With a hiss of air brakes, Buster Malloy brought the giant double-decker Greyhound Americruiser smoothly to a halt beneath the cantilevered porte-cochère of the Roman Palladium.
He checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. Driver’s cap at the correct angle, tie straight, sunglasses adjusted to hide the missing eye. He brushed off the short-sleeved gray shirt with the Greyhound logo on the pocket and rose from the driver’s seat. Boosting the bus had been easy. Breaking into the locker room at the depot and stealing the uniform had been the tough part. But he’d pulled it off. For the last time, Buster glanced down the aisle at his “passengers”—white chemical drums looking like headless ghost riders obediently seated in pairs all the way to the back. In an uncharacteristic flash of black humor, Dan Shiller had christened the stolen bus their “portable boom box.”
Malloy no longer noticed the pungent mixture of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitromethane that permeated the interior of the vehicle; during the long drive in from the desert his nostrils had become desensitized to the odor. All sixty-five drums were interconnected by detonator wires. If everything went according to Jurgen’s calculations, the wires would simultaneously set off a blasting cap buried in each drum, which in turn would detonate the stick of dynamite to which it was attached. The resulting explosion would unleash almost three times the power of the fertilizer bomb that had destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
A tangle of wires joined each drum to its neighbor. Other wiring harnesses disappeared through three roughly hacked holes in the floor to connect with the remaining drums in the three luggage compartments below.
Attached with duct tape to the wall beside the driver’s seat, an electronic
timer with a green LED readout was frozen at twelve minutes. Malloy reached over and turned a key, starting the countdown. 11:59 … 11:58 … 11:57, it began, inexorably headed for zero and oblivion for hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings. As Jurgen had suggested, the big Irishman removed the timer key and tossed it to the back of the bus, where it disappeared into a thicket of wires. The precaution was redundant; a duplicate timer in the center luggage compartment, wired in parallel to the one beside the seat, would continue to run and would detonate the entire charge even if the first timer were disabled.
Satisfied with his preparations, Buster picked up a gray tote bag and casually stepped down from the bus, closing and locking the door behind him. An African-American doorman wearing a white jacket with gold braid trim intercepted Malloy as he ascended the wide marble steps leading up to the front doors.
“How long you gonna be, my man?”
The bogus bus driver stopped and smiled reassuringly. “Not more’n fifteen minutes, pal. I got a loada ol’ ladies to pick up. I jus’ need to go inside an’ round ’em up.”
“All right. But make it fast, I got a pile of traffic coming through here.”
“Be right back, bro,” Malloy retorted cynically, clutching his bag and disappearing through the smoked-glass doors of the Roman Palladium.
After sitting out three long reds at Flamingo Road, Steve Forrester was finally able to inch the Mercedes-Benz convertible across the intersection.
Lucy Baker, standing up in the convertible like a politician in a St. Patrick’s Day parade, scanned the hotel fronts anxiously. Nothing she had seen so far remotely resembled a Greyhound bus.
But wait! That familiar shape a quarter mile back from the road! The red, white, and blue livery, the big windows reflecting the overhead lights of the Roman Palladium—could it be? “Yes,” she cried, answering her own question. She gripped Forrester’s shoulder with her left hand and pointed excitedly with her right. “Look, Steve! At the entrance to the Palladium! It’s definitely a bus!”
Forrester screeched to a halt and pulled on the hand brake, provoking an instant chorus of honks from the cars behind. Awkwardly, he pulled himself up by grasping the top of the windshield and stared in the direction she was pointing. “You’re right.” He squinted hard, shielding his eyes from
the neon glare. “And look—somebody’s just getting out of the bus. A big guy. I can’t see his face from this distance—but I’d bet the ranch it’s our friend Malloy!”
“Oh my God, Steve … but we’re on the wrong side of the Strip … and we’re hemmed in by traffic. How do we get there?”
“The hard way,” he replied grimly, sliding back down into the bucket seat. “Fasten your seat belt.”
He jammed the Mercedes into gear, released the brake, and popped the clutch. They were in the center lane on the northbound side of the Strip; they had to jump one lane in order to reach the median. Using the space that had opened up in front of them when he stopped a moment earlier, Forrester accelerated and cut the wheel hard to the left. In a hopelessly optimistic turn signal, he pointed his arm at the tiny space in front of the Yellow Cab that occupied the lane he needed to cross. As he had fully expected, the taxi driver was not moved. The man indignantly blew his horn, determined not to allow any fancy sports car to cut in front of him. It had been a tough day.
“Sorry, fella,” Steve muttered. “This is going to hurt my car more than it’s gonna hurt yours.”
