Jesus, it was getting really vicious out there. He could see rioters trying to throw tear gas canisters back at the police, and there were other things flying through the air — rocks, bricks, and bottles filled with flaming gasoline.
Several masked demonstrators converged on a policeman who’d gotten too far out in front of his fellows. They ripped his gas mask off, and one of them landed a punch on the man’s throat. Tony saw his mouth open in agony for a second before he went down under a flurry of kicking legs.
A patch of color caught his eye, and he saw a Caucasian woman running down the street just in front of the oncoming melee. She was wearing high heels that looked uncomfortable and were slowing her down. Tony had a quick impression of copper-colored hair and a green summer dress.
But the woman was coughing, and unless she ditched the shoes, she wasn’t going to get clear.
He didn’t stop to think. He just reached out and unlocked the front door. “Hold the fort, Mac. I’ll be right back.”
The shopkeeper put a hand out, startled, but Tony brushed past him and ducked out onto the street.
The noise and smell hit him first — and he stayed back against the building to make sure nothing else hit him. Christ, the smell. He could feel his eyes tearing up and his throat drying out. He had been caught by tear gas before, back in West Germany during an antinuclear protest outside the base where he’d been stationed. This wasn’t as bad, but that was a relative term.
The first groups of rioters were past him, and he could see rocks and bottles flying through the air in both directions. Nothing was aimed directly at him, and as far as he could tell, he hadn’t been noticed. He sprinted the hundred yards to the woman flat out. She had stopped, winded, on the sidewalk.
Tony skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in front of her — his eyes half on her and half on the brawl swirling up the street toward them. “Ma’am, come with me! I’ve got a place back there where we can hole up.” He jerked a thumb back toward the bookstore.
She looked at him without much expression at all. “Hole up?” She was breathing heavily and rubbing her feet.
“I mean where we can get out of this mess.” Christ, this wasn’t any time for an English lesson. He looked nervously over her shoulder as the mob closed on them. “Ma’am, I’d get rid of those heels if I were you. They’re nice, but they aren’t Nikes!”
She looked at him and then at the chaos behind her. Muttering “There goes one pair of stockings,” she kicked out of her heels, scooped them off the pavement, and ran down the street, shoes in one hand and a package in another.
Tony ran to catch up, shouting, “The bookstore on the left!”
This lady was fast. Even with the noise behind pushing him along, he caught up to her only when she slowed to find the shop front.
Tony banged on the door and it opened just long enough for them to duck inside. The Korean slammed it shut as if it were spring-loaded. He looked up at Tony. “This is good. You find your lady friend. Both now safe.”
The woman flushed red.
Tony glanced over at her, embarrassed, and then back to the shopkeeper. “I don’t know her. I just didn’t think we should leave her out on the street.
“I’m glad you didn’t. Thank you both.” She started to put on her shoes, and Tony reached out a gentlemanly hand to steady her. She stood gracefully on one leg and slipped on one shoe, then switched legs and repeated the process. Tony pulled his hand back before she noticed it.
Hell, she wasn’t just pretty — she was damned pretty. She had a nice figure, but what really caught his eye was a mop of curly copper-colored hair. She wore it shoulder-length, and combined with the pale, freckled complexion only redheads can have, she was a knockout. She was tall, only half a head shorter than Tony, and that much taller than the shopkeeper.
And that was an American accent if he’d ever hear one. He straightened his shoulders. “Ma’am, I’m just glad I could help.” He reached out again, turning the charm meter up to level three. “My name’s Tony Christopher.”
She took his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Christopher. I hadn’t counted on running into something like this.” She suddenly smiled. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Anne Larson.”
Tony was worried. Level three wasn’t a killer, but “Mr. Christopher”? Sheesh. He tried level five. “Call me Tony, please.”
Before she could reply, something or someone slammed off the bookstore’s shutters, making them all jump. Anne whitened. “They’re going crazy out there. What’s going on around here all of a sudden?”
Tony shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. This is out of my field. Ask me about MiGs or flying, but not this stuff.”
They could hear windows breaking across the street. He turned to the Korean shopkeeper. “Say, have you ever seen anything this violent before?”
“No, not before. But all riots bad. Criminals and communists and ungrateful children. They make too much trouble, and everyone suffers. My shop will smell of the gas for weeks.”
Anne said, “But the police, they’re clubbing people.”
The Korean’s face tightened. “They bring this on themselves. Protesting the government! They should see how I lived thirty, forty years ago. They go to school and instead of classes they march in the street and throw rocks! They should obey parents and use chance to go to school. I wish I could go to university. They could have better life, build country.” He shook his head slowly and gestured outside. “Instead, they tear things up.”
Tony peered through a crack between the window shutters. Groups of students and police were struggling — sometimes attacking, sometimes fleeing. He felt as if he were watching it on television, but the sounds were too real, and you couldn’t catch the gut-wrenching stench of the tear gas on television.
He could see several hundred people, mostly white-masked students with some other civilians mixed in, trying to make a stand in the street outside. But a solid line of green-uniformed Combat Policemen were working their way slowly up the street breaking heads.
Squads in phalanx formation charged knots of protestors as they tried to form, firing rubber bullets and closing with clubs. Behind the advancing police line, troopers handcuffed individual rioters, none too gently, and dragged them over to waiting security vans. At the same time, trucks with water cannon and grenade launchers fired at larger groups, driving the mass of people farther up the street. It was a well-organized operation, pulverizing a mass of organized demonstrators into dazed individuals, safely under control.
He and Anne both watched as the police line moved toward the bookstore. As the fighting got closer, details popped out. Two policemen handcuffed a glassy-eyed student, threw him to the ground, and kicked him savagely. Just a few feet away, another demonstrator picked up a tear gas grenade from the pavement and lobbed it back toward the police. He went down with blood streaming from his forehead, knocked senseless by a rubber bullet fired at near point-blank range.
Another had a spray can. As a riot trooper ran at him, the kid pressed the spray button, then held a lighter in front of it. Tony saw a flash and saw the student try to aim his improvised flamethrower at the oncoming policeman. But the helmeted trooper knocked the spray can away with a long billy club, then whipped the weapon down onto the student’s unprotected head — smashing the boy to the pavement with a series of short, vicious blows. The man ran on, leaving the kid huddled in agony on the ground.
Tony looked back at the Korean shopkeeper. He was sitting at his desk in the back, quietly working. He wasn’t accomplishing much though, since he glanced up every five or ten seconds. When he saw Tony looking, he quickly fixed his gaze on the papers in front of him and did not look up again.