Cold Heart (2 page)

Another hard thump and the car wrenched sideways.

Micky blinked as a small tree draped across the hood of the cruiser, then vanished.

Wade turned toward her, confusion in his eyes. His head wobbled but he clawed at his holster.

Is he going to shoot the Brinks truck?

With a hand shaking so badly that it slapped the window, she reached for her own pistol, a blocky Glock automatic. She couldn't get the leather snap undone.

“Stay with me, Wade!” Micky shouted over the roar of the truck.

Instinctively, she jerked the pump shotgun out of its stand between the seats. Wade's eyes had gone glassy and there was too much blood seeping from the side of his head.

The cruiser hit a pair of parked cars. Metal crunched as the truck downshifted and lifted them up over another curb, onto the walkway in front of the minimall. Ahead pedestrians pointed and screamed and Micky prayed that they would stay well away from the lunatic driving the truck. Whoever was behind the wheel of the big rig wasn't going to be satisfied with just a hit-and-run.

“Stay with me!” she shouted as her window blew out and the front window of the Baby Doll Topless Bar burst inward.

Screams and crashing glass.

Groaning metal and crumbling concrete.

And then they were abruptly trapped in a cave that stank of alcohol and cigarettes and overripe hormones mixed with air-conditioning and money. Tires churned hot asphalt and fan belts screeched; the cruiser dropped again and shuddered like a dog, shaking off a cold bath.

The big truck receded slowly, backing across the parking lot. Micky groped for the radio mike. But she stopped in midreach as the truck creaked to a halt. One of its headlights hung from a thin black cable. The other seemed to be leering at Micky.

Grinding gears again.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, watching the truck roll forward.

This time they had nowhere to go. This time they would be crushed between six tons of armor-plated truck and the immovable mass of concrete-block building. She grabbed Wade by the shoulder of his uniform and tugged him toward her. Deadweight. He fell across her, pressing the shotgun painfully into her breast.

The truck punched them sideways through the bar window. It also drove Micky's head into the doorframe. Lights flashed across her eyes and she fought for consciousness.

But there was no real pain. Not yet.

Pain would come later.

If she lived.

Again there was the sound of shrieking tires as the truck tried to shove them on through the building. The truck's motor revved wildly and the cruiser rocked.

Who the hell is driving that thing?

Where are the cops?

Blood warmed her chest and stomach and coated her fingers. The side of Wade's head felt strangely soft, as though there were no skull beneath his bloody skin. The front of her uniform was splotched crimson.

The truck shifted into reverse and shook itself loose from the cruiser again.

They had to get out of the car. The next time the big truck would crush right through the cruiser and smash them both like overripe melons. Micky fumbled for the door handle.

Jammed.

What a surprise.

She was pressed against the door by Wade's weight and the shotgun and the door itself was crimped and twisted, wedged against the remains of the wall. She was never going to open it. She glanced over her shoulder and stared directly into the eyes of one of the dancers.

The girl was thin and pale with unbelievably large breasts. She would have been underdressed for a bawdy honeymoon night.

“Help me!” Micky rasped, trying to push Wade's weight off of her so that she could twist in the seat. A bolt of pain shot up her back.

So I am hurt.

“Help me! Now!” she screamed.

There were other patrons in the bar but none ventured forward, through the sea of overturned tables or downed chairs. The girl gnawed at her lip but took one tentative step, her high heels clicking in the shattered glass.

Micky managed to twist around. She passed the shotgun out to the girl, who grimaced but set the gun gingerly in a booth and quickly returned.

Micky glanced over her shoulder; the truck was still backing up. But they had only seconds at best. Reaching through the window toward the dancer, Micky kicked back.

The car's safety glass had disintegrated into a million harmless crystal pebbles and, as she tried to slide through the car window, her upper body broke away the last of them. But the bar window had splintered into long silver swords with razor edges and dagger points. Micky stared at one of the wicked, curved pieces of death that pointed directly at her heart.

Scalpel glass.

Sharp enough to cut me in half.

