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but now was shifting his attention to Grant, suspicion unmistakable in his features.
    Julie didn’t look away as they drew closer together from opposite corners of the lobby. Time slid into slow motion for Grant as they came close enough to touch one another. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, couldn’t think of what to say, how to explain his situation, his appearance, his fear for her life. What was there to say? What could possibly escape from his lips that wouldn’t sound like the ramblings of a crazy person?
    Grant took a step toward them. The cop yanked Julie out of concern, and at the same moment glass exploded from the window to Grant’s immediate right. Julie’s bulky escort fell sharply to the ground, but Julie herself stopped cold exactly where she stood.
    Grant’s breath caught in his throat.
    It was as if Julie had been frozen and bolted into place, in mid-stride, her eyes still trained on him. She simply . . . paused for a long moment, before her eyes rolled up and her entire body went limp. She collapsed to the floor.
    Grant snapped out of his reverie and dove to shield her body with his.
    The police department had erupted into chaos, officers screaming and shouting. More shots rang out and some fled for cover and others ran out onto the street. The first officer to attempt an exit had been gunned down, and now his body lay just outside the door.
    For the hundredth time that day, Grant’s thoughts returned to a single notion: Why is this happening to me?
    The shooting paused, and Grant knew instinctively that the sniper—Konrad, no doubt—had stopped to reload. Depending on the model, there should be somewhere between five and twelve seconds before the shooting resumed.
    Grant blinked.
    How do I know that ?
    No time to figure it out now, Grant labored onto his haunches and threw Julie’s limp, unconscious form over his shoulder. With his new body, she felt almost weightless. He took off down the hallway she’d just emerged from, a corridor without windows that paralleled the street outside.
    The gunfire and chaos continued behind him, but it faded as he made a left, and then a right. He found himself at another entrance on the far right side of the building. Outside, he gently lay Julie on the grass and felt her pulse.
    Alive . He scanned her for wounds, found none. Grant hoisted her up again and carried her toward the front corner of the building.
    Peeking cautiously around the brick, he spotted a handful of black-suited officers illuminated by streetlamps aiming, pointing, yelling, running, barking into radios. One of them seemed to have spotted where the gunshots were coming from.
    Grant’s cab had vanished. He wanted to be angry, after all the money he’d given her, but what could he expect?
    No transportation.
    Cops everywhere.
    And Konrad will start shooting again any second.
    Now what?
    Come on, you weird new reflexes! Kick in again and tell me what to do!
    Grant ducked and pulled Julie farther away from the edge of the building as another shot was fired. He couldn’t tell where Konrad had aimed this time, but he felt the need to be even farther away from the target area, all the same. It sounded like he had switched to a semiautomatic.
    The policemen preparing to enter the Gondo Center were pinned down. Every time one of the men in black got close to the building, more shots would ring out, sometimes connecting with a leg or an abdomen. One fell and pulled himself to safety. Another fell and did not move. Only a pair of policemen remained able to fight, but they were taking cover behind vehicles.
    Running out of time. . . !
    Approaching the building was a red Jeep with no side doors and its canvas top missing. The Jeep had stopped at the sight of the drama playing out in front of the police station, and Grant seized the opportunity.
    He climbed into the vehicle’s passenger side, laid Julie across the backseat, and muttered a ‘‘sorry’’ to the stunned young man in the driver’s