Andrew Gross - Reckless

Naomi took off ahead of him. “Up here!”

This was going to be their one and only chance. He took off, praying what they saw up ahead was Park Lane. Praying even harder the Mercedes hadn’t gotten there first. He recalled how they had to weave around through the grid to get out of there earlier. Sweat was coming through his clothes, soaking him.

He caught up to Naomi as they neared the end. They both came to a stop, huffing. The lane fed into the main thoroughfare. Thank God. The Mercedes would have to have come through here. It had to wind around. That’s what they had done the day before. But there could have been many ways out of the mews.

“This is it!”

They got to the corner, praying they weren’t too late. Feverishly, they looked around in every direction.

Naomi shook her head in frustration. “I don’t see it! Damn it, where is it, Ty?”

Then, about a block ahead, he caught sight of the front grille of a black vehicle, about to turn, pulled up at a light.

It was his only option. He ran toward it.

The car turned onto Park Lane. A Mercedes SUV.

His heart sprang with hope. “There it is!”

He sprinted after it, praying it was the same vehicle. Naomi kept up a couple of lengths behind.

There was no sight of the Scotland Yard car. They ran into the middle of the busy street, dodging through traffic. A cabbie stopped and angrily blew his horn at Hauck.

The distance between them and the black Mercedes began to narrow. Please, be it, Hauck begged.

Park Lane was a bustling thoroughfare. Six lanes. People everywhere. Obstructing them.

Hyde Park was to their right. Up ahead, the Mercedes pulled up at an intersection. Onto Piccadilly. It had its signal on, about to turn. Piccadilly was a long, traffic-free straightaway.

This was their only chance.

Holding up his palms, knifing in between oncoming cars, Hauck ran across the street. His lungs were bursting now as he pursued as fast as he could.

Naomi stayed right with him. “Get there before it turns, Ty…”

Hauck ran through the middle of the crowded street, searching for a policeman but not seeing one. A car pulled out from behind the Mercedes’s lane and now they had a clear shot.

Thirty yards ahead.

Twenty. The vehicle in front of the Mercedes made its turn.

The Mercedes lurched. They were out of time.

Hauck heard Naomi’s voice shout from behind. “Get out of the way!” She stopped and kneeled into a shooting position. She had a clear shot, no pedestrians in front of them.

She extended her gun.

She squeezed off three quick shots, aiming for the Mercedes’s tires.

Two skidded off the asphalt; the third clanged uselessly into the underbelly of the vehicle.

None of them seemed to find its mark.

“Shit!”

Suddenly people everywhere began to scream.

The Mercedes’s tires screeched and the vehicle jerked into a sharp turn. It forced its way through the onrushing traffic. Hauck chased it in the oncoming lane, ten yards behind.

Five.

Damn it-it was turning. Naomi’s shots hadn’t struck home.

In his one last chance, just as the vehicle jolted forward, he dove.

He felt his hands scratch against the driver’s-side rear window, then make contact with the door. He clung desperately to hold on to the metal handle. He squeezed, trying to open it, his only hope.

The sonovabitch was locked.

The SUV sped up on Piccadilly, starting to pull away.

Hauck held on, one hand on the handle, his other groping for the luggage rack above. His feet dangled against the pavement as he was dragged along. He caught a view of the startled family inside-Marty, his wife-suddenly realizing what was happening to them. Screaming at the driver. Somehow Hauck had to pry the door open.

He had to stop this car.

The vehicle picked up speed and wove between lanes in an effort to shake him off. If he could just get his other hand on the luggage rack, he could stay on. Someone would have to see them. A policeman. See what was going on.

Stop them.

His heart bursting through his chest, he lunged with both hands for the rack. The Mercedes lurched to the side with a jerk. He tried to pull himself up, every muscle in his body straining. Hold it, Ty…Now, just a second more…

The SUV jerked to the right. His fingers slid off. No…

He hit the road, screaming inside.

The Mercedes accelerated sharply along the straightaway, no traffic to obstruct it now.

Helpless, Hauck watched it drive away, prone. He sank his head against his arm, mashing his fist into the road.

The frightened face of al-Bashir’s youngest son looked back through the darkened window as it sped away.

Empty, dejected, Hauck found his way back to Naomi, who was waiting, ashen faced, at the corner of the park.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He wiped off his clothes and looked at his hands, which were imprinted with deep, red marks from his attempt to hold on to the car.

Her eyes glistened with tears of blame and disbelief, and she gritted her teeth. “We lost them, Ty.”

“Not entirely. I got the plates. HZ-36PAB. We can track them.” London had the most advanced network of street surveillance cameras in the world. That gave a ray of hope. One might pick them up.

Suddenly, they heard the clamor of sirens wailing everywhere. Police vans screeched to a halt around them. Uniformed security personnel ran up, weapons drawn.

“Here’s trouble,” Hauck said.

They both put up their hands, Naomi flashing her ID, identifying herself as a U.S. government agent.

“Get down on your knees!” a security agent in riot gear shouted in her face, thrusting a submachine gun at them. “Put your hands in the air!”

“We’re United States government agents,” Naomi declared, getting down, holding up her ID. Hauck did the same. Police were screaming at them like they were terrorists and he understood. Lights flashed everywhere. On the sidewalks, a ring of bystanders had formed. “We were chasing a suspect who kidnapped a government witness-”

“Put up your hands!”

It took a full ten minutes and two phone calls to the authorities before they finally let them go.

Naomi pulled out her cell and frantically called her contact at MI5. He said a full alert for the black Mercedes was already under way. Ten minutes too late, she read him the plate number.

Then she called her boss at Treasury. It was four in the morning back in DC. He seemed to be waiting. She desperately pushed back her hair and, pacing, gave him the bad news. Hauck could almost hear him barking through the phone. He could feel Naomi’s bitter frustration.

“How the hell could anyone have known, Rob? How?”

Finally, she said she’d keep him informed. They clicked off, and for a second, all Naomi could do was just stand there numbly, the hopelessness of the situation becoming clear. Al-Bashir was gone. He had been their last real lead. Without him they had nothing-nothing to tie in Hassani. All the elation of what minutes before had seemed a successful completion to their mission had now turned into anguish and self-reproach.

“Maybe the cameras will pick them up,” Hauck said, putting his arm around her shoulders, trying to comfort her.

She spun out of his grasp, slapping her palm with force against a nearby light post. Staring out at the police lights, the gathered crowd, the long straightaway that led away from the park, she shook her head in rage. “They’re gone, Ty…”

By the time they made it back to al-Bashir’s town house, a throng of police and investigative officials were already on the scene.

The housekeeper let them in.