Sofia looked at him for several long moments, her eyes welling. It seemed to Jack that she didn’t know how to say good-bye. Finally, she just turned away and got out of the car without a word. The door closed, and Demetri spun the tires.
“What now?” said Jack.
Demetri didn’t answer. The speedometer was quickly up to seventy.
“This is pointless,” said Jack. “You’ve got the Russian Mafiya after you. By your own admission, Madera’s men are out to kill you. And in about two minutes the police will be chasing you down. It’s over.”
“Ain’t over yet,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
The tires squealed as Demetri made a sharp turn toward the expressway ramp.
“You and me are gonna talk to the president,” he said.
Chapter 39
They were flying past cars as if traffic were standing still.
The speed limit on this stretch of interstate was seventy miles per hour, and Demetri was pushing well beyond that. Jack was about to tell him to slow down when a pair of motorcycles shot past them like silver bullets. The bikers weren’t wearing helmets, of course, and their girlfriends clung to them like frightened koalas as they maneuvered around cars with the precision of slalom skiers. For a second, Jack wondered if one of them was Theo. No such luck.
“You think we can catch those guys?” said Demetri.
“Before or after they kill themselves?” said Jack.
Demetri snorted. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”
Jack’s hands were feeling numb. The cord around his wrists was too tight, and sitting in the cramped rear seat with his knees up to his chest and his hands behind his back didn’t help the circulation.
“You don’t actually plan to drive my car all the way to Washington, do you?” said Jack.
“What are you worried about, the mileage on your precious Mustang?”
“No,” said Jack. Well…yeah.
“Just sit tight and don’t make trouble.”
“You said we were going to talk to the president.”
“And that’s what we’re gonna do.”
“That’s just crazy. Do you know how many crackpots have demanded to speak to the president? It never works.”
“Your father is about to be vice president. I bet he’ll have something to say about that.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what he’ll say: N-O. It just won’t work. Don’t you get it? It’s time to give it up.”
Demetri raised his pistol. “Did you ever see Pulp Fiction?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember that scene with Travolta and Samuel Jackson in the front seat and the guy that gets blown away in the backseat?”
Jack got the point.
Demetri suddenly fell silent, his eyes darting back and forth from the road to the rearview mirror. Jack checked over his shoulder and saw the reason for concern. A Florida state trooper was several hundred yards behind them but closing in, its beacon flashing.
“Hold on,” said Demetri.
The Mustang lunged forward, and Jack sank even deeper into the rear seat. Jack knew his Mustang had the horses, but Demetri was pushing it harder than Jack had even thought Theo would push it. At this speed, Jack felt as if they were passing mile markers like hash marks on the highway, and in just a few minutes they caught up to the motorcycles. The leader extended his tattoo-covered arm to flash them a thumbs-up. Jack glanced back through the rear window. The Florida state trooper had actually gained ground-and there were three of them now.
Demetri slammed his fist against the dashboard. “What does it take to lose these assholes?”
“It’s not going to happen,” said Jack.
“Shut up!”
“Check it out,” said Jack. “Choppers are already here.”
Demetri leaned forward and looked up through the windshield. The whir of the helicopters was audible even over the roar of the Mustang. It was a dark night, but the lights from the helicopter were bright enough for Jack to read the painted logo on the side.
“It’s the media,” he said.
“How the hell did they get here so fast?”
“What did you expect?” said Jack. “You’re driving straight toward the studio for the biggest news station in Miami.”
Jack could almost see Demetri’s despair transform to hope.
“That must be the station over there, right?”
Jack peered out the passenger-side window. The sign and network logo were lit up against the night sky, easily visible from the interstate: ACTION NEWS-SOUTH FLORIDA’S NEWS LEADER.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“What time do they do their late news?”
“Right now,” said Jack. “All the networks but Fox do it at eleven. But you’re not thinking of-”
Before Jack could finish his sentence, Demetri drove off the interstate and headed straight for the station. It didn’t seem to faze him that they’d missed the exit ramp a half mile back. The whine of rubber tires on pavement gave way to the pop and crunch of flying mud and gravel as they blazed a virgin trail off the shoulder, across the swale, down into the ditch, and into a field. Jack tumbled around in the backseat like tennis shoes in a dryer. The ride was so rough that the headlamps were pointing up one moment and down the next, making it impossible to see the chain-link fence ahead in the darkness. The speeding Mustang ripped right through it, but it sounded as if they’d hit a train. The windshield cracked into a starburst pattern, both headlights were gone, and the Mustang suddenly sputtered like most cars its age.
“Flat tire,” said Jack.
Demetri gave it more gas, mowing down bushes and other landscaping that surrounded the studio. Jack braced for one more bounce as they jumped the curb and sped into the parking lot. The sound of shredded rubber flapping against the pavement told of at least two flat tires, maybe three.
“You think the doors are locked?”
“It’s nighttime in Miami,” said Jack.
Demetri pressed the accelerator to the floor, steered the Mustang up onto the walkway, and drove straight for the main entrance. It was a three-story wall of plate-glass windows.
“Down!” said Demetri.
Jack dived to the floor, and it sounded like a hurricane as the car crashed through the door and took down the entire wall of glass with it. Windows shattered, metal twisted, and furniture and debris flew everywhere. The wheels screeched across the tile floor as the car slammed into the reception desk and came to a sudden stop in the main lobby. Through it all, Jack’s hands remained tied behind his back, the knotted lamp cord holding like handcuffs.
Demetri drew his pistol, flung open the door, and yanked Jack from the backseat. Fortunately, no one had been in the waiting room or at the reception desk at this hour, but the alarm sounded, and a security guard came running down the open flight of stairs from the upper level.
“This man has a gun!” Jack shouted.
The guard drew his weapon, but not fast enough. Demetri dropped him with a single shot. As the guard tumbled down the stairs, Jack lunged toward the Greek, but he wasn’t much of a threat with his hands bound behind his back. Demetri wheeled and clubbed Jack across the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. The blow knocked Jack to his knees. He was even stronger than Jack had thought.
“I’ll kill you, too!” he said. “Is that what you want?”
Jack’s head was throbbing, and it took a moment to process what he was hearing. The Greek didn’t wait for a response. He lifted Jack to his feet and put the gun to his head.
“Now let’s do this right, Swyteck. And if you’re a good boy, maybe one of us will get out of here alive.”
He took Jack past the open stairway first, grabbed the security guard’s gun, and tucked it under his belt. Then he pushed Jack through the long hallway, past the darkened set for the Food, Glorious Food show, past the managerial offices and dressing rooms, and through the final set of doors that led to the evening news set.