Eddie leapt down the last few stairs to the ground floor. Natalia’s shout had told him that Kroll had caught up with her, and as he emerged from the building, the sight of their footprints making a sudden diversion to a sand pile with a distinctively shaped impression on its top also warned him that the Nazi had recovered his gun.
He could be waiting in ambush…
The Englishman ducked and jinked sideways to take cover behind a cement mixer, eyes rapidly scanning the construction site. Nothing. Kroll’s instincts had gone to flight, not fight. He hurried to the fence.
‘Eddie, wait!’ Nina called from inside the building, breathless. He looked back, seeing her reach the lobby — then dropped again at a gunshot.
‘Get down!’ he shouted. Nina hurriedly took cover. Another shot, but he had already realised that the gunfire was not aimed at him. It was coming from somewhere down the street. He pushed through the gap. The alley where Kroll had dumped the stolen truck was not far away.
Two shots. Two cops—
‘Shit!’ He ran to the alley, slowing to check around the corner.
The Nazi was not in sight. The truck was still parked near the other end, driver’s door open. He raced towards it—
Tyres shrilled as a car set off at speed. Eddie glimpsed the police vehicle as it flashed past the alley’s entrance. No sirens — it wasn’t the cops who were driving. He ran to the street, finding one of the officers lying on the ground clutching both bloodied hands to his stomach. His partner was slumped against a wall nearby, grimacing at the pain from a wounded arm as he struggled to pull his radio from his belt.
‘Here,’ Eddie said, tugging it free for him before looking down the street. The stolen Taurus was heading south at speed, and he could see Natalia’s silhouette in the rear seat. ‘Call it in—’
‘No shit,’ gasped the cop.
‘And tell Detective Martin from the 12th Precinct that Eddie Chase is going after him!’ Before the man could reply, he hurried back to the truck.
Nina reached the vehicle at the same time. ‘Eddie! What happened?’
‘He’s got Natalia,’ he said as he climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘Shot two cops and took their car.’
She opened the passenger door and joined him. ‘Give me your phone, I’ll call nine-one-one.’
‘They’re already on it. Buckle up!’ The keys were still in the ignition. Eddie started the engine and shoved the gearstick into reverse, over-revving before letting out the clutch with a bang and sending the vehicle lurching backwards out of the alley. He spun the steering wheel, stamping on the brake pedal to send the truck into a skidding J-turn that left it pointing down the street after the escaping police car. The cop broke off from his radio call to shout for him to stop, but the Yorkshireman had already slammed the truck into first gear and set off in pursuit.
Nina had only just managed to fasten her seat belt before being thrown sideways. ‘Jesus, Eddie! You remember I’m pregnant, right?’
‘So that’s why we’re always out of ice cream!’ he replied, working through the gears to pick up speed. Ahead, the Taurus had been forced to brake hard at an intersection to avoid a car crossing its path, slewing almost sideways before Kroll could recover. He accelerated again, but the truck was already closing the gap.
Nina looked past the police car. ‘He’ll have to turn soon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s running out of island!’
She pointed. Ahead of the Taurus was the elevated Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive, which ran along the shore of the East River. A moment later, the flare of brake lights told them that Kroll had also seen the end of the road. The car rocked on its suspension as he vacillated between turning left or right before choosing the latter. It made an awkward, slithering turn around the corner to head south-west on the ground-level street running parallel to the raised freeway.
Eddie dropped down hard through the gears as he prepared to follow. ‘If he gets on the FDR, we’ll never catch him.’
‘He can’t, not from here,’ Nina replied. Her husband gave her a questioning glance. ‘He doesn’t know the city! The only place he can get directly on to the FDR is all the way down at the ferry terminal. If he tries to go around the ramps at the Brooklyn Bridge, he’s guaranteed to get stuck in traffic — even in a police car. And the odds are this is the first time he’s ever driven anywhere bigger than that little village in Argentina. He won’t have a clue what he’s doing.’
‘And we do?’ said Eddie as the truck approached the corner. ‘Hang on!’
He jammed on the brakes — and threw the vehicle around the ninety-degree turn.
Nina grabbed hold of the door handle to keep herself upright as they careered through the intersection. What cargo remained in the back was sent flying out of the still-open rear door, scattering across South Street in an explosion of produce. A couple of cars had made emergency stops as the police car skidded in front of them; one of them set off again, only to veer hurriedly into the other lane to avoid the delivery truck. Nina cringed as the car whipped past her window.
Eddie hauled on the steering wheel. The truck straightened out, lurching back upright. They were now heading south-west down South Street, the thick steel pillars supporting the FDR flicking past to their left. The stolen police car was visible ahead, and it was clear from its desperate swerves around other traffic that Nina was correct. The only vehicles available for driving lessons at the Enklave had been ex-military jeeps and lumbering trucks, and Kroll was finding that experience all but worthless for dealing with the busy roads of a megacity.
Nina cringed as their quarry barely avoided a head-on collision with a car coming the other way. ‘Oh my God! He’s going to kill someone!’
‘Hopefully just himself,’ Eddie replied, but he knew that if the chase continued, casualties would become increasingly likely. They were already approaching the Brooklyn Bridge, the knot of flyovers connecting the great span to both the FDR and Manhattan’s street grid coming up fast. ‘If he’s turning, he’ll have to do it soon—’
He didn’t. The Taurus continued straight on, its driver either unsure how to reach the freeway or unwilling to slow to make a turn. But its frantic slalom had already reduced its speed to a point where even the delivery truck was gaining. ‘If he’s not taking the bridge or the FDR,’ Eddie asked, ‘where can he get to from here?’
His wife was already checking her mental map of her home city. ‘If he turns right off this road, he’ll be heading into Downtown, and he sure as hell won’t get anywhere fast around Wall Street. If he keeps going, he’ll loop around to the Battery Park tunnel, but he won’t get far there either. The cops will be able to cut him off.’
‘We’ve got him, then!’ The gap kept closing as they raced under the bridge and continued towards Manhattan’s southern tip, whipping past the parked ice-cream trucks marking the entrance to the South Street Seaport.
‘He’s still got Natalia, though,’ Nina reminded him.
‘He can’t do anything to her as long as he’s driving. If she keeps her head down and I can force him to stop—’
He broke off with a stifled obscenity as the Taurus clipped the back quarter of another car. Kroll had misjudged the overtake, sending the police car slewing wide into the oncoming lane and knocking the recipient of the fender-bender into a spin.
Eddie braked hard to avoid the imminent collision. Nina’s seat belt caught her as she was thrown forward. He veered sharply to follow the stolen vehicle around the now-stationary car, missing it by inches. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped, straightening out. ‘That was too bloody close.’
Nina pushed herself back into her seat — to see Kroll making another hard turn, but in an unexpected direction. He swung left, throwing the Taurus over a kerb with a shower of sparks from the car’s underside. It barely missed one of the FDR’s supports as the Nazi angled across a pedestrianised zone underneath the expressway, skidding on to the East River Bikeway along the edge of the waterfront.