Thriller (51 page)

That wasn’t going to work twice. He kept going. He was passing

the ice-cream freezer when something boomed to his right and

a glass door shattered to his left. Ice-cream sandwiches and cones

flew, gallons rolled.

Jack spotted Demont three aisles away, saw him pumping another shell into the chamber. He ducked back as the top of the

nearest shelf exploded in a cloud of shredded tampons.

“Back here! I have him!”

Jack hung at the opposite endcap until he heard Demont’s feet

crunch on broken glass in the aisle he’d just left. He eased down

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the neighboring lane, listening, stopping at the femininehygiene area as he waited for Demont to come even.

As he raised his pistol and held it two inches from the flimsy

metal of the shelving unit’s rear wall, he noticed a “personal”

douche-bag box sitting at eye level. Was there a community model?

When he heard Demont arrive opposite him, he fired two

shots. He wanted to fire four but the crappy pistol jammed. On

the far side Demont grunted. His shotgun went off, punching a

hole in the dropped ceiling.

Jack tossed the pistol. Demont would be down but not out.

He needed something else. Douche bags had hoses, didn’t they?

He opened the box. Yep—red and ribbed. He pulled it out.

Footsteps pounded his way from the far side of the store as he

peeked around and spotted Demont clutching his right shoulder. He’d dropped the shotgun but was making for it again.

Jack ran up and kicked it away, then looped the douche hose

twice around Demont’s scrawny neck and dragged him back to

the ruined ice-cream door. He strung the hose over the top of

the metal frame and pulled Demont off his feet. As the little man

kicked and gagged, Jack slammed the door, trapping the hose.

He tied two quick knots to make sure it didn’t slip, then dived

through the empty frame for the shotgun. He pumped out the

spent shell, chambered a new one and pulled the trigger just as

Jamal and Pepe rounded the corner.

Pepe caught a few pellets, but Jamal, leading the charge, took

the brunt of the blast. His shirtfront dissolved as the double-ought

did a pulled-pork thing on his overdeveloped pecs. Pepe was gone

by the time Jack chambered another shell. Looked back: Demont’s face had gone pruney, his kicks feeble. Ahead: Jamal lay

spread-eagle, staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes.

Now what? Go after Pepe or start that fire?

Fire. Start a big one. Get those red trucks rolling.

But which way to the barbecue section? He was disoriented.

He remembered it being somewhere near the middle.

Three aisles later he found it—and Pepe, too, who was look-
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ing back over his shoulder as he passed it. Jack raised the shotgun and fired, but Pepe went down just before the double-ought

arrived. Not on purpose. He’d slipped in the spilled lighter fluid.

The shot went over his head and hit the barbecue supplies. Bags

of briquettes and tins of lighter fluid exploded. Punctured cans

of Raid whirly-gigged in all directions, fogging the air with bug

killer.

Pepe slipped and slid as he tried to regain his feet—would have

been funny if he hadn’t been holding a .357. Jack pumped again,

aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Clink
.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber.

Pepe was on his knees. He smiled as he raised his pistol. Jack

ducked back and dived for the floor as one bullet after another

slammed through the shelving of the cough and cold products,

smashing bottles, drenching him with Robitussin and NyQuil

and who knew what else.

He counted six shots. He didn’t know if Pepe had a speed

loader and didn’t want to find out. He yanked the butane match

from his back pocket and lit her up. He jammed a Sucrets pack

into the trigger guard, locking the flame on, then tossed it over

the shelf. He heard no
whoomp!
like gasoline going up, but he

did hear Pepe cry out in alarm. The cry turned to screams of pain

and terror as the spewing Raid cans caught.

Jack crept back and peeked around the corner.

Pepe was aflame. He had his arms over his eyes, covering

them against the flying, flaming pinwheels of Raid as he rolled

in the burning puddle, making matters worse. Black smoke roiled

toward the ceiling.

And then it happened. Clanging bells and a deluge of cold water.

Yes.

Jack saw the .357 on the floor. He sprinted by, kicking it ahead

of him as he raced through the downpour to the pharmacy section. After dancing through an obstacle course of ice pops and gal-
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lons of ice cream, he found Loretta and the others cowering behind the counter. He picked up the key ring and tossed it to Patel.

“Out! Get everybody out!”

As the stampede began, he heard Loretta yelling.

“Hey, y’all! This man just saved our lives. You wanna pay him

back, you say you never seen him. He don’t exist. You say these

gangstas got inna fight and killed each other. Y’hear me? Y’hear?”

She blew Jack a kiss and joined the exodus. Jack was about to

follow when a shot smashed a bottle of mouthwash near his head.

He ducked back as a second shot narrowly missed. He dived behind the pharmacy counter and peeked over the top.

A scorched, steaming, sodden Pepe shuffled Jack’s way

through the rain with a small semiauto clutched in his outstretched hand. Jack hadn’t counted on him having a backup.

Hell, he hadn’t counted on him doing anything but burning. The

sprinkler system had saved him.

Pepe said nothing as he approached. Didn’t have to. He had

murder in his eyes. And he had Jack cornered.

He fired again. The bullet hit the counter six inches to Jack’s

right, showering him with splinters as he ducked.

Trapped. Had to find a way to run out Pepe’s magazine. How?

A lot of those baby semis held ten shots.

He peeked up again. Pepe’s slow progress had brought him

within six feet. Jack was about to duck again when he saw a blur

of bright green and yellow flash into view.

Loretta, moving faster than Jack ever would have thought

possible, charged with a gallon container of ice cream held high

over her head in a two-handed grip. Pepe might have heard her

without the hiss and splatter of the sprinklers. But he remained

oblivious until she streaked up behind him and smashed the container against the back of his head.