Forrester gripped the wheel and relentlessly pursued his course, crunching his left front fender into the right front bumper of the cab. As he angled across the other car’s path, its bumper scraped an ugly groove all down the left side of the Mercedes. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, but it was too late. The Mercedes’s left rear wheel well caught the taxi’s bumper, ripping it completely off. Enraged, the cabbie leaned on his horn and uttered Arabic imprecations at this crazy man in the silver convertible who had just despoiled his beautiful car! Forrester ignored the yelling; he was already steering his front wheels up and over the concrete lip of the median. As the rear wheels reached the steep curb, they spun wildly, momentarily losing traction. Then they grabbed, and the big sports car scraped over, ripping off one of its twin stainless-steel mufflers in the process.
“What’s that noise?” Lucy yelled.
“We just lost a muffler,” Steve shouted back. “Hang on now!”
He accelerated hard off the other side of the median, landing directly in the path of a knot of oncoming traffic. Brakes squealed and horns blasted as startled motorists desperately attempted to avoid this unexpected shot across their bow. One car slid sideways and was rammed broadside by the vehicle behind, causing a chain reaction of rear-end collisions. Another
driver did not see the Mercedes coming until he was virtually upon it. Frantically he turned his wheel to the right, barely managing to avoid T-boning the silver convertible but nevertheless sharply clipping its front right side.
Lucy screamed and Forrester fought the wheel as the force of impact lifted the right side of their car and threatened to tip it over. But the heavy convertible held its ground and bounced back down with a spine-jarring crash. Forrester regained control and pointed it toward the Palladium’s main entrance—the famous triumphal arch topped with the gilded charioteer sculpture. A high-pitched squeal now emanated from his right front wheel as the tire rubbed noisily against the crumpled fender, but Steve was beyond caring about the car. Somehow they had to reach that bus, to warn people, to disarm the bomb before it was too late.
He accelerated up to the gate and swung the wheel hard right. Almost there—but damn it all! Traffic on the carriageway leading up to the hotel’s main entrance was jammed right back to the sidewalk. A virtual parking lot of private cars, limousines, and taxis completely blocked access to the Roman Palladium.
“Now what do we do?” an ashen-faced Lucy Baker asked.
“Only one other way in,” Forrester replied matter-of-factly, slamming the car into reverse, roaring out backward as far as he could, then screeching forward across the sidewalk, knocking over a trash can and scattering terrified pedestrians.
The car bounced back down onto the blacktop of the Strip and squealed off rapidly in a southbound direction. A hundred feet farther along, he jammed on the brakes and executed a sliding right turn—into the exit gate.
With smoke now pouring out of the right front wheel well as a result of the friction of metal against rubber and a loud roar emanating from beneath the partially disemboweled vehicle, Forrester once more floored the Mercedes, racing in the wrong direction up the Palladium’s one-way exit driveway.
Suddenly a small red car appeared directly in his path. Forrester squeezed right to let the other vehicle pass on his left, but its driver panicked—instead of turning right himself in order to get by, he braked hard and slid directly into the path of the big convertible. Steve frantically jerked the wheel back to the left, but it was too late. The crumpled right front fender of the heavy Mercedes caught the hapless subcompact and lifted it like a toy, pushing it over the marble retaining wall and into the reflecting pool surrounding the fountains.
Grimly, Steve Forrester drove on. Lucy glanced back to witness a sodden but apparently unhurt driver climbing out of the window of the little red car.
“Almost there!” Steve shouted—when a big yellow-and-black sign loomed up ahead of them. DO NOT ENTER! it read. SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE! BACK UP NOW!
“All I can say is, this better be the right bus,” Forrester muttered through gritted teeth, maintaining speed as they approached the angled spikes that protruded ominously from the roadbed. Four loud bangs rocked the car as each of its tires exploded in turn.
But they were there! He skidded the Mercedes sideways on its shredded tires, finally grinding to a halt at a skewed angle in front of the bus, less than a foot from its massive bumper. Not surprisingly, the Mercedes’s driver’s door was jammed shut. Steve vaulted over the side, noting with resignation as he did so that the car’s bodywork now more closely resembled a demolition derby loser than the pride of the German automotive industry.
Lucy jumped out through the still-functioning passenger door and raced around to join him.
The gold-braided doorman planted himself in front of the couple. “Are you crazy?” he yelled. “What in hell do you think you’re—”
Forrester held up his hand. “Sorry. I’m Steve Forrester, Vice President of the Galaxy. This is an emergency. Where’s the driver of that bus?”
“He went inside a couple of minutes ago. To get his passengers. Look, Mr. Forrester, what’s going on here?”
“To make a long story short, we believe there’s a bomb aboard that bus.”
“Motherfucker.” The man’s eyes widened. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Forrester ran to the Greyhound bus and attempted to open the door. It was locked. “You got anything I could pry this open with?” he called out to the doorman. But the man had gone. Steve just caught a glimpse of a giltedged figure disappearing rapidly past the taxi stand toward the gates.
