The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp 1)

“Keep us in the lane, Alfred!” Bennacio shouted. “Steer with your right hand and hold on to me with your left!” He reached back and pulled a quiver full of arrows from the case.

“I don’t think I can do that!”

“You have no choice!”

He threw the quiver over his back and scooted backwards through the open window until he was sitting on the door, leaving only half his butt and his long legs inside the car. I grabbed a fistful of his pants leg with my left hand.

Now I could hear the harsh, throaty screaming of the motorcycles’ engines as five of them swarmed past the car like enraged wasps. The sixth stayed a few car-lengths behind us.

The riders were dressed all in black. Even the visors on the helmets were black. As they roared past, Bennacio let fly the arrows. I heard the shhh-phut of the arrow leaving the bow and saw the lead bike spin out of control: Bennacio had shot the arrow into the right side of the rider’s neck, a nice shot, considering he was firing against the wind in a Ferrari Enzo going 120 miles an hour. Two of the bikes couldn’t avoid hitting the leader as he went down. Both struck him with their front tires and both bikes jackknifed, throwing the thralls forward, their bodies already limp as rag dolls when they hit the pavement.

That left two plus the one behind us, and now I could hear explosions coming from our left. The guns they fired at us were pretty big, but I couldn’t see what kind because Bennacio was blocking my line of vision and besides, I had to watch the road.

We took a hit near the left bumper and I figured they were aiming for the tires or the gas tank or maybe both. The impact slung us to the right and I nearly lost control, but I overcompensated for the skid and now we were straddling the centerline.

That gave me an idea and I gently eased the wheel to the left as Bennacio let fly the arrows, one after the other, shhh-phut-shhh- phut-shhh-phut, shooting, reloading (or whatever archers call it), and firing faster than you could blink. I kept edging into the left lane; the riders had to choose now between dropping back and passing us before I forced them into the median.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the Suzukis leap ten feet into the air with a terrific explosion—Bennacio probably got his tire. You puncture a tire with an a

rrow at 120 miles an hour and that’s what will happen.

One rider remained on our left, and he accelerated till he was even with the front bumper, and then I could see they had been shooting at us with sawed-off shotguns. As Bennacio twisted around, I wondered why we were using a bunch of arrows against six shotgun-toting madmen on Suzuki Hayabusas.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the last rider coming up with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun resting in his lap, the black barrel pointing up and gleaming in the rising sun.

The guy pacing us managed to hold his course while he twisted to his right to fire. I saw an orange flash of light and the windshield exploded, showering us with glass. I think I might have screamed, but any sound I made was drowned out by the wind howling through the busted windshield.

Suddenly I was in a very small, very powerful wind tunnel, and tears rolled straight back from the corners of my eyes and ran into my ears.

The rider to our left eased off the gas and drifted toward us. Before I could react he leaped from the bike onto the hood of the Ferrari, his abandoned bike careening to the left and into the median strip. His black outfit whipped and snapped around his body. He still held the shotgun in his right hand.

Bennacio’s thigh tensed below my fist as he leaned over the hood to get off a shot before the rider blew my head off. He was too late. I saw another dull orange flash, and the rear window exploded.

I whipped the wheel hard to the right, catching the rider off guard—he flew off the hood and his scream was abruptly cut off as he hit the pavement.

Bennacio fell back into the driver’s seat, his hands empty; he must have tossed his bow onto the road. Maybe his quiver was empty or maybe bows and arrows against guns just wasn’t quite challenging enough for him. I fell back into my seat and tried to catch my breath, but there was no catching it and I wondered if I had wet my pants. There were shards of glass everywhere, in my lap, down my shirt, in my hair. I twisted to my left and looked behind us.

“What happened to him?” I shouted in Bennacio’s ear.

“Duck, Kropp.”

I just stared stupidly at him, not moving until his hand shot out and pushed my head down. The window beside me exploded inward, raining glass on my back and legs, and I sat back up without thinking, turned, and saw the end of the shotgun about a foot away.

I grabbed it with both hands and screamed out the broken window at the guy on the bike, “Let go!” like he would if only I told him to. He didn’t let go.

I yanked as hard as I could before he could fire a second time and he had to choose between losing control and letting go of the shotgun. He let go and faded toward the emergency lane.

“Lean back, Kropp,” Bennacio said. His voice was loud but calm, as if we were still discussing corn dogs. He picked up the gun from my lap and pointed it at the biker out my window. I yelped and threw myself back against the seat as the gun exploded practically beside my nose.

The shell went through the window and landed in the gas tank of the Suzuki Hayabusa. I felt the heat of the fireball against my face, and the concussion from the blast shook the Ferrari so hard, Bennacio had to drop the shotgun onto my lap and grab the steering wheel with both hands to keep us from spinning out of control.

“I think I’m going to be sick!” I shouted against the howling wind.

He didn’t say anything. He was smiling, and I don’t think it was because I told him I was going to be sick.

23

Bennacio slowed to a more comfortable eighty, but the wind was still blowing fiercely in my face, so I scrunched down in the seat. I covered my eyes and wondered when the reinforcements would arrive.