Page 63 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm (An Isaac Bell Adventure #15)

T he chase had only gone a couple of blocks when the rear van door suddenly burst open.

Archie got his first look at Balka Rath and understood why everyone said he was so handsome.

Even with a cruel sneer to his mouth, his looks were otherworldly, truly like an angel come to earth.

Then the man whipped a pistol into view.

Hanzi had been watching the mirrors and alerted Balka that they were being pursued.

He opened fire. The Ford’s windshield spiderwebbed and then collapsed onto Archie and James’s lap in a cascade of daggerlike shards.

Archie swerved, managing to sideswipe a city bus but dropping out of Balka’s immediate line of sight.

He waited then fired again, trying to either hole the radiator or the driver.

Dashwood had to ignore the glass cutting into his waist when he punched out his side window with the butt of his pistol and thrust his torso outside the car.

He was one of the best shots in the office, but the angle of his body sticking out of the car made accuracy all but impossible.

He fired once but when he saw that his bullet missed the van entirely he stopped shooting.

Unlike Rath, he wouldn’t needlessly endanger civilians.

Archie slowed to increase the range and Hanzi took advantage, accelerating hard in an attempt to get away.

Archie could have caught him with no trouble, but he’d put himself square in Balka’s range again.

They turned onto Seventh Avenue and Archie finally saw an opening.

He punched the gas and swung around the side of another bus and used its bulk to shield them from Rath.

He was doing fifty when he reached the front of the bus directly abreast of Hanzi’s khaki-colored delivery van.

With a deft touch on the wheel, Archie crossed in front of the bus and hooked the Ford’s bumper into the van’s front spoked wheel. The wood splintered like it had been hit with a grenade. Hanzi kept the now three-wheeler stable by jamming its left side against Archie’s sedan.

Archie turned the wheel to slam the Ford into him and then quickly swung away.

Hanzi was too slow to match the maneuver and the van’s left front collapsed onto the road in a shower of sparks.

Hanzi lost all ability to steer his van.

He hit the brakes, threw open his door, and vaulted from the driver’s seat before they’d come to a complete stop.

He hit the sidewalk, rolled over on one shoulder and leapt to his feet to sprint away.

Archie had also slammed the brakes, but had done so without realizing he hadn’t pulled far enough away from the double-decker bus he’d just overtaken.

Its brakes and tires screamed in a valiant attempt to stop, but to no avail.

It slammed into the Ford hard enough to accordion the trunk.

Hanna was thrown into the back of the front seat with enough force to break her collarbone.

A piece of the broken windshield the size and shape of a steak knife was driven two inches into Dashwood’s groin, barely missing his femoral artery.

In the second-long gap between hearing the bus’s brakes lock and the vehicle hitting the Ford, Archie launched himself from his seat over the steering wheel and through the now-empty windscreen frame.

The impact knocked the car forward but Archie jammed his foot on the top of the steering wheel, and he fell flat onto the Ford’s hood.

He rolled off onto the roadway, groping for the pistol under his suitcoat.

He staggered to his feet in time to see Hanzi start running.

Pedestrians were already on edge because of the four mysterious explosions that had rocked the city.

Seeing a man running from an accident ramped up their anxiety and as a result they parted as if by Moses.

Archie aligned himself in a proper firing stance and pulled the trigger.

The .45-caliber slug hit the fleeing anarchist in the right buttock and lodged against the outside of his pelvis.

The kinetic impact of the heavy bullet kicked his right leg out from under him, so he went down on the sidewalk without any chance of bracing himself.

The impact of his skull against the unyielding concrete was like a melon dropped from a table. He’d be out for hours.

Just then Balka Rath jumped out of the back of the van.

Archie tried to line up a shot, but the crowd was in full-blown panic because of his first shot.

They gave the anarchist perfect cover and Rath seemed to disappear.

Archie caught a glimpse of him running down the street and he took off in pursuit.

It was like running through a herd of stampeding horses.

People were scattering in all directions, some trying to get onto the roadway, others trying to find a lane to run on the sidewalks, others dashing into storefront doorways and others emerging from the shops.

It was bedlam and Archie felt he was losing his target.