Hesitantly, the dancer reached across the nasty piece of crystal wreckage. She clasped both Micky's hands in her own soft palms and pulled.

Good girl.

When I'm nearly out I'll have to roll to my left.

If I sag, or drop straight down, I'll be skewered like the priest in
The Omen.

Micky was praying that the attack had stopped. That the insane or drunken driver was having second thoughts or changing his game plan. But she pictured the guy behind the wheel of the truck, shifting and crunching, shifting and crunching, pounding over and over into the cruiser until the cruiser was an unrecognizable mass of crippled metal and Wade was…

Was what?

“Get me out!” she hollered.

“I'm trying!” shouted the girl.

Micky's knees scraped across the doorframe and Wade slipped between her legs. She rolled to her left and dropped to the tile floor, scattering glass. The girl fell with her. Micky sucked in a deep breath. Her legs shook as badly as her hands. She could already hear the terrible sound of the truck revving its engine again.

“Get back!” screamed Micky, shoving the girl into the nearest booth and scooping up the shotgun. She turned back into the terrible light of the Texas sun, glinting off the truck's windshield, burning her eyes.

The shotgun weighed a ton. But she tripped the safety and automatically checked the chamber for a shell.

The truck wasn't moving yet.

Maybe the driver had seen her, seen the gun, and was panicking.

No way.

He had to know the shotgun was useless against the heavy armor plate and bulletproof glass of his truck. The first sirens screamed.

Help was on the way.

“Can you get out?” she shouted to Wade.

He didn't answer.

“Hang on,” she told him. She reached into the cruiser and gently ruffled his hair, sticky with blood.

He was slumped across the seat.

But he was breathing.

She rested the shotgun on the hood as the truck driver got his act together and caught first gear.

“Shit,” she whispered.

The truck rumbled forward.

The sirens got louder.

The ground shook.

Micky edged sideways, crunching glass beneath her feet. She lifted the shotgun to her shoulder. As the armored car built up speed, she hammered off all five rounds into the windshield and grille of the monster. The bulletproof glass shattered but held, a maze of spiderweb cracks, and the grille blasted out water and steam from a tortured radiator and slashed hoses.

Nothing that she could do would keep the truck from pounding down like a huge battering ram into the side of the cruiser again and Wade wasn't going to survive another onslaught.

The empty shotgun hung slack at her side.

The big grille swelled. Plastic and paint and steel.

God's fist, intent on crushing the cruiser.

Soft hands gripped her sleeve. The sudden jerk caught her off
guard and she stumbled, falling on top of the young dancer, crushing the girl down into the booth and knocking the wind out of both of them, as the truck exploded into the cruiser.

Caught on steel-reinforcement bars and broken concrete, compressed between both ends of the front window, the police car crumpled like tissue. The bumper blasted through the driver's door and a section of the wall fell, smashing the cruiser's roof down into the seats.

The girl trembled beneath Micky, clutching her tightly, and Micky scrunched up instinctively into a fetal position, as the entire building vibrated with the impact. It wasn't until the insane bastard put the truck in reverse again—metal screaming against metal as the cruiser fought valiantly to hold on—that she pushed herself to her feet and witnessed all the horrific damage.

Wade was dead.

There was nothing alive in that car. His hand stuck out the shattered window and she stared at it numbly.

No ring.

She knew that he wanted to marry her. She had an idea that when he suggested the lake, he was thinking about popping the question while they were there. She hadn't been sure that she was ready, if she'd ever be ready. But with all her might she wished at that instant that she had a ring to put on his finger.

Grinding gears again. The bastard was ripping the teeth out of the truck's sprockets.

Who taught you to drive, you son of a bitch?

She ripped her holster open and managed to get the Glock in both hands.

The truck was now centered in the parking lot, reflecting the sun in a dull battleship-gray gloss. The windshield sparkled like diamonds where her buckshot had fractured the glass. She aimed for the spot where the driver's head should be, braced her legs, and waited.

