Ahead, the other police cars moved to box him in - then hurriedly swerved aside as the cops realised he wasn’t going to stop. He shot between them, the two cruisers behind him pulling into single file to follow the writhing Murciélago through the gap.
The tyres found grip again, the sudden jolt of acceleration like a kick to the back as the oncoming traffic peeled off to either side, headlights flashing, horns blaring. 37th Street was coming up fast. Eddie eased off, about to turn right to catch up with Nina—
A battered yellow cab hurtled across the intersection right in front of him.
Time slowed to a crawl as Eddie recognised the red-haired figure at the wheel, Nina looking round at him open-mouthed as the Lamborghini thundered straight towards her—
Eddie twitched the wheel - and accelerated. The world snapped back to full speed as the Lamborghini crossed just in front of the cab. He thought he heard Nina’s scream behind him, but it was probably his imagination: it would have been lost in his own.
Adrenalin surging from the almost-collision, Nina looked in the mirror - to see the Ram smash square on into a police car that had been chasing Eddie. The cruiser cartwheeled along the street in a storm of flying glass.
The impact had affected even the Dodge, the bullbar buckled back through the radiator grille and the hood crumpled upwards. Behind it, another police car skidded to a halt, cops breaking off their pursuit of the Lamborghini to help their colleagues.
‘Did you see that?’ Macy said breathlessly.
‘Kinda hard to miss,’ said Nina. ‘Eddie!’
‘You okay?’ Eddie asked her as Grant held out the phone in his shaking hand.
‘Yeah! Jesus, I nearly hit you!’
He turned west on to 39th Street. ‘Head for Times Square - I’ll get behind you and block them.’
‘Eddie, one of them’s got a machine gun!’
‘I’ll worry about the machine gun - you just put your foot down!’
Grant blinked. ‘Worry about the what?’
But Eddie had something else to worry about. Ahead, a truck was reversing into a loading dock, blocking the street. He braked hard and blasted the horn in frustration. ‘For fuck’s sake! What next, two guys carrying a sheet of glass?’
The truck was clear; he veered round it, powering towards the Seventh Avenue intersection.
Nina’s cab shot across the junction, heading north. If he could get ahead of the pickup—
The dented Ram roared past just before he made the turn. ‘Shit!’ He swung in behind it, vision filled by the broad red tailgate. Headlights blurred past on both sides. Like Broadway, Seventh was a one-way street, southbound only.
Grant cringed as an SUV passed uncomfortably close to the Murciélago. ‘We’ll never get past!’
‘What’re you talking about?’ Eddie countered. ‘We’re in a fucking Lamborghini!’ He dropped down a gear—
And floored the accelerator.
There was a gap in the traffic to the left - only short, but it was all he needed.
He hoped . . .
The Lamborghini surged forward, rocketing past the Ram with a triumphant howl and darting back in front of it. Eddie braked. Startled, the pickup’s driver also slowed, his vehicle weaving, before realising he had the clear weight advantage and could just barge the supercar aside.
Eddie accelerated again, just enough to keep ahead of the truck. He saw Nina’s cab pulling away as it headed for Times Square, its tail lights the only red points in the sea of headlights parting before it.
And directly ahead of it, a bus.
Ricardo gestured feebly. ‘A bus, there is a bus.’
‘I see it,’ Nina told him. It was a red British-style double-decker, an open-topped tour vehicle for sightseers.
Coming straight at them.
‘There is a bus!’
‘I see it!’ She flashed the headlights and pounded on the horn, keeping her foot down.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded Ricardo.
Macy stared in disbelief through the cracked partition. ‘We’re gonna hit it!’
‘He’ll stop, he’ll stop . . .’ Nina poised her other foot over the brake, ready to jam it down—
The bus driver chickened out first, the safety of the few passengers on the last tour of the night his top priority. He braked hard, the bus’s wheels locking . . .
It skidded.
‘Oh, that’s bad,’ Nina gasped. The bus slewed round through almost ninety degree, a metal and glass roadblock.
But a driver in the lane to the right saw the danger and accelerated away just before the bus hit his car from behind - clearing a space.
Nina took it.
The Crown Victoria hit the kerb with a bang. A huge NYPD logo on the wall of the Times Square station house filled Nina’s vision; she screamed and spun the wheel, the front bumper rasping against the sign as the car careered along the sidewalk. People dived out of the way, but there was an obstacle dead ahead—
‘Shit!’ Nina wailed as she hit a hot dog cart. The vendor had already sprinted away, his stall spinning like a top in a spray of boiling water and flying frankfurters as the cab bowled it into the intersection.
Then she was clear, powersliding on to Broadway. She looked back . . .
The bus swayed to a standstill - blocking three lanes right in front of the Lamborghini.
‘Shiiiiit!’ Eddie and Grant cried. The only way to avoid a collision was to follow Nina—
A spine-jarring thump as they mounted the sidewalk, then Eddie turned hard left to round the bus, barely missing the whirling hot dog cart.
He too looked back—
The skidding Dodge Ram hit the bus.
It ploughed straight through it, the lower deck bursting apart in an explosion of shredded metal and flying seats. Most of the passengers were on the upper deck, those few downstairs fleeing for each end of the vehicle as the pickup rolled through its middle. It crashed down in Times Square, screeching to a stop on its side.
The Lamborghini also shrieked to a halt. Eddie opened the scissor door and jumped out, landing in a crouch to look over the supercar’s bonnet. The overturned Ram was dribbling fuel from a ruptured line, its driver slumped bloodily through the smashed windscreen. Another of its occupants, a chunky bald man, had been thrown clear and lay near the hot dog cart. He still had a weapon clutched in one hand, a compact TEC-9 sub-machine gun.
The Lamborghini’s other door swung up. Grant emerged - and to Eddie’s dismay ran straight for the bald guy. ‘Wait, get back!’ he shouted.
The actor ignored him, reaching the weakly moving gunman - and kicking the TEC-9 out of his hand, sending it skittering away to clank against the wrecked Dodge. ‘This is a citizen’s arrest!’ he proclaimed, putting a foot on the man’s back and striking a pose. He grinned at Eddie. ‘Just like in Citizen’s Arrest, huh?’
‘Idiot,’ Eddie muttered, hurrying round the Murciélago. He passed the steaming hot dog cart, a blue flame from a squat gas cylinder still burning under its water tank. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, man. That was . . . intense. Wow!’ A flash came from the top deck of the ruptured bus as someone took his photograph. ‘So, did we save your—’
A cop ran round the bus, pistol raised. ‘Freeze!’ he bellowed. ‘Put your hands up and get down on the ground, now!’
Eddie immediately raised his hands. Grant, meanwhile, faced the cop, unconcerned. ‘It’s okay, man. We’re the good guys.’ He nodded towards his billboard. ‘See? It’s me!’
The cop twisted his arm behind his back. ‘Shut up! Get on your—’