Josh and Becki inched quietly along the fire escape, mindful of the police now searching the room they'd just abandoned--though, considering the clatter arising from that investigation, the police probably wouldn't hear the Terra Group agents outside unless they started making nearly as much noise as the original explosion had.
There was, just then, a slight thump as Josh, in the lead, stopped suddenly and Becki, her attention diverted to the sounds from the window behind them, ran into him. "Shh," Josh whispered.
"Warn me next time," Becki muttered. "What's--"
"Look," he said. "No exit. Dead end ahead."
"What? I can't see--"
He squeezed back against the wall of the apartment building, and Becki looked past to see that the narrow ledge they were on ended just ahead, simply halting in mid-wall. There were one or two rungs left of the ladder that once had connected this ledge to that on the second floor, but all the rest had fallen away at some indefinite time, and the Terra Group agents were now left stranded on the third floor. "Oh, no. We're stuck."
"Maybe not," Josh said, peering over the railing to the narrow alley below.
"We look stuck to me."
"It's not that far down. . . ."
"It's three stories!"
"We can jump that."
"Psych!" He was already climbing over to the outside of the railing when Becki grabbed at his arm, trying to keep her apprehension from showing on her face. "You've got to be kidding."
"Hey," he grinned. "Never underestimate the power of the Force, right?" And so saying, he let himself drop.
Unwilling to look and unable not to, she watched him fall, till--disproving all her fears--he landed in an easy crouch directly below.
"See?" he called up in an impudent stage whisper. "Easy."
"Easy for you to say, Psycho Jedi Boy," she shot back. "Now what?"
"Your turn!"
"Oh, no. I don't think so."
"Come on. I'll catch you."
"Have you ever done this before?"
"Oh, all the time," he answered, rolling his eyes dramatically enough for her to see three stories away.
Becki scowled down at him. "Seriously, Seven."
"Well," Josh said, after a moment's consideration, "not exactly--but in principle--"
"In principle, you might just miss?"
"Wouldn't it be more a matter of you missing? You're the one who jumps, and I just catch you--"
"Psych!"
"Okay--okay--Really, it's not that difficult. I'll use the Force to slow your fall, so catching you shouldn't be a problem."
"I--"
"Here, tell you what, go ahead and throw down the backpack first."
"Uh . . . why?"
"So when you jump I only have you to worry about!"
"Oh. Um . . . Okay, then--be careful, don't break any of the evidence or anything--" She shrugged out of the pack's straps and carefully hefted it over the railing and let go.
Josh caught it easily. "See?"
"It's a backpack, Psych! I'm not--"
"Trust me, Becki!"
"I can't--"
"Just close your eyes and jump. That helps when you shoot, doesn't it?"
"Josh--"
"Three!" Suddenly the stage whisper had become a shout. "Duck!"
And fortunately she trusted him enough at that moment to obey without thinking, as from the window at the other end of the fire escape ledge, the head of a policeman had appeared, followed by his arm, and at the end of it his nightstick, swinging in a quick arc right to where Terra Three's head had been only a moment ago.
The gendarme leaned back into the apartment to holler to his comrades, while Becki quickly scurried back against the wall, looking around for anything with which to defend herself when he returned, and wishing she'd brought her blaster--at this range, even she could manage to stun the fellow, even without what training she'd had from Thayer a year ago.
Seven was shouting again, but she couldn't make out what he said. The gendarme returned, slipping out through the window and advancing toward her, his pistol extended menacingly in his right hand and the nightstick held ready in his left. "Ecoutez, ma petite--" he began.
"Vous avez l'avantage, Monsieur," she said quickly. "Deux armes! Et je n'en ai aucune!"
"Vous dītes?" he said, looking momentarily confused--so she took that moment to lunge for the gun arm, hoping at the least to throw off his aim if he did shoot--at the best, to even the odds a bit more in her favor.