Jack saw his eyes bulge with shock and pain as he pitched toward the floor. Probably felt like he’d been hit with a cinder

block. As he landed face-first, Loretta stayed on him—really on

him. She jumped, landing knees first on the middle of his back.

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The air rushed out of him with an agonized groan as his ribs shattered like glass.

But Loretta wasn’t finished. Shouting, she started slamming

the rock-hard container against his head and neck, matching the

rhythm of her words to the blows.

“NOW you ain’t NEVER gonna point no GUN to my HEAD

ever aGAIN!”

Jack moved up beside her and touched her arm.

“I think he’s got the message.”

Loretta looked up at him, then back down at Pepe. His face

was flattened against the floor, his head canted at an unnatural

angle. He wasn’t breathing.

She nodded. “I do believe you right.”

Jack pulled her to her feet and pushed her toward the front.

“Go!”

But Loretta wasn’t finished. She turned and kicked Pepe in

the ribs.

“Told you I was a bitch!”

“Loretta—come on!”

As they hustled toward the front, she said, “We even, Jack?”

“Even Steven.”

“Did I happen to mention my bad mood?”

“Yes, you did, Loretta. But sometimes a bad mood can be a

good thing.”

Ted Bell wrote his first novel for children. In the pre-Harry

Potter 1990s, Bell lived in London. The generally inclement

weather kept his nine-year-old daughter indoors much of

the time. Fine reading weather but, in the neighborhood

bookstores, the children’s fare was dominated by horror

and “message” books. Where was
Treasure Island, Captain

Blood
or their modern equivalents?

So Bell wrote a young-adult novel that recaptured the adventure and romance of his own childhood favorites. In

Nick of Time,
a boy of eleven and his seven-year-old sister

conspire to thwart the Nazi invasion of their small Channel Island just prior to the Second World War. With the aid

of a time machine, Nick and Kate also save Nelson’s fleet

from the wicked pirate Billy Blood. The book was optioned

by Paramount Pictures and ultimately translated into seven

languages.

After retiring from advertising, Bell began the Alex

Hawke series of adult thrillers. Like his first novel, the new

books recapture a lost sense of adventure and glamour. The

hero of
Hawke
is Lord Alexander Hawke. As the series begins, three renegade generals abduct Fidel Castro, and turn

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Cuba into an immediate and frightening threat to the U.S.

In the second of the Hawke series,
Assassin,
Alex Hawke

battles an ancient cult of killers who are eliminating U.S.

ambassadors and their families, prior to launching a horrific attack on America. The third Alex Hawke book,
Pirate,

debuted on the
New York Times
bestseller list. This time,

Alex Hawke must stop a French-Chinese oil conspiracy

and avert a nuclear showdown with America’s latest global

rival, China.

The Powder Monkey
is a bit different. Here, we travel

back in time to 1880. It’s the tale of a lovelorn newspaperman’s journey to the Channel Islands to learn the true story

of the pirate captain Billy Blood’s demise. In doing so, our

hero learns how a small boy held captive aboard Blood’s

frigate,
Mystere,
is saved from certain death.

The boy’s name is Alex Hawke.

And his dramatic rescue sets the stage for the further adventures of his later namesake.

London and the Channel Islands, 1880

I’m no hero.

But, I am the proud possessor of a large and rather good nose

for news (I scribble for a wretched daily in London) that sometimes leads me to the very edges of peril. I had now the whiff of

a cracking good story in my flared nostrils and was doggedly pursuing a most promising lead. Nearing my intended destination,

in a freezing downpour, I had the ever-stronger sensation of an

appointment with destiny.

At minimum, I believed, this latest venture might have a most

happy result, namely, an influx of shillings to feed my woefully

depleted coffers.

No, it was not some fleeting sniff of fame or any such nonsense that propelled me forward across that forbidding island’s

slippery scree. Rather, it was the fervent hope that I might soon

possess sufficient funds to escape a grim warren of offices above

Blackfriar’s Tavern in Fleet Street. This was the joyless home to

a tawdry little tabloid called the
Daily Guardian
.

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It was there, under the mean and watchful eye of my editor,

an ink addict named Mr. Symington Fife, that I pecked out my

meager existence at tuppence a word. My accounts reflected my

life’s station, I suppose, for I currently had the princely balance

of seven guineas, sixpence in the strongbox ’neath my bed. But,

salvation appeared to be at hand.

As it happened, the
Guardian’
s chief competitor, a yellow

broadsheet called the
Globe
, had last month announced a new

subscription contest in honor of the upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of Admiral Lord Nelson’s great naval victory at Trafalgar. And, by Jove, I meant to win it!

The contest rules were straightforward enough. Any person

who submitted a heretofore-unreported tale pertaining to the victory was eligible. The three most surprising and entertaining

stories (they had to be historically accurate, of course) would be

printed. The best would win a grand prize of seventy-five quid.

A king’s ransom in my humble view.

All I needed was a smashing tale of the battle and some proof

as to its veracity. Of course, for the price of a pint, such rousing

stories were easily come by in any pub or tavern. Proving them

was another matter entirely. And so it was, with a heartful of hope

and my nose twitching madly, that I had set out from London to

Trafalgar in search of my liberation.

As you may have suspected, I am a city dweller. I am not, by

any stretch, what one might call an “outdoorsman.” No, I am

hardly one of those stouthearted, broad-shouldered chaps one

reads about in the penny novels, off felling trees in the Wild

Yukon, scaling Alps or shouting “Sail, ho!” from a pitching masthead. Rather, I’m one who likes his creature comforts and his

books.

I reminded myself of this simple fact tripping over a smallish

boulder I hadn’t even noticed in my path. I suddenly pitched forward at a dangerous angle. Luckily, I managed to break the fall

with my outstretched hands, and came away with only minor

abrasions and another lashing of wounded pride.

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