’Buckle up!” Max yelled. “It’s not over yet!”
Finally, Frank located the safety belt buckle above his right shoulder, pulled it across his chest and buckled up. He looked back. Maggie had scrambled back into her seat and was now desperately pushing the clasp inside the lock.
“Wrong lock!” Max glanced at the flashing buckle-up pictogram on the dashboard. “The left one!” He sent the car to the left. With a scream, Maggie tumbled over her seat. “Buckle up!” Max growled.
Frank heard a click in the back. The pictogram turned to green.
“Where’re we going?” Frank stared in front of him, the breakneck speed making him forget the pain in his legs and ribs.
The coach didn’t yet answer when a massive shadow covered the sun. A chopper whirred over the Maybach, turned around over an intersection ahead and froze, descending and blocking the way. Masked armed men in black uniforms and helmets sat in the cargo bay. Memoria’s orange flower marked the chopper’s side.
Without hesitation, the coach turned the car onto the empty sidewalk, clear of people and cars because of the President’s arrival. The limo smashed into a shop window and crossed the store knocking over a few mannequins inside. The car’s left wing hit the side of an enormous display wardrobe, collapsed the sales counter and rammed through the opposite glass wall into the adjacent street.
Frank glanced behind his shoulder. The chopper whirred over the intersection, turning. It raised its tail boom, gained speed and started to catch up.
“They’re coming!” Frank shouted.
“I know,” the coach said looking in the mirror.
At the next intersection, he took a sharp turn and rammed a patrol car. The massive Maybach threw it backwards, squashing the patrol car’s hood: its windscreen cracked and the light bar went tumbling off the car roof. The patrol car jumped the curb, hit the wall of a building, then rolled out into the street blocking the way.
Max locked the wheel and stepped on the gas in order to avoid it when the low-flying helicopter advanced from behind another building. To avoid a collision, Max jumped on the brakes. The chopper pilot tried to maneuver his way around but miscalculated. The chopper’s rotor hit a building and tore through its side, smashing the tiled wall. Unheard in the roar of the engines, the windows started bursting. Banking to the right, the helicopter sped forward, overtook the limo and turned around, swaying mid-air over the smashed police vehicle. Black smoke belched from its sparkling rotor.
“Hold tight!” the coach pressed his thumb against the handbrake button. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor and let go of the brake.
The tires screamed. The speedometer hit red. The limo shot forward like a catapulted missile. It rammed the patrol car pushing it aside. The pilot tried to raise the damaged chopper higher but not high enough. Its chassis hit the roof of the police vehicle. The chopper banked again, straightened up and swayed aside. The cabin door opened. The pilot jumped onto the road, followed by the men in the cargo bay. The cabin went nose up. The tail boom clattered along the tarmac and broke off, the impact causing the turning rotor to collapse. A flash blinded Frank.
’Get down!” Max pushed a button on the dashboard. A set of metal blinds shuttered the windows.
The interior went dark. An explosion followed. Debris showered the car.
“Get out!”
Frank thought he misunderstood his coach. His ears were ringing from the blast. Max had already opened his door and left the car, rifle in hand.
“Follow me, quickly!” his voice resounded loud and clear as if Frank’s ears were unplugged.
Attaché case in hand, Frank scrambled out of the car. The flames burned his face. He shielded it with his elbow. The coach was advancing to a nearby house. Rifle at the ready, he had the chopper in his sights.
“Frank! The door won’t open!” he heard Maggie’s voice from inside the car.
“I’m coming!”
Rancid smoke clouded the street. His eyes running, Frank pulled the back door handle. Nothing. Squinting from the smoke, he looked inside through the front door.
“How about the other side?”
“It’s jammed, too!”
“Come out here!”
He grabbed her arm and helped her to squeeze herself between the seats and through the front door. The moment she stepped onto the ground, shots rang out from their left. Max was firing at a large black-clad figure that had appeared from the stinking smoke. The man didn’t stand a chance and collapsed without even raising his weapon. Another scrambled out of the smoke. Engulfed in flames, the already silent man wobbled to the car, stumbled over the first man’s body and slumped down on top.
“Here, quick!” the coach ran past the bodies. Frank and Maggie ran up to him.
“Open it!” Max kicked the side of a manhole cover, forcing it to jump its seating. The rifle in one hand, his eyes not leaving the burning chopper, he handed Frank a knife.
They must have driven quite a distance away from the Presidential route: this manhole wasn’t sealed as the security regulations demanded. Frank slid the edge of the knife under the lid and moved it to one side.
“You first,” he turned to Maggie wishing her to finally escape to safety.
“No,” the coach said. “You go first, Frank.”
He obeyed and sat on the edge, his dangling feet feeling the rungs beneath. Maggie handed him the attaché case. Shots snapped again, but Frank didn’t see who Max was shooting at this time. He was climbing down.
The shaft ended. Frank jumped down onto the sewer bottom. Here, the damp air was warm; it clung to his teary eyes worse than the smoke had. But at least he could breathe and no one was shooting yet.
Judging by the sound of the running water, the sewer had to be near. Either that, or there was a leak somewhere.
Maggie jumped off the ladder. Frank helped her to get up. He wanted to look around but the coach on the ladder overhead moved the lid back into place. Darkness filled the shaft.
Chapter Fourteen. The Tape
Kirk Dickens was a good foot shorter than the prisoner strapped to the chair. He could whack him in the ribs without even leaning forward. The man’s broad face was beaten to pulp. One eye was completely swollen; the nose turned to one side like a misshapen tablespoon; his lips bleeding, his left cheekbone one large bruise.
Now the man didn’t resemble Memoria’s chief executive. A crimson spot grew on his bandaged right thigh. Dickens’ soldiers had shot the man as they stormed Binelli’s office, but even after that, they had lost two more men. Only then had they finally broken the man’s defense and brought the upper floors under control.
As his men had worked over the prisoner, he hadn’t uttered a word. He hadn’t answered Dickens’ questions, either. The man bared his bloodied teeth and spat trying to hit Dickens’ face. He’d done so, the very first time, driving Dickens to distraction.
Having battered the man beyond recognition, Dickens sent for some water. He poured a bucketful over the prisoner but the man remained unconscious. Dickens gave the order to bring him round with drugs, then deliver him to William Bow, who’d been urgently summoned from his laboratory, and his mnemotech team. They had to scan the man’s memory and retrieve the information needed.
A techie in a lab coat raised the man’s chin and turned his head to the light. With his little finger, he pulled an eyelid up, then released it. The prisoner’s head dropped onto his chest. The tech felt the man’s neck for a pulse.
“We need to take him into intensive care.”
Dickens paused. “Fine. When will he be able to speak?”
The man in the lab coat shrugged.
“Do whatever is necessary. I need him to talk.”