“Now I know what it’s like to be chased by a shark.”
Somewhere ahead lay the remaining contingent of Russians, Swedes and Israelis, all tasked with one duty — retrieve the bio-weapon that had been specifically engineered to wipe out America’s food supply.
“Why don’t we just destroy it?” Kinimaka said as he hung onto a grab handle.
“Fair question,” Dahl pointed out.
“It is,” Lauren said. “But I’ve just been told there are protocols. Procedures. Do it the wrong way and you could kill yourselves and a whole lot of others.”
Drake eased off the gas as a sharp bend appeared up ahead. Again, the police had blocked all other routes and he drifted the vehicle gracefully around the corner, shedding rubber and blasting through a red light. Dahl was a few feet behind him. Pedestrians lined the streets, staring, gesturing, but held back by cops with a bullhorn. Drake was always acutely aware that some might not listen.
“Cops can’t handle all this,” Hayden said. “Slow it down, guys. We’re five minutes out.”
At that point a pickup truck blasted out from a side street, almost running down a police officer who wasn’t paying attention. It swerved into their path and then pulled alongside. Yorgi already had his window pulled down, and Mai broke out the glass in the back.
The pickup — a silver F-150—kept pace, coming closer. The grinning face behind the wheel stared over at them, watching them twice as much as the road. Yorgi fell back into his seat.
“Oh no, no, no. That is not good. I know her. I know her.”
Drake took a quick peek. “Looks like a Russian weightlifter to me.”
“She was in Olympics,” Yorgi said. “That was before she became military black-ops assassin, one of best ever to come out of Russia. She is Olga.”
Drake slowed as a knot of pedestrians walked out in front of the speeding cars, most with cellphones held inches before their eyes.
“Olga?”
“Yes, Olga. She is legend. You never hear of her?”
“Not in this context. No.”
The silver F-150 swerved hard, striking the wide of their Challenger. Free of the wandering herd, Drake goosed the throttle again and surged ahead, the Challenger responding with a satisfying roar. Olga swept over once more, aiming for the rear three-quarter wing but missed by inches. Her F-150 crossed over to the other side, right between Drake and Dahl. The Swede maneuvered his Mustang behind her.
“Can’t ram her,” he said. “Too risky.”
“Can’t shoot her,” Mai said. “Same problem.”
“How does she expect to escape?” Kinimaka wondered.
“Olga is invincible,” Yorgi assured them. “And she never fails.”
“That’s lovely for her,” Alicia said. “Maybe you two could hide under the same mattress.”
The three vehicles raced along, other vehicles largely blocked and pedestrians warned by the unbroken shriek of police sirens. Drake followed Hayden’s direction and Hayden sat glued to the screen of a portable satnav.
Drake saw a long straight ahead.
“Stay with me, Dahl,” he said. “Box the bitch in.”
He accelerated, keeping to the center of the road. A stray vehicle did start to wander out of a side street, but jammed all on when the driver saw the oncoming chase. Drake kept the hammer down, watching Olga behind and Dahl behind her. The engines roared, the tires rumbled. Glass shopfronts and office buildings flashed by in a blur. Pedestrians jumped out into the road to take pictures. A police car joined the chase, coming alongside Olga so that now Drake had two cars in his immediate rearview.
“Three minutes,” Hayden said.
“Get your guns out, people,” Alicia said.
“Let’s hope the Russian bitch doesn’t go down quietly,” Kenzie said.
Yorgi gulped hard next to Drake.
Then, ahead, the oddest and most terrifying thing happened. Figures ran out into the center of the road, dropped to one knee, and fired.
Bullets strafed the front of the Challenger, clanging against metal and shearing through bolts. Sparks exploded into the air. Drake kept the vehicle dead straight.
“Hit the fucking deck!” he cried.
More shots. Police ran hard from the sidewalk, trying to stop the shooters. Civilians dived for cover. A contingent of SWAT broke cover and ran with the police, weapons aimed but unused because of the likelihood of hitting people on the other side of the road.
Drake’s windshield exploded, glass tumbling over his jacket, his shoulders and down into his lap. The offending bullet thunked into the headrest just a few inches to the right of his ear. The Yorkshireman waited two more seconds, allowed the shooters to settle once more, and then swerved the Challenger with great violence.
Leaving Olga’s F-150 in the firing line.
She wrenched at her own wheel, striking the cop to her right side, but the bullets still struck. The man sat beside her slumped; red burst across the inside of the car. Another Russian dead and only one remaining.
Dahl found himself suddenly in the direct firing line.
But by then the shooters were concentrated on the approaching cops and SWAT, just two of them turning and spreading out covering fire as they turned to run. Drake saw bullets hammer in among the crowd, saw the disdain with which these people — Israelis, at a guess — treated the civilians.
“Fuck it,” he said. “That ain’t gonna stand.”
“Drake!” Hayden warned. “Two minutes.”
Mai grabbed her shoulder. “This has to be done.”
Drake stomped on the gas pedal, and ate up the ground between the car and the fleeing gunmen. Yorgi leaned out of one window and Mai leaned out of the other. Guns leveled, they fired three shots each down the dead straight street, without chance of other casualties, and dropped the running men.
Drake swerved hard around their falling bodies.
“Bastards.”
In the rearview, the cops picked them up. Then Olga and Dahl were back, coming hard, racing each other down the center of the road. Olga’s vehicle was bloody, her windshield missing, the fenders, sides and lights all smashed, one of the tires shedding rubber. But still she came, as implacable as a hurricane.
“Ninety seconds,” Hayden read aloud.
“Where?” Drake asked.
She shouted out an address. “Take a hard right ahead, then left and the building will be dead ahead, blocking the road.”
“On another note,” Lauren put in. “That’s the Israelis out of the fight. And the race.”
“Unsanctioned,” Kenzie said. “As I thought. No way would that have happened if our government was involved.”
Dahl didn’t take his eyes off the road. “That coming from you surprises me.”
“It shouldn’t. I am not saying they wouldn’t operate, kill and maim on foreign territory. Friendly territory. I am saying they wouldn’t do it so openly.”
“Ah, that make more sense.”
Drake slowed, standing hard on the brakes, and flung the roaring Challenger around the sharp right. Almost clipping the far curb, he powered on and heard the tires scrabbling for grip. At the last moment they caught, spit gravel, and helped propel the car forward. The hope was Dahl might be able to nudge Olga’s backend as she turned, but the Russian was too savvy, cutting the corner recklessly and powering ahead. A litter bin jumped high in her wake, slammed by the front end.
“Thirty seconds,” Hayden said.
Then it all went to hell.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO