The jackhammer outside finally ceased and in the relative quiet Kensington reached for a pen, his hand visibly shaking.
“They are just trinkets,” he continued, speaking almost absentmindedly as he put pen to paper. “Unauthenticated artifacts from Egypt. Nothing of great value.”
An engine roared in the courtyard below. The sound was powerful and oddly out of place. It was enough to make the hair on Kurt’s neck stand up. He turned to see a shadow swinging across the stained glass of the window.
“Look out,” he shouted, diving from his chair to the floor.
A mighty crash followed as the business end of a crane boom punched through the window like a battering ram.
Glass shards and dust flew in all directions as the yellow-and-black boom plowed forward, hitting Kensington’s desk and crushing it up against the wall, pinning Kensington in the process.
The boom pulled back several feet and Kurt lunged toward Kensington, grabbing him and dragging him out of the way before a second thrust of the crane took out the remnants of the desk and punched a hole in the ancient stone wall behind it.
A third thrust almost brought the roof down on them.
“Kensington!” Kurt said, looking at the man.
Kensington’s face was mangled, his nose broken, his lips and teeth smashed. The end of the boom had caught him flush. He didn’t respond but seemed to be breathing.
Kurt laid him on the ground and noticed the crumpled note in his hand. He grabbed it just as Joe shouted a warning.
“Get down!”
The boom was swinging to the side. Kurt covered Kensington and lay as flat as he could while the attackers took out another wall.
This time, the boom got caught on the stonework beneath the window. A halfhearted attempt was made to free it and then it stopped altogether.
Kurt dashed to the gaping hole in the wall. He saw a man in the cab of the small crane desperately working the controls while another man stood by, armed with a submachine gun.
Spotting Kurt, the gunman raised his weapon and fired a quick burst. Kurt pulled back as the bullets hit near the opening but failed to find the mark.
By now, Joe was on the phone, calling for help. He was still requesting assistance when there was more gunfire.
Kurt could tell that these shots had been aimed in a different direction. He looked back outside. The attackers were running, shooting above a crowd to get the people out of their way.
“Stay with Kensington,” Kurt said. “I’m going after them.”
Before Joe could protest, Kurt climbed through what was left of the window and began scrambling down the boom of the crane.
17
Kurt crawled down the length of the crane using the circular holes in the steel beam as handholds. He saw three men with guns running across the street toward a microvan parked on the far side. He hopped off the boom when he was close enough to the ground and discovered several workmen had been shot to access the crane.
Across the street, the lights of the van came on and the engine roared to life.
Kurt looked around for something to chase them with. The only real option was a tiny Citroën dump truck. It had a narrow wheelbase and a tall profile that gave it an odd look, by American standards, but was a far better fit for the constricted roads of a small island.
He raced over to it, climbed in, found the keys in the ignition. As the engine turned over, he jammed the truck into gear and accelerated across the plaza on a diagonal, driving down the steps and trying desperately to cut off the microvan.
The little van was too nimble to be stopped. It swerved around him, drove up on the sidewalk for a hundred feet and then careened back onto the road.
Kurt threw the transmission into reverse, backed up and worked the wheel around until the dump truck was pointed in the right direction.
He was about to hit the gas when a familiar face appeared in front of the museum.
“Get in!” he shouted.
Joe piled into the truck’s cab as Kurt stepped on the gas pedal.
“Couldn’t you rent anything smaller?” Joe asked.
“Free upgrade,” Kurt said. “Membership has its privileges.”
“What happens when the cops decide those privileges don’t include stealing dump trucks from the scene of a crime?”
“Depends,” Kurt said.
“On what?”
“On whether we’ve caught the bad guys by then or not.”
Despite the roar of the dump truck’s engine, that prospect didn’t seem likely. The microvan was no horsepower champion, but it was spry and maneuverable and was quickly outdistancing them. By comparison, the dump truck felt slow and ponderous.
An area of congestion evened the playing field for a moment, but the little van was soon swerving through the traffic. Kurt didn’t have that option. He switched on all the lights and leaned on the horn with reckless abandon.
In response to the oncoming truck, drivers with any sense got out of the way, but several vehicles parked on the side of the road were not so lucky. Kurt couldn’t help but sideswipe them, taking out five consecutive mirrors.
“I think you missed one,” Joe said.
“We’ll hit it on the way back.”
With his foot to the floor, Kurt kept the truck accelerating. “I thought I told you to stay with Kensington,” he said.
“I did,” Joe said.
“I meant, until help arrived.”
“Be more specific next time.”
They were gaining on the van now, picking up speed, as the road opened up and dropped down to the waterfront, where it curved along the harbor’s edge past million-dollar yachts and small fishing boats. Someone in the van didn’t seem happy with that idea. He shot out the back window and began blazing away at the dump truck following them.
Kurt instinctively ducked as the front window was peppered with shells. At the same time, he swerved to the right, up onto a side road that angled inland, taking them away from the harbor.
“Now we’re going the wrong way,” Joe noted.
Kurt had the pedal mashed to the floor. He manhandled the truck into a lower gear, keeping up the revs and the horsepower.
“And now we’re going the wrong way even faster,” Joe added.
“We’re taking a shortcut,” Kurt said. “The coastline here is like a bunch of fingers sticking out into the harbor. While they follow the outline of those fingers, we’re going to cut across the palm.”
“Or get lost,” Joe added. “Since we have no map.”
“All we have to do is keep the harbor to the left of us,” he said.
“And hope they don’t turn around.”
The harbor was easy to keep track of since all the forts and important buildings surrounding it were lit up by floodlights. From higher ground it was even possible to see the lower road.
“There,” Joe said, pointing.
Kurt saw it too. The little microvan was continuing on. Speeding as it had before. Apparently, the driver had no interest in blending in.
The dump truck rumbled onto the descending grade and began to pick up speed. It shook and shuddered and the load of broken concrete and rebar in the back jumped around, creating a jarring racket.
They angled toward the intersection.
“What are you going to do?” Joe asked.
“Like the Romans, I’m going to ram them.”
Joe hastily looked for seat belts and found none.
“Hang on!”
They hit the merge, shot out onto the road and missed. Picking up so much speed on the downslope had thrown Kurt’s timing off. They’d taken the lead.
“We’re now in front of the van we’re supposed to be chasing,” Joe said.