The customs man took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.
Charlie imagined that he heard the click over the clamor of sirens. A white muzzle flash lit the alley and the report drowned out all other sounds.
Like Drummond, Charlie ducked, not just beneath the window line but to the nonskid metal floor, his instincts overriding his awareness that even the monster’s metal plating offered little protection against a bullet traveling near the speed of sound.
The bullet drilled through the windshield, spider-webbing much of the surrounding glass and blasting shards against Charlie’s hands, which he was using to shield his head. The round continued its course through the vinyl seat just above Drummond’s head, disappearing through the door to the cargo hold.
With his raw left hand, Charlie punched the clutch, meanwhile ramming the gearshift into first and pressing the accelerator, sending the Amphibus lurching forward. He pounded the horn.
The customs official jumped, sending his subsequent shot high. It struck one of the spotlights on the vehicle’s roof. Orange fragments of glass bounced down Charlie’s window.
Emboldened by the sight of the official scurrying out of the way, Charlie sat up so that he was even with the wheel and stomped on the accelerator. The Amphibus chugged to seven or eight kilometers per hour.
Drummond rose too, heavy-lidded and irritable, as if he’d been rudely awoken.
“You okay?” Charlie asked.
Drummond grumbled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.”
As the truck reached the end of the alley, something thudded against the passenger side of the cargo hold.
“I was afraid of that,” Drummond said, eyeing his side mirror.
Checking the mirror, Charlie saw du Frongipanier improbably clinging to one of the flotation devices dangling from the Amphibus.
“Hang on,” Charlie said. “Tight.”
Drummond braced himself against the control panel. Charlie crushed the brake pedal. The tires shrieked to a halt while the chassis and Charlie’s stomach hurtled onward.
The customs man ought to have been flung thirty feet ahead.
But he hung on and, what’s more, managed to point his revolver at the passenger window and line up Drummond’s head in his sights.
Charlie shifted back into gear, costing du Frongipanier his aim. Mashing the gas pedal, Charlie hoped to gain enough speed to shed the unwanted passenger.
Rapid acceleration was not one of the Amphibus’s features.
Three successive rounds pounded through the wall behind Charlie and Drummond. The air filled with particles of seat-cushion foam. More shattered windshield fell inward, scraping Charlie’s face and sticking in his wig. Rolling out of the alley, he saw no choice but to duck again and hope that no planes or fuel trucks were in his path.
Shielding his eyes from the continuing influx of glass, Drummond sat up and jerked one of the levers beneath the control panel. With a rush of air, a pontoon shot away from the Amphibus-a horrified du Frongipanier aboard.
The flotation device thumped against the tarmac then reversed course, the rope tethering it to the Amphibus snapping back to the vehicle. Despite repeated bumps and asphalt burns, the customs official not only hung on but also raised his revolver.
Another glaring muzzle flash and a bullet penetrated the steel door dividing the cab and the cargo hold, ricocheting around like a mad bee.
“Any chance there’s another lever you can use?” Charlie asked.
Drummond brightened. “Yes, thank you! That is what I was trying to remember.”
He leaned forward, jerking another handle.
A red life ring disengaged with a feeble click and floated backward, like a frisbee.
It clipped du Frongipanier in the shoulder with a disheartening pfft. But enough force still to knock him off the pontoon. He tumbled backward along the tarmac, his revolver bouncing along with him. Right into his hand. As he slid to a stop, he fired again.
The bullet sparked the tarmac well wide of Charlie’s door. The Amphibus bounced, Charlie along with it, his head striking the roof liner. “What the hell?”
“Grass,” Drummond said.
Now Charlie saw it. The Amphibus was crossing the strip of lawn that paralleled the runway. A moment later the heavy vehicle clomped onto the runway itself.
Charlie looked up, bracing for impact with a descending 747.
The sky was empty, but a trio of police cars was converging on the Amphibus.
Extraordinarily composed, or perhaps just drained of panic, Charlie focused on the Caribbean, outlined by the moonlight, a mile up the runway. He tried to turn the Amphibus, wrestling gravity for control of the wheel. The tires howled. Whines and groans suggested the vehicle was about to collapse into a mass of spent automotive parts. It careened toward the water with the exception of a cylindrical tank-a fire extinguisher? — which burst through the rear door and bounced down the runway, leaving a comet trail of sparks.
The first police car slalomed to avoid being struck, then accelerated, closing to within a city block of the Amphibus. The two other police cars fell behind the first, forming a triangular formation, suggesting to Charlie that they intended to “T-bone” the truck, or disable it by ramming its flanks.
Although the engine roared like a blast furnace, the Amphibus seemed to have maxed at seventy kilometers per hour.
The police cars closed to within striking range.
The water was half a mile ahead.
“Now would probably be a decent time to figure out how to turn this thing into a boat,” Charlie said.
Drummond stared across the cabin as if Charlie were the one with lucidity issues. “Turn this into a boat?”