Far ahead, a line of flashing sirens came into sight, racing down the highway toward him.
“He just turned off the main road,” Kat announced. “Avoiding those cops, no doubt. Turn right after a supermarket sign-green letters on a white background. I didn’t catch the name.” Exertion strained her voice, and squealing tire sounds came over the radio along with her voice.
“Don’t kill yourself chasing the bastard,” he cautioned, his heart in his throat.
“Are you kidding? Offensive driving is a blast. I’d love to do this in the middle of a bunch of New York City cabbies sometime-show them what combat driving really looks like.”
Jeff couldn’t help grinning. She did sound like she was having fun. “Did the van make the turn behind you?”
A pause. “Looks like it. I see a cloud of dust behind me.”
Kat continued to call out turns and mileages over the next several minutes, and he actually started to close the gap between them. Urban driving was as much about maneuverability as it was speed, and his Vespa was extremely nimble.
He spied a pair of taillights partially obscured by dust ahead and yelled into his radio, “I’m approaching the van. Where are you?”
“Just coming into Bridgetown proper. He’s heading straight through the city. He knows we’re back here. This could get ugly.”
He snorted. Like it wasn’t already? Would those men assume Kat was the Ghost’s accomplice and take her out, too? He dared not risk it, no matter how bad he wanted to bag the Ghost. “Pull off the chase, Cobra. Lose the van. Make sure it’s following the Ghost and leaves off you.”
“This may be our only chance to catch the thief! I’m not stopping now. This island isn’t that big. We’ll corner him.”
“And the guys behind you may kill you both. If you get in their way, they may very well shoot through you to get to him.”
“I have been known to shoot back, you know. I’m not defenseless.”
“One-on-six, you are.”
She retorted rather sharply. “I’m a Medusa, not some average infantry grunt.”
He swung wide around a corner, keeping his speed up and drawing a few more yards closer to the van. He supposed she was right. If she were a SEAL or a Ranger, he’d be a lot less worried about that van full of gunmen. She deserved the same benefit of the doubt as her male counterparts. At least that was what his head said. His heart screamed in denial. She was small and weak and female and he wanted her for his own. It was his job to protect her and keep her safe from jerks with guns.
“I stand corrected, Madam Medusa,” he replied reluctantly.
“Watch the left turn in front of the school-you should hit it soon. It’s a greater-than-ninety-degree turn and the road slopes away from you. Take it slower than it looks like you ought to.”
“Roger.”
The word was no sooner out of his mouth than the sound of screeching tires made him look up sharply. The van’s grip on the road gave way as it careened around the very turn she’d just described. It teetered on two wheels and looked like it was going to settle back down onto all four when the right front fender clipped a parked car.
The van went airborne, sailing in a slow motion half roll a good thirty feet through the air. Then the front end hit the ground and the entire van snapped into a fast log roll, flying down the street sideways, flipping no less than six complete revolutions. Debris spun off in every direction. Jeff braked hard, dodging pieces of flying metal, swerving violently in and out among the litter. And then he was past the van.
He looked back over his shoulder and saw a man crawling out through the passenger’s side window. As Jeff opened the throttle once more, he glimpsed the guy in his rearview mirror, limping over to the nearest parked car and smashing the butt of a rifle through the car’s window. Those guys weren’t done for yet. Whoever had survived the crash was going to hot-wire a car and come after them.
“The van crashed. But they’ll procure another car and give chase. Where are you now?”
“Going into a residential area. A slum, actually.”
“Keep calling your turns.”
“Roger,” she replied.
“How close are you to him?”
“I’m practically riding the back of his bike. A hundred yards, max.”
She sounded distracted.
“He just took a right. First street past a crab shack. Red crab legs painted around a name on a white sign. Begins with a W or an M. Sorry I didn’t see more.”
He was amazed she was catching the details she was, what with driving like a bat out of hell, the darkness, and the adrenaline of the chase.
As the neighborhood deteriorated around him, Jeff cursed under his breath. Barbados, for all its wealth, had a few pretty rough areas. He didn’t know whether to fear for Kat or for the locals if she got into a scrape in this neck of the woods. Either way, he emphatically didn’t want her alone. “Can you slow down a little?”
“Not if you don’t want me to lose this guy. And by the way, he’s small in stature. Lean. I’d estimate five foot seven at most, maybe 140 pounds. Great balance. A hell of a motorcycle rider. Black clothes, black ski cap, black gloves. Lemme see if I can get close enough to see his face.”
A pause followed.
“Left at Old Joe’s General Store. Looks like a little neighborhood market.” And then she announced, “Third right after that, maybe a hundred yards past the store. It’s a dirt road. No landmarks or sign. Be careful, it’s narrow.”
Then she said, “He just looked back over his shoulder. Caucasian.”
Even this much information was a major breakthrough for the investigation. But Jeff would rather bag the guy and be done with it.
And then the sound of a gunning engine behind Jeff made him lurch. And swear. Looked like he had the crazy commandos on his tail now. He risked a glance back. They were still well behind him, no more than a pair of headlights in the distance. For now. Bastards were no doubt following the giant rooster tail of dust he was throwing up. But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. At least there was grim relief in the fact that now they’d chase him and not her.
Jeff flew down the road, pushing sixty miles per hour, keeping an eye out for the turn ahead.
“He just went up a set of stairs on his bike. I’m going on foot.”
“You can’t catch him on foot!” Jeff exclaimed. “Go around.”
“I can catch him if he doesn’t have a back tire.”
Oh, crap. “Shooting is not authorized, Kat! You’re in a residential area! Chock full of civilians-”
She cut him off. “Too late. I just took his bike tire out. Our boy’s on foot. I’m closing.”
“Don’t engage him. I repeat, don’t engage!” Jeff shouted into his mike.
No answer. Damn, damn, damn!
He slowed to take the next turn, and that engine behind him got a whole lot louder all of a sudden. The gunmen were going to catch him fast at this rate.
There was the first turn. He screeched around the corner, skidding violently. He slammed a foot down on the pavement, saving himself from a nasty wipeout. He righted himself, and accelerated with a screech of tires. Old Joe’s. Old Joe’s. C’mon, c’mon.
There it was. He took the corner way faster than he ought to have. One street. Two streets. Brake. Skid wildly around the third corner…Up ahead he spied their car, parked at an angle across half the narrow street, its driver’s side door open.
He pointed the moped up the steps beside the vehicle, banging up their bone-jarring length. He burst out into an alley. Looked left and right. There. In the distance. A familiar dark, running figure disappeared around a corner. He pointed the moped that way. His back tire was getting soft. Didn’t like that flight of stairs, apparently. Hold together just a few more seconds, baby.