Free The Temporary Agent by Daniel Judson Page B

shattering.
    He felt the impact, though—felt the sudden change in the sedan’s direction and the G forces that sudden change had instantly generated.
    He felt, too, Alexa Savelle grab his left hand as her side of the sedan lifted and the sudden shift in direction quickly morphed into the early stages of a rollover.
    Once the vehicle was fully committed to the roll, the violence was remarkable.
    Tom was flung against the passenger door, striking the window with the side of his head.
    Savelle slammed into him, her right shoulder driving into his torso.
    Tom reflexively tried to grab her with his right arm, but that meant releasing his phone. The moment he did, it was lost in the turmoil.
    As quickly as he had been flung to the door, Tom was suddenly upside down. He hung weightless for a microsecond before being claimed again by gravity and landing headfirst on the sedan’s ceiling.
    He must have blacked out briefly, because the next thing he knew the sedan was completely still.
    He was breathing hard, so hard that he should have heard it, maybe even heard nothing but it.
    All he could hear was dead silence.
    The sedan’s interior was still filled with wide beams of bright light that illuminated churned clouds of dust and smoke.
    The windows of every door had broken, the bits of scattered glass sparkling like diamonds.
    Tom was still stunned, reeling from the crash and roll, when he detected a faint ringing in his ears.
    Distant at first, but it grew steadily louder and louder. He almost brought his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to stop the rising sound.
    But before he could, the ringing ended and he was at last hearing clearly.
    What he heard first was the rushing November wind and the hissing of steam escaping the sedan’s cracked radiator.
    And then he heard something else.
    A vehicle coming to an abrupt stop and several of its doors opening and closing.
    Several pairs of heavy feet scrambling.
    Running in the sedan’s direction.
    Tom’s initial thought was the wild hope that they were running to help.
    It was when he heard men yelling in a language he could not recognize, but feared was Chechen, that he realized they weren’t rushing to lend assistance.
    The exact opposite, in fact.
    Raising his arm to shield his eyes from the blinding bright light, Tom could see that the driver was still buckled in and suspended upside down, her arms hanging limp beside a head that was motionless.
    Looking to his right, he saw that Savelle was limp and motionless as well.
    Motionless except for the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed in and out.
    Tom heard the men moving along both sides of the overturned sedan, a single voice shouting commands.
    It would require significant concentration for him to even begin extricating himself from his twisted position on the roof. He and Savelle were entwined in such a way that he could not immediately figure out how to separate himself from her.
    As he struggled to get free and right himself, he suddenly heard the sound of liquid being spilled.
    Lots of it. Some of it was splashing onto the pavement outside the shattered windows, but the majority of it landed on the underside of the two tons of steel above him.
    Tom scanned the boots of the men now surrounding the sedan.
    A pair, at least, was outside each door.
    He focused finally on the boots nearest to him and saw that the pavement around them was shimmering.
    It was when he smelled the pungent odor of gasoline that he understood what was about to occur.
    His heart surged, pumping adrenalized blood into his limbs.

Sixteen
    Tom scrambled, ignoring the sudden pain shooting through his torso as he pulled himself free of Savelle.
    Getting onto his hands and knees, he ignored, too, the carpet of broken glass cutting into him.
    He reached out for Savelle’s shoulder, shook her, but she did not react.
    The only weapon he possessed was his Leatherman tool, but that was useless to him.
    He remembered, though, the earpiece he’d