It was a bullpup submachine gun, and as he leveled up with it to his shoulder to kill them, Gannon, already squared to target with the stainless-steel .45 up to his dominant right eye, shot him twice through the bridge of his nose just below his tactical goggles.

Gannon, moving at the waist to keep his center of mass, put two more in the driver’s door glass and two more through the rear windshield.

The slim man Gannon had killed was down against the left rear tire when he closed the distance between them. Gannon dropped the .45 and snatched up his fallen snub-nosed machine gun by its smooth doughnut hole–like grip.

It sounded like a box of dynamite was going off in Gannon’s face as he crouched and fired the unsilenced machine gun full auto into the car. Casings pinged off the inside of the open back door as he raked it back and forth and back and forth.

In the spray of the bullets, he killed the already-wounded driver with a head shot and hit the balaclava-wearing passenger beside him with another.

The last of the balaclava-wearing men was in the back seat. His left hand held a semiauto while his right scrambled at the door latch beside him like a falling man at the edge of a cliff.

He lifted the pistol as he turned.

Gannon put a point-blank burst into the side of his head.

In the ringing silence, Gannon raised the rifle to his right and to his left toward the sidewalk and street. He peeked behind him quickly over each shoulder, checking his spots.

There was a wind chime sound as he dropped the emptied rifle into the gutter on top of the pile of spent brass.

He turned to see Ruby standing there in frozen shock. He took her hand again without speaking and led her back the way they had come. Most in the pedestrian crowd around had also frozen up, but cars and buses were flowing by on Lexington as if nothing had happened.

As they walked away, Gannon turned and saw the second man he had shot haltingly get out of the driver’s seat. The whole front of him from head to crotch was completely splattered in blood. As Gannon watched, he sat down on the sidewalk casually with his hands behind him and his head tilted back. Like Lexington was a beach, and he suddenly wanted to catch some rays.

They made the corner of 68th and turned east. The only sound Gannon could hear in his ringing deafened ears was the thump of his heart. Everything felt numb and dull. Like he was underwater. They walked toward Third Avenue slowly. The woman’s mouth moved. He tugged at her, nodding.

“Slowly,” he said.

It was hard to talk because he could only barely hear himself.

“We need to go slowly,” he said again.

They made it half the block. He wondered if he should turn around. He decided no. A quarter block left. Twenty feet. Ten.