Lee Child - First Thrills

Without tires, the van’s front rims dug into the road and its ass end flew into the sky for a series of cartwheels that would have made an overweight gymnast proud. Two screaming bodies flailed into the air as the van exploded. Its flaming carcass careened off the road and rolled down a sharp ravine to a farmer’s field below.

Shorty looked at the gun in surprise. It packed a lot of wallop for such a small-

A bullet smashed through the ceiling and tore a chunk of meat from his arm. Shorty cried out and dropped the gun, only to watch in stunned horror as it bounced once on the floor before sliding out the open doorway.

Shorty’s cries were silenced when another bullet pierced the ceiling and puckered the floor between his legs. It was followed by an angry voice.

“You little bastard! Think you can steal from me?”

Another bullet, this time less than four inches from his head. Shorty dove into the remaining luggage and scrambled toward the rear of the hold… where he found Twinkle’s handgun. He snapped it up in both hands as the drug dealer pumped another hole through the ceiling.

This time, instead of retreating, Shorty sprinted to the fresh hole, jammed his gun against it, and squeezed the trigger.

A loud scream echoed through the hold and a heavy thump hit the ceiling as the gunman fell.

“You shot my fucking bal-”

Shorty aimed his gun where a bump had suddenly appeared in the ceiling and fired again. By the time he ran dry, the screaming had stopped.

“Nice work,” said LoLa. “You always did overcompensate.”

Shorty spun. The motorbike and sidecar was matching pace outside again, while LoLa was armed and pissed and standing in the doorway of the baggage compartment.

“And you were always nimble.” Shorty dropped his empty gun to the floor and cradled his wounded arm.

“So what do we have left?” LoLa asked.

“Between us or-”

“Drugs, numbnut.”

Shorty indicated the lone black bag sitting near the open doorway. “Twenty kilograms of uncut heroin. Worth around two million.”

“Hardly seems worth the trouble.”

Despite himself, Shorty grinned. “You’ve come that far up in the world, huh?”

LoLa smiled. “Never walked taller.”

She lifted her gun and fingered the trigger.

Shorty blurted, “There’s a fourth bag.”

LoLa’s smile brightened and she eased off the trigger. “Oh?”

“Six hundred thousand in cash. I figure you take the drugs, leave me the dough. I’ve earned it.”

“Earned it? You cost me four good men, transportation, weapons, and dry-cleaning, not to mention my brother.”

“You never liked Twinkle much.”

“No, but I loved him.”

Shorty and LoLa stared at each other for an endless moment, a thousand memories shared in the blink of an eye.

“We’ll always have Paris,” said Shorty.

LoLa snorted. “A fishbowl fuck in Tennessee doesn’t count, Shorty, don’t you get that? I need more than road trips in a broken-down VW van, nightclubs with putrid toilets, and hiding from the landlord on rent day. You always thought too small. I plan to live large.”

“You’ve gone hard.”

“No, Shorty. The problem is, you’ve stayed soft.” She waved the gun at his chest. “Get me the bag.”

Shorty tilted his chin. “It’s just back there.”

“Do I look like I do heavy lifting? Get it.”

Shorty scrambled over the remains of the unopened luggage and pulled out the last black bag. He hefted it onto his shoulder, wincing at the pain, and returned to the woman he’d once loved.

“Pity it has to end this way, honeybee,” he said.

LoLa thumbed back the hammer.

When the bus pulled into the Texaco station ten minutes later, a squad of eight patrol cars swarmed around it. The men and women in blue were bundled in armor-plated protection, riot helmets, and enough firepower to ventilate a crack den.

They removed the traumatized passengers first before rushing the luggage compartment.

They didn’t meet any resistance.

Inside was a lone body dressed in head-to-toe black, its lifeblood coating a duffel bag filled with twenty kilos of pure, uncut heroin.

The dead woman had a tiny screwdriver protruding from her chest and half a Toblerone bar stuffed in her mouth.

GRANT McKENZIEwas born in Scotland, lives in Canada, and writes U.S.-based thrillers. As such, he wears a kilt and toque with his six guns. His debut novel, Switch, was lauded by author Ken Bruen as “Harlan Coben on speed” and quickly became a bestseller in Germany. It has been published in seven countries and three languages so far.

D onMatheson, also known as Nishion der Matosian in Armenia and Nishi ibn Matos throughout the Arabian world, was starting to develop museum fatigue.

And no wonder. Every wall of the Uffizi was essentially wall-papered with masterpieces by Botticelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and (Matosian’s favorite, mostly because of his name) Fra Filippo Lippi.

All the art in one place wore a guy out.

Even if, like Matosian, you were a thirty-eight-year-old ex-Navy SEAL in perfect physical condition who ran six miles in under an hour every morning before the sun was up. And even if, as happened quite frequently, you’d enjoyed phenomenal, acrobatic, and oftentimes tantric sex the night before.

But conjuring up a deep artistic appreciation for fifty or sixty paintings should not be the work of an hour, or even of a day. Matosian much preferred the Rodin garden in Paris, where you could go outside and sit looking up at The Thinker and let the power and meaning of the sculpture get inside your head and heart and leave you, somehow, changed for the better.

Enriched.

In truth, he wasn’t here to enjoy the art, but to meet a contact who was driving up that morning from Rome. When that contact hadn’t arrived by the appointed hour, he’d decided-since he was here-to take advantage of the opportunity to check out the art, which he’d been doing now for nearly forty minutes.

It occurred to him that the late contact might not be the fault of Italy’s roads or the Florentine traffic, but a deliberate attempt to lull him into the semisoporific state in which he now found himself. Museum fatigue could not literally kill, of course, but it could leave you dull-witted and exposed.

And in Matosian’s life, these states were often the precursor to disaster.

Matosian tore his eyes away from Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch and quickly but surreptitiously scanned the milling crowd of tourists surrounding him. Nothing untoward caught his eye on the first sweep, but then, in the limit of his peripheral vision, a flash of blond hair appeared and then disappeared behind the entrance to the next room.

He turned, but had only taken his first step in that direction when he heard a scream. In that first second the crowd around him froze, and he used that moment to push his way through the press of people. By now others had taken up the cries, but Matosian ignored them, getting over to where a beautiful young woman lay where she’d fallen.

Matosian was the first one at her side. He felt the slight pulse in her neck, noted the shiny pallor and heat of her skin. Clearly, she’d been poisoned, probably right here in the Uffizi while she was waiting to make contact with him. Now her eyes opened and even through her obvious pain, he detected a softening in her expression-she recognized him. “Veni,” she gasped. “Come.” And lifting her arm, she brought him down close to her lips.