“There must be another way in,” said Lucy, scanning the bus.
“Hey, you’d better get out of here,” Forrester said with a worried frown. “This thing could go off at any time.”
He watched as she swallowed hard and set her jaw stubbornly. “Well, I’m not leaving. You know, you’re not the only one involved here. This is my town, too. And I don’t intend to let these bastards destroy it.”
Forrester hesitated, admiring her courage but still dubious about exposing her to such danger. “No use both of us risking our lives—”
“Why? Because I’m a weak, defenseless female? Get real, mister. There’s no time to argue … and you could probably use my help.” She pointed to a window halfway down the bus that was slightly raised. “Look, that window’s open. I’m small. If you boosted me, I could get inside and open the door.”
“But—”
“Hey, we’re in this thing together.”
“Okay, let’s do it.” He clasped her around the thighs from behind and lifted her easily. She reached up and grasped the frame of the open window. With a wiggle and a final boost from Forrester, she managed to insinuate her slim body through the opening, scraping a shin painfully on the way in and landing awkwardly atop a pair of plastic chemical drums. The pungent stench inside the darkened bus caused her to blink and gasp for breath. With difficulty, she half rolled, half fell off the drums and into the aisle. Then, holding on to seat backs, she pulled herself to her feet and headed up the aisle—only to immediately trip over a tangle of wires. As she fell, she smashed her left elbow on a plastic armrest.
God, it hurt. But there was no time for self-pity. Somehow, squeezing back tears of pain, she stumbled to her feet and reached the front of the bus. Now, how did you open the door? She looked around quickly.
There—above the door. A little lever with a knob at the end marked EMERGENCY OPEN. She pulled down hard on it. There was a click and a hiss of compressed air, and the door swung wide.
Forrester bounded up the four steps two at a time. One glance down the aisle at the wired-up plastic drums told him that his hunch had been correct. And unless they did something about it, the Roman Palladium would suffer the same terrible end as the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“Are you all right?” he asked Lucy.
She bit her lip and nodded. “There’s some kind of clock there taped under the window. It says less than seven minutes—”
“It must be the timer for the bomb.”
“Can you disarm it? You know, cut the wires … or stop the clock?”
Steve peered closely at it. “I don’t think so. There’s no key. And I wouldn’t know which wires to cut—even if I had something to cut them with.”
“Maybe we should wait for the police.”
He glanced again at the LED readout on the clock—06:47. “Look, if that thing’s accurate, there’s no time. We’ve got to get this bus out of here—now!”
Fortunately, Malloy had left the big diesel engine running. Forrester slid behind the wheel and dumbly scrutinized the myriad instruments, the serried ranks of switches and blinking lights. “Hey, lady—you got any idea how to drive this thing?” he asked hopefully.
“No … but isn’t that a gearshift by your right arm? The doodad that says ‘R-N-D’?”
“I believe you’re right! We’re in business!”
He jerked the lever into D and simultaneously pressed down on the accelerator pedal. With a hiss of compressed air, the bus lurched ahead. There was a grinding crash.
“Steve! Watch out for your car!”
“Oh, shit. Well, it’s too late now. Auf wiedersehen, old friend.” As the bus gathered speed, its massive rubber-faced bumper lifted the battered Mercedes-Benz convertible, pushing it on its side and finally flipping it completely over like a child’s toy.
Buster Malloy hurried through the elegant lobby, past the imposing marble statue of Julius Caesar and into the men’s restroom.
The bomb’s timer was set for twelve minutes; Malloy had allowed himself five minutes to change into the biker’s outfit, then another seven to get well clear of the building.
Inside the cubicle, he stuffed the bus driver’s uniform into the tote bag and crammed the bag behind the toilet. Tucking the helmet under his arm, he adjusted the wraparound sunglasses to conceal his deformity. Buster was certain that porch monkey of a doorman would not recognize him without the uniform. But even if he did, so what?
Buster strode confidently back out through the front doors of the Roman Palladium. Oddly, there was no sign of the doorman. But what was this? The door of the bus was open! And it was starting to move!
With a roar of indignation, Malloy dropped his helmet and raced for the bus. As he neared it, the big vehicle casually pushed a silver Mercedes convertible over onto its back and out of the way. Gradually, it gathered speed. Malloy’s legs pounded like pistons as he raced for the bus; he just managed to seize the grab bar mounted on the open door. For a moment, he
ran beside the bus, legs windmilling, pulled along by the grab bar, breathing hard, his face purple from anger and exertion. Finally, with a monumental effort, he heaved his bulky body up onto the bottom step.
“Well … if it ain’t … the big boss … Steve Forrester,” he gasped. “I shoulda … known … it was you.”
Startled, Forrester glanced at his new passenger. “Get off this bus, Malloy!”
