The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp 3)

I pushed my way through the crowd and spun through the revolving doors into the freezing air outside. The brown delivery truck was pulling away from the curb as a cop trotted beside it, shouting for the driver to stop. I stood there for a second, unsure what to do. Then the driver pulled into the center of the street and floored the gas.

The entire block had been roped off, but I didn’t think Delivery Dude was going to let that plastic yellow tape concern him. His front bumper clipped the back of a cop car as he roared forward, sending the car spinning into the curb.

I didn’t spend much time mulling over the options. My car was in the parking garage two stories below the pavement. I ran to the nearest police car and flung open the passenger door. A young cop sat behind the wheel, writing on a clipboard. I dropped into the seat beside him and shouted, “Follow that truck!”

He hesitated for a half second before answering, and then he said, “No way, kid.”

I leaned over and pressed the muzzle of the empty 9mm against his temple.

“Follow that truck.”

“Okay!”

“I’ll take that,” I said, and pulled the gun from his holster.

“The guy in that truck tried to kill me and it’s important I know who—and why,” I shouted as we lurched from the curb. “Hit the siren!”

He did, and soon we were clocking eighty up Gay Street. The truck had a four-block jump on us though and I couldn’t see it anywhere.

“It’s gone!” he yelled over the wail of the siren. He looked only a couple years older than me and scared out of his mind. Maybe this was his first high-speed chase.

“He turned somewhere,” I yelled back. “Slow down a little. You check left and I’ll check right.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror. I twisted in the seat and looked behind us. Two cops were giving us chase as cars swung into the curb to get out of their way.

“Don’t stop!” I yelled at the young cop. “If you stop I’ll shoot you!”

Of course there was no way that would happen, but he didn’t know that. For all he knew, I was out of my mind. I wondered what he thought when he looked up and saw me sitting beside him, my face and clothes covered in blood and bruises.

“There, there, there!” I yelled, pointing down a narrow side street. “Turn, turn!”

He yanked the wheel hard to the right. The back wheels locked and the car slung around. The two cars behind us slammed on their brakes and barely missed us as we accelerated through the turn. The truck made another hard right and I didn’t have to tell the young cop this time; he matched the truck’s arc, getting us so close the bumpers almost touched.

I rolled down my window.

“Keep us as close as you can!” I shouted over the sirens, the radio chatter and the icy wind blowing in my face. “I’m going for the tires!”

“That only works in the movies!” he shouted back.

I heaved myself through the open window, grabbed hold of the mounting bracket for the lights with my left hand, and opened fire. The truck had led us into a narrow cobblestone alley barely wider than the width of the truck. The brick walls of the buildings beside me passed in a red and black blur, about two inches from my cheek. I was concentrating on my shots, so I didn’t see the big metal bins used for construction debris up ahead.

But Delivery Dude did.

The brake lights flashed. The significance of that was lost on me as I frantically yanked on the trigger, coming nowhere near to hitting a tire—maybe it does only work in the movies. An instant later the cop hit his brakes too and we went into a skid.

We hit the truck, the force hurling me from the car. I landed on a plastic mountain of garbage sacks stacked against the side of the building.

Delivery Dude threw the truck into reverse and pushed the cop car straight back as its wheels howled in protest. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the passenger door of the truck. I jumped onto the running board and grabbed the metal bar that held the side mirror. At that moment, the truck leaped forward.

Its nose swung hard to the left to get around the construction bin. I had to press my body against the door to avoid hitting the bins and, as I did, the window shattered. I could see the gun in his hand in the side mirror. Well, of course he would have a gun inside the cab—I know I would have. I ducked down as he kept firing out the busted window, and my feet kept slipping off the step while I hung on to the mirror for dear life.

We flew through an intersection at the end of the alley and the truck went airborne about two feet. The force of our landing broke my grip and I swung crazily back and forth holding on with just my right hand, my cheek and shoulder ramming into the door as he slung the truck hard to the left in an attempt to dislodge me.

He floored the gas. My fingers had gone numb from the cold—I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. If I let go now, I might be sucked under the carriage and the back wheels would finish me. If I tried to climb into the cab through the broken window, he’d blow my brains out. And if I tried to jump, I’d hit the pavement at sixty or seventy miles per hour.

The mirror above my hand shattered as he fired at the only part of my body visible to him.

That helped me decide. I grabbed the door handle with my left hand and let go with my right. My body swung around, and I dangled like this for a few seconds before I managed to gain a foothold again and get both hands around the door handle.