Outside, they watched as Vetsch dragged a man from his vehicle. He shot him twice in the head and climbed into his car, a silver Honda. A moment later he was zooming away into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hawke desperately searched for a vehicle as Kaspar Vetsch fled the street in the stolen Honda, its driver now lying dead in a pool of blood on the cold cobblestones.
“That’ll be the easiest,” he said, looking at a bright purple Renault Twingo.
He told Lea to keep watch while he took off one of the hubcaps and used it to smash the driver’s window. Inside, he removed the vinyl guard under the steering column and located the wiring harness connector, a small coil of electrical wires.
“Faster, Joe. We’re losing him.”
“Oh thanks — I was planning on stopping for a tea break but since you mention it, I’ll get on.” Over his shoulder he heard her sigh.
He separated the little bundle which contained the battery, ignition and starter wires and used a piece of the smashed window glass to strip the insulation from the battery wires and twist the copper wiring together. This allowed electricity to flow to the ignition component so the engine would start when he turned the starter.
Then he connected the ignition and battery wires and watched as the dash lights all came on. Next he sparked the wires and the starter turned over. He revved the car gently for a few moments and then snapped the steering lock free with brute force.
“Ready for a drive?” he said, and winked.
“SBS training includes how to steal cars?” Lea asked.
“No, that little skill is courtesy of a misspent youth. Now get in!”
“Something tells me I’m not going to like this,” Lea said.
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?” he asked.
“I think it flew away up on the rooftops.”
“Nonsense. Buckle up,” Hawke said. “But yeah, this could get rough.”
Seatbelts on. First gear, and throttle down.
The Twingo lurched forward. Its 1.1 litre engine was cold and howled like a scolded cat as Hawke raced the small Renault along the narrow cobblestone backstreets of the Old Town. His eyes focused on the Honda in front, driven to its max by a desperate Kaspar Vetsch.
Then the Honda drove down a flight of broad stone steps leading into a medieval square. Hawke didn't hesitate, and piled the Twingo down the steps, the heavy impact of the descent rattling through the shock absorbers with terrific violence and reverberating inside the tiny cab.
Lea held on for her life, completely unable to take a shot with so much movement in the car. A brief respite as they raced across a cobblestone terrace before another set of steps caused Lea to fly up in the air and hit her head on the ceiling.
A string of exotic Dublin profanities filled the car and put a smile on Hawke’s face, but it was only fleeting — the danger ahead of them loomed into his consciousness once again.
The Honda swerved violently, its right backside swinging out uncontrollably in the tiny square and almost plowing into a neat line of parked mopeds. But Vetsch regained control and accelerated into a side street, forcing people to jump to safety in a shop’s doorway.
“Black ice,” Hawke said, steering to avoid the same fate.
“I need to get a shot, Joe!” Lea said. “Could you at least try and get up close and calm things down a bit?”
“Please don't kill him — we need him alive!”
“Fine, I’ll blow his tires. He must be getting used to that by now.”
Vetsch careered around a streetlamp and accelerated into the Place du Molard, a broad pedestrianized area of elegant cafés where chairs and tables spill out onto the cobblestones during the day, but now the way was clearer, and Vetsch took advantage.
They followed the Honda into a wider street where Vetsch was skidding around to the right in a cloud of burned rubber smoke.
“We’re going against the traffic, Joe!”
“Hold on!” Hawke shouted. Ahead, a tram was trundling towards them with its headlights on, its overhead contact system wobbling gently in the cold night as it moved along the street.
The Honda swerved to the left, mounting the sidewalk and smashing through a Vespa parked outside a Chanel store. A moped spun off to its right and struck the side of the tram in a blaze of sparks.
Hawke swerved left, narrowly avoiding a lethal impact with a large Jaguar and slipping out behind the tram to see Vetsch had gone left, still against the traffic and into a main thoroughfare.
The Swiss hitman mounted a traffic island opposite a taxi rank, smashing through a street sign before steering sharply to the right. He fired a volley of pistol fire through the passenger’s window in a frantic attempt to slow the Twingo.
Hawke reacted in a second and swerved away from the bullets. Lea fired back, striking the Honda’s right front wing and causing Vetsch to swerve into a line of Vespas, still firing, his bullets smashing the windows of another jewellery store.
“He’s trying to get over the river.” Lea pointed to the left where the Pont du Mont-Blanc stretched across the river Rhône, its streetlamps lighting up the Geneva night like a string of pearls.
Hawke pulled alongside Vetsch on the bridge and Lea fired a few shots from the Sig. Vetsch hit the brakes and dropped behind the Twingo, swerving in neatly behind it as he went and scraping the nose of the Honda against the Renault’s rear fender for a few seconds before bringing the steering under control again.
He accelerated and rammed the back of the Twingo, which jolted violently forward with the impact from the much heavier vehicle behind it.
“That son of a bitch!” shouted Lea. She turned in her seat and fired the Sig through the back window, blowing the glass out and peppering the Honda’s windshield with indiscriminate bullet holes.
Vetsch grimaced and swung the wheel hard to the left to avoid the volley of fire. Smirking, he then raised Lea’s Glock over the steering wheel and let loose a long, rapid burst of fire, emptying the magazine into the back of the Twingo. One bullet got lucky and thudded into the plastic dashboard. Another got even luckier and blew the stuffing out of Hawke’s headrest, narrowly missing him by centimeters.
The abrupt change in circumstances with Vetch switching from hunted to hunter had put Hawke at a disadvantage and he knew it. He also knew what to do about it.
“Hold on, Lea!” he shouted. “We’re going for a spin.”
He swung the steering wheel to the left full-lock and applied the hand-brake, bringing the Twingo to a terrifying and shuddering stop and spinning it violently to the left.
Vetsch could barely react in time, and the Honda nearly went into the back of them, but missed the impact when Hawke performed a speedy handbrake-turn with an impressive squeal of the tires. A great cloud of rubber smoke rose behind them on the bridge.
The Honda shot past them again, and Hawke brought the Renault three-sixty before slamming down on the throttle and taking the pursuit back up.
“You bloody maniac, Joe Hawke!” Lea was white with terror as she clasped the Sig in one hand and the door handle with the other, her knuckles white with the strength of the grip.
“Yeah — sorry about that,” said Hawke. “Not done anything like that since we burned that doughnut on the local cricket pitch when I was a teenager.”
“Literally unbelievable.”
“Thanks.”
“It wasn't a compliment.”
Then, in the rear-view, he saw the first of the blue flashing lights and the familiar two-tone whine of the Swiss police as they pulled up behind him in a powerful Volkswagen Passat.