“Okay, give us a minute.”
“I doubt that,” Juan said under his breath before answering Linda’s call. “We’re okay. What’s Golov doing?”
“Those shots kicked them into high gear. They’re scrambling to get the spare on. They’ll be done in a minute or two.”
“Can you hit them?”
“It’d be luck from this distance in the rain.”
“Get ready to shoot anyway,” Juan said. “We’re coming out.” He hung up and turned to Jablonski. “What’s in the trunk?”
“Papers.”
“What kind of papers?”
Jablonski shrugged. “I just work here, man.”
“And you just love your job, don’t you?” MacD said sarcastically, nodding at Kulpa’s body. “What about the explosives, Chairman?”
“Make Jablonski show you where they are and disarm them. Gretchen, Trono—you’re with me. Golov is here because of u
s. We can’t let him get away.”
“If they drive off, we can’t follow them,” Gretchen said. “We don’t have a car.”
“No,” Juan said, “but the policemen do.”
FIFTY-THREE
Sitting in the driver’s seat, Golov kept his pistol trained on the cathedral’s front door while Sirkal and O’Connor flung the flat tire aside and slammed the spare onto the hub. He knew that neither of the gunshots could have come from the policemen inside. No one survives a slit throat.
The square was deserted. It was unlikely that any passersby had heard the muffled shots or knew they represented gunfire. Still, whoever was inside with Jablonski could have called the police, meaning their window for escape could be growing narrower by the second.
“What’s taking so long?” Golov shouted.
“It took us a while to get the flat tire off!” O’Connor yelled back. “Some of the lugs were screwed on too tight!”
“Well, hurry up!”
“Two on, three to go!” Sirkal called out with a grunt as he spun the wrench.
As Golov expected, someone pulled the church’s large wooden door back. Golov aimed down the sight, ready to nail anyone who came through.
But at that moment, Golov was distracted by motion out of the corner of his eye by the side of the church. Rapid gunshots rang out as bullets burst through the van’s windshield.
More shots blasted from the trees near the park, peppering the rear quarter of the van, where Sirkal and O’Connor were hunched over. They dropped their tools and dived inside the utility vehicle for cover.
Golov started the van, threw it into gear, and mashed the accelerator. Even more shots came from the front of the church, causing Golov to slew the van around and head in the direction of the river.
He could already tell that the spare tire was poorly attached to the van. The steering wheel threatened to tear itself from his hand as the tire wobbled on its hub. All he had to do was get a mile away, where they could ditch the van and steal another car so they could make their escape out of the country with the trunk of papers.
In the rearview mirror, he saw a police car gaining on them fast.
O’Connor saw them, too. “The cops are coming!”
“That’s not the police,” Golov said. “Kill them.”
Sirkal threw the rear door open, trying to take aim at the driver. He got off three shots before the police car was able to overtake them and pull alongside as they approached the Mindaugas Bridge.