Escape must have been more important, because he left the stiletto where it was and staggered toward the Mercedes. His footsteps echoed on the asphalt to the background sound of the screaming Lear jet.
By the time I was sitting, Tanya had gotten to her hands and knees. Wilhelmina was too far away. The driver’s door of the Mercedes opened.
When I got to my knees, Tanya was standing and coming to me. The Mercedes’s door slammed shut. It was a solid CLUNK sound like the closing of a safe. Immediately there was a whir of starter motor, then the purr of the big V8. Tires chirped on the asphalt as Sheng made a quick U and faded from sight.
I got to my feet and weaved back and forth.
“Oh, Nick!” Tanya cried when she reached me. “It’s bleeding again. That bandage is soaked through.”
I pushed away from her and scooped up the stiletto, then staggered on to Wilhelmina. As I picked up the gun I stuck Hugo back in his sheath. Bare-chested, bandage soaked with blood, holster under the armpit, sheath on the arm. It wasn’t enough.
“Nick, what are you doing?” Tanya asked.
“Got to stop him.”
“But you’re bleeding. Let me stop it, then we can...”
“No!” I took a deep breath.
Mind over matter. The mystical, unknown powers of the East. Yoga. Closing my eyes, I called on everything within me. Just as yoga had helped me relax countless times, I now called on it for strength. Everything I had ever been taught was now summoned. I wanted my mind cleared of all pain. There was only one thing to concentrate on: stopping Sheng and that Lear jet. When I opened my eyes again, it was done — or done enough to get me moving.
“I’m coming with you.” Tanya fell in step.
“No.” I had started for the Volkswagen bus. And I was moving swiftly. Over my shoulder I said, “That cabin cruiser must have some kind of ship-to-shore radio. Find it and call Hawk. Tell him where we are.”
It was a fool’s kind of calmness which overtook me, an insane quiet which had nothing to do with reality. I knew it. Yet the only thought running through my mind was, “The sign of the Winged Tiger... the sign of the Winged Tiger.” Sheng had a list our Government needed. I had to get it. And it was not the list he had taken from me — that one we didn’t care about — it was the one he had hidden: the sign of the Winged Tiger.
Tanya disappeared through the hatch as I got the bus started and moved in a U. Over the mechanical clacking of the air-cooled, four-cylinder engine, I heard the scream of the Lear jet rise in pitch and volume.
I left the lights off as I drove along the asphalt. A stripped Luger, a stiletto, a gas bomb, and an agent with a lot of lost blood were no match for a Lear jet. But I had an idea I thought might work.
The flashing red-and-green running lights were far ahead of me now. I could see them clearly. The jet was rolling. Coming from the opposite end of the grassy field.
The asphalt road veered to the left at nine o’clock. The rolling jet was at twelve. I cut the wheel of the bus and left the road for the bouncing ankle-high grass, at an angle of about two o’clock.
Flames from the jets extended far behind the plane, looking like Fourth of July fireworks in the night. It was really moving now. I pushed the bus to its limit in third gear, then shifted to fourth.
From the angle I was driving, the jet was coming at ten o’clock while I was heading at twelve. The ground was much smoother than I thought it would be. My speedometer was hovering between fifty and sixty. The scream of the jet engines was now a thunderous roar. The running lights bounced as the plane rolled faster and faster.
It would take to the air soon. Blades of grass became a blur of darkness. My eyes never left the rolling plane. The distance between us was quickly gobbled up as the two rolling masses of metal headed on a collision course.
Vaguely I wondered if he had seen me. It didn’t matter. Both of us had passed the point of no return now. There was nothing he could do with that plane but ride. He hadn’t made enough speed to lift off, he couldn’t brake it to a halt, and he couldn’t turn without flipping. It was the same with me.
Reaching down behind the seat, I felt around the cold metal objects until I found the heavy mallet. I pulled it up and put it in my lap.
The plane was getting close now, the roar of the engines so loud they deafened, wheels a spinning mass of black, cockpit lit just enough so I could see him. His hair was still mussed slightly. The oxygen mask was loose, dangling to his left. He was an expert pilot, had been awarded Red China’s highest medal.
There might not be enough time. I had to hurry. The distance was being eaten up too fast. I picked up the mallet and let the weight of it fall to the floorboard. The bus slowed slightly as I moved my foot from the gas pedal and placed the mallet on it. For an instant I had a feeling of utter smallness, something like what the man on a day sailer must feel as he is passed by an ocean finer.
My hand was on the doorlatch. The bus was now rolling at a steady fifty. But the jet had picked up a lot of speed. It took a great deal of effort to get the door open against the rushing wind. And I could hear the low roar of both engines at full throttle. I turned the wheel to the left slightly. Now the bus was heading directly for the jet. I pushed the door all the way open and jumped.
At first there was the sensation of flight, the timeless twilight area when you are not touching anything on this earth. Then, looking down, the ground was moving much too fast. I was going to get hurt.
I had thought about hitting the ground running. That was why my foot struck first. But the force of speed sent my head down and my other leg up toward my back. I no longer had control of where I was going. All I could do was relax my body.
My head hit, then my back, then I was in the air again. This time I came down on my shoulder and kept bouncing and rolling while I gritted my teeth against the pain.
Almost as quickly as I’d started, I stopped. Couldn’t catch my breath, wind knocked out of me, blind for an instant. There was a lot of orange light and heat.
I felt it rather than saw it because I had only been able to catch glimpses of what had happened as I bounced and rolled. Maybe that was what helped me relax, concentrating on what was happening to the plane.
Sheng had seen the bus at the last minute. He had hit the port brake, trying to turn slightly out of the way. The Lear jet tipped up on its right wheel, dipping the right wing low. It was that wingtip the bus struck. With a screeching grind of breaking metal the wing bent and broke. By that time the nose of the jet was aimed toward the ground behind the bus and the tail was coming up.
With engines still roaring, the plane did one cartwheel, broken right wing to nose to left wing to tail. At that point Sheng cut the power.
For an instant the plane stood poised on its tail, simply flowing down the grassy strip with the tail less than a foot off the ground, blowing grass to the sides like the bow of a ship parting water.
When it came down it was upside down. The cockpit area slammed hard as the whole plane started spinning and twirling, making that screeching metal grinding sound.
And then it blew.
The wing tanks blew toward the fuselage, which came apart like a dropped puzzle. Orange and red balls of flame boiled up with roaring explosions. The sky was brightened as flames belched straight up and out in all directions.
Pieces landed less than twenty feet away from me. A wing section went high and landed close to where I had jumped. The entire tail section was blasted free from the fuselage. It went up like a well-kicked football and ripped apart far to my left.
The orange flaming light showed the Volkswagen bus rolling. It didn’t explode. After the wing struck, it reared on its back wheels like a wild stallion, then pitched forward, flipped to its side, and rolled four times before it came to a halt upside down.