“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.
Nicholas pulled the beaten-up valiant Mercedes to the side of the road. Mike was out the door immediately, Nicholas right behind her, their weapons drawn, but there was no need—the Land Rover and its occupants were sinking down into the freezing water.
It was over.
To Mike’s astonishment, Nicholas started laughing. “You want to know something? My back doesn’t hurt at all. I feel bloody great.”
The sirens were on them. The Geneva police screeched to a stop, blocking the A1 in both directions. Officers scrambled down the bank to the submerged truck, and two took defensive positions in front of Mike and Nicholas, shouting in French, “Drop your weapons!”
Mike held up her FBI credentials. “I’m Special Agent Michaela Caine, FBI, and this is Chief Detective Inspector Nicholas Drummond, Scotland Yard! Call FedPol Agent Pierre Menard; we’re working with him.”
She looked at Nicholas and shook her head, her ponytail swinging in her face, trying to catch her breath. “You call that no heroics?”
73
Menard caught up to them as the divers arrived. Nicholas and Mike were drinking hot coffee out of foam cups and being questioned by a pissed-off young Contonal Police captain. After shooting up the main thoroughfare through Geneva, causing countless wrecks during the course of a high-speed chase, ending with a car in Lake Geneva and two missing bodies, the captain wasn’t inclined to allow them to leave the city, but Menard flashed his FedPol badge, spoke a few curt words in French, and he backed off, even more pissed off than he’d been when he arrived.
Nicholas said, “No one was hurt, I hope?”
“Only the two you chased into the lake,” Menard said. “What can you tell me about them?”
Nicholas said, “Both dark-haired and medium height, late twenties to early thirties. One was Caucasian and the other was Egyptian, maybe. I thought I heard a few choice phrases I’ve overheard in Cairo before. As to who set them on us, that’s the more troubling question. Either the Fox called in some hired muscle, or these guys belong to the buyer. To go to this extreme, it’s got to mean they’re panicking, which means we’re getting close.”