‘I’m all right, he missed me.’ She helped him stand. The gunman had decided to flee rather than finish the attempt on her life, the Escalade still powering away. ‘Who the hell was that?’
‘What the fuck, man?’ Hector screeched, scrambling out of the Hummer and staring at the corpse. ‘What the fuck?’
‘Get back in!’ Eddie shouted. ‘We’ve got to go after him.’
The chauffeur waved his hands. ‘No, no, man. Are you crazy? I’m not getting shot!’
‘Then piss off and let me drive.’ The Englishman hurried to the limo and shoved him aside. ‘Macy, stay there,’ he barked, seeing that the young woman was about to return to the Hummer. The homeowner was already calling an emergency number on his phone. ‘Nina, you wait with her where it’s safe.’
‘I’m not letting you go without me,’ she protested, scrambling into the back of the bullet-pocked vehicle.
After three years of marriage, Eddie knew she wasn’t going to change her mind. ‘Okay, then hold on tight.’ He hopped into the driver’s seat, ignoring Hector’s objections.
‘You’re chasing him?’ Macy called in disbelief.
A distant skirl of tyres told him that the Escalade had reached the next intersection and made a high-speed turn. ‘He’s getting away — but if we follow, we can guide the cops to him.’
‘I don’t think a Hummer limo’s the best pursuit vehicle,’ said Nina.
‘Grant didn’t lend us a Lamborghini, so it’ll have to do.’ Eddie slammed his door, then jammed down the accelerator — and the Hummer leapt forward, leaving Macy and the yelling Hector behind. The stretched H2 still had its original mammoth 6.2 litre engine, and kept its four-wheel drive through the use of an extended driveshaft. ‘Hey, that’s not bad!’
‘Yeah, it’ll be great — right up until you have to turn a corner,’ said Nina, taking out her phone. She had dropped the papers, which now swirled in the wind coming through the broken window. The open magazine was also fluttering. A bullet had ripped through the chest of the photo shoot’s subject. ‘Ooh, Macy won’t like that.’
‘Good job she’s got more copies.’ Eddie kept his foot hard down, the speedometer needle surging past fifty. The Cadillac had gone left at the crossroads ahead. He had no idea how the thirty-foot-long SUV would fare around the same turn, but he was about to find out. ‘Hang on!’
Nina grabbed her seat with one hand, trying to hold the phone to her ear with the other as Eddie braked hard and spun the steering wheel. The limousine lurched, its back end sliding wide through the intersection with a wail of tortured rubber.
For a moment it felt as though the vehicle was about to flip on to its side. Nina shrieked, heels scraping at the carpet — then the limo crashed back down on all four wheels. The champagne bottle was thrown to the floor, spewing froth. The bottles of spirits clashed against each other, more of them smashing and showering their contents across the cabin.
‘Nine-one-one emergency,’ said a faint female voice in her ear as she struggled back upright. ‘What service do you require?’
‘All of them!’ she gasped.
Knuckles white as he gripped the wheel, Eddie looked ahead to see that the Escalade had much less of a lead than he’d expected. The next intersection was of the peculiarly American four-way-stop variety. The EXT had been forced to make an emergency halt to avoid ramming into a pink Bentley Continental convertible crossing its path, ending up slewed diagonally across the road. The Yorkshireman accelerated.
Smoke gushed from the Escalade’s wheels as the driver saw him coming and jammed down the gas pedal. The big truck clipped the Bentley’s front wing as it weaved past. The Continental’s driver, a thin blonde woman in enormous sunglasses, stopped and clapped both hands to her face with a shriek of horror.
It was a sound that was about to get louder. The Bentley was blocking the line the stretched Hummer needed to follow around the corner. Eddie hammered on the horn as the limo powered towards the crossroads. The woman gawped at him; he waved for her to get clear. ‘Come on, move!’
Behind him, Nina was through to the police. ‘No, I don’t know where we are!’ she told the infuriatingly laid-back dispatcher. ‘It’s — it’s a street with palm trees in Beverly Hills!’
‘That doesn’t narrow it down, ma’am,’ came the response.
Nina forced back an obscenity — then another escaped her mouth as she looked through the windscreen. ‘Shit! Eddie, we’re gonna hit it!’
The blonde finally got the message, one pink stiletto flying off as she scrambled from the Bentley. ‘Brace yourself!’ Eddie warned. He braked as he spun the wheel to follow the Cadillac, the limousine’s rear swinging out into an uncontrollable skid—
The Hummer cannoned off the Continental’s side, the luxurious convertible acting as a bumper to keep the limo on course. Even braced, Nina was still thrown across the cabin. There was a horrible shrill of steel as the two cars ground against each other, then the H2 was clear.
‘God damn it, Eddie!’ Nina cried as she sat up, senses reeling.
‘You okay?’ he called.
‘Oh, super fine, thanks! Look, stop this thing before someone gets killed!’
‘I’m not letting that arsehole get away.’ The EXT had opened the gap again. Eddie accelerated. The new street headed south to rejoin Santa Monica Boulevard; at its far end, he saw the flashing orange warning lights he had noticed earlier.
But there was another vehicle much closer that could stop the pursuit. For a moment he thought the approaching Chevrolet Impala was a police car, before recognising the name STERNHAMMER emblazoned across the side and realising that it belonged to the private security company. It swerved, trying to block the Cadillac’s path, but the Escalade rode two wheels up on to the grass verge to get past. The patrol car made a noisy handbrake turn, reversing direction and pursuing.
‘Christ!’ said Eddie as the man in the Impala’s front passenger seat leaned out and took a shot at the EXT. ‘They weren’t kidding about rapid armed response.’
Nina was still dealing with the police. ‘No, I don’t know what street we’re on now. Just look for the Hummer limo with bullet holes in it!’
‘This is LA, ma’am,’ the dispatcher replied. ‘I’m afraid that’s still not specific enough.’
The H2 was not the only vehicle with bullet damage. The security guard fired again, hitting the pickup’s tailgate. The assassin responded to the new danger by sending two shots back over his shoulder at the patrol car. One cracked the windscreen, the Chevy swerving as its driver flinched. The passenger reacted by unleashing another six angry shots at the Escalade. That confirmed what Eddie already suspected about the private patrolmen — they were trigger-happy show-offs, who had probably been rejected as real cops for exactly that reason.
The driver’s voice boomed from a loudspeaker: ‘Pull over right now, dickhead!’ The Chevy drew level with the Escalade, the guard taking aim at the truck’s front tyre—
The EXT veered, slamming side on against the Impala. The guard jerked back inside just in time to save his arm from being crushed. The collision briefly slowed both vehicles, letting the limo close the gap. The rentacops swept over to the right to overtake on the Cadillac’s blind side.
The chase was rapidly approaching the intersection with Santa Monica Boulevard, where multiple lanes of traffic were flowing in both directions. Eddie saw a recovery truck on the street corner, orange strobes pulsing; there had been an accident, a Mini Cooper being winched up the ramp on to its rear bed.
Sunlight flashed on polished metal. An eighteen-wheeler, a long tanker truck, crossed the intersection into the path of the trio of chasing vehicles—