Darkness Under Heaven (31 page)

When Avakian got his eyes open again and his head up he had to lean over because the windshield was so cracked it was opaque and he could only see through the open hole. His death grip on the steering wheel had kept them more or less in a straight line. There was hardly a piece of glass left on the vehicle. The wind was whipping in from everywhere but no fire followed it inside—the Molotov cocktail had burned itself out. A metal car body wasn't easy to set fire to, and whoever made the cocktail had used only gas and added nothing to thicken it and make it stick to the target.

Now they were past the mob and still moving Avakian allowed himself some faint hope that they might make it.

Until he saw more people up ahead, and a roadblock made from a couple of vehicle hulks piled up with furniture and who knew what other junk.

All this happened in a span of literally seconds because his right foot was still on the floorboard and they were approaching ninety miles per hour.

Off to his left the unmistakable white blossom of an AK-47 muzzle blast, and the equally unmistakable sound of bullets breaking the sound barrier. All he could do was
steer for the junction of the two hulks and hope German engineering was up to the challenge. He grabbed Judy's shoulder and yanked her back upright against the seat in preparation for the impact. As the roadblock came up he tried but failed to keep his eyes open.

The Mercedes hit the barricade like a cannonball, and that was exactly what it looked, sounded and felt like. Roadblocks generally worked because most people balked at driving their cars into them, but unless they were made out of concrete or steel rails they weren't going to stop an SUV going flat out. But it wasn't going to do the SUV any good either. Force equals mass times acceleration squared.

Pieces of everything from the roadblock blew out like fragmentation. The airbags all deployed, and there were a lot of airbags in a Mercedes. The front end buckled but it punched through the block and kept going.

When the Mercedes finally came to rest and Avakian opened his eyes they were nearly two hundred yards farther down the road. And as a rebuke to the man who didn't believe in luck the SUV was sitting sideways in the street pointing directly at a very narrow alley.

Stunned and deafened, Avakian had absolutely no idea whether the engine was running or not but put his foot back on the gas anyway.

Incredibly, the Mercedes shuddered forward. But there were no longer any tires, and shudder was all the wounded SUV did, the rims screaming on the road and throwing up showers of sparks. This only slightly masked the sound of an engine that was not long for the world. The axle was definitely dead and it took nearly a complete turn of the wheel to keep it lurching in a relatively straight line.

Avakian got it into the alley entrance only because that
happened to be the direction the vehicle was moving anyway. The body scraped against the wall.

They were not going any farther and he was thinking about how long it took to run two hundred yards. He twirled the wheel three full revolutions and managed to wedge the Mercedes sideways against the walls of both buildings.

He popped his seat belt and hopped up with both knees on his seat, ramming his shoulder against the windshield. It came out in flapping pieces that he punched onto the hood.

Releasing Judy's seat belt and without checking her physical condition in any way he lifted her up and threw her through the open windshield. Followed by his bag.

As he bent down to grab hers he noticed the bizarre sight of the tear gas grenades still retained securely in the cup holders. He yanked out his pistol, leaned between the seats, and fired four rounds into the gas cans in the back. On his way out through the windshield opening he grabbed two grenades.

Rolling off the hood there was Judy standing in the alley, holding both bags, apparently in traveling condition. He pulled the pin on a grenade and whipped it into the back of the Mercedes.

A tear gas grenade was nothing more than a container filled with CS chemical powder, the irritant agent, mixed with a pyrotechnic that when burned produced an aerosol. And CS burned hot. So when the ignition charge in the grenade set fire to the CS powder, it also set fire to the gasoline Avakian had released to be vaporized.

When the two-second delay went off there was a loud whoosh and the alley lit up.

Avakian grabbed his bag from Judy and Judy by the arm
and they ran. He'd heard shouting on the other side of the Mercedes just before one of the gas cans inside blew up and drowned out every other sound.

They ran down the alley until stopped by a crumbling old brick wall. Slinging the duffel bag over his back, Avakian bent down and slapped Judy's knee. She lifted her leg up. He got his cupped hands under her foot and launched her over the wall. His best jump got one hand over the top but that was enough with adrenaline giving him the strength of many.

Once again Judy was waiting for him on the other side. “You okay?” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips.

She nodded, and turned toward the opening into the next street.

Avakian grabbed her arm. He didn't think running out that end would be such a great idea. On this part of the alley there was a break in the building walls on one side, covered by a short section of rickety wooden fence. He pulled himself up for a look. Another smaller alley along the back of a row of houses. Not bad. He dropped back down and gave her another boost up.

Staying put wasn't an option. Your perfect hiding place was a joke to someone who knew every rock and junk pile in the neighborhood. On the other side of the fence he paused only to draw the rifle from his bag.

“Watch where you step and stay right behind me,” he whispered in her ear. She nodded again. Scared shitless but still standing tall. Quite a woman.

Nothing was blacker than an urban landscape with all the lights out. Avakian picked his way carefully along the alley. This was not the time to kick a garbage can. A couple of gunshots rang out nearby, and someone was running down the alley they'd just left. The shouting all around them made him wish he'd studied Mandarin a little harder.

A substantial explosion from the direction of the Mercedes caused him to instinctively drop to the ground. It took a second before he realized it was the leftover bombs in his toolbox. More running feet on the street on the other side of the house.

At the end of that alley a narrow little walkway led out to the street. Avakian crept down it cautiously. He could hear people talking inside the house, and didn't need to speak Chinese to recognize terrified when he heard it. Join the club, folks.

