Chris pushed at the small of Michael’s back, propelling him forward, and Michael tripped. “Pick up your feet,” Chris told him.
Michael did so with a whimper, picking up his feet and putting them down, but he wasn’t going fast enough. The longer it took Michael to move, the more chance there was that none of them would make it out alive.
Chris grabbed a handful of Michael’s trousers near the small of his back and lifted him up while pushing him forward, giving him a boost. In spite of his efforts, it still felt like they were moving in slow motion.
The Albanians are going to overtake us any minute now.
They turned the corner to head south, but Michael stumbled again, slowing them down. Chris pulled him to his feet and put his arm around Michael’s shoulder, shifting much of the young man’s weight onto himself, helping them move faster. They hurried south one block and then another, the gunshots behind them continuing.
Chris spotted the BMW. He pressed onward and assisted Michael into the backseat before he took the driver’s seat. “I’m taking you to safety. You’re going to be okay.” Now Chris was too busy scanning for threats to see if Michael was even responding. Chris spotted no threats in the immediate vicinity, and when he put his key in and turned it, the vehicle started without any problems.
Hannah appeared around the corner then, sprinting faster than he’d ever seen her run. When she reached the vehicle, she gasped, “Sonny is right behind me.” After taking her position beside him in the passenger seat and closing the door, she tapped the GPS screen and set the US embassy as their destination. “I called the station chief and told him we have the PC and we’re gunning it out with Albanians, so now the chief is on the phone requesting approval from Washington for Six’s assistance.”
Come on, Sonny, where are you?
Gunshots sounded again, and Sonny charged around the corner like a bull with its ass on fire. “Enemy right behind me!” he shouted. He jumped into the car. Michael grunted as Sonny landed on him in the backseat. “Get us out of here!”
Without waiting for Sonny’s door to close, Chris stomped on the accelerator. The BMW leaped forward just as an Albanian, armed with a handgun and speaking into a cell phone, came around the corner. Chris didn’t slow down, hitting the man and knocking the pistol and phone from his hands. The Albanian landed on the hood, rolled up the windshield, and thumped the roof before Chris caught a glimpse of him in his rearview mirror as he landed in the street. It wasn’t very reverend-like of him, but he didn’t have the luxury of gazing into his belly button and soul searching right now.
Sonny closed the door, and Chris turned the corner with tires squealing, onto a street that cut southwest. “I’m heading for Olympus,” Chris told Sonny, using their code word for the embassy. “We’re only five klicks away.”
Downtown Athens was such a confusing maze of one-way streets, particularly in the Kypseli neighborhood. He’d never been more thankful for Hannah’s GPS. He was less worried about getting a traffic ticket or ending up in a head-on collision, and more worried about the Albanians.
Michael was still breathing heavily. “We made it, we made it,” he said.
Chris didn’t hear Hannah’s phone ring, but she took it out and put it on speakerphone. It was Young. “Xander received a call from the Kypseli neighborhood, and now he’s mass texting a shitload of people to converge on that area. And Xander himself is en route, too. If you’re near Kypseli, you might want to consider getting the hell out.”
“Already on it. We’ve got the package,” Hannah said before she ended the call.
“What do these Albanians want with you, Michael?” Chris tossed to the backseat.
“I… I think they’re working for the Russians,” Michael answered. He seemed to be getting his bearings.
“Why would the Russians want you?”
“Russia’s energy exports are the backbone of its economy,” Michael said. “They supply a quarter of Europe’s natural gas, allowing Russia to exert its influence on European politics.”
“Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Latvia import a hundred percent of their gas from Russia,” Hannah added.
“Right,” Michael said. “Greece imports at least half, and countries like Germany and Italy import more than a quarter from Russia.”
In the rearview mirror, a speeding car closed in on them fast. “We might have company,” Chris said.
Sonny prepared his pistol to fire out the back window. “I’m on it,” he said. The tailing car moved in closer. “They’re armed. These guys aren’t out collecting for the Red Cross.”
The car neared them again, and Sonny pressed his pistol against the back window and fired through the glass. Michael yelped at the sound vibrating through the confines of the vehicle. The pursuing car swerved.
“One of them is an Albanian I shot at earlier,” Sonny said.
Hannah checked her phone. “I’ve got a text message from Young. It says Xander is receiving more text messages, and he’s sending another mass of texts. Young is still trying to decode the messages.”
“I can decode the messages,” Sonny said. “He’s telling them to kill us.”
“What is Xander’s location now?” Chris asked, throwing a quick look to Hannah.
“Doesn’t say.”
“We need to reach Olympus before Xander reaches us.”
“No shit,” Sonny shouted. “A little help here?”
Hannah turned and aimed her gun through the back window at their pursuers, as well. Unfortunately, they were now shooting back.
Can this get any worse?
A bullet penetrated the back window and struck the windshield between Chris and Hannah. Chris’s heart jumped, and he stopped wondering if their situation could get any worse.
He turned west on Agiou Meletiou, a large two-way street, but just as he reached the intersection of Leoforos Konstantinoupolem, cars were stopped at a railroad crossing, waiting for the southbound metro to cross. Sitting at a train crossing was not an option. When Chris hit the intersection, he swung the BMW left, going south and putting the pedal to the metal. “I’m going to try to outrun the train to the next street before crossing over.”
“That’s crazy,” Sonny said. “We’re not going to beat that train!”
Hannah and Sonny shot at the two cars following them, but the cars didn’t back off, and returned fire.
Chris continued to gain velocity, running neck and neck with the train. “We’re going to make it!”
“We’re not going to make it,” Sonny shouted.
“We’re going to make it,” Chris repeated, swerving around the car in front of him in order to push farther ahead. Now he was in front of the train, but there were no roads for him to cross, and if the road ahead filled up with cars, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his headway. Then an intersection, Sepolion, came into view, which crossed the tracks over to the other side.
Sonny changed his tune. “We’re going to make it.”
Chris wanted more speed, but there was no more.
We’re not going to make it.
Lord help us, please.
6
Chris ran off the road, and the car fishtailed as he turned right. The BMW straightened out on the road, and he barreled through a railroad-crossing barrier, breaking it off its joint. Then he crossed the tracks in front of the moving train, and he stomped the accelerator. The car wheels spun, losing traction. Hannah braced herself for a collision.
Chris let up on the gas enough for the wheels to bite into the ground, and the car passed over the tracks.