It became a moot point in the next instant. She heard a shot--it was too late-
No--it was the policeman who suddenly crumpled, so that she had to dodge suddenly to avoid colliding with his limp form. She landed against the ledge's railing and leaned there for a moment, panting in confusion, until her brain caught up with her ears and recognized what she'd just heard--not a gunshot, but a blaster set on stun.
"Jump, Three!"
She looked down to see Josh gesturing to her with his disguised blaster.
"I--" She looked back in the apartment window to see that more of the gendarmes were now hurrying towards the fire escape, drawn by the sound of the blaster perhaps, or by their comrade's call earlier.
Fear behind and fear below, and only one faint hope.
She swallowed once and ducked under the rail and closed her eyes and jumped.
It was over in seconds--she barely even noticed as he caught her first in the air, slowing her descent with the Force like a cushion, and then in his arms as she reached the end of her fall. She opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, an expression of astonishment on his face to match her own surprise.
"Well," he said. "See? That was easy."
"If you say so," she said, suppressing a sudden urge to giggle--he looked barely convinced himself, now.
Gunshots split the silence between them; they looked up to see two of the remaining gendarmes leaning over the fire escape railing. "Time to go!" Josh said, setting Becki back on her feet and holstering his blaster. "This way!"
She paused to grab the backpack from where he'd dropped it to catch her. "No, Psych--that goes back to the main road. There'll be more police there. Let's take the back way."
The two turned around and ran further down the alley, passing directly under the fire escape they'd just abandoned. The gendarmes who had just fired on them were now turning back into the apartment to go around the broken ladder. Without benefit of the Force it would take them considerably longer to reach the ground than it had the two agents.
At the same time, two gendarmes burst through the second floor window and onto the intact fire escape located there. The lead gendarme slipped on a patch of unmelted ice that lay hidden in the shadows of the metal walkway at the second floor. Seeing an opportunity, Josh reached out with the Force and gave him a little extra forward momentum. He went down to his knees, slamming his right wrist against the fire escape's railing. He might have kept possession of the pistol in that hand - very nearly did, in fact - except for a small tug on the weapon from Josh. As the officer watched in horror, the gun tumbled end over end down two stories and landed in Josh's waiting hands.
Josh snapped off a quick shot with the gendarme's pistol as the second cop in line was raising his own weapon to fire. The round passed a few inches over the pursuer's head, forcing him to duck and ruining his shot. By now several other police officers were coming out of the apartment and rushing down the stairs. Josh wasted no further time in running down the alley to catch up with Becki.
"Here," he said, handing Becki his blaster as they ran as hard as they could away from their pursuers.
"What's the matter?" she asked with an impish grin as she accepted the sidearm. "Afraid I might miss with the gun?
"No," he replied with a teasing smile. "I'm afraid you might not miss."
Behind them the police reached the ground and began the pursuit in earnest. Their leader, the knee of his pants ripped and bloody, fired a shot at the fleeing agents. The bullet went wide to the left. Becki spotted an even narrower alley on the right and she and Josh quickly ducked down it.
As soon as they turned the corner, they both ran even harder, trying to widen the too-narrow-for-comfort gap between them and their pursuers. Between the chase, everything that had happened at the apartment, and their long walk across Paris, both were getting tired. They were panting for breath and Becki had a sharp pain in her side.
"Going to have to end this soon," Josh said.
Becki nodded, not entirely certain she knew or even wanted to know what he meant. The two of them dashed around a forty-five degree left turn and found themselves thirty meters from a dead end. The building that surrounded them on both sides also sat across the alley, sealing it off.
"What now?" Becki asked.
"Up!" Josh said, pointing at a fire escape hanging from the building.
"We just came down!"
"You have a better idea?"
After looking around briefly for a door or window or any other means of escape, Becki was forced to admit she didn't. The sound of running feet from the direction they came didn't help. She turned and started scurrying up the fire escape as quickly as she could. After a few steps she realized Josh wasn't with her.
