Annoyed by the untimely interruption and determined not to let anything else keep him from carrying out his orders, the Creole abandoned his plan to wait until the Town Car had reached the intersection of Broadway and Forty-Seventh Street before taking over control of it. If truth be known, he wasn’t at all sure the mechanic at the garage he had paid to install the device was reliable. So instead of being patient, as soon as the Town Car’s driver turned onto Broadway and started to head south, the Creole switched on the remote control and took control of the Town Car.
For the first few blocks, the results of his efforts to create panic and chaos did little more than draw attention to the Lincoln Town Car as it bounced off of other cars to its left and right or rammed the rear bumper of the car in front of it. Only when it crossed Forty-Seventh Street and the Creole was able to drive the Town Car up onto the pedestrian area was he able to accelerate it to a speed that turned the car into a guided weapon, sending those late-night revelers who were able to keep their wits about them scattering for safety behind concrete planters and anti-vehicular pillars. Those who couldn’t, people who froze in place when they saw the black Town Car barreling down on them, became what many of the survivors thought were the latest victims of a terrorist attack.
The dispassionate call over the police cruiser’s radio belied the urgency of the unfolding drama on Broadway. Mary Silva, an eight-year NYPD veteran and driver that night, didn’t bother to wait for Patrick Long, her partner, to tell her to step on it. While he was responding to the radio call, she hit the lights, gunned the engine, and pulled out into traffic. Both officers ignored the honking horns and threats hurled at them by other drivers they were forcing aside as they did their best to reach the intersection of Forty-Second Street and Broadway ahead of the runaway Lincoln Town Car.
Doing so was no easy feat. Silva paid no heed to the bumps and sound of metal scraping against metal as she sideswiped several cars that couldn’t or wouldn’t make enough room for her to pass them. Any concern she had about the hell their sergeant would raise for the collateral damage they were causing was strictly secondary to their desperate need to block the intersection before the rampaging Town Car reached it.
As it turned out, their timing could not have been better — or worse, depending on where you were at the moment they rolled out onto Broadway. Silva had no sooner entered the intersection after swerving around a city bus than a set of high beams drew her attention away from what was ahead and to her left, just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Lincoln Town Car before it ploughed into her side of the cruiser.
The force of the impact drove the cruiser sideways several feet and staved Silva’s door in, causing her to yelp. Long, after being rattled around like a cat in a tumbling barrel, recovered just in time to see the Town Car back away. But instead of going around the crippled cruiser, the driver of the Town Car gunned the engine and rammed them again.
Realizing he had no choice, not if he wanted to save his partner, Long threw open his door and bailed out, unsnapping the strap of his holster as he did so. By the time the Town Car had backed up yet again but before its driver had a chance to make another attack, Long leaned across the hood of the cruiser and took as good an aim on the driver as the situation and his adrenaline-charged state allowed him.
Whether his was the first shot that caused what followed or those of two officers who had been on foot patrol and had also responded was unimportant. What was important was the way the three patrolmen blazed away, emptying the magazines of their pistols as quickly as their fingers could work the triggers.
The devastation left in the wake of the Town Car followed by a volley of gunfire thoroughly rattled the cabbie. Without waiting for a word from the man next to him, who was doing all he could to stare straight ahead past the traffic piling up before them, the cabbie threw his cab in reverse. This did little more than plough into the front end of the cab behind them. In panic, after glancing about, the cabbie threw his door open and fled on foot, leaving the Creole little choice but to do likewise. He at least had enough sense to take the control unit with him, holding it close against his side as he lost himself in the crowd of screaming city dwellers and out-of-town visitors as they fled a scene of bloody carnage and confusion. It wasn’t until he was several blocks away that the Creole dropped the controller into a trash bin on a side street before making his way down into the subway, where he had no difficulty blending in with the crowds on the platform.
2
The temptation to ignore the chirping of his mobile phone was almost too much to resist. But, like the early morning call to the colors, Andy Webb found it wasn’t in him to do so. Muttering a few well-chosen expletives to himself, he turned off the shower, pulled the curtain aside, and reached out for his mobile.
Naturally, the bloody thing slipped through his wet fingers and bounced off the tile floor, causing Andy to wince as he listened to it clatter about before adding a few more oaths to those he’d already uttered. After picking the mobile up and checking to ensure it was still working, he hit Redial and then held the phone to his ear whilst stumbling about the cold bathroom floor, groping for a towel.
“Ah, good. I’m glad I caught you,” Edward Telford boomed in a tone of voice that was far too cheerful for Andy, given his current mood.
“I hope to hell for your sake this is important,” Andy growled as he began dabbing himself one-handed with the towel.
“How would you fancy a trip to America?”
“That depends,” Andy shot back.
“Depends on what?”
“Where it is you’re wanting me to go.”
“New York City,” Telford declared cheerily.
In a foul mood already, Andy found himself incapable of holding back. “How would you like a sharp stick in the eye?”
“Oh, it’s not all that bad, is it?”
“When was the last time you were there, Ed?”
“It’s been a while. Why?”
“Because it seems you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be conveyed through the canyons of the Big Apple while traveling in the backseat of a New York cab.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Telford countered as he did his best to ignore his friend’s churlish attitude and moved on to the purpose of the phone call. “Meet me in an hour.”
“The usual place?” Andy asked as he continued to struggle to towel himself off with one hand and hold the mobile to his ear with the other without slipping on the tile floor.
“No, not today. Meet me near the East Surrey Division’s monument.”
Though this odd choice of linkup point piqued his curiosity, Andy wasn’t about to play a thousand questions with his friend, not while he was standing there, stark naked and dripping wet. “Yeah, an hour. Now piss off.”
“And a happy good day to you too,” Telford responded, pleased that he had for once been able to rattle the notoriously unflappable Andy Webb.
Andy was more than a little perplexed as to why his friend had asked him to meet in Battersea Park instead of some more civilized venue as he made his way to the monument dedicated to the men of the Twenty-Fourth East Surrey Division who had died in a war so very different from the one he fought each and every day. Curiosity about his friend’s unusual request was replaced by amusement the second he spotted the former Guards officer turned very proper civil servant. A man who spared no expense when it came to cultivating an air of sophistication was feeding pigeons, a creature he was known to detest. Even more amusing was how Telford was attired. His efforts to blend in by wearing wraparound sunglasses, a gray hoodie, and an Arsenal baseball cap were, to Andy, almost comical. Deciding he needed a little payback for the way Telford had upended his morning routine, Andy slowed his pace and changed direction quickly. Then, taking his time, Andy slipped up behind him in the same manner he’d relied on in Belfast before announcing his presence.