Art knew Camille could be loud. But he did not appreciate exactly how loud. The sound of Camille’s voice exploded in the interior of the SUV like a high-pitched clap of rolling thunder.
The reaction from the front seat was immediate.
The driver’s head lurched to the right and his hands followed, sending the vehicle bumping up against the curb. As the driver struggled to regain control of the SUV, the detective snapped around in his seat.
“I warned you!” he yelled.
He swung the stun gun toward Camille, the blue sparks jumping off the sharp metal electrodes.
And that’s when Art opened the can of Coke.
Coke, like most other soft drinks, is carbonated. Little bubbles are formed when carbon gas is forced into the liquid. When a can is opened, the little bubbles escape, resulting in a hiss of carbon gas and nothing more. However, if a can is shaken before it is opened, everything changes. The little bubbles form big bubbles, and the result is more than just a slight hiss of carbon gas.
The detective never saw it coming.
The brown liquid exploded from the can. In an instant it covered the detective’s stun gun, his arm, and his hand, and drenched the right side of the driver’s face. The detective could not react fast enough to pull his finger from the trigger of the stun gun. One hundred thousand volts of electricity followed the conductive path laid down by the stream of soda. The detective’s hand twitched as the current ran through it, and rather than releasing the trigger, the man gripped the stun gun even tighter. The blue electrical charge followed the spray of soda across the front seat and to the side of the driver’s face. The driver screamed and released the steering wheel. The large SUV careened to the right.
Art could hear the wheels scrape along the curb and see the shocked faces of the pedestrians along the sidewalk. The driver recovered quickly and took control of the steering wheel. However, the detective—who was still clutching the stun gun—pitched to the side and the sharp electrodes planted squarely in the driver’s right arm. The driver’s whole body suddenly went rigid, and his right foot slammed down on the accelerator. The SUV’s wheels screeched as the vehicle lurched forward. The front wheels struck the curb and pushed the SUV sharply to the left. The smell of burned rubber filled the interior of the vehicle.
“Hold on!” Art yelled at Camille.
The SUV shot directly across the street, narrowly missing a small red car traveling in the opposite lane of traffic. The massive vehicle bounced up and over the curb and passed between a light post and trash can. The SUV shredded a short iron fence and crashed headlong into the side of a large stone building. The air bags in the front seat deployed upon impact, and Camille and Art jerked forward violently against their seat belts. A sharp pain shot through Art’s right shoulder as his seat belt tightened. Smoke and a burning chemical smell instantly engulfed the interior of the SUV. The rear of the car lifted from the impact and dropped with a thud and a shudder.
Art looked over at Camille. She seemed shaken up but otherwise fine. The same could not be said for the driver and the detective. The detective had somehow ended up across the driver’s lap with his left calf wrapped behind the driver’s neck. Both men were groaning and appeared barely conscious.
Art and Camille quickly unbuckled their seat belts. Art tried to open his door, but it remained locked. Camille tried her door. Same result. Art knew he would have to open the doors from the front seat. He stretched around the headrest and tried to reach the front door on the passenger side. His right shoulder felt as if it had been hit with a hammer, and he grimaced in pain. Smoke still swirled around in the front seat from the deflated air bags. Art could see that the passenger-side door was bent from the impact.
What if it’s broken? he thought.
Art pushed the passenger-side air bag out of the way and pressed down on the door-unlock button. There was a slight buzzing sound.
“Not opening,” Camille said from the back seat. “Try again.”
The boy pushed the button. Same buzzing sound. Same result. The doors remained locked.
“You’re gonna have to try the driver’s door!” he said to Camille. The smoke was burning his nose, and he was finding it hard to breathe. They were running out of time.
Camille could see the driver’s massive body leaning against the car door. She would have to reach under him to get to the locking mechanism. She hesitated. This would not be easy.
“Do it!” yelled Art. “There’s no more time.”
Camille reached around the driver’s seat and under the driver’s thick torso. She had to wedge almost her entire upper body between the driver’s door and the seat to get close enough to the lock. The man’s armpit was within an inch of her nose. He smelled like cheap lime after-shave and sweat. Camille stretched her hand toward the locking button but was still a couple of inches away. Taking a deep breath, she pushed into the driver’s body, burying her nose deep in his armpit. She could no longer see the lock, but she felt around and pushed down. There was a clicking sound from the back seat.
“You did it!” she heard Art exclaim. “Now let’s get out of here!”
She heard the door of the SUV open and felt the rush of cold, fresh air into the car.
She was starting to pull her arm back when, suddenly, the driver’s massive hand closed around her wrist. The pain was tremendous. Camille wanted to scream, but her face was still buried in the man’s armpit.
“You’re not going anywhere,” the man growled.
She was trapped.
Eric McClain, who had been following the SUV, watched the accident unfold from a half block away. McClain’s job was to be available if something went wrong—and something had just gone really wrong.
McClain pulled his car over to the curb and considered what he should do. A small crowd was already starting to gather near the crash site, and smoke was pouring from the front of the SUV. He knew that it would be only a matter of minutes before the police arrived. His sole concern right now was the boy, not the girl or his fellow team members. The mission was the only thing that mattered—and the mission was to secure the boy.
There was no time to check in with Palmer—events were moving too fast. McClain started to put his car into gear when he saw the boy step out of the back seat.
At least the boy’s not hurt, McClain thought.
But the boy was no longer under their control—and that would need to change fast.
It was risky, but McClain would have to grab the boy off the street before the police arrived. Accident scenes were always a state of confusion—smoke, noise, the smell of gasoline in the air, and a gathering crowd—and that commotion would provide McClain with a small window of opportunity. The boy, however, was too big to simply wrestle into the trunk. A stun gun or other obvious weapon was out of the question—it would draw too much attention in the middle of a crowd. But McClain was prepared for this sort of contingency. He opened his glove compartment and pulled out a small blue box. Inside was what appeared to be three cheap retractable ballpoint pens. They were, in fact, devices that fired small tranquilizer darts. Once the trigger—disguised as a pocket clip on each pen—was depressed, the device would fire a tiny dart with a small, almost invisible needle—no more than a quarter inch in length. The devices were virtually silent—compressed air was used to fire the darts. And although the gadgets had an effective range of less than five feet, the substance inside the pens could render a grown man unconscious within seconds. McClain slid all three pens into his coat pocket, put his car into gear, and headed toward the accident scene.
Camille couldn’t move—the driver had a vicelike grip on her wrist and had leaned the entire weight of his torso against her. She could feel his chest rising up and down. Her face was still planted firmly in his armpit, and she could barely breathe.
“Let’s go!” shouted Art from outside the car. The girl tried to respond, but her words came out muffled.
“Get off me!” the driver barked at the detective. “The boy’s getting away!”
Camille heard a groan from the front seat. “What . . . happened?” a groggy voice asked.
“Let’s go!” Art shouted again.
There was only one thing Camille could do in her position.
The girl opened her mouth as wide as she could and bit down hard on the man’s armpit.
The driver howled in pain. He instantly released his grip on Camille’s wrist. She pulled her arm free, slid across the back seat, and was out the door before the driver could react. Art took Camille by the hand, and they started running.