Part 8 Superpower #4
In the cab of the ambulance, concerned for Audrey, I glanced into the rear section—
—to see the male paramedic crouched over Audrey on her gurney, holding her protectively as the locked-down wheeled bed rocked with our speed.
‘What the hell’s going on!’ the paramedic yelled.
‘Some bad guys are trying to kidnap her!’ I called back.
‘Who are you!’
‘I’m her boyfriend!’
Audrey looked up from her bed and her eyes boggled when she recognised me.
‘Sam . . .?’ she said weakly through her oxygen mask.
‘Yeah, it’s me.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m rescuing you—’
I looked ahead.
The two forward black chase trucks were speeding along just ahead of me, with the red Yaris whizzing between them like an insane bumblebee. Preoccupied with it, I don’t think they’d realised yet that their man had lost control of the ambulance.
Beyond them, to the right, I saw an exit ramp branching off the parkway, curving away to an interchange that forked again either to the George Washington Bridge or to the streets of northern Manhattan.
That was my chance—
Whump.
Someone else, however, knew I’d taken the ambulance.
A ski-masked assassin appeared outside my passenger window, having jumped onto the running board from his truck, the third black Ford which was on the right-hand side of the ambulance.
He raised an MP-7 machine gun at me—
—as I whipped up my pistol and shot him through the window.
Glass shattered.
His goggles exploded with blood.
And he fell, tumbling back down the roadway.
His Ford sped up, came level with my ambulance on the right and rammed me hard.
As it did, its masked driver shot wildly at me.
I returned fire, shooting blindly, and somehow hit him in the left hand.
I saw it burst with blood and he yanked it off the steering wheel in a reflex.
But he kept driving and—
Whump.
Another assassin must have jumped across from his truck’s tray onto my speeding ambulance.
In the right-side mirror I saw him hanging on to the side, gripping a pistol in one hand, trying to make his way forward to my cab.
I looked ahead: the off-ramp was rapidly approaching.
But the two black trucks in front of me were on to me now, and I saw them visibly slow, even though Heidi was still harassing them, zipping in between them.
Then one of the trucks tried to ram her and Heidi sprang her trap: she braked hard, skidding, and the first truck swung across her and hit the second one and suddenly both of them were sliding wildly, out of control, their wheels locked, and they bounced off two other cars and stopped, facing the wrong way, as my ambulance and the last truck shot past them.
The off-ramp opened to my right.
I called to Audrey and the paramedic. ‘Hang on!’
Then I yanked the steering wheel hard over, slamming the assassin on my flank against his own black Ford.
He dropped off with a scream—
—as my ambulance took the off-ramp, with the right-hand chase truck glued to my side, taking the exit with me—
—and with the Yaris close behind us.
I saw the truck’s driver with his bloody wounded hand trying to push back.
I stomped on the gas, and as we both sped down the curving off-ramp, I kept ramming his pickup further and further to the right until—bam!—it crashed head-on into a cluster of water-filled safety tanks at the fork in the interchange and came to a jarring halt in a geyser of exploding water.
I was clear.
As I came off the ramp, I saw Heidi and Georgy’s red Toyota Yaris in my side mirror.
I waved for them to drive up beside my window.
‘Heidi!’ I called. ‘Follow me! We gotta dump these vehicles!’
‘You betcha, little man!’
Peeling out of the interchange, I zigzagged through a few side streets until I brought the battered ambulance to a halt between some dumpsters in an alley not far from Columbia University.
As we lurched to a stop, I reached over and yanked off the ski mask of the dead assassin slumped on the passenger seat.
An Asian face stared at the ceiling with blank dead eyes.
A Chinese assassin?
I made to step into the rear section of the ambulance to get to Audrey but when I turned she was already beside me, crouched in the space behind the two front seats.
She was wearing a hospital gown over her underwear.
‘You know, you’ve got a really good chance of winning Boyfriend of the Year,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
As she said this, the red Yaris squealed to a stop beside us.
‘We need to go,’ I said to Audrey. ‘We gotta abandon this ambulance and get out of here before those bad guys figure out where we went.’
I nodded to the paramedic. ‘Sir, thanks for your help, but I suggest you go on foot to the hospital from here. It’s not safe to stay with this ambulance. Those assassins will be coming soon and the only person they want alive is Audrey. They will kill you.’
‘Jesus . . .’ he said.
I added, ‘When you get to the hospital, call the FBI and ask for Director Longmuir. He’ll have heard about what happened on the parkway by now. Tell him you left us here, that Special Agent Mills is safe, and that you don’t know where we went.’
‘You okay with this?’ the paramedic asked Audrey.
Audrey nodded. ‘Yep. I’d rather be with Sam.’
The paramedic nodded and sprinted off toward New York-Presbyterian.
I took Audrey’s hand and pulled her out of the ambulance. ‘Can you walk?’
‘Yeah, but not very fast.’
‘It’s okay, I’ve got you. Let’s go.’
‘Oh, wait, my clothes . . .’ She reached back into the ambulance and retrieved a plastic bag that contained her clothes, purse and other personal items.
‘Georgy,’ I said. ‘Thanks for all your help today. I’m sorry, but your car might be a target now. You should ditch it here. Its plates will have been photographed on the parkway, so we won’t get a mile in it before we get stopped by the police.’
Georgy nodded quickly, clearly still adrenalised by his first car chase. ‘Okay, Dr Sam.’
‘You might also be a target,’ I added. ‘Take a cab or the subway to a safe place that isn’t your home; pay with cash; do not use your credit card. A hotel might be best and pay cash for that, too. Here.’
I handed him a burner phone from my backpack.
‘If you want to call me, use this to call my burner phone. It’s the only number loaded onto it.’
‘Yes, Dr Sam. I do exactly as you say.’
He hurried off.
As Georgy and I had been speaking, Heidi had been helping Audrey put on some clothes over her hospital gown.
When she was presentable, the three of us walked as inconspicuously as possible—and as quickly as Audrey could—to the nearest main road, hailed a cab and sped away into the night, disappearing into the millions of lights of New York City.