“No way … Mister Forrester.” Chest heaving, the big man slowly climbed to the second step and paused. “Now you just … put them brakes on an’ back right up.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Still breathing heavily, Buster Malloy deliberately pulled himself up to the next step. He spotted the woman standing back in the shadows and squinted in her direction. “Miss Baker, ain’t it?” he panted. “What are you supposed to be, then … Mr. Forrester’s shotgun rider?”
“Get back, Malloy,” Lucy cried, her voice unsteady. She looked around desperately for a weapon, anything to stop this madman from coming any closer. Her eye fell upon a solid-looking brass fire extinguisher suspended from the wall behind the driver’s seat. She lunged for it and fumbled frantically with the clip. But Buster was too fast; rising cobralike from the stairwell, he swung a beefy closed fist in a wide backhand arc and smashed Lucy across the upper chest, knocking her back between the seats.
“Enjoy your trip, bitch,” Malloy sneered.
Lucy fell hard, the wind knocked out of her. The fire extinguisher clattered to the floor and rolled from side to side in the aisle as Steve frantically accelerated.
The clock read 04:53.
With no further obstacles between him and his target, Malloy launched himself directly at Forrester. Steve tried to fend off his attacker with a straight-arm, but succeeded only in knocking Buster’s sunglasses off, revealing one bloodshot green eye and one ghastly empty socket the color and texture of chewed bubble gum.
“So that bastard Druperman didn’t think we’d do it,” Malloy snarled, struggling to oust his opponent from the driver’s seat.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Forrester panted, managing an elbow to Malloy’s midsection. “We did pay the money. Your pal screwed you.”
For a second, Buster froze. Then he began to laugh, a rising, humorless
cackle with an undertone of pure madness. “Well, then, fuck him,” he screamed. “Fuck Druperman. Fuck you. And fuck this town!”
With his left hand, Malloy roughly seized the collar of Forrester’s jacket and yanked him half out of the driver’s seat; with the other, he grabbed the big flat steering wheel and tried to force it around to the left, attempting to scrape the bus to a halt along the marble retaining wall of the reflecting pool.
Determined to keep the vehicle moving away from the building, Forrester held the pedal to the floor and tried valiantly to resist Malloy’s pressure on the wheel. But from his awkward position half on and half off the seat, half sitting and half lying, he was unable to obtain the leverage he needed to overcome the larger man’s brute strength.
Inexorably, the bus veered left, but instead of grinding to a stop as Malloy had hoped, it smashed through the retaining wall of the Palladium’s reflecting pool at thirty miles an hour as if the wall were made of glass. The impact blasted a great spray of chipped stone and water, causing an outrushing deluge at the spot where the big vehicle had breached the wall. Like a dam burst in a Hollywood disaster epic, a wall of water cascaded out onto the manicured lawns and concrete forecourt. Still moving ahead, powering through the two-foot-deep pool, the mighty Greyhound’s speed raised a huge sheeted bow wave on each side, while its momentum caused it to snap off in turn each of the fountainhead statues as easily as a bowler would knock down tenpins. Behind the great vehicle, high-pressure jets of water spurted unchecked from broken mains.
Awkwardly splayed across the driver’s seat, Forrester nevertheless managed to keep his foot pressed down on the accelerator. He knew that the farther away from the Palladium he managed to push the bus, the more lives would be spared. He squirmed and twisted, unable to obtain the advantage over his stronger, heavier opponent. As a former amateur wrestler, Steve could have given a respectable account of himself in a fair fight, but now, arched backward across the seat, he knew he was losing the battle for control of the Greyhound. His head rocked as Malloy landed a glancing blow to his temple; he felt a massive hand grab his belt and begin to haul him bodily off the seat and away from the controls. With a triumphant roar, the bitter, deranged ex-Marine raised a giant hamhock of a fist above his head.
The green LED readout on the clock timer read 04:02.
Guns drawn, two Metro cops burst out of the front doors of the Roman Palladium just in time to witness the Greyhound’s voyage of destruction through the reflecting pool.
As they watched in fascinated horror, the vehicle began mowing down fountains. It smashed into the little red car, the subcompact that had been forced into the water only moments ago during Forrester’s wild inbound charge, and tossed it skyward in a shower of flying fenders and shattered glass.
“What the hell’s going on?” one of the policemen asked a valet parker.
“This crazy guy roars up in that Mercedes.” The attendant indicated the inverted wreck of Forrester’s car. “There’s a woman with him. Then they break into that bus and drive off. Another guy jumps on board just as they’re leaving. What a fuckin’ mess. There’s gonna be hell to pay when the bosses see this.”
“Did these people say anything?” the other cop said, switching on his shoulder mike.
“I’m not sure. I thought I heard the guy from the Mercedes say there was a bomb on the bus.”