Free Back to the Future by George Gipe

reliable as the organization hoped. Confirmation of Doc Brown’s duplicity came that morning, followed by the decision to eliminate him.
    Sam put the color photo on the coffee table and indicated that the others should study it.
    “What’s he done?” Uranda asked. “Not that it matters. He looks Jewish.”
    “We hired him to build a nuclear bomb.”
    The young woman’s eyes glistened with excitement.
    “We stole plutonium and gave it to him. He delayed as long as possible and gave us the weapon only when we threatened him.”
    “Well?” another of the group asked.
    “The bomb was nothing but a casing filled with used pinball-machine parts,” Sam said.
    Uranda rolled her eyes back, but a moment later, a look of happy anticipation engaged her features.
    “We’ll kill him tonight,” Sam continued. “Headquarters has decided it’s not worth it to bring him in for questioning. You two tail him for the rest of the day. Chances are he’ll end up at the garage he uses for an office or at Twin Pines Mall. He’s been spending a lot of time there recently, usually late at night.”
    “Does he carry any weapons?”
    “A handgun at most. An old .45-caliber revolver. It may not even work.”
    Now Marty watched as the black van hurtled toward them. His terror was complete, even though he had no idea who or what was heading their way. At that inopportune moment, something terribly perverse stirred in him—he was determined to know, if this was death unfolding, who was behind it.
    “Who’s in that car?” he shouted.
    Doc Brown had no time for an elaborate explanation. Marty’s hand gripped his sleeve so tightly he had to spin like a top to get away. As he did so, he yelled over his shoulder: “The Libyans I ripped off!”
    Marty didn’t understand but he did know that, to date, few Libyans he had heard of had been involved in anything but dark and dangerous business. The effect was of someone yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Marty believed and acknowledged that there was trouble without further investigation. Hurling his body to one side, he looked for the nearest solid object that would provide cover. The only two choices were the step-van and the DeLorean.
    Doc Brown was already heading for the step-van.
    “Run for it, Marty!” he shouted. “I’ll draw their fire!”
    Simultaneously, he hustled into the truck and appeared a moment later with a revolver. By this time, the side door of the black van had slid open and a swarthy character resembling Yasser Arafat leaned out. He threw up an AK 47 submachine gun and opened fire.
    Marty had never been shot at before, although he had once been beaned during a baseball game. The effect was vaguely similar. He seemed to move in slow motion, a helpless figure in an echo chamber of harsh reverberating sound. The horizon with its familiar objects—utility poles, lights, department stores—seemed to have disappeared, leaving him trapped in a globe of black fluid. The only two sounds—gunfire and his breathing—competed, each grossly and metallically augmented by panic.
    He saw Doc Brown point the revolver at the van and squeeze the trigger. No sound or flash of fire emerged, however, as bullets splattered all around Doc at his feet and into the side of the van. Finally, dropping the revolver, Doc began to sprint for the safety of the mall, fully five hundred yards away.
    The van screeched to a halt, backed up and started after Brown. Doc was no more than fifty yards closer to the nearest mall building when the black van started after him in low gear.
    “No!” Marty shouted. “Doc! Wait!”
    Even as he screamed the words, Marty knew it was poor advice. Were these desperate Libyans actually going to show mercy if Doc Brown suddenly surrendered and begged for his life? It was unlikely at best, but something in Marty forced him to cry for the impossible.
    For one long moment, he stood still, his eyes darting from side to side, desperately searching for something