"Psych, come on!" she called.
"Go on!" he said. "I'll be there in a minute."
"Josh . . ." she began.
"Go! I'll hold them off for a minute." Becki resumed her dash up the stairs. Josh turned back the way they'd come and pointed his appropriated weapon at the bend in the alley. At the first sight of the pursuers he fired two shots into the brick wall to their right. They dropped to the ground and scrambled to find cover.
Josh looked up at the fire escape. Becki was halfway up. When he turned back he caught sight of one of the cops trying to get an angle for a good shot at him, so he blasted a chunk of brick from the building just over the gendarme's head. A return shot rang out, but the bullet missed by several meters.
"Josh! I'm up!" Becki called down to him. He glanced up and saw her standing on the roof looking over the edge at him, waving him up to join her.
He turned back once more and fired three shots at the wall their pursuers were using for cover. Then without a moment's hesitation he spun to face the fire escape Becki had just scaled and Force jumped as high as he could manage. He landed solidly on the third floor's metal landing. Without looking back he fired another shot in a generally threatening direction and rushed up the last ladder to join Becki on the roof.
"Bonjour, mademoiselle," he said with a lopsided grin.
"Bienvenue, monsieur show-off," she said with a grin of her own. "Allons-y, hein?"
"Bien sur. We need to get off this roof."
"Looks like a door over there," she said, indicating a structure several meters away.
Just as they reached it moments later, the door slammed open and a red faced gendarme stormed out. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the two of them and he smiled a vicious smile. Before he could do anything more threatening, Becki shot him dead center in the chest. He dropped to the ground as the blue stun energy enveloped him.
"Okay, so maybe not from this building," she said. The she caught sight of the look on Josh's face. "What?"
"Have you been practicing?" he asked in astonishment.
"Oh come on, Psych, anyone could have done that. Let's go!"
They turned and ran in a new direction, away from both the fire escape and the roof door. The original group of pursuing gendarmes finally reached the roof and restarted their pursuit, but Becki and Josh had a lead of more than fifty meters. Fortunately they were near the end of a long block of buildings that were built side by side, so there was plenty of room to run. But eventually they'd run out of room.
A short wall, no more than a foot tall, separated the roofs of each building. They leaped right over the first one they came to and hit the ground still running on the other side. Josh hazarded a quick glance back. Beyond all logic - and their own tired bodies - they had actually pulled further away from their pursuers.
As though he could sense Josh's feeling of minor victory and took personal offense to it, the lead gendarme fired a shot at the fleeing suspects. The round whizzed by in what Josh assumed was another miss, until he looked down at his jeans. The bullet had grazed them, leaving an inch-long rip in the denim on the far outside of the right leg just above the knee. He looked back up in the direction he was heading, having neither time nor any desire to think about how close that'd been.
They hurdled another of the low divider walls and kept running. The building whose roof they were now crossing offered an alternative to running that Josh briefly considered. Unique among the buildings in this block, it had a large green house on the roof. For a split second he considered trying to lure the pursuing cops inside to stun them, but he wasn't sure he could get them all before one of them got him or Becki. Not worth the risk. They kept running.
Seconds later they were past the greenhouse and at the edge of the building - where Becki stopped short. Here there was no wall separating the buildings. Instead there was a narrow alley, barely wide enough for three people to walk side by side.
"I don't know about this. . . ." Becki said. "That's a long jump."
Josh glanced over his shoulder to find, to no great surprise, that the cops were quickly catching up to them. "Not again! Come on, just jump already!" And without waiting any longer he leapt across the alley, landing solidly seven feet away. He looked back at Becki expectantly.
Becki looked back at their pursuers, across the chasm between buildings, and back over her shoulder one more time. "Okay then," she said, nodding her head firmly once. She took three running steps and jumped.
"Thank God," Josh muttered as she landed safely next to him. "You okay?"
"Fine," she said. "Come on, let's go!"
