“Strykers, six, two, be advised that we’re catching a lot of civilian, ah . . . activity down there. Movement right now is confined to target’s path.”

The lead Stryker’s reply was brief. “Fuck ’em. Estimate contact with target in less than ten seconds.”

Tommy didn’t see the Stryker come up on his passenger side out of the darkness of East Van Buren until it was too late to stop. He hit the gas instead, trying to outleap the Stryker the way a gazelle would strain in slow motion against the outstretched fury of a lioness’s leap.

They had decided to ram the vehicle, instead of trying to shoot out the tires. If they missed and hit the driver, there was no telling how Dr. Reischtal might retaliate. He might even order one of the Apaches to take out the Strykers.

The ambulance almost made it through the trap unscathed. The edge of the Stryker’s front wedge kissed the ambulance’s back bumper, sending the lighter vehicle sideways across the intersection. The ambulance skidded into a line of parked cars, bounced a little, and came to rest backwards against the northwest traffic light.

The Stryker smashed through the El station stairs and crunched through hundred-year-old bricks in the dark building across the street. After a moment, the tires began to spin in reverse, as the driver tried to back out of the rubble.

That gave Tommy an idea and he jerked the gearshift into reverse and hit the gas.

He backed up until he hit Jackson, then spun around and took off. The searchlights followed. He took a left down Dearborn, bouncing over sandbags and taking off once he was clear. The ambulance’s engine strained and whined like an old man trying to pass a kidney stone as Tommy pushed his foot to the floor.

Headlights flashed behind him, coming fast. Another goddamn Stryker.

Tommy was so busy watching the Stryker behind him that he missed the second one popping out of LaSalle to his right. The front wedge smashed into the passenger door and the center of gravity shifted inside the ambulance. He had one moment of clarity when he realized he was glad he was wearing his seat belt. The road spun and the air was suddenly full of crap from the floor and his seat threw him at the steering wheel. The ambulance jolted under him, around him, and whipped around like an unlicensed carnival roller coaster.

The ambulance rolled through the intersection and crashed, upside-down, on the far sidewalk. The Stryker behind him skidded and stopped in the middle of the intersection, while the one that had smashed the ambulance came to a shuddering halt ten yards down LaSalle. The hatch on the Stryker to the rear popped open and a soldier appeared behind the .50 caliber machine gun.

Tommy blinked stars out of his eyes. He hoped they weren’t shards of glass from the shattered windshield. It took him a moment to realize he was hanging upside down, held in place by his seat belt. He rolled his head, flexed his fingers, pulled his knees up, making sure that nothing was broken, and everything still worked.

His knee hurt like hell, but as far as he could tell, he was still in one piece. A pair of boots crunched through the broken safety glass outside his door. His door was wrenched open with a squeal of metal pain and a hazmat faceplate leaned down and peered at him.

“How ya doin’, Tommy?”

The metallic voice sounded almost familiar, but Tommy couldn’t place it. He slapped at the seat belt release button.

“Easy, easy does it.”

From one of the Strykers, Tommy heard an amplified, no-nonsense voice say, “Step away from the vehicle, soldier. This man is a suspected terrorist. Step away. Now.”

The man in the hazmat suit ignored the warning. He reached in, and hit the release button, catching Tommy when the belt gave way. His hands guided Tommy gently to the roof of the ambulance and unfolded him so he was lying halfway on the street. Behind the faceplate, Tommy caught a glimpse of a dark face and a grin.

“Relax. We got this.”

“Last warning, soldier. We will open fire.”

The man suddenly had a giant revolver in his gloved hand. He pivoted, brought the handgun up in one smooth motion, and fired.

The man visible in the hatch in the Stryker behind the ambulance flopped back as if he just needed a few minutes to study the sky. The driver was still very much alive inside, and he had control of the cannon. The Stryker’s engine growled as the canon swiveled around with a mechanical purr, looking for the hazmat soldier.

Then an overweight black woman came out of nowhere, stepped up on the Stryker’s tires, and dropped something down through the hatch where the dead machine gunner slumped. The cannon continued to rotate, until it was almost in line with the ambulance. A muffled boom came from inside the Stryker. It shook like a dog in the middle of a dream, and Tommy understood that the woman had dropped a grenade or something.

The second Stryker hadn’t missed any of this, and it roared backwards. The top hatch swung open, and a soldier grabbed the .50 caliber. This gunner wasn’t taking any chances, he was already firing, spitting bullets all over the place. He couldn’t aim worth a damn while the Stryker was backing up, but it was clear to Tommy that once it stopped, they were all dead meat.

A dark CTA bus burst out of the darkness of LaSalle and smashed into the Stryker. Bullets sprayed into the night sky as the gunner snapped against the hatch with such violence it didn’t appear that he had any bones at all, and was instead some invertebrate species as his body rolled in the whiplash with all the resistance of a wet towel.

The bus hit the Stryker hard enough that the back tires lifted off the ground a few inches. It dropped back, bounced once, and didn’t move. The Stryker spun counterclockwise, blasting through a few sandbag berms.

The woman was now suddenly at that wreck, casually dropping a grenade inside. This time, the driver didn’t try to use the canon. He may have been running for the hatch, he may have been trying to trap the blast with a shield or whatever was inside, but in the end, it didn’t matter. There was another muffled whump, like a stifled sneeze, and it was done.

The boots left Tommy and ran for the bus. Tommy rolled over and watched the hazmat suit and the woman kick open the door. Tommy climbed to his knees. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t quite nail a perfect balance yet, but he didn’t think anything was broken. His fingers tingled now, where before there was only numbness. He cautiously rose to his feet and took a moment to orient himself.

When he felt he could walk without falling down, he lurched over to the closest Stryker. As he got closer, he found he could clench his fists and loosen his legs. He lifted the gunner’s corpse, and pulled it out. There was nothing there he could use. He took a deep breath, and climbed down. The heat was still incredible. He squinted in the murk, found the driver. The man wore fatigues.

Tommy climbed out, and after some gasping to escape the heat, he dropped back down and went for a storage locker. He felt a couple of dense plastic squares, almost like baseball bases that a family might take to a picnic. He crawled out and rolled down the tank, stuck one square under each arm and went to the bus.

The driver was out now, coughing and holding his side, but pacing around like he was shaking off a bad dream, nothing more. Hazmat suit and the woman started arguing. Tommy walked up and saw that the man pacing around was the detective who had given Tommy his card. Sam something.

The detective started to speak, and coughed instead. His tongue and teeth were dark and shiny at the same time with blood. After a few tries, he said, “I’m fine, goddamnit. Knock that shit off.”

Tommy said, “Thanks,” then limped past them, heading north.