Clean Kill by Jack Coughlin, Donald A. Davis Page B

anything.”
    “Please slow down,” Linda said.
    “Shut up,” Sybelle responded. “What’s going on, Kyle?”
    “Up there. Straight ahead about a half-mile. Check out that jumble of junk off the edge of this side road. Some metal gleaming in the sun? Let’s take a look. Something weird is going on.”
    As they drove forward, Kyle saw the dark blue, square rear-end of a minivan disappearing in the distance, speeding away from them, raising a layer of dust. Why? He picked up his Colt .45 and tucked the Glock beneath Sybelle’s thigh as she coasted to a halt. Kyle stepped from the car, and Sybelle moved out to his right and a little to the rear, both of their guns ready. He stepped over a shallow roadside ditch and into the thick bushes and she followed.
    The polished rails of an ambulance gurney were reflecting the flare of the sun. A dead woman, small and old, and frail, was strapped to the mobile stretcher, with an oxygen mask still on her face. Uniformed ambulance attendants lay on each side of her. All had been shot twice in their heads. Kyle and Sybelle hastily checked for vital signs. All of them were dead.
    Without exchanging a word, they ran back to the Saab. Sybelle did a three-point turn on the narrow road and gunned the big engine. By the time they regained the main road, there was no sign of the green ambulance.
    “Get him, Sybelle.” Ten and a half klicks to the clinic, only about six miles, and the ambulance had a good head start and was probably hauling ass. Kyle studied the console map and Linda continued to complain until he turned down the audio voice. “It’s a straight road all the way and there will be signs for the hospital. Damn, we can’t call this in because we don’t even know who to call.”
    The speedometer needle climbed to one hundred miles per hour without any engine strain, then higher as the Saab flashed around a delivery truck and a few cars. Kyle turned the audio back on. “Distance to destination!”
    “Three kilometers. Please slow down and drive safely!” Insistent. Strident. Kyle turned it down again.
    “I see him!” Sybelle called, and Kyle picked up the tight square edges of the ambulance. The driver was unsteady behind the wheel, whereas a real ambulance driver would have been smooth at even a high rate of speed. When the vehicle slowed for the hospital turnoff, the driver for the first time turned on the flashing lights and the shrill beep-burp of the siren. By the time he was coming out of the turn, Sybelle was screaming into it, neatly flattening the skid and gaining ground. The brick clinic and its rows of shiny windows loomed on the right. “See any guards?”
    “A couple of civilian cops out front, and one is waving the ambulance into that entrance to the underground parking. Get me up beside him, Sybelle!”
    The yellow Saab lunged for the final distance like a big leopard and blew by the startled policeman. Kyle unbuckled the belt and took a knee in the soft seat to gain some height, gripped the edge of the convertible’s front windshield with his left hand and brought up his Colt with his right. Sybelle swerved and drew alongside the beefy green ambulance, which had to slow to get beneath the low roof of the parking garage.
    They went into darkness. Swanson pointed the weapon at the head of the surprised driver, squeezed the trigger and the big pistol roared in the cavernous basement. Three bullets pulverized the driver’s head, and the ambulance swerved into the Saab, the collision ripping Kyle’s hand from its brace on the windscreen and flinging him over Sybelle, who stomped the brakes. The vehicles slid along the concrete ramp in a tangle until the ambulance rammed a concrete column and tore free.
    Swanson was moving as soon as he regained his balance, levering himself up as Sybelle pushed him from behind and below, trying to free herself. He leaped from the wreckage, ran to the far side of the ambulance, jerked open the door and emptied the rest of