He swung the bus around into the next street so fast it almost went up onto two wheels. The sound of the tires squealing on the ludicrously tight turn was rivalled only by the noise of the terrified passengers screaming for their lives on the top deck.
“Hold on, folks!” Hawke shouted as he pounded the throttle and raced towards the next block of traffic.
Moments later the sound of sirens filled the air somewhere behind him — police. The inevitable consequence, Hawke considered, of stealing a tour bus full of foreign tourists and driving it like a maniac in pursuit of an assassin in a BMW X5. At any rate, he considered, it would certainly brighten up the police’s morning, if nothing else.
Now, the X5 was through the gridlock and racing against the traffic outside the museum’s archive on Bloomsbury Square Gardens. The way they turned the next corner and deftly weaved in between a couple of Routemaster buses made Hawke realize this was no rushed getaway but a planned escape route.
As he watched them slip away from him, bright sunlight reflected off the rear windows of the cars in front and made him squint for a few seconds, almost losing sight of the X5.
They jumped the lights and swung right, smoke billowing out from the rear tire arches as the powerful German SUV accelerated away from the bus.
Moments later another wave of traffic had ensured Hawke caught them up by the time they hit Kingsway. By now there were at least three police cars behind the tour bus, and somewhere above him Hawke heard what he presumed was a police helicopter.
Lea reached for her mobile and made a call.
“Richard, it’s me, Lea. Slight problem — there seems to be a growing interest in our activities by the local constabulary.”
Hawke weaved the bus neatly in between a Vespa and an ice cream van.
There was a pause while Lea listened to Eden’s reply before responding to him. “At least three cars and a chopper. I’d be grateful if you could let them know they’re chasing the guys in front and not us.”
They were now rapidly closing on the end of Kingsway where the road turned into a horseshoe shape leading to the east and west before both joined up with the Strand. The X5 was running out of options.
Lea put the phone in her pocket and turned to Hawke.
“He says he’ll make a call.”
The X5 mounted the sidewalk before swinging left and burning past the Australian High Commission. Hawke pursued as best he could in the Arriva, only to see the men abandon the X5 in Temple Place and vault over the steel railing near the Underground Station.
Hawke dumped the bus and sprinted after them, reliving his parkour training from the night before. Behind him the sound of sirens closing in on them filled the air, and the chopper was now circling ahead of him and hovering over the Thames.
“You twats aren’t getting away from me!” he shouted.
Lea was sprinting behind him, and almost keeping up. Impressive, he thought.
Hawke saw the two men jump into a red motorboat moored on the north bank of the Thames. A second later it was speeding away across the river.
He ran up to a boat moored behind the one they had just taken. Inside a man was whistling and polishing the windshield. He wore a jaunty sailing cap and yachting daps.
Hawke stepped up to him. “Get out.”
Lea rolled her eyes. “Oh God, not again.”
“I’m sorry?” said the man.
“Seriously, it’s step out of the boat or go for a swim in that.” Hawke pointed at the cold, brown water that not even the bright sunshine could make the least welcoming.
“Now, look here, I’m a member of the Rotary Club!”
Hawke raised his fist, and the man reversed course and stepped backwards out of the boat.
“Good man,” Hawke said. “We’ll bring her back unharmed. Probably.”
Hawke revved the engine and the boat shot forward into the river faster than he expected. Back on the riverbank an indignant amateur sailor pulled out his phone.
“What’s he doing?” Hawke asked Lea as he navigated the boat into the busy river.
“Looks like he’s furiously dialling every emergency services number he can think of.”
Hawke laughed. “And maybe even the Rotary Club.”
They looked ahead and saw the motorboat getting away at a serious rate of knots.
“Floor it!” Lea shouted, while taking aim at them. She fired two shots and the sound of them crackled incongruously on both sides of the Thames in the otherwise normal morning. Both shots were slightly high of the target.
“Excellent work, Donovan, but if I were you I’d ask the Girl Guides for my money back.”
“Zip it, Mr Hawke, and try and keep this damned thing steady while I take a shot.”
“It’s a motorboat, Lea, it doesn’t do steady. Next time we chase someone I’ll make sure to steal us a pedalo.”
“Oh, you are so not as funny as you think you are.”
Hawke looked ahead and saw the red motorboat weaving with ease in between various tourist boats and even a few industrial vessels. They passed beneath London Bridge and zoomed alongside HMS Belfast spraying the cold, brown wash up its sides.
“Can’t you get us any closer?” Lea said, annoyed.
A short volley of machine-gun fire crackled from the back of the red motorboat, instantaneously matched by the shattering of their windshield into a dozen spider web fractures. “Shit!” Hawke shouted, ducking as much as he could while retaining visibility of the river.
“Not fair!” Lea shook her head. “They have Uzis.”
Now they were passing under Tower Bridge, and Hawke saw something that made his heart sink. “Look!”
One of the men was shouldering a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Lea looked at him. “That is so not good.”
Seconds later, he fired it. Hawke and Lea ducked instinctively and Hawke swung the boat hard to the left. He watched the missile climb into the air above their heads.
“They’re aiming at the police helicopter!” he shouted.
The missile struck the chopper dead-center and it exploded in the air in a giant fireball, showering the Thames with pieces of twisted airframe and burning aviation fuel. What was left of the wrecked cabin plummeted like a rock into the murky water.
“Lea, shoot the man with the RPG please, and quickly.”
The man was reloading and now aiming the RPG at their boat.
Lea raised her Glock and squinted carefully through the sights.
Pop. A puff of smoke from the chamber.
Hawke watched the man fly backwards with the RPG launcher still in his hands and crash dead into the Thames.
“Not too shabby,” he said, smiling. “And now we’re gaining on them!”
The motorboat sliced through the icy water, the gutteral roar of its engine ricocheting off the buildings on either side of the river. People peered over the walls and bridges to see what was happening.
In fast pursuit of the red speedboat, they were now steering a hard right to follow the river as it twisted south into the Docklands, the glittering skyscrapers of Canary Wharf looming to their left.
“Just where the hell do these absolute tools think they’re going?” Lea asked, shaking her head.
“Quicker to escape on the river in this town.”
They raced onwards, slowly gaining on the boat in front, now swinging north around the Isle of Dogs and passing the O2 Center. Another volley of machine-gun fire ripped great chunks out of the fibre-glass nose of their boat and showered them with the tiny fragments.
Hawke finished rounding the next bend in the river and violently rammed the throttles forward, making the boat zoom up almost above the surface of the water, a thick white wake spilled out for hundreds of yards behind them.