He pressed on, his mouth a tight grim line as he edged people out of his way as gently as he could. Up ahead, he saw a tall man suddenly lurch right with enough force to dislodge his hat. He knew Rath had just pushed the man out of his way. He wasn’t as far behind as he feared.

All at once the crowds seemed to thin and Archie caught sight of Rath.

The anarchist must have sensed him. He looked back, his cherubic face a mask of both fear and anger.

His eyes widened when he saw his pursuer.

Rath suddenly juked left through the door of a hardware store.

Archie raced for it, his gun at the ready.

The store was laid out in long aisles running toward the back.

Each was lined with shelves displaying all manner of tools, plumbing supplies, bins of nuts and bolts, and anything else someone in the building trade would need.

Archie lost a few precious seconds because Balka hadn’t run down the aisle directly behind the door.

He had to check three of them before he saw his man nearly at the other end.

He raised his pistol but couldn’t fire as there were two men in overalls examining lengths of copper pipe for sale.

Rath dashed through a curtain to the back of the store separating the customer’s area from the private domain of the employees and owner.

Archie was hot on his heels and burst through the curtain a second later, stooping as low as he could just as he parted the dark fabric.

Rath was waiting just behind the curtain with a balisong knife, which he thrust at Archie with a lightning strike.

Had the detective been standing upright, the blow would have split his ribs and pierced his heart in a fatal blow.

Instead, the stiletto-like blade sank to its hilt into Arch’s well-developed trapezius muscle.

Archie’s shock at the sudden explosion of pain down his right arm made him drop his gun.

Since Rath hadn’t expected his pursuer to be hunched over and his attack not lethal, he hesitated at pulling the knife and correcting his aim.

It was a fatal mistake. Archie caught his dropped pistol with his left hand, raised the barrel slightly, and put one of the big .

45 bullets into Balka’s heart. Rath had a moment to stare into the eyes of the man who’d shot him.

He saw nothing but determined satisfaction.

Archie had seen the glint of a blade in Rath’s hand when he raced through the curtain, though he was certain it hadn’t been there seconds earlier.

Rath’s only hope of winning the fight was an ambush as quickly as possible.

Since Archie couldn’t slow his pursuit, he’d protected himself as best as possible and ran in hunched over like an old man.

He left Rath where he’d fallen and staggered back to the Ford almost a full block away. Blood was soon snaking down his arm and dripping from his fingers.

“What have you done to Hanzi?” Hanna screamed at him. She’d gotten herself out of the car and was standing over her brother with her bad arm cradled in her good, her face gone pale and glossy with perspiration. “You’ve killed him.”

Arch Abbott left the knife embedded in his flesh and slowly lowered himself to the curb. Through the pain, he managed to say, “No, but he won’t be sitting down comfortably anytime soon.”

“You don’t move, mister,” said a portly man looming over Archie. He wore a grocer’s apron and was brandishing a wooden truncheon.

“It’s okay, I’m with Van Dorn,” Archie said, showing the would-be hero his empty palms. “Those two jokers are connected to the explosions near Penn Station.”

“Really?” said the grocer, lowering the baton.

“Just proving the Van Dorns always get their man,” Archie called up to James Dashwood who remained in the front seat of the demolished Ford. “You doing all right up there?”

“Big piece of glass is stuck where it shouldn’t be and I don’t want to move until there’s a doctor or two hovering over me. You?”

“About the same, but mine’s some sort of floppy-handled knife.”

“What about Rath?”

“He took his to the heart from my .45 so he’s not coming back from that one.”

“Where’d you wing Hanna’s brother?”

“Keister.”

“Nice.” James paused for a moment. Despite leaving the shard in place, he was still losing blood. When a wave of nausea passed, he asked, “Do you think this is the end of it? Karl Rath’s spotter is dead. There will be no more radioed instructions.”

Beat cops blowing whistles were starting to show up. Ambulances wouldn’t be too far behind.

Archie answered James’s question. “I think when enough time has passed and Rath still hasn’t heard from his brother, he’s going to fire at random to do the maximum amount of damage he can.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“It’s up to Isaac and Joe now. All we can do is hope.”

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