Jamie hesitated only long enough to gather her thoughts before starting her monologue. "It is fascinating. First I was born, and then I learned to crawl, and then I was toilet trained…"
Cavanaugh proceeded FM spectrum on the radio. Most location transmitters used an FM setting, as did many eavesdropping devices-tuned to bandwidths that weren't employed by local radio stations and police/fire-department radios. To discover if that type of beeper or bug had been concealed in the car, Cavanaugh needed only to continue up the FM spectrum and listen for Jamie's voice or the beep of a location transmitter to come through the radio.
"And then I went to junior high, and then I started dating boys, and then I went to high school, and I really started dating boys."
"You can skip that part," Cavanaugh said.
"And then I went to Wellesley, and I dated men."
"You can skip that part, also."
"And then I met you, and my life got weird, and…"
Cavavaugh reached the top end of the FM spectrum without hearing Jamie's voice come from the radio. "Seems like it's safe to talk." He didn't add his next thought, which was that if the attack team had used a radio transmitter that gathered conversations on exotic frequencies and sent them in microbursts, there was no easy way to detect it.
Eddie had his hands at ten o'clock and two o'clock on the steering wheel, his fingers slightly spread as a professional driver was trained to do. "How about the Lincoln Tunnel?"
"Good," Cavanaugh said. "Then head south on Ninety-Five."
"To?"
"Washington."
Eddie passed Fifth and Sixth avenues, then turned south onto Seventh, switching his grip on the steering wheel. The next light remained green. The many lanes of one-way traffic increased speed.
"Why are we going to… Shit."
"What's the matter?" Jamie asked.
"Something…" Eddie took his right hand off the steering wheel and stared at it. "Stung."
"What?"
"Something stung me."
They kept with the rapid traffic.
"A bee?" Cavanaugh glanced around. "A mosquito or something? It's a little late in the year for-"
"No." Eddie's voice was thick. "Steering wheel. Something on the…" Eddie pointed toward the two o'clock position on the steering wheel. "Jesus." His breathing sounded labored.
"Hey." Jamie touched his shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"Don't feel… Cavanaugh, have you got a…" Eddie shivered. "Handkerchief?"
Cavanaugh frowned. "In my jacket." He pulled it out.
"Wrap it." Eddie gasped. "Your hand."
"What?"
"Grab the…" Eddie shivered more violently. "Bottom… steering…"
Suddenly, Eddie's head jerked back. He slumped.
2
When Cavanaugh had learned defensive/offensive driving techniques, one of the drills involved what to do if you're in the front passenger seat of a car, your partner driving, and the windshield blows apart from super-velocity bullets, and the driver takes one in the head. You can't let the car veer off the road into a wall or a tree. You can't let it stop. The prime imperative is to get away from the shooting zone as quickly as possible. And that meant you had to do what Cavanaugh did now.
Conscious of the rapid traffic on either side, he undid his seatbelt and shifted close to Eddie. With his handkerchief wrapped around his fingers, he grabbed the lower portion of the steering wheel, far from where Eddie had gripped it, far from whatever had stung him. Simultaneously, Cavanaugh shifted his left foot over to the floor pedals, pressing the brake as traffic slowed and then stopped for a red light.
Seeing a police car ahead on the left, he blurted, "Jamie, lean forward! Prop Eddie up! Tilt his head so he seems to be looking forward! Make it seem like he's driving!"
Sweating, Cavanaugh propped Eddie's right hand on the steering wheel. As he neared the police car, he told Jamie, "Now lean back!"
Cavanaugh tried to put distance between him and Eddie, making the space between them look normal while still managing to stretch his leg toward the brake. Amid waiting traffic, he eased to a stop next to the police car, put the transmission in neutral, and moved back to the passenger seat, the idling engine allowing him to take his foot off the brake. Looking ahead, he pretended this was the most boring day of his life. From the left side of his vision, he had a blurred image of one of the policemen peering at the Taurus. The officer watched Eddie and Cavanaugh for what seemed an eternity.
The light turned green. Traffic shifted forward. The cruiser seemed frozen in place, the policeman studying Eddie. Then the van ahead of the police car went through the intersection, and the police car caught up to it, filling the gap.
Working to control his breathing, Cavanaugh slid close to Eddie, gripped the bottom of the steering wheel, put the transmission into drive, and eased his left foot onto the accelerator, matching the pace of traffic.
"Jamie, lean forward again. Put your head next to Eddie as if you're saying something to him. Put a hand on his shoulder. Keep him from slumping over."
In the middle of several lanes of traffic, Cavanaugh saw a space open on his right and steered into that lane so he wouldn't be next to the police car. A taxi blared.
3
Jamie had the sensation of spiraling downward. Since having met and married Cavanaugh (which wasn't even his real name), the abnormal had become the rule. Chases. Gunfights. Even getting shot five months earlier. She didn't understand how she'd managed to adjust to Cavanaugh's dangerous, upside-down world, where things were seldom as they appeared. He once joked that she must have been a protective agent in another life. Leaning toward Eddie, holding his shoulder to keep him from slumping, putting her head next to his to keep it from tilting while she pretended to talk to him-all this seemed insanely natural. From the listless feel of his body and the increasing coolness in the skin, she was certain he was dead. Another first, she thought. Touching a corpse. Talking to it.
I've gone crazy.
"What killed him?" She tried to keep her fierce emotions from affecting her voice.
Cavanaugh's face showed the strain of concentrating to keep the Taurus moving with the chaos of traffic. Ahead, a van's brake lights came on as an intersection's signal turned red. He stretched his leg over and pressed the brake pedal, stopping just before his car would have hit the van. "Eddie said something stung him."
"A needle on the steering wheel? Another pointed weapon? With some kind of toxin on it?"
"We need to find a place to park."
"In mid-town Manhattan? Lots of luck."
"Which we seem to have run out of."
The light turned green. The van moved ahead. Cavanaugh shifted his outstretched leg from the brake to the accelerator. "I don't trust myself to try to turn a corner without hitting another car. We need to stay on Seventh Avenue."
Flanked by a limousine and a delivery truck, they headed farther south. A taxi veered from the left to get into Cavanaugh's lane. He barely stretched his foot to the brake in time to avoid smashing into it.
As Eddie's head threatened to list to the right, Jamie gripped the back of his neck tighter to keep it straight. His skin felt cooler. "Driving from the passenger seat. I guess that's something else you need to teach me."
"When we get out of this."
"Yeah. When we get out of this." The lovely concept of the future.
They kept heading south on Seventh Avenue, staying in the middle of the numerous lanes of traffic. Jamie had the sense of being on a runaway wagon, Cavanaugh struggling to keep it under control. A red light stopped them at 34th Street. Then they sped forward again, car horns blaring around them. Five more red lights later, they crossed below West 14th, leaving the rectangular grids of midtown for the randomly arranged streets of Greenwich Village.