by John Zakour
“You mean having the bomb on board was plan A?”
“Swing to the right and come in at her from below,” I shouted. “Oh, and get ready to re-magnetize the bomb.”
“You got it, boss,” HARV replied. “But I don’t like where this is going.”
“Neither do I, but when has that ever stopped us?”
I touched a button on the hover’s interface and re-opened the com link with Inga.
“Think rationally, Inga,” I said. “You’re not walking away from this.”
“I disagree, Zach,” she replied. “This may not have worked out the way I planned, but I have a fortune hidden away in secret accounts. More than enough to help me lay low for a while. You just have to let me get away.”
“That’s not going to happen, Inga.”
“Oh, come now. You’ve already stopped the bombings, saved Enga and solved the mystery. After all that you could easily let me get away and still be the hero. Just name your price and I’ll have the credits wired to your account. No one will ever know.”
I leaned over the side right side of the hover and raised my pistol hand as HARV brought the hover in low and banked to the right.
“Sorry Inga,” I said, “but that’s not the way I work. Baby Boom.”
The gun’s green light flashed affirmatively and I squeezed off a few low power explosive rounds. The rounds exploded in quick succession behind her and off to her right, each one a little closer than the next. She avoided them by banking sharply up and to the left and returned fire with her blaster.
“Damn you, Zach!” she shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Boss, even if you hit Ms. Ayeffuul with a stun charge, the fall at this height and speed will kill her.”
“I’m not trying to hit her,” I said. “I’m trying to drive her into the open.”
I fired off another three rounds which Inga again managed to avoid. This time though, she had to veer hard left which brought her out of the trees and into the open air above the old highway. The ocean came into view on our right.
“Here we go.”
I grabbed the bomb in one hand, unbuckled my safety belt, and slid forward on the seat.
“Get us underneath her now and get ready to re-magnetize the bomb on my mark,” I shouted.
HARV gunned the hover and we shot upward and forward, at speeds faster than I wanted to think about, soaring over the old highway and out toward the ocean. In nanos we were so close to Inga’s speeding hover board that I could see the blaster in her hand and the anger on her face.
“I’ll kill you for this, Zach,” she said.
I gripped the bomb tightly in my left hand and braced myself with my right.
“Better blondes than you have tried, Inga,” I said. “Hit it now, HARV!”
The bomb in my hand shook and sent a jolt of electricity through my arm as HARV re-magnetized it. On cue, I tossed it over my head as the magnetism kicked in. It latched onto the bottom of Inga’s board and stuck there like a high-tech incendiary barnacle. The board lurched and Inga, realizing what had just happened looked down just in time to see the business end of my gun. Her look softened when she saw me. Her eyes went wide and her lips trembled as her mouth formed into an o-shape. She looked both beautiful and vulnerable at the same time.
“Zach, please.”
But I knew it was an act.
“Shut up, Inga.”
I shot her with a stun blast and grabbed her by the overalls as she fell forward, pulling her into the hovercraft. HARV banked us down and away as the rider-less hover board continued its speeding flight out over the ocean, carrying the bomb with it.
Nanos later the bomb exploded, sending a shockwave and a fireball over the water. The force shook the hovercraft wildly even from a distance and I had to throw myself over the unconscious Inga to keep her from falling out. The shockwave passed and the echo of the explosion faded, dissipating harmlessly on the night air over the bay.
“Well,” HARV said. “You cut that a little closer than I would have liked.”
“You and me both, HARV.”
I looked down at the still unconscious Inga as she lay on the floor of the hovercraft. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was slightly open, and her hair lay in an orange-hued array across her shoulders.
“But things are fine now,” I said. “Just peachy.”
* * *
It was just after dawn when I turned Inga over to the police. Gundervson hated to do it but after everything she had done, he knew he had no other choice. This may have all started as a family matter but Inga had escalated it way beyond that. And now she’d have to pay the price for doing so.
The consolation for Gundervson was that Enga had taken the reconciliation offer seriously. She tearfully met with Gundervson the next day and even introduced him to Sharif (whom it turns out was her fiancé). So it appears that there’s another Windy-Sunny marriage in the offing. Hopefully this one will work out better and Gundervson will realize that, if he wants to keep the remainder of his family together, he’ll need to embrace the marriage and the future that comes with it. If he doesn’t, well, then I guess he’ll end up as nothing more than a lonely old fart.
My name is Zachary Nixon Johnson. I am the last private detective on earth. Welcome to my world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Betsy Wollheim at DAW for believing in us and putting up with us (especially Larry). Thanks also to Click and Clack, the Tap It Brothers for their help picking out a cool old car for Zach to drive. Nobody knows cool cars like they do. We tip our hats to the folks at the Daily Buzz for letting us kid them a bit. Finally, a very special thanks to Natalia, Carolina, Tom, and Ron for helping to inspire their characters. I guess we should also thank the music industry and the government in general for giving us such great fodder for parody.
—JZ
As always, this book could not have been written without the love and support of Lisa, Jackson, and Kalie. Thanks as well to Philip and Shirley and the entire family tree. And thanks to Joshua for handling the business things.
—LG
ALSO BY JOHN ZAKOUR AND LAWRENCE GANEM
The Nuclear Bombshell Series
THE PLUTONIUM BLONDE*^
THE DOOMSDAY BRUNETTE*^
THE RADIOACTIVE REDHEAD*^
THE PEACH-BLONDE BOMBER*^ (an audio original)
ALSO BY JOHN ZAKOUR
The Nuclear Bombshell Series
THE FROST-HAIRED VIXEN^
THE BLUE-HAIRED BOMBSHELL^
THE FLAXEN FEMME FATALE^
THE SAPPHIRE SIRENS^
Omnibus Editions
DANGEROUS DAMES
contains books 1 & 2
BALLISTIC BABES
contains books 3 & 4
Young Adult Novels
BAXTER MOON: GALACTIC SCOUT*
ILLUSIA
* available as a Jabberwocky ebook
^ available as an audiobook
THANK YOU FOR READING
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