‘Get in!’ He shoved her against the truck and stepped back, pointing the pistol at her face. No choice. She reluctantly clambered into the back.
A chunky middle-aged man scurried out of the restaurant. ‘Hey, the hell ya doin’?’ he cried. ‘Ya can’t—’ He halted abruptly as the blond man’s gun swung towards him. ‘Jeez!’
‘The keys!’ the kidnapper demanded. ‘Where are the keys?’
The delivery man put up his hands. ‘In — in the cab.’
The other man glowered at him, then slammed the roller door shut. ‘Eddie!’ Nina screamed, before she was cut off by a whump of metal and rattling chains.
Eddie heard his name over the sound of the crowd. A glance to his right revealed a side street beyond the stalls. He shoved through the tourists and rounded the corner. Where was she? No sign of her — but something else caught his attention. ‘Hey, hey!’ cried a chubby man with thinning hair. ‘Someone call the cops!’
A large white van pulled sharply away. Eddie saw the name LAZZARI BROTHERS stencilled across the rear door. ‘He took my truck!’ cried the driver. ‘Call nine-one-one!’
‘Was there a woman with him?’ Eddie demanded as he ran to him. ‘A redhead?’
‘Yeah, yeah! He put her in the back!’
‘Shit!’ The Yorkshireman raced past him after the truck. People screamed and leapt aside as it careered into the intersection, flattening a couple of traffic barriers and making a hard, skidding turn to head south.
Eddie chased after it, but by the time he reached the next road, the truck had already gained too much of a lead. ‘Fuck!’ he roared, reversing direction.
Natalia caught up with him outside the restaurant. ‘Eddie! What happened?’
‘The bastard’s got Nina,’ he told her, to her shock, before addressing the delivery man. ‘That your truck? You know the licence plate?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man replied. ‘You callin’ the cops?’
‘Yeah.’ He took out his phone and found a particular name in his contacts. The driver regarded the screen with confused concern as a cell phone number came up. ‘Ah, it’s nine-one-one you want,’ he reminded him. ‘Not whatever you’re callin’ there.’
Eddie gave him a humourless smile. ‘I’ve got a friend on the force.’
Nina was thrown to the floor when the truck took its first corner. She decided to stay on all fours for safety rather than risk being flung headlong into a wall. Even so, she still had to brace herself as the stolen vehicle made several more high-speed turns, kicking away any loose cartons of produce that slithered towards her. To her relief, the wild ride lasted only a few minutes.
The feeling was short-lived. She got up as she heard her kidnapper jump from the cab and unlock the roller door, but any thoughts of catching his gun — or head — with a kick vanished as he raised the shutter just a fraction and aimed the pistol up at her from outside. ‘Lift the door,’ he ordered.
Nina crouched and warily did as she was told. The truck was in a narrow alley. She didn’t recognise the street beyond, but from the Chinese signage on a nearby storefront, she guessed the neighbourhood was either southern Chinatown or Two Bridges.
‘Get out,’ he said.
She hopped down. An Asian woman on the other side of the road reacted with alarm as she noticed the kidnapper’s gun. He realised he had been seen and pointed down the alley. ‘Move! Go!’ When Nina didn’t respond at once, he pushed her ahead of him.
The alley was not long, Nina soon emerging on another short street. The man looked around. She could tell from his frustrated expression that he had no idea where he was. He glanced at a boarded-up building before switching his gaze to one under construction. ‘In there!’ he barked, forcing her towards it. The sidewalk was blocked by tall fencing around the site, but he shoved back a grillework barrier just far enough for them to squeeze through.
She glanced up at the building. Most of the walls of what she guessed was going to be an apartment block were in place, though there were still gaps on the uppermost floors where the steel frame was visible. Windows had been fitted up to the fifth storey, empty black holes gaping above. The front doors were not yet in place either, the entrance blocked by ply boards; they were secured by a chain and padlock, but one kick from her abductor’s boot took care of that.
‘Go inside,’ he told her, jabbing the gun for emphasis. Nina entered the bare cinderblock-and-concrete lobby, looking back at the street in the hope that someone had seen them, but there was nobody in sight.
She was alone with her kidnapper.
Eddie’s phone rang. He checked the screen as he answered: Amy. ‘Have you found ’em?’
Amy Martin, recently promoted from uniformed beat cop to detective third grade with the New York Police Department, did not have the news he was hoping for. ‘Eddie, hi. I’m sorry, we haven’t found Nina — but we found the stolen truck.’
He felt some small relief — that meant the Nazi hadn’t simply killed her and dumped her with his getaway vehicle — but it did not lessen his fears for his wife’s safety. ‘Where is it?’
She hesitated. ‘I’m… not sure I should tell you.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘Because I know you, Eddie — you’ll just hustle your ass down there and start doing what you do. Which usually results in massive property damage and bodies all over Times Square!’
‘That only happened that one time.’
She was not reassured. ‘Leave it to us. We’ll find this guy, and Nina.’
‘And how long will that take?’ he demanded. ‘This guy isn’t planning to ransom her. He’s here for revenge.’
‘Revenge for what?’
‘Remember a few months back, those news stories about Nazi war criminals hiding out in Argentina?’
Slight confusion in her voice. ‘Yeah?’
‘There were a lot more of ’em before me and Nina turned up.’
Confusion turned to disbelief. ‘Wait — you found a gang of Nazi war criminals? And now one of them wants revenge on you?’
‘Bang on,’ Eddie told her. ‘Look, Amy, I know you and the rest of the cops’ll do what you can to find her, but I’ve dealt with these bastards before. Just tell me where he dumped the truck, and I’ll take it from there.’
She let out a resigned sigh. ‘Okay, Eddie, okay — but on one condition. If you do find them, you call me, call the cops for backup. Don’t try to handle it yourself. You promise me?’
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘Where’s the truck?’
Amy hesitated again, then, with some reluctance: ‘In Two Bridges.’
He looked to the south. The unimaginatively named district was beyond Chinatown, sandwiched between the two great river crossings of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. ‘That’s less than a mile from here. Which road?’
She named a street; Eddie didn’t know it, but was certain his phone’s map app could locate it. ‘Okay, Amy, thanks — I owe you. And I’ll call you if I find this arsehole.’
‘You’d better. Just try not to kill anyone,’ Amy said, before disconnecting.
Eddie pocketed the phone. ‘So what are we going to do?’ Natalia asked.
‘I’m going to Two Bridges.’ He gave her a warning look. ‘You don’t have to come with me. It won’t be safe.’
She shook her head. ‘No, Eddie. I want to help. After everything that you have done for me? As you said to your friend: I owe you.’
‘Okay,’ he said, though not without misgivings. ‘If we do find ’em, though, stay out of the way. You might get hurt.’
‘So might you,’ she pointed out.