Jeffery Deaver - The Bone Collector

Gaw… damn UN! She backed up a half block and got the wagon up to fifty before she slammed into the first sawhorse. Spreading portable aluminum tables and wooden display racks in her wake, she tore a swath through the deserted fair. Two blocks later the wagon broke through the southern barricade and she skidded west on Fifty-ninth, using far more of the sidewalk than she meant to.

There was the church, a hundred yards away.

Parishioners on the steps – parents, little girls in frilly white and pink dresses, young boys in dark suits and white shirts, their hair in gangsta knobs or fades.

And from a basement window, a small puff of gray smoke.

Sachs slammed the accelerator to the floor, the engine roaring.

Grabbing the radio. “RRV Two to Central, K?”

And in the instant it took her to glance down at the Motorola to make sure the volume was up, a big Mercedes slipped out of the alley directly into her path.

A fast glimpse of the family inside, eyes wide in horror, as the father slammed on the brakes.

Sachs instinctively spun the wheel hard to the left, putting the wagon into controlled skid. Come on, she was begging the tires, grip, grip, grip! But the oily asphalt was loose from the heat of the past few days and covered with dew. The wagon danced over the road like a hydrofoil.

The rear end met the Merc’s front flat-on at fifty miles an hour. With an explosive boom the 560 sheared off the rear right side of the wagon. The black CS suitcases flew into the air, breaking open and strewing their contents along the street. Church-goers dove for cover from the splinters of glass and plastic and sheet metal.

The air bag popped and deflated, stunning Sachs. She covered her face as the wagon tumbled over a row of cars and through a newsstand then skidded to a stop upside down. Newspapers and plastic evidence bags floated to the ground like tiny paratroopers.

Held upside down by the harness, blinded by her hair, Sachs wiped blood from her torn forehead and lip and tried to pop the belt release. It held tight. Hot gasoline flowed into the car and trickled along her arm. She pulled a switchblade from her back pocket, flicked the knife open and cut the seat belt. Falling, she nearly skewered herself on the knife and lay, gasping, choking on the gas fumes.

Come on, girl, get out. Out!

The doors were jammed closed and there was no escape through the crushed rear end of the wagon. Sachs began kicking the windows. The glass wouldn’t break. She drew her foot back and slammed it hard into the cracked windshield. No effect, except that she nearly sprained her ankle.

Her gun!

She slapped her hip; the gun had been torn from the holster and tossed somewhere inside the car. Feeling the hot drizzle of gasoline on her arm and shoulder, she searched frantically through the papers and CS equipment littering the ceiling of the station wagon.

Then she saw the clunky Glock near the dome light. She swept it up and aimed at the side window.

Go ahead. Backdrop’s clear, no spectators yet.

Then she hesitated. Would the muzzle flash ignite the gas?

She held the gun as far away from her soaked uniform blouse as she could, debating. Then squeezed the trigger.

FIVE SHOTS, A STAR PATTERN, and even then the honest General Motors glass held firm.

Three more blasts, deafening her in the confines of the wagon. But at least the gas didn’t explode.

She began to kick again. Finally the window burst outward in a cascade of blue-green ice. Just as she rolled out the interior of the wagon exploded with a breathless woosh .

Stripping down to her T-shirt, she flung away her gas-soaked uniform blouse and bulletproof vest and tossed aside the headset mike. Felt her ankle wobble but sprinted to the front door of the church, past the fleeing churchgoers and choir. The ground floor was filled with bubbling smoke. Nearby, a section of the floor rippled and steamed and then burst into flames.

The minister appeared suddenly, choking, tears streaming down his face. He was dragging an unconscious woman behind him. Sachs helped him get her to the door.

“Where’s the basement?” she asked.

He coughed hard, shook his head.

“Where?” she cried, thinking of Carole Ganz and her little daughter. “The basement?”

“There. But…”

On the other side of the patch of burning floor.

Sachs could barely see it, the smoke was so thick. A wall collapsed in front of them, the old joists and posts behind it snapping and firing sparks and jets of hot gas, which hissed into the cloudy room. She hesitated, then started for the basement door.

The minister took her arm. “Wait.” He opened a closet and grabbed a fire extinguisher, yanked the arming pin. “Let’s go.”

Sachs shook her head. “Not you. Keep checking up here. Tell the fire department there’s a police officer and another victim in the basement.”

Sachs was sprinting now.

When you move…

She jumped over the fiery patch of floor. But because of the smoke she misjudged the distance to the wall; it was closer than she’d thought and she slammed into the wood paneling then fell backwards, rolling as her hair brushed the fire, some strands igniting. Gagging on the stink, she crushed the flames out and started to push herself to her feet. The floor, weakened by the flames beneath, broke under her weight and her face crashed into the oak. She felt the blaze in the basement lick her hands and arms as she yanked her hands back.

Rolling away from the edge she climbed to her feet and reached for the knob to the basement door. She stopped suddenly.

Come on, girl, think better! Feel a door before opening it. If it’s too hot and you let oxygen into a superheated room it’ll ignite and the backdraft’ll fry your ass good. She touched the wood. It was scorching hot.

Then thought: But what the hell else can I do?

Spitting on her hand, she gripped the knob fast, twisting it open and releasing it just before the burn seared her palm.

The door burst open and a cloud of smoke and sparks shot outward.

“Anybody down there?” she called and started down.

The lower stairs were burning. She blasted them with a short burst of carbon dioxide and leapt into the murky basement. She broke through the second-to-last step, pitching forward. The extinguisher clattered to the floor as she grabbed the railing just in time to save her leg from snapping.

Pulling herself out of the broken step, Sachs squinted through the haze. The smoke wasn’t as bad down here – it was rising – but the flames were raging all around her. The extinguisher had rolled under a burning table. Forget it! She ran through the smoke.

“Hello?” she shouted.

No answer.

Then remembered that Unsub 823 used duct tape; he liked his vics silent.

She kicked in a small doorway and looked inside the boiler room. There was a door leading outside but burning debris blocked it completely. Beside it stood the fuel tank, which was now surrounded by flames.

It won’t explode, Sachs remembered from the academy – the lecture on arson. Fuel oil doesn’t explode. Kick aside the debris and push the door open. Clear your escape route. Then go look for the woman and the girl.

She hesitated, watching the flames roll over the side of the oil tank.

It won’t explode, it won’t explode.

She started forward, edging toward the door.

It won’t -

The tank suddenly puffed out like a heated soda can and split down the middle. The oil squirted into the air, igniting in a huge orange spume. A fiery pool formed on the floor and flowed toward Sachs.

Won’t explode. Okay. But it burns pretty fucking well. She leapt back through the door, slammed it shut. So much for her escape route.