McCracken felt the heat of the rounds surge by him. From any distance beyond thirty feet, the Uzi was a weapon of chance for all but the most experienced in handling it, especially when on the move. That provided his hope.
The Rollerblader’s single-minded vision provided the rest. Gun aimed high and straight from chest level, he didn’t see the hole in the roadbed until it was too late. He managed to twist his blades sideways, but couldn’t slow himself fast enough. His hands flailed out for something to grab and then disappeared along with the rest of him through the gap.
His drop might have allowed McCracken to relax, if it hadn’t been for the sight of the blue van streaking down the sidewalk in the Rollerblader’s wake. The sidewalk was barely wide enough to accommodate its width, forcing it to hug the steel guardrail for much of the ride. Sparks leapt into the air. The bridge had erupted into total chaos. Drivers and passengers alike abandoned vehicles and fled to escape the battle.
The van’s driver was tilting a machine gun Blaine’s way now. Fresh bullets split the air, and McCracken saw his luck running out in a pained instant. A previous glimpse over the side rail had shown him the scaffolding that bridge workers had used to access the roadbed’s underside. It was suspended halfway between the asphalt surface of the bridge and the steel superstructure beneath it. Blaine vaulted over the side rail and pitched down onto the scaffolding.
A sitting duck if he remained in this position, he located the control panel and lowered the scaffolding platform enough to gain access to the superstructure. He climbed halfway out and then smiled. With his weight shifted almost entirely onto the superstructure, Blaine pulled the cotter pin from the platform’s right-side cable lock.
He reached the heavy steel superstructure just as the van screeched to a halt above him, directly in front of the hole the second Rollerblader had plunged through. Around him, McCracken could see evidence of the workers who had been here until just minutes ago. Their abandoned equipment included thick hoses coiled like snakes about the superstructure.
Blast hoses. Used for stripping old paint and rust from the steel components of the bridge, the hoses pushed coarse black sand made from iron-mill slag called Black Beauty out at incredible pressure. McCracken figured this black sand would be the number forty-five size. With the air pressure set at 175 pounds and pushing 365 cubic feet of sand per minute, the hose could slice through granite blocks, never mind flesh and bone.
“Get him! Get him!” shouted the high-pitched nasal voice of the dandy.
Two 9mm pistols poked through the opening, followed by a pair of balding heads Blaine recognized from back in Ghirardelli Square. McCracken grabbed one of the blast hoses and aimed it their way. He squeezed the deadman switch, and a dark blanket roared out in direct line with the faces of the balding members of the assault team.
McCracken could not recall ever hearing screams worse than the ones that followed. He abandoned the hose and swung to the left at the sound of a thump. One of the big men in overalls he had glimpsed standing at the van’s rear back on Beach Street had dropped down onto the scaffolding platform from the rail above.
“Kill him!” the dandy screamed.
Before the big man could carry out the order, the cable with the missing cotter pin let go, dropping the platform and sending the man tumbling. He managed to grasp a rail at the last and hung there with legs dangling desperately four hundred feet above San Francisco Bay.
“Fuck!” the high, nasal voice wailed.
McCracken had already rushed off toward the labyrinth of catwalks and beams that formed the superstructure. If the roadway above was the Golden Gate’s heart, then this was its souclass="underline" ten million square feet of steel layered in all directions, spanning the entire scope of the bridge.
Blaine eased himself from the yard-wide catwalk onto a narrow steel rail to quicken his escape. He walked down the rail gingerly, holding fast to thick support beams whenever possible. In the near distance, he heard sirens screaming.
A pitter-pattery sound behind him made Blaine swing round.
“Aye-yahhhhh!”
The martial arts kiai preceded the dandy’s kick by an instant, long enough for Blaine to move his head out of its direct path, but not enough to avoid the strike entirely. The kick smacked his temple and drove him backward against a support beam. The dandy stalked forward with light, graceful steps, never even looking down. He moved from one rail to the next with a hop step and came straight at McCracken.
“What’s the matter, sweetie, don’t want to take your medicine?”
Blaine lunged forward with a kick of his own. But the dandy blocked it effortlessly. At the same instant, he slammed his other hand into the inside of McCracken’s thigh, narrowly missing his scrotum. Again Blaine reeled backward, just managing to catch his balance before the edge came up.
“Yeah, you’re strong all right, sweetie, but it’s not gonna help you. Not against me. Come on, show me what you’ve got!”
McCracken jumped up and grabbed hold of a steel crossbeam. He swung forward and dropped down on an adjacent catwalk to buy space and time. Four feet separated him from his toying adversary now, the dandy not looking too concerned.
“You can do better than that, sweetie.”
Blaine again leapt for hold on a neighboring crossbeam. Only this time he threw his whole body forward with legs lashing outward. The move seemed to fail when the dandy grabbed his outstretched ankles and held them in place.
“I had expected so much more from a man who calls himself McCrackenballs,” the dandy taunted, in total control.
“Really?”
His position solidified, Blaine snaked his legs up across the too-soft face before him and trapped the man’s thin neck between his knees. The dandy’s face reddened. He fought to break the hold, but leverage was against him now. McCracken jerked him forward and the dandy pitched forward off the rail. His legs kicked at the air, as he grabbed on tight to Blaine’s knees. With the little man’s features purpling, McCracken knew he could either let him drop to his death or strangle the life out of him. Considering the dandy’s death grip on his legs, Blaine opted for the latter.
He thought it was over when the little man let go with one of his hands. But then he noticed the life rope dangling thirty feet down from the girder directly overhead. The dandy caught it with his free hand and twisted abruptly out of Blaine’s leg hold. Swinging on the rope, he propelled himself up to the catwalk McCracken was standing on.
The dandy’s face was still purple, though with rage now. He stormed forward, launching a blinding flurry of blows Blaine’s way. McCracken managed to block or deflect all of them, his defensive posture precluding any opportunity to launch any decent strikes of his own in response. His back pressed up against the outermost support beam on the bridge’s superstructure. Then the momentum of a furious kick from the dandy drove both of them backward onto another motorized scaffolding platform.
Blaine nearly tripped on the high-pressure painting equipment that had been left upon it. He drove himself upward, pushing off a control panel that sent the platform climbing high for the Golden Gate’s center span. He managed to right himself, but the little man drove a knee square into his groin. McCracken pounded the man’s face with a trio of hard blows. The dandy deflected the fourth, then came up and under Blaine’s outstretched arms.
Before McCracken could respond, the dandy was behind him, grabbing his head and neck in a death hold. Blaine heard him scream triumphantly before he felt his air seize up en route to the brain. His limbs became feathery and numb. He could feel his legs starting to give way.