Lee Child - First Thrills

Before he could recover, Shorty was on him again. The second punch sent Twinkle’s nose to the other side of his face and the bones in his cheek went crack .

“You were going to kill me, you son of a bitch!” Shorty scored another hit. “How the fuck do you like it?”

Twinkle cowered, his hands rising to cover his ruined face as snot, blood, and tears dripped from his chin.

Shorty wasn’t in the mood for mercy. He raised his fist again, but before he could land a fourth blow, a gunshot pinged off the wall just inches from his head.

Shorty spun to face the open doorway. A black motorbike and convertible sidecar bore down. His ex-girlfriend, LoLa, hung over the side. She fired again.

Shorty dove behind the avalanche of luggage as the second shot ricocheted around the cabin. Cursing his luck, he peered out and felt his heartbeat stutter. LoLa was looking good in tight black leather and a silver helmet with an iconic honeybee painted on its crown. That had always been his nickname for her when they shared an apartment in the Village. She had a singing voice as smooth as honey, but a temper that stung like…

Another bullet whizzed by his head.

“Your ass is grass now, Shorty,” Twinkle mumbled through a bloody mouth. “My sis knows how to hold a grudge.”

Shorty peeked from behind his wall of soft-sided cloth and cheap plastic. LoLa was closing in, her voluptuous pale bosom peeking from the unzipped V of the leather jacket as she strained against the sidecar to gain more reach. The muzzle of her.45 searched the interior for a kill.

LoLa had always possessed an unshakable will. Even when they wandered the country from sea to shining sea, LoLa working the clubs and bringing the house down while Shorty emptied the pockets of enraptured drunks, she was determined to be a star. Shorty always admired that, although he secretly wished she could just be happy with who she was: his passionate little honeybee.

Shorty yanked the lamp off his head and threw it into the darker recesses of the hold. As the headlamp flew through the air, LoLa fired another shot. The light exploded in midair.

Shorty rocked back on his heels. It was one hell of a shot, and Shorty hoped for his own sake it was more luck than skill.

He looked out again and their eyes met. LoLa was smiling behind a transparent visor, her teeth as white and perfect as he had paid for. She flicked her soft, pink tongue, proving she still knew how to use it.

Shorty automatically returned the smile, lost in remembrance of times past when they had adored every quarter-inch of each other. Then, he saw her driver. The man on the motorbike was a hairy monster with a full ginger beard and a grin that was a few kernels shy of a cob. Dressed in full leather biker gear, he must have stood at least five foot six in boots, and the sight churned Shorty’s stomach. LoLa had always liked them full-sized and the memory of catching her cheating ass writhing on top of the rent-to-own portable dishwasher was a sight he wanted burned from his brain.

LoLa shouted, “Give us the bags, Shorty.”

“Fuck you.”

LoLa laughed. “Not anymore. I’ve moved on.”

Shorty heard movement to his left and crawled over the luggage to get a better look. Twinkle had staggered to the open doors, his face a mess and his movements unsteady.

“Get the bags, Twinkle,” LoLa yelled. The motorbike kept perfect pace with the bus.

“I can’t,” Twinkle cried. “He busted me good.”

“Get the fucking bags, brother.”

“I can’t!” Twinkle moved closer to the edge. “I want off this damn bus.”

Shorty yelled: “Hey, Twinkle!”

Twinkle turned.

Shorty swung one of the heavy black bags in the air and let go. “Don’t forget your luggage.”

The bag hit Twinkle square in the chest, knocking him off balance. Twinkle screamed as he fell out the open doorway with the bag clutched in his arms.

LoLa’s driver swerved, but the sidecar still bore the brunt of the impact as Twinkle’s head slammed into the windshield and the bag he was holding burst open in a giant cloud of white powder.

With a fierce determination, the driver managed to maintain control even as the sidecar’s wheel crunched over Twinkle’s broken body. A windowless black van following behind didn’t even attempt to brake.

When the bike caught up to the bus again, its sidecar was dented and its windshield cracked. Streaks of blood dusted in powder flowed over LoLa’s leathers. Even her pretty silver helmet was webbed with gore.

Angry tears filled LoLa’s eyes when she raised her gun again.

Shorty threw a blue backpack at her. With its lightweight aluminum frame, the pack hit the pavement and bounced high, almost removing his former lover’s head from her compact body.

She fired in hasty retaliation, but the bullet pinged harmlessly off the side of the bus.

Shorty followed with a volley of a half-dozen open suitcases: boxer shorts, pajamas, blouses, underwear, a smart tuxedo, and a rubber diving suit all flowed through the doorway and sailed down the freeway.

LoLa and her driver backed off after the bike nearly went into the ditch, when a small blue box exploded and a flock of errant panty liners got stuck on the bearded monster’s goggles.

Best of all, Shorty found a large, unopened Toblerone bar. It was the size of his left arm.

As Shorty contemplated ripping open the triangular packaging, the dark, windowless van pulled up level with the bus. Its side door slid open to reveal three men dressed in head-to-toe body armor, complete with knitted balaclavas that showed only their eyes, and holding paramilitary-style submachine guns.

Shorty gulped and dropped the chocolate. “Y-you want the drugs?”

The three men nodded as one.

Shorty crawled back over the scattered luggage and pulled one of the black bags to the door. The van moved closer to the bus. One of the men grabbed the bag and yanked. Shorty instantly let his end go before he was pulled out of the bus along with it.

“Get the others,” yelled the shortest of the three. It was difficult to tell the man’s exact height, but in Shorty’s estimation anything over four feet was a waste of vertical.

Shorty retrieved the third bag, but this time, when he went to hand it over, the head of the reaching gunman imploded, his balaclava mask becoming a sieve of blood.

Gunfire and broken glass rained from the passenger compartment above. The other two gunmen quickly ducked inside the van and returned fire. Both vehicles swerved and the dead gunman slid out of the van to vanish in a pink mist, but he left something behind snagged in the nylon handle of the drug bag-his submachine gun.

With the sound of two-way automatic gunfire filling the air, Shorty picked up the gun and grunted. It was heavier than he expected.

Shorty had never fired a machine gun before, but he’d seen plenty of movies. Getting used to the weight, he turned it on its side. A small dial marked in red pointed to two symbols. One showed a single bullet, the other showed three. He reasoned this toggled the gun between single-shot and full- auto modes.

Shorty flipped the switch to full-auto and pointed its barrel out the open doorway. People were screaming in their seats above as the bus continued to barrel on at top speed and bullets flew in both directions. Shorty imagined the greedy driver, knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel, desperately searching for help and cursing the day he met a crooked dwarf with a Hollywood smile and an offer too rich to refuse.

Shorty drew in a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Rounds spat from the gun like a horde of angry wasps with lead stingers. His first bullets chewed up the road before the gun’s unexpected kick drew the muzzle skyward. Shorty released the trigger before a volley stitched the metal ceiling. Fortunately, the van had been an impossible target to miss. His stray bullets shredded its front tires, windshield, and roof.