Two cruisers shot past, lights flashing, sirens blaring. The uniformed officers would be taking in the scene, exiting their cars, and using them for cover. Other cars would arrive fast, cordon off the area, shepherd bystanders out of the field of fire.

“You in the truck! Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up. This is the Houston Police Department. Come out with your hands up!”

The truck sat immobile, the engine idling.

Nothing moved.

No one breathed.

The thought struck Micky that the truck itself might be insane. It might be sitting there empty, deciding what to do next. At the moment, that idea made as much sense to her as any other. The other option was that the madman behind the wheel didn't give a goddamn that the entire Houston PD was about to come down on him like a big bad ball of toxic whipass. And that thought was too frightening to consider.

The truck rolled forward again. Not as fast as before. As though the driver didn't even realize that he was moving.

“Take out the tires!”

The bullhorn grated on her ears.

A volley of small-arms fire erupted, then the sound of exploding rubber. The truck stopped. But the tires of the armored car were designed to withstand small-arms fire. The bastard could have kept coming on the bare rims if he had wanted to.

But apparently he didn't want to.

The truck rolled ever so slowly to a stop in the middle of the parking lot.

When its engine shut down the silence was deafening.

“He turned it off,” whispered the dancer.

Micky glanced at her, started to say that the girl had a firm grasp of the obvious. But the dancer was huddled in the booth, her face bone-white, her arms crossed tightly across her bare boobs. Her one act of bravery had taken all that she had to give. Micky wanted to tell her that her business was pretty much exposed for free the way she was sitting with her knees up to her shoulders.

But the girl had saved her life.

“Yeah,” Micky said instead, steadying the pistol and wiping blood out of her eyes with her sleeve.

“Maybe he's going to give himself up,” said the girl.

“Maybe he is,” said Micky, sighting on the windshield. The bullhorn was still blasting. Hopefully someone was going to work his way around the truck and come to relieve her and Wade.

That thought sickened her.

There was no relieving Wade.

She staggered back to the car and one hand dropped
from the Glock, testing for a pulse she knew wouldn't be there. She stroked his wrist, fighting the tears that blurred her vision. She needed to have clear aim when the bastard climbed out of the truck. If he made one sudden move, she knew she'd be supported in calling it a clean shoot. A police officer was down.

When both truck doors opened at the same time she gasped. She'd been so focused on the driver, the person who was trying to kill them, that she hadn't considered the possibility of a passenger. Behind the broad doors with the bright blue Brinks emblem, she caught a glimpse of a thick, blackgloved hand and one black sleeve.

The bullhorn blared.

“Throw down your weapons! Put your hands up!”

Fat padded legs dropped beneath the doors and a chill shot up her spine.

Small-arms fire popped and the snare drum roll of two machine pistols rattled through the bar.

There was a loud roar, like a gas tank exploding.

Metal and glass crashed onto asphalt.

A sharp concussion drove her back.

The dancer screamed.

Doors behind Micky slammed and shoes slapped on tile. Apparently the bartender and the rest of the business had split.

The boom of a shotgun joined the pistol and machinegun fire.

Micky aimed the Glock at one of the fat legs, realizing her shot would be wasted. She knew exactly what was happening. It was a patrol officer's worst nightmare.

The men in the truck were clad from head to toe in heavy Kevlar body armor and bulletproof plastic. They had machine pistols and, though she had no way of knowing it at that moment, she was sure they were using armor-piercing shells. They were cop killers.

But other cops were taking the brunt of their attack. And she was a cop.

So, she fired anyway.

The man's right foot kicked up and slammed back down.

Good.

She hadn't pierced his body armor. Nine-millimeter ammo
wasn't powerful enough. But the impact would leave a nasty bruise on the back of the bastard's calf. He'd felt it.

The man turned and stepped ponderously around the truck door, moving to place the open door between himself and the cops out on the street. He was searching, turning slowly left and right with the long-magazine, short-barrel murder machine held at hip level. But the sun had him blinded. Micky was in darkness and she didn't move.