More shots. The terrorist fired back. Drake used evasive driving techniques as safely as he could. The traffic ahead was thinning out again and he used the chance to power past the Silverado, snaking over to the wrong side of the road. At his back, Mai powered down a window and emptied a clip into the other vehicle. Drake swung back in and studied the rear view.
“He’s still coming.”
Unexpectedly, Central Park ended and the busy crossroads at Fifth Avenue seemed to jump out at them. Cars were slowing, stopped, and pedestrians sauntered along at the crossings and lined the sidewalks. Drake grabbed a quick glimpse of the yellow-painted stoplights currently at green.
Super-long white buses lined both sides of Fifth Avenue. Drake braked hard, but the terrorist again slammed into their taillights. Through the wheel he felt the back end twitching around, saw the potential for disaster, and wrenched against the spin to regain control. The vehicle righted as it shot through the intersection, the Silverado only an inch behind.
A bus tried to pull out in front of them, giving Drake no choice but to scrape down its entire left-hand side and chance the center of the road. Metal screeched and glass scattered across his lap. The Silverado crashed along in his wake.
“Five minutes,” Beau said quietly.
With no time he piled on the speed. Soon, Madison Avenue hove into view, the gray-fronted Chase bank and black-canvased J.Crew’s filling his field of vision ahead.
“Two more yet,” Beau said.
Together, the racing vehicles sped from small gap to small gap, smashing vehicles aside and swerving around slower obstacles. Drake leaned constantly on the horn, wishing he had a siren of some sort and Alicia fired into the air to make pedestrians and drivers move quickly aside. NYPD cars were already screaming in their devastating wake. He’d already noticed the only vehicles that seemed to be treated with respect were the big red fire trucks.
“Up ahead,” Beau said.
“Got it,” Drake saw a gap opening up onto Lexington Avenue and went for it. Gunning the engine he drifted the vehicle hard around the corner. Smoke flew from the tires, making people scream all along the sidewalk. Here, on the new road, vehicles were parked end to end on both sides and a chaos of flat-beds, vans and one-way streets kept even the best drivers guessing.
“Not far now,” Beau said.
Drake saw his chance ahead as the traffic thinned. “Mai,” he said. “Do you remember Bangkok?”
As seamless as a supercar gear-change, Mai slammed a new mag into her Glock and unfastened her seatbelt, shuffling around in her seat. Alicia stared at Drake and Drake stared into the rearview. The Silverado was coming hard, trying to ram them as they approached Grand Central and a swarming crowd.
Mai rose in her seat, angling her body out of the already smashed rear window and starting to push.
Alicia nudged Drake. “Bangkok?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, it never is. You’ll be telling me what happened in Thailand stays in Thailand next.”
Mai slithered through the small gap, ripping her clothes but forcing her body on. Drake saw the moment when the wind hit her, when the grit stung her eyes. He saw the moment when the chasing terrorist blinked in shock.
The Silverado came on, shockingly close.
Mai jumped down to the bed of the truck, legs apart, and raised her weapon. She took a sighting and then started firing from the back of the truck, bullets smashing through the other car’s windows. Buildings and buses and lampposts passed leisurely by. Mai pulled her trigger again and again, ignoring the wind and the car’s motion, focusing only on the man who would otherwise kill them.
Drake kept the wheel as steady as possible, the speed constant. For once no cars rolled before them, something he’d prayed for. Mai’s feet were planted and her concentration necessarily absorbed by one thing only. Drake was her guide.
“Now!” he shouted at the top of his voice.
Alicia twisted around like a child who’d lost a candy down the seatback. “What’s she gonna do?”
Drake applied the brakes very softly, a millimeter at a time. Mai rammed in a second mag and then started running up the bed of the truck, straight for the tailgate. The Silverado’s driver’s eyes widened even further as he saw the wild ninja running straight at his speeding vehicle from another!
Mai reached the tailgate and leapt into the air, legs pumping, arms windmilling. There was a moment before gravity tugged her down when she arced gracefully though thin air, a vision of stealth and skill and beauty, but then she came down hard onto the hood of the other man’s car. Instantly, she buckled, allowing her legs and knees to take the impact and help steady her. Ungiving metal was a tough place to land, and Mai fell forward fast toward the jagged windshield.
The Silverado driver was braking hard, but still managed to bring his gun toward her face.
Mai spread her knees as the sudden impact passed through her, strengthening her spine and shoulders. Her weapon remained in her hands, already pointing at the terrorist. Two shots and he grunted, his foot still on the brake pedal, blood soaking through the front of his shirt and slumping forward.
Mai crawled up the hood of the car, reached inside the windshield and dragged the driver through. No way was she allowing him the courtesy of recuperation. His pain-filled eyes met hers and tried to lock on.
“How… how did you—”
Mai punched him in the face. Then she held on as the car coasted into the back of Drake’s. The Englishman had deliberately slowed in order to ‘catch’ the driverless car before it slewed in some dangerous, random direction.
“So that’s what you did in Bangkok?” Alicia asked.
“Something like that.”
“And what happened next?”
Drake looked away. “Not a clue, love.”
They flung open the doors, double-parking alongside a cab, as close to Grand Central as they could possibly get. Civilians backed away, gawping at them. The sensible ones turned to run. Dozens more took out cellphones and started to take pictures. Drake jumped to the sidewalk and broke instantly into a sprint.
“Time’s up,” Beauregard muttered at his side.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Drake charged though into the main hall of Grand Central station. The vast space yawned to left and right and high above. Shiny surfaces and polished floors were a shock to the system, departure and arrivals boards flickered all around and the rush of humanity seemed incessant. Beau reminded them of the name of the café and showed them a floor plan of the terminal.
“Main concourse,” Mai said. “Turn right, past the escalators.”
Rushing, twisting, performing amazing acrobatic feats just to avoid a collision, the team tore through the station. Minutes passed. Coffee shops, Belgian chocolate stores and bagel stalls whipped by, their combined aromas making Drake’s head spin. They entered what was known as Lexington Passage and started to slow.
“There!”
Alicia sprinted now, squeezing through a narrow entry into one of the smallest cafés Drake had ever seen. Almost unconsciously his mind ticked off the tables. Not hard, there were only three.
Alicia pushed a man wearing a gray overcoat aside, then fell to her knees beside the black surface. The top was littered with a discarded clutter, the chairs set back slapdash style. Alicia felt around underneath and soon came up holding a white envelope, her gaze hopeful.
Drake had been watching from several spaces away, but not the Englishwoman. Instead, he had been surveying the staff and the customers, those who passed outside — and one other place in particular.
The door to the back office.
It opened now, an inquisitive female figure poking her head out. Almost immediately she locked eyes with the only man staring right at her — Matt Drake.