She was running again before she finished her sentence. Seconds later the gendarmes were leaping across the alleyway, now much closer than they were before. A shot rang out and passed uncomfortably close by both their heads.
Then Josh realized the shot hadn't come from behind them, but from in front of them. "Sniper!" he yelled.
"What!?" Becki said, her stride breaking for a moment.
Josh grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along. "No! Keep going!"
The sniper fired again, this time missing Becki by mere centimeters. "There!" she said. "That next building."
Josh looked where she was pointing and saw the sniper's head barely sticking up above the small ledge that marked the separation between the closely spaced buildings. Still running as fast as he could, he cast about for a spot of shelter anywhere on the exposed roof.
"Over here!" he said as he pulled Becki behind a large brick chimney. They crouched behind it, temporarily out of the line of sight of both the foot pursuit and the sniper. Both were panting, desperately trying to catch their breath.
"It won't take them long to catch up to us here," Becki said.
Josh grimaced. "I know." He leaned back around the edge of the chimney for a moment to find the pursuers barely twenty meters away. Without hesitation he extended his arm palm out and pushed with all the Force energy he could muster. All five of the pursuers flew backwards and landed in a tangled heap of arms and legs. At the same time a shot from the sniper smacked into the brick next to him, blasting bits of it into the side of his face. He ducked quickly back around the chimney.
"Are you okay?" Becki asked, seeing the spots of blood welling up on his cheek.
"I'll be fine," he said as he wiped the blood away angrily. Then a sudden new sound chilled him to his bones: the steady whump-whump-whump of rotor blades slicing through the air.
"Helicopter!" Becki called out, echoing the thought in his own mind.
"We've got to get off this roof, now," Josh said. The helicopter was still a few miles away, but it was getting closer.
Becki pointed to a slightly larger structure on the next building, the same building where the sniper waited for them to show their heads again. "There's a door over there," she said.
Josh sized up the situation. They'd have to expose themselves to fire from both directions. They would actually be getting closer to the sniper briefly before they got further away. Any one of the cops he'd knocked down could also get a lucky shot off that would take one of them down. Still, if the helicopter got here while they were still pinned down. . . .
"Here, trade me guns," he said, handing Becki the pistol he'd appropriated ten minutes that seemed like a lifetime ago. For the first time, he noticed it was a Glock like Crispy carried.
"What? Why?" she asked, handing his disguised blaster back to him.
"When I say go, I want you to head for that door, and fire a couple of random shots over those guys back there as you go. That'll keep them down; they're not too brave," he said, indicating their downed pursuers. "I'm going to try for that sniper."
Both of them got up into crouching ready positions, tensed on the balls of their feet. Josh took a moment to listen for the approaching helicopter. It sounded like it was right on top of them now. "Ready?" he asked. Becki nodded. "Go!"
They both rose instantly and broke into a dead run for the roof door. Becki fired three shots in the general direction of the five pursuing gendarmes, who'd begun to get back to their feet. They all flattened themselves down against the roof again. Meanwhile, Josh fired steadily on the sniper on the other side of the roof. The constant barrage kept the sniper's rifle silent, if nothing else.
Finally, one of his shots landed and the sniper collapsed limply over his weapon. "Go! Go!" Josh shouted.
The helicopter wasn't more than a quarter mile away now. Both agents could feel the wind kicked up by its blades on their backs as they ran. They both leaped over the small ledge separating the buildings and hurtled on towards their destination, no longer daring to look back or do anything but run. Josh had the strange feeling that any moment a shot fired by someone on the helicopter would take one of them in the back--
But the shot never came. They reached the rooftop door and Josh yanked it open. He barely noticed the sign on the door that read Hotel Imperial. They charged inside and he slammed the door behind them. Luck was with them - the door had a very strong looking deadbolt on the inside. He quickly threw it, and also locked the lock set into the doorknob.
"Well," he panted, "that was fun."