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gurgling noise coming from the seat beside him and turned. |
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The man dove for the .38 special he kept under the front seat, but before his fingers could close over the butt of the gun, a huge paw slammed into the back of his head, driving his nose hard into the steering wheel. The cartilage shattered with a sickening crack, and minute constellations of stars exploded inside his head. |
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In a way it was a blessing. For as his throat was being ripped out by the set of exceedingly long and sharp fangs, the cabbie was too stunned to feel a thing. |
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Cyrus sipped the complimentary rum and coke and rubbed the callus on the heel of his right hand back and forth across the armrest. Every so often, he cut his eyes over at Kyna sleeping curled up in the seat beside him. She was a strange bird, he thought. A shitty personality, but beautiful . . . and weird! Boy, even asleep, she kept her legs folded protectively around the briefcase under her seat. Twelve million bucks was twelve million bucks, but man, she should learn to lighten up. When they checked in at the airport, Kyna had showed the inspectors a letter stating that she was only a courier for the IDB and that she did not have the combination to the briefcase. She allowed the security people to X-ray the case to their heart's content, but insisted that she didn't have the combination. The way the airport security guards clustered around the tiny viewing screen, they must have had visions of major drug busts dancing in their heads. But after three passes through the machinefrom three different anglesall that showed up were little packages of gemstones. Finally the guards had been satisfied and let Kyna and Cyrus go on their way. The odd thing was, Cyrus had seen Kyna open the case in his apartment. Not once, but half a dozen times. |
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What was she really up to? he mused. |
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They had been in the air for a little over an hour and a half and Cyrus hoped they would be starting their descent into Denver soon. Airline seatseven first-class, jumbo-jet seats |
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