her hand. ‘Eddie, I don’t know what just happened here, but you are sure as hell going to tell me.’ She regarded Nina, then Grant. ‘And so are you, and you . . . hell, I should arrest everyone in a five block radius!’
‘You know her?’ Nina asked Eddie.
‘Yeah, she’s a friend.’
Her expression became more suspicious as she looked the attractive police officer up and down. ‘Wait . . . your cop friend? The one you were with the other morning?’
‘Ah . . . yeah,’ he admitted. ‘That one.’
‘You’re Eddie’s wife?’ Amy asked. Nina nodded. ‘Okay, tell you what - how ’bout we make all the introductions down at the precinct?’
5
‘Well,’ said Eddie, slumping on to the couch the following morning, ‘when I said “Let’s see what tomorrow brings” . . . that was more than I had in mind.’ ‘Getting chased and shot at?’ Nina replied. ‘It was just like old times - in exactly the way I didn’t want. I’m amazed we didn’t end up in jail.’
‘You can thank Grant for some of that. You know who he rang with his phone call? His manager. Who rang his publicist, who rang the mayor . . .’
‘The mayor?’ said Nina, surprised.
‘Yeah. That charity thing the other night? They met each other there. And since the mayor was fawning over the hot Hollywood star and having loads of photos taken with him, it would’ve been a massive embarrassment if his new best mate got locked up a couple of days later.’ He grinned humourlessly. ‘Which is why Grant’s in today’s papers as a real-life action hero instead of as a mugshot. But it’s Amy we really owe.’