I felt the car lurch forward, and then we all whiplashed as it came to a bouncing stop, the sound of fists and breathing loud in the cramped space. Redeker was trying to knock the driver out and get to the ignition at the same time.
Twisted up in the back seat, my gun hit the floorboard and I went down on top of it, wedged there but just free enough to kick the guy I’d fallen over in the side of the jaw. His head swiveled hard, and he was out as I grabbed wrist of the second guy in the back seat, making it impossible for him to shoot at me but not at all impeding the man in the front passenger seat, who shot straight down at my face.
The sound of the discharge inside the small space was jarring. Hitting his arm from below made it jerk up, and the bullet went over my back and hit the seat, made a decent-sized hole, and continued on into the trunk, where I heard it hit metal as the car accelerated again.
“The fuck are you doing?” the guy I was tussling with yelled at the passenger. “You’re gonna fuckin’ kill me!”
“Use your goddamn knife!” the driver shrieked, still grappling with Redeker.
The Mercedes E-Class sedan we were in had lovely leg room, but after the sharp braking moments before, we were squashed together. I pinned the arm of the guy I was fighting with and hit him in the face with as much leverage as I had between the back of one seat and his lap.
There was not much power there, especially as he moved his legs and I was sinking, both of us squirming, jostling to sit up.
“Where the fuck is your knife!”
A butterfly, maybe a switchblade… that was what I expected. The Crocodile Dundee version that came through the seat at me, grazing over my bicep—I was not prepared for that.
“Fuck!” Redeker gasped, spotting the knife as the guy in the passenger seat yanked it out, and he hit the driver—finally—at enough of an angle to make him swerve.
My gun was under me, so no help there, and even though I was pretty flexible, I wasn’t small. I carried quite a bit of muscle, and my chest and shoulders were wide enough that I was stuck, almost upside down. When the car hit whatever it hit, I thought for a second my back was broken before the knife was there again, the light sliding over the curve of the blade I could see over the console.
Adrenaline was wild. It made you able to do crazy things.
Heaving myself up, I did my best dolphin impression, contorted in a way that would have given Ian a shock—he was always surprised by the positions I could get myself into—and got my left leg between the front seats so that when the passenger lunged at Redeker, Redeker was able to grab his wrist and the blade.
“Down,” Callahan yelled, there suddenly over me, gun leveled on the guy I was fighting with as he leaned in and elbowed the passenger in the face.
“Fuck,” I gasped, still mostly on my head.
“We don’t normally dive into cars,” Redeker huffed as he clocked the driver and Callahan took guns out of the car and dropped them on the street.
“No?” I panted, righting myself before opening the back door and stumbling out of the car to stand in the street next to Callahan. “We do in Chicago. We’re hardcore in the Windy City.”
“Huh,” Redeker groaned before he was gone from sight, out of the car and bending over to catch his breath.
“My boss is gonna eat you for this, Jones,” Callahan informed me.
“But nobody got hurt but me and Redeker,” I argued, gesturing around at everything. “How can he get mad at that?”
Callahan waggled his eyebrows.
“Well,” I said after a moment, “he has to get in line.”
Christ.
I THOUGHT the circus got crazy in Chicago. In Sin City, on this Monday night, it was insane. The police department in New Orleans wanted the men because the threat on Josue’s life connected to their case, but Las Vegas PD said they were keeping the shooters because the incident occurred on their streets. The marshal service trumped both departments until the FBI said that since Alessi was wanted on racketeering and drug trafficking across several states, they would take the men into federal custody.
It was Barnum and Bailey.
I’d turned Josue over to the state troopers in the interim. They took him first to his apartment to collect whatever life-and-death items he needed to bring along on his adventure and then escorted him, still under heavy guard, to the hotel and my room. There the sheriff’s department took over, and one man stayed outside the door and one stayed inside with him. I’d given him my number before he left, and he put it into his phone after taking a quick picture of me smiling at him as I stood there bleeding. The blood caused the EMT on-site some concern, and they wanted me to go to the hospital to see if I needed stitches, but I’d been sliced by a knife, not stabbed. I needed a Band-Aid more than anything else.