The Final Cut

72

He might want to crawl, but he didn’t. Nicholas managed to follow Mike from the hospital lobby, ignoring the pulling sensation in his back every time he took a step.

He saw that yesterday’s sun was gone, replaced by gray skies and a bitter cold wind that whipped through the buildings. Snow was coming.

He was going slow, but it felt good to be up and moving, and the brisk air helped clear away the cobwebs from the concussion. There was a black Mercedes sedan waiting for them at the curb.

Mike said, “Menard was kind enough to send a car for us. We’re not that far from the airport. You’ll like this even more. The driver is the man who drove the Fox yesterday. We can have a chat with him on our way, see if he remembers anything.”

Nicholas held the door for Mike when something buzzed his ear. He reached up to swat it away just as five holes appeared in the side of the car.

He whipped sideways, dropped to the cement curb, yelled to Mike, “Get down, get down,” but she was already shouting at him to do the same. Her Glock was out, and she tossed him her backup Glock 27 off her ankle.

As more bullets hit the car, he began returning fire, covering Mike as she pushed the driver out of the car and yelled at him, “Go, go, go.” She began shooting toward the gunfire as the driver darted inside the hospital doors.

Nicholas shouted, “Call the man who arranged for you to pick us up, tell him what’s happened.”

Mike was crouched behind the open driver’s-side door. Nicholas pulled open the passenger-side door. “Where are the shots coming from?”

Mike said, “Up the street, to the right. I make two shooters. They’ve got us pi

Nicholas sighted down the barrel of the gun, saw the men she was talking about, a block away, in a Land Rover similar to the one Menard had picked them up in, minus the orange police stripes.

He squeezed off two shots, hitting their windshield and cracking the glass into a spiderweb.

All went silent, then they heard the throaty growl of a Land Rover revving its engines. It started toward them with a squeal of tires, bullets flying.

Nicholas turned and yelled, “They’re going to try and ram us. Let’s get out of here. Where are the bloody keys?”

Mike yelled back, “The driver took them with him into the hospital.”

Nicholas dove across the front seat and smacked the butt of the Glock, once, twice, and the plastic panel cover under the steering column split off. He ripped out the wiring harness, heard Mike yelling, “Hurry, hurry,” as two shots smashed into the windshield at eye level.

He sparked the two wires together and the Mercedes engine roared to life.

“Got it. Get in, get in!”

Mike slammed the passenger-side door closed. Nicholas jammed his foot on the gas, and the Mercedes shot from the curb. The Land Rover was coming head-on. He sliced the car to the left, catching the Land Rover’s bumper on the grille with a rending screech.

The force spun them around and he worked the wheel smoothly, allowing the car to turn one hundred eighty degrees, and now they were behind the truck.

Nicholas said, “Take them out,” and floored it, bringing the car closer. The shooter on the passenger side stuck his head out the window and sprayed them with bullets.

The driver gu

“Take the shot, Mike, go for the tires.”

“I’m trying,” Mike said. “Hold the damn car steady.”

“Where the devil are they headed?”

“Toward the Jet d’Eau, I think.”

Northwest, then. He saw the Credit Suisse building to their right, then the Land Rover whipped across the bridge on Rue des Moulins, then turned right onto the Quai du Mont-Blanc.

He said, “The road will open up in a minute. Try not to kill any tourists.”

She pointed at a police car swinging out in front of them, flashers going wild. Nicholas swerved around the car and caught sight of the Land Rover again.

He urged the Mercedes closer, gu

He got his left hand out the window and squeezed off a few shots, which hit the tail of the truck and did no damage to the tires. He cursed and tried again, ducking back into the car when he saw a black semiauto come out the driver’s-side window.

“AR-15 fire incoming. Can you take out the driver?”

He swung the car wide to the left so Mike could angle for a shot, ducked as the machine gun sprayed bullets across the front of the Mercedes, pockmarking the windshield and hood.

Nicholas began to laugh. “It’s bulletproof glass. What luck. Mike, stay behind the glass and take them out.”

As they flew through the city they were gathering cop cars like a magnet to filings, a stream of wailing building behind them. The shocked faces and angry horns of oncoming drivers flashed by, but Nicholas ignored everything except the bumper of the truck in front of them, getting closer and closer.

The driver of the Land Rover was good, swerving all over the road to keep them from hitting anything vital, but Nicholas was better. He maneuvered the Mercedes right behind them, then shouted, “Hold on,” and gu

The road opened up, and they accelerated so fast Mike was forced to brace one hand on the dashboard to keep herself upright. Nicholas backed off a bit, evened the car’s direction, and then yelled, “Do it!”

Mike took careful aim and pulled the trigger, and the Land Rover’s back left tire blew with a squeal and a puff of white smoke.

Nicholas shouted, “Now! Get the right one.”

“I’m trying,” she yelled back. She shot a good dozen times but missed.

The lake was on their right; the blue-gray winter water looked cold and forbidding. Boats bobbed off their docks, and Mike realized they’d left downtown Geneva.

“There’s a sign up ahead; it says sixty kilometers to Lausa

Nicholas was surging up toward the Land Rover again. “The road’s going to get tight up ahead as we go into Bellevue. When I pull next to them, Mike, I need you to hold the wheel.”

“No heroics, Nicholas.”

“Never. I’m going to take out the driver and we’ll be able to force them off the road.”

Cars came toward them as they rushed up the road, weaving and honking. Nicholas ignored them, carefully pushing the Land Rover into the less occupied streets north of the city. They were lucky it was a weekend, the traffic would have been terrible during the weekday rush hour and more people would be at risk.

There was an opening ahead, the lake showing through the heavy trees next to the road.

The man in the passenger side of the truck pulled his entire upper body out of the window and sighted on them.

“Now, Mike. Hold the wheel and put your foot on the gas.”

She moved to take his place, and he slid his upper body out of the window and took careful aim, ducking as the AK spat bullets back at them.

“Here you go, you bugger.” He caught the driver’s eye in the rearview, rolling and mad, and took careful aim despite the wind whipping him backward. He emptied his magazine into the driver’s-side window, saw the fine spray of blood across the glass, and pulled back into the car.

The results were immediate. The Land Rover squirreled hard to the left, hit the concrete barrier and ricocheted off to the right, through the metal guardrail, which launched it into the air. It twisted as it toppled over the edge and caromed down to the water head over tail, before crashing through an old wooden dock and landing upside down in Lake Geneva.