He dropped to his stomach to peek out into the street. No moon, no stars, no lights—he could barely see a thing. But if he couldn't they couldn't either. He could hear, though. Young men and teenagers running up and down, yelling like it was Halloween. Whooping it up because they could do whatever they wanted and no one seemed about to stop them. A few hundred yards down was another roadblock, which he could see only because someone had thrown some tires on it and set them afire.

It would be nice to know what was going on. Not a cop in sight. Definitely not the China he knew. Normally anybody who pulled this kind of shit had the whole weight of authority drop down and carpet-bomb them. Maybe it was the power blackout. Those had a way of bringing out the beast.

Well, they'd just act like part of the mob. He turned to Judy lying next to him and pointed to the alley across the street. “We're going to run,” he whispered. “Stop only if I do. Run on the balls of your feet—makes less noise.”

She nodded.

They got up on their feet. Avakian touched her arm and they sprinted across the street. Ducking into the cover of the alley entrance he stopped so he could listen for
pursuing feet. Nothing that seemed to be coming in their direction.

There wasn't even the glow of a candle from a single window. Avakian wondered, then realized why. Showing any light or sign of life was like inviting someone to kick down your door to see what you had worth taking.

This alley was open all the way to the next street over, so they were able to go a little faster. As they neared the end there seemed to be a shape moving across the opening. And maybe another along with it. It was so damned dark. Avakian slowed his pace and held out an arm so Judy wouldn't get past him. Okay, the glow of someone's cigarette. There were a few of them.

He kept walking toward them. They knew someone was there—they all turned his way. He smelled the cigarette smoke in the breeze. He could only make out the face of the one that was smoking, which meant they couldn't see his features.

Somebody asked a question in Chinese and Avakian fired the whole 30-round magazine across the width of the alley. Before the sound even stopped echoing off the walls he was in his bag for a fresh magazine, reloaded, and charged right at them.

A move totally unexpected by Judy, who had been ready to retreat and now had to sprint flat-out to keep up, high-stepping over the groaning bodies littered across the alley like running through the tires in high school gym class.

When Avakian got out into the street someone was running away in the other direction. He didn't fire.

That pause allowed Judy to catch up, and they crossed the street and dashed along the line of houses until they reached the next alley.

More shouting and pounding footsteps, but those were all headed toward the sound of the shooting. It was no place to hang around, but Avakian did go a little slower down that alley to forestall any more surprises.

At the end he paused to take stock. Replaying all their moves in his head from the crash on, he was fairly sure they'd moved in a rough westerly direction. Trying to visualize the map, he remembered that the long avenues seemed to go north-south.

So he decided to go up this street instead of across, to see if it really was north. These neighborhoods were like someone had grabbed every size and shape of house and shop from a one-room shack to a two-story family, all made out of different varieties of dirty brick, and like a jigsaw puzzle had randomly shoehorned them together within a city block with barely an inch of space in between. He and Judy stayed on the narrow uneven walkways as close to the buildings as possible. No lights meant no shadows, but the darkness was even darker there. And because of that everyone else seemed to prefer running down the middle of the street.

Shop windows broken, doors hanging open, and unwanted goods scattered across the street. Quite a bit of the woodpecker tapping of gunfire in the distance, in the direction they were moving. What the
hell
was going on? Maybe the cops were trying to reestablish control. And maybe it wasn't that easy. It dawned on him that they hadn't just been throwing rocks at the Mercedes, there had been people shooting at them, too. Didn't hit anything, but they were definitely shooting.

Avakian thought he saw another roadblock down the street. And where there was a roadblock there would be people. Wandering around aimlessly all night long wasn't
going to cut it. He had to find out what was going on. Preferably without getting killed in the process.

The only solution seemed to be to find some high ground with a view to the north. Not the highest ground, though. That was bound to have someone already on it.

Since a hill or patch of open ground apparently did not exist in that urban landscape, it would have to be a building. No office or apartment buildings, at least in this part of town. Four stories was a skyscraper.

Finding one wasn't the problem. Getting up it was. The Chinese were not big on safety equipment like fire escapes. And knocking on doors during the current state of emergency didn't promise a warm welcome.

Standing next to him in the darkness, watching his face, Judy realized she'd never appreciated the incredible strain he'd been under these past few days. All she'd had to do was play follow the leader and be scared to death while he made a continuous series of split-second life or death decisions that made surgery pale by comparison. Easy to overlook because he rarely showed it, cracking jokes instead of lashing out the way anyone else would have. At least life or death surgical decisions were made in a clean cool operating theater with plenty of help and consultation. The surgical team wasn't wondering if they'd live through the next minute.

And the man moved like a leopard. If it had been up to her she'd still be curled up in the bottom of the Mercedes back in that street, waiting for the angry mob to pry them out and tear them to pieces. And if Pete had been anyone else he might have left her there while he saved himself.

Well, if she couldn't shoot people at least she'd do what she could for him. She cupped her hand under his chin and he jumped a little in surprise. But he let her turn his head and she leaned over and kissed him.

Startled, Avakian put his free arm around her and kissed her back. That really punched through his crust and made him very emotional. He kissed her again and whispered in her ear, “Thank you.” But before he got too maudlin he dropped his hand down and gave her ass a squeeze.

In return she gave him an affectionate grope, and if she hadn't been kissing him at the same time he might have made a noise.

“There's no crying in baseball,” he whispered in her ear. “And there's no making out in combat.”