Indecision and youth, he thought grimly.
Whether born of his own suspicions about their mission, Fisher’s saving of Noboru at the Siegfried Line, or something else altogether, Fisher didn’t know, but clearly Hansen hadn’t yet crossed the threshold.
As advertised, Fisher sped to the marina a quarter mile south of the winery, pulled into the parking lot, and side-swiped a dozen unoccupied cars before pulling back onto the highway and continuing south. He glanced in his rearview mirror. Several cars sat at the exit to the boat-launch lot, but none had emerged since he’d left the winery.
He made no attempt to blend in with traffic, and made no turns, but headed straight south, pushing the BMW as fast as he dared, weaving around slower cars until four minutes later he saw the sign for Neuwied. He glanced in the rearview mirror. Two miles back a pair of sedans was swerving over the center line, leapfrogging around slower cars; far behind them Fisher could see flashing blue lights.
He had no intention of letting this turn into a protracted chase. Hollywood portrayals notwithstanding, urban high-speed chases always attracted the police, and the police usually won in the end. Plus, in the back of Fisher’s mind he knew he’d been lucky too many times over the last few days. In broad daylight, with two cars to Fisher’s one, Hansen would get the upper hand sooner rather than later. What he needed was to end the chase quickly and dramatically — and in a way that would not only allow his escape but also complicate Hansen’s situation.
Sitting at the table with Hoffman, Fisher had reviewed his mental map of the area and picked his spot.
As he sped past the Neuwied city limits sign the traffic thickened, and he slowed to 60 kph. Highway 42 swung west, looping around the city, and changed into the L258. Another half mile brought him to a cloverleaf. He followed the Highway 256 exit, which swung south and east, back into Neuwied proper. As the waters of the Rhine came back into view, he looked in his rearview mirror but saw nothing. But they were there, matching his speed, flowing with the traffic, trying not to attract attention. The police from Hammerstein were also nowhere to be seen, but witnesses from the marina would have been certain of the BMW’s direction. By now, the Neuwied police were on alert.
Fisher passed a sign that read RAIFFEISENBRÜCKE 3 KM. He punched the gas pedal and the BMW’s powerful engine responded instantly. As the speedometer swept past 100 kph, then 120, he swerved around cars ahead of him, honking and flashing his lights and gesturing wildly. A half mile back a pair of Mercedes did the same, moving into the passing lane and accelerating.
There you are… RAIFFEISENBRÜCKE 2 KM.
Now he could see it, the two-lane Raiffeisen Bridge rising from the river, its central A-shaped pylon jutting 150 feet into the sky, angled support cables stretching out like threads from a spider’s web. In the passenger side mirror he saw flashing blue lights. He glanced over his shoulder. A pair of police cars raced up the Sandkauler on-ramp and fell in behind Hansen’s Mercedes.
Two more curves and another kilometer brought Fisher to the bridge. He tapped the brakes, jerked the BMW left, around a slow-moving lorry, and then he was on the span and over the water. To his left, over the railing, he could see the curved dagger shape of Herbstliche Insel — Autumn Island — in the middle of the channel.
Fisher felt his pulse quicken. What he was about to do would either kill him or allow him to slip away and leave no trail whatsoever.
He waited until he saw Hansen’s Mercedes appear on the bridge a few hundred yards behind him, then pushed the accelerator to the floor, putting some distance between himself and the closest following cars. He then slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, with the BMW’s tires straddling the center line. Tires screeched. Horns began honking. Across the center guardrail, traffic in the eastbound lanes was slowing to a crawl.
Fisher closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, tried to block out the blaring car horns, the warbling of the approaching police sirens, the shouting… He looked in his rearview mirror. People were now getting out of their cars, peering at the lone BMW sitting still in the middle of the span. Fisher leaned over, pulled his backpack off the passenger floor, tossed it into the backseat, then closed each of the dashboard vents in turn.
Not going to get any easier, Sam, he told himself.
He shifted the BMW into reverse, spun the wheel, and backed up until his rear bumper thudded into the center guardrail and his hood was pointed at the opposite guardrail. He unbuckled his seat belt.
He shifted into drive, took a final calming breath, then jammed the accelerator to the floor.
16
If not for the BMW’s six liter, 537 horsepower engine, Fisher’s escape attempt would have ended before it started, when the car’s front bumper hit the guardrail. But the engine, combined with fine German craftsmanship, was no match for the waist-high rail and the abutting suicide-prevention hurricane fencing — a bit of irony that didn’t escape Fisher’s attention as the BMW tore through the fence and plunged toward the river below. The drop was fifty feet, but trapped inside the car, listening to the banshee wail of the engine and watching horizon and sky and water turn to a smudge before his eyes, it might as well have been a thousand feet.
As it had hundreds of times before, Fisher’s training took over when every muscle of his body wanted to freeze up. He rolled over and threw himself over the seats and onto the floor in the back, atop his backpack. Most victims of bridge collapses die in the front seat, arms braced against the steering wheel or dashboard, every muscle in their body tensed as they stare, transfixed, at the water’s surface rushing up to meet them. Whether being in the backseat would provide any great protection, he was about to find out. He took a deep breath, let it out, and commanded his body to relax.
The BMW stopped dead, as though it had hit a brick wall, which, in terms of physics, was more true than not. From fifty feet up, the car had gained enough momentum that the water’s relative solidity was equal to that of concrete. Fisher was thrown against the seats, and the seats tore free of their floor mounts and slammed into the dashboard and windshield. He felt the BMW porpoise — the hood plunging beneath the surface, then breaching again as the rear of the car slammed down. With a prolonged sputter the engine died.
Fisher groaned, tried to push himself off the seat backs. White-hot pain arced through his chest and he gasped. Having experienced the sensation before, he knew he’d bruised a rib, perhaps more. He craned his neck and peered between the seats. The windshield was intact. He could feel the car settling lower, could see the water boiling up over the windshield and side windows. He heard the gurgle of it pouring through the nooks and crannies in the engine compartment. Water began gushing through the vents. Fisher felt a flash of panic. Words and half-formed images flashed through his mind: trapped, drowning, tomb, slow death… He pushed the panic back and focused. He was sinking, but he wasn’t trapped, not yet at least, and he’d be damned if he was going die trapped in a BMW 7 Series at the bottom of the Rhine River.