Private Paris (Private 10)

THE SHOTGUN ROARED. The rear driver’s-side window exploded, throwing bits of glass and causing Kim to scream in terror, and me to dig for the Glock 19.

Louis reacted by showing us his mad skills behind the wheel.

At another time and another place, the head of Private Paris might have driven for a bank robbery crew or as a stuntman in the movies, because that shotgun blast caused him to unleash a series of maneuvers over the course of the next fifteen minutes that left me speechless and shaking.

The second after the side window exploded, Louis ducked down and threw the delivery van into a series of S turns, as if he were a skier in a slalom course, only going backward. Kim’s screams had died down to whimpers even as the Peugeot locked up its brakes and came after us in reverse. The Renault, however, was in third gear, in our lane, and coming at us at full throttle.

“Hold on to the handle above the door, Jack, and when I swing, shoot the tires of the closest vehicle!” Louis shouted.

Frantically cranking down the window, I grabbed the handle with my left hand and rested my right on the side-view mirror to steady the gun.

The bald, pale guy hanging out of the Peugeot was in our headlights now, aiming the shotgun left-handed. He touched one off, blowing out one of our headlights and cracking my side of the windshield into spiderwebs.

Louis didn’t flinch; instead, he spun the wheel and swung the rear end of the van around into that spur road we’d walked to get deeper into the project. As he did, the Renault floated into my pistol sights at twenty-five yards. I dropped my aim below the passenger-side front fender and squeezed.

The Glock bucked, and the bullet threw sparks off the lower fender. The second shot, however, was on target, and blew out the tire. The Renault swerved right toward the Peugeot, and I tapped the trigger a third time. The driver’s-side tire destructed. The front end of the car came down hard on the pavement, peeling strips of smoking rubber that spun crazily through the air.

The Peugeot’s rear end struck the Renault’s flank, and I was sure the pale shooter was going to sling off like a daredevil from a cannon. But the guy must have had uncanny reflexes and strength, because he managed to hang on.

Louis hit the brakes. We came to a bouncing, screeching halt in front of some of those gang members we’d passed earlier on foot. The whole lot of them were jumping up and down and cheering as if we were the best thing to happen in Les Bosquets in months, maybe years.

One of them yelled something in French that I didn’t catch, but Louis did, and he started laughing as he threw the little van into forward again, and pinned the accelerator to the floor. We passed other groups of immigrants who were now screaming those same words at us.

“What are they saying?” I yelled as we shot back out onto Avenue Clichy-sous-Bois, heading opposite the way we’d come in.

“Bad-Ass Plumbers!” Louis said, grinning, a little mania in his eyes.

I started laughing a little myself. Warm, good, crazy—the mix of emotions surging in me felt familiar, as if I was back on a mission in Afghanistan, mainlining on adrenaline, about to land my helicopter and a squad of marines in range of Taliban snipers and rocket grenades. Sometimes it was all about the risk.

Then I realized that I hadn’t checked on Kim and that she’d stopped whimpering. Fearing the worst, I twisted around fast and saw that she’d left her seat and gone back into the small cargo area to look out the rear door.

“Are you okay?” I yelled.

There was a flash of headlights behind us.

“Kim?”

She jerked her head around, mascara running down her cheeks, and said, “They’re coming.”

I undid my seat buckle and jumped into the back just as Louis took a hard left. It threw me off my feet and I crashed hard into the wall of the van, briefly stunned, until I saw Kim crawling toward me.

“Are you okay?” she asked, fighting back tears.

Over her shoulder, headlights glared through the rear window. There was a sharp cracking noise and the window blew out, showering us with little chunks of shatterproof glass.

“Get them off of us, Jack!” Louis yelled. “Before they take our tires!”

That jerked me back fully alert. Scrambling by Kim, I got to the back door. Crouched below the window frame, I reached up and pushed the Glock out the hole the shotgun had made. I tilted the pistol toward the headlights and pulled the trigger twice.

There was a screeching of tires and the headlights retreated.

I can’t give you every detail of the chase that ensued in the next few minutes because I haven’t the foggiest idea what roads we took or when we turned or where. For me there was only those headlights and trying to shoot them out every time they got close, while Louis tried to shake them.

“Merde!” Louis shouted at one point. “Hold on!”

Cars skidded and honked all around us.

Cars crashed all around us.