An Encounter in Atlanta | Page 2

into the car behind it. It then moved
away, as well, and Ahmed was only one carlength away from where he could aim his
fake taxi up the ramp at the doors.
He eyed the walkway ramp -- easily five meters wide, with no posts or other impediments
-- and the doors above. In the center was a revolving door, flanked on either side by doors

that swung open. They would prove no barrier. All he had to do was ram through and get
the car into the lobby, then press the button on the transmitter in his raincoat pocket.
Motion in his side-rearview mirror and the sound of something hollow clattering on the
ground caused him to look away from the doors.
A truly beautiful blonde woman in what appeared to be little more than a bathing suit and
boots stood just behind his car. She seemed to be looking for something, probably some
sort of accessory to her scandalously inadequate costume.
Thinking that she must also be a visitor to the science fiction convention, Ahmed's eyes
locked on her marvelous bare legs and ample bosom for some moments as she crouched
and knelt to try to reach whatever had fallen beneath the taxi.
Her eyes met his in the mirror and she smiled coyly as she walked up the driveway. Allah
be praised for letting such a magnificent woman be his last sight on Earth! And her
glorious breasts were nearly leaping out of her costume!
Concentrating on her approaching breasts, Ahmed never saw -- and was conscious only
long enough to barely feel -- her fist slam into the side of his head. The blow sent him
sprawling against the luggage on the seat and into oblivion.
The woman quickly shifted the car into neutral, went behind it to grab the bumper, and
began pulling the Crown Vic backward down the ramp to the street, where she jumped to
the front of the car, lifted it by the bumper and reached under it to grip the frame, and
launched upward with the Crown Vic dangling from her grasp.
From the indoor cafe across the street, Mohammed Jamal took his eyes off the policeman
and another man who were having a light lunch at a nearby table and stared with
incredulous awe as a half-naked blonde woman lifted the Crown Victoria and seemed to
leap into the sky with it.
He'd frozen in mid-sip of his coffee with as much complete, mind-boggling shock as
anyone else witnessing the event, but he recovered fairly quickly as he realized that there
was still a slim chance to set off the bomb in or near the canyon-like confines of the
streets.
Hurriedly putting down his coffee cup, he reached for the transmitter in his left coat
pocket, but the chair arm got in his way. He stood up, wasting precious seconds and
knocking his chair over as he continued to stare upward through the window at the
Crown Vic. He'd finally managed to get his left hand into his pocket as the two men he'd
been watching also stood up and began coming at him.
The one in a police uniform pointed at Jamal and said, "Freeze!" as he reached for his
sidearm. Jamal -- his radio transmitter momentarily forgotten -- made a grab for his
Beretta 9mm pistol in his right coat pocket.
Jamal had thought the cop was the greater danger. He was wrong; before Jamal could

even finish bringing his own gun into line with the two men, the other man yanked a
pistol from a shoulder holster, leveled it at Jamal, and fired twice.
Mohammed Jamal felt the hot slugs plunge completely through his chest as their impact
slammed him back against the window facing the street. He was barely aware that he
fired his Beretta as he toppled; for a moment he actually wondered why the light fixture
by the coffee bar exploded.
The bullets that had passed through Jamal hit the window behind him a split-second
before Jamal did, turning it into a ten-foot-tall spiderweb of shattered safety glass that
collapsed around Jamal's body in a glittering cloud as he fell to the sidewalk below.
The bushes below the window snagged Jamal's coat and violently twisted him in mid-air,
then he fell to the sidewalk on his left side, hearing and feeling the bones of his arm snap
as his head slammed against the concrete. Momentarily stunned, Mohammed Jamal
fought to remain conscious and stared upward, trying to locate the Crown Victoria.
There! Almost directly overhead, an odd-shaped dark dot against the sky! Jamal
waveringly aimed his pistol at the men who leaned out of the window frame above him
and prayed to Allah that his transmitter hadn't been broken.
Forcing the unfeeling thumb and fingers of