But finding out why would have to wait. Natalia was not the only prisoner. His first priority was to make his way back to Sullivan so that the team could plan the rescue.
Fighting every instinct to free the young woman and take her to safety, Chase turned and opened the door a crack. The torrential rain was still keeping her captors in their tents. ‘I’ll be back for you soon,’ he promised the sleeping figure as he slipped outside.
7
Eddie accelerated, sending the Twizy southwards down the boulevard after the kidnappers. A long way ahead, the Audi made a skidding turn to the right. He glanced at the speedometer, trying to judge how long it would take him to reach the intersection. For a moment it seemed the little electric car was surprisingly fast — then he remembered that the number was in kilometres per hour, not miles.
‘Eddie!’ Nina shouted from behind him. ‘Go right, down there!’ She pointed at a street angling away to the south-west, her iPhone gripped tightly in her hand. The screen displayed a 3D aerial view of Stockholm. ‘It’s a short cut, we’ll catch up with them!’
Eddie made the turn, sweeping the Twizy to the wrong side of the road to pass a slow-moving car. The road was a cul-de-sac, trees across its end, but a cycle path ran between them. The Renault was narrow enough to fit — he hoped. ‘What’s down here?’
Nina rotated the map. ‘A river. The only way they can go is along it. The road’s called, uh… Strandvägen.’
Eddie sounded the Twizy’s horn, startled pedestrians leaping away as he swerved on to the cycle path. Snow and slush spattered him and Nina through the buggy’s open sides. ‘Where does it go?’
‘How the hell would I know? I’ve never been here before!’
Her call on the short cut had been good, however. The Audi powered past just ahead of them, heading west along the riverside. Still shrilling the horn, Eddie swung on to another broad boulevard in pursuit. Tramlines occupied the lanes on each side of the tree-lined central reservation, three-coach trains trundling past the dawdling traffic. The S4 was forced to weave aggressively between the cars to avoid being blocked.
The much skinnier Twizy slipped through the gaps with ease. ‘Okay, I’m starting to see the point of this thing,’ Eddie admitted. ‘We’re catching up.’
Nina tilted the map to get a better view of what lay ahead. ‘If they don’t take one of these side streets, they’ll have to keep going along the river for about a half-mile. They must be heading for one of the main roads out of the citeeee!’ She squeaked as Eddie guided their vehicle between two cars with only inches to spare on each side. ‘Don’t miss them like that!’
‘You’d rather I hit ’em?’
‘You’d rather I hit you?’
‘Not really — wait, look!’ Two lanes ahead were full of stationary vehicles, a tram in the third closing off the only open avenue before the kidnappers could reach it. The Audi’s brake lights flared. ‘They’re stuck!’
‘Or not,’ said Nina as the S4 made a slithering power slide, barging a smaller car out of the way and crossing the lines just behind the tram to traverse the central reservation. A man walking along the path down its centre had to dive out of the way, the car jinking to avoid him at the last second. The Audi vaulted the kerb on the other side and skidded again, still heading west — but now facing into oncoming traffic.
Eddie used the lowered kerb at a pedestrian crossing to follow, angling across the grassy central divider. He weaved between the trees before dropping down heavily into the empty bus and tram lane on the other side. The Audi’s driver tried to cut back across the road to get into the clear space ahead of the Twizy, but couldn’t find a large enough gap between the approaching cars. Frustrated, he swung the other way and rode up on to the pavement along the waterfront, sounding the horn and flashing his headlights. Terrified pedestrians cleared the S4’s path.
‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped as the Russians pulled away. ‘Someone’s going to get killed!’
‘Yeah, probably us!’ Eddie replied in alarm. The Twizy’s lane was no longer empty, the headlights of a tram directly ahead — and getting closer with worrying speed. The kerb to the right was high enough to flip the small-wheeled Renault if he tried to ride up over it, but going into the oncoming cars would be even more dangerous…
Out of time. The tram rushed at them.
He went left—
Nina screamed as the tram flashed past to her right, traffic blurring by on the other side as Eddie threaded the needle and straddled the dividing line between the two lanes. An approaching driver instinctively swerved away in fright and sideswiped the car alongside him with a whump of crumpling sheet metal. Traffic stopped sharply behind them with blaring horns and the cracks of fender-benders.
The tram passed. Eddie immediately darted back into the empty lane. His wife thumped his shoulder with a balled fist. ‘I told you not to do that!’
He ignored her, searching for the kidnappers. The black Audi was still racing along the pavement. But it had slowed, slaloming to avoid pedestrians. That told him something: the kidnappers were not totally ruthless, trying to avoid collateral damage to innocent bystanders.
But it didn’t mean Tova was safe. He brought the Twizy back to its maximum speed, such as it was — though right now it was enough to gain ground on the kidnappers. ‘What’s coming up ahead?’ he shouted.
Nina zoomed in closer on the map. ‘Looks like a big intersection. If they’re trying to get out of the city, they’ll have to go straight on…’ She paused, listening. ‘I can hear the cops!’
Eddie picked up the wail of a siren a moment later. He looked ahead. The two sides of the boulevard rejoined past the end of the tree-lined reservation. Beyond it the route forked, pulsing blue strobe lights approaching down each leg.
But not all the kidnappers’ escape routes were closed off. To the left was a small inlet lined with moored pleasure craft, another road curving in a semicircle around its end. The Russians had seen it too, one of the silhouettes in the Audi gesturing furiously. The S4 followed the pavement around the little harbour before finally finding a clear section of road and dropping back on to it with a suspension-straining crash.
Eddie swung the Twizy between the stalled traffic and followed. ‘Where does this road go?’ he demanded.
Nina hurriedly scrolled across the map. ‘It’s called Nybrohamnen, and it goes… nowhere!’ The screen revealed that the road in question ran around the edge of a spit of densely built-up land jutting into the river before looping back to rejoin the main shore. ‘If we cut across, we can get ahead of them!’
The Audi was pulling away fast, but stayed on the waterfront. The driver wasn’t familiar with Stockholm’s complicated geography either. Eddie glanced back as he brought the Twizy around the curve. The police cars were struggling to squeeze between the backed-up vehicles, rapidly falling behind. ‘Where can we cut through?’
‘Down there!’ Nina pointed to the right. There was a narrow road between a pale stone hall with banners proclaiming it as the ‘Musikaliska’ and a large hotel.
He saw warning signs at the junction. ‘It says no entry — it’s one-way.’
‘It’s the only way — we’ll never catch up with them otherwise.’ The Audi’s lead kept growing. A few more seconds and it would be lost to sight as the riverfront curved.
Eddie started to make the turn — only to see that both lanes were blocked by traffic waiting at the lights. These were not cars he could slip the Twizy between, either. One was a garbage truck, the other a snowplough, the two metal hulks filling the side street. Railings made it impossible for him to ride the Renault up on to the pavement. ‘Whoa! No go,’ he said, hurriedly swinging back on to Nybrohamnen.