Run: A Novel (14 page)

The woman reached down to swap her mascara for a paper coffee
cup, losing a little of her speed and allowing a small gap to open up between her car and ours.

“Watch her,” Peever warned his partner, backing off the gas a little himself as we steered into a tight curve.

It was an unnecessary instruction. The agent—like me—couldn’t keep his eyes off the woman. It was fascinating, the way she could apparently pay so little attention to the road and yet keep herself out of harm’s way. Next she discarded the coffee in favor of her phone, and the only impact was the loss of a little more speed.

Rubber squealed ahead of us and almost simultaneously I heard the hollow, ripping
thud
of one vehicle plowing into another. I pitched forward as Peever hit the brakes, and flew sideways into the foot well. I clawed myself up, winded from slamming into the front seats and desperate to escape the confined space.

Behind us, there was no sign of the Mercedes. Or the Dodge. But ahead, I could see the van. Its rear end had slewed round thirty or forty degrees, narrowly avoiding the trees at the side of the road. Its passenger side was all caved in. The vehicle that had rammed it—a shiny orange pickup truck with huge, knobbly tires—was in front of us, blocking us off. Steam was spilling from its radiator and clods of mud led back to a gap in the wall.

Movement caught my eye. It was a man in black coveralls, running, with a mask over his face. He was heading around the van, to the side that hadn’t been wrecked in the collision. Then another man appeared. He was raising some kind of weapon—like a rifle, only shorter and with a wider barrel. A bright flash came from the van, followed by a dull
whump
. The crumpled vehicle rocked on its springs. Peever and the other agent were scrabbling to open their doors. They were raising their guns and aiming at the second man, but I already knew they’d be too late.

“Bowman, down!” Peever yelled, but I was already back on the floor, pressing myself into the musty carpet.

There were three shots, painfully loud, then something shattered—the windshield?—and I felt pellets of glass rain down on my back. A heavy object slammed into the seat behind me, bouncing up against the rear door and hissing malevolently. And within a millisecond of it
landing, ten thousand needles were ramming themselves into my eyeballs.

I heard the front doors opening and I raised my head, desperate for clean air, unable to see, my cheeks streaming with tears. There were two muted
bangs
, like someone swatting flies with a rolled-up magazine.

And then there was silence.

T
HE WORLD FROZE ON ITS AXIS AND REMAINED THAT WAY UNTIL
both of the car’s back doors were pulled open, jolting the universe back into motion. Hands grabbed my ankles and lifted my legs up onto the seat. Then someone took hold of me under the arms and started pulling me out of the car.

“Marc, can you hear me?” The voice was familiar, but distorted by the ringing in my ears. “Come on. We have to get you out of here. Take you somewhere safe.”

How could the police have arrived so fast? Then the penny dropped.

“Agent McKenna?” My feet hit the pavement. “Is that you? I can’t see. Why are you here? What the hell’s going on? And the other agents? Are they—”

“They’re fine, Marc.” McKenna was still taking most of my weight. “But we have to get you away. Right now. Come on.”

“Wait.” I struggled to free myself. “Peever said you’re an impostor. Said you were planting bugs in my study, not removing them.”

“I’m not surprised.” McKenna let go of my chest but straightaway grabbed my right arm. “I can’t air too much dirty laundry, but there’s a chance Peever’s been turned. Think about it, Marc. If we’d had bugs in your house, we would’ve rescued you before those guys got out of your driveway.”

I felt a second pair of hands take hold of my left arm.

“How did you know to act at all?”

“Remember when I told you I didn’t think the thieves would come back? I lied. So we’ve been watching your house. Around the clock.
We saw Peever’s crew arrive, and figured they were up to no good. But we couldn’t be sure until they tried to take you away. We couldn’t let that happen, so we intervened.”

McKenna sounded plausible. But Peever had, too. I didn’t know who to trust. And my eyes were stinging like hell, which made it impossible to think.

“What the hell did you use tear gas for?” I muttered.

“We had to. So we could pop them with tranquilizer darts. We need them alive, to stand trial. Here.” McKenna pressed a piece of damp fabric into my hand. “Use this. Time’s the only real cure, but this’ll ease the sting a little.”

He gave me a moment to dab my eyes, then started to lead me away from the car again.

“Here’s another question.” He was trying to make me move faster. “When Peever busted into your house, there were two detectives with him, right?”

“Right. The lazy pair who took my burglary complaint.”

“They left before the agents drove off with you. One of them took a phone call. About a family emergency.”

“That’s right. How did you know?”

“Because there was no family emergency. We had her lieutenant make that call. We wanted them pulled before we came for you. A maneuver like this? There’s no guarantee things won’t get out of control. And we don’t want the wrong people getting hurt, if they do.”

“And the ambush?” I was struggling to see a flaw in his words. “You staged it? The woman in the Mercedes was part of it?”

“She’s one of ours,” he admitted.

What he said seemed reasonable. How could he have known about the phone call to the detectives, or the woman in the Mercedes, otherwise? And honestly, I didn’t trust Peever. He rubbed me the wrong way. There was something creepy about him. It was no surprise to hear he was dirty. So I stopped resisting and let McKenna pick up the pace.

My eyes were less painful but my vision was still blurred and I was struggling to make out more than the broad outline of the shapes around me. The car they’d dragged me from was the closest vehicle to us. All four doors were open. And behind it the van and the pickup had
merged into a single tangled mass, further obscured by the smoke that poured out from beneath it and lapped greedily around its sides.

The agents had picked a good spot for their ambush. The traffic was light, especially in the evening, and the few homes in the neighborhood were hundreds of yards apart. Plus, they were set well back from the street—a relic of the days when privacy was more valuable than conspicuous wealth.

McKenna suddenly tightened his grip on my arm and started moving faster. A moment later I picked up the sound of a siren. A second after that I heard a motorcycle engine coughing into life. Then another one. Small-sounding, and raucous. Trail bikes? Ideal for a getaway on—or off—these twisting, uneven streets. Impressive foresight on McKenna’s part.

We were ahead of the bikes, but McKenna made no attempt to wait for them. Instead, he pulled away to his right, wheeling me and the other agent around in a tight arc and propelling us toward a spot where a previous accident had punched a hole in the wall that bordered the road.

The two bikes burst into sight out of the smoke that was leaking from the wrecked van, racing toward us, about six feet apart. The riders were wearing leather coveralls and ducking down low over their handlebars. McKenna raised his arm and fired three quick shots, kicking up sparks from the pavement but doing no visible damage.

We’d gained ten feet when I heard another bike engine start up. It was directly in front of us, on the other side of the wall. It revved hard, then leapt out through the gap in the stonework. McKenna dived to his right, pulling me and the other agent with him. The bike kept coming. I thought it had missed us, but at the last moment the rider stuck out his leg and planted his huge boot square in the other agent’s chest. The blow sent him reeling backward—nearly ripping my arm off before he released his grip—then he stumbled and fell, cracking his head against the blacktop.

The first two bikes were on top of us again, coming in from our left. McKenna fired two shots, then shoved me to the ground and dived onto my back as the riders zipped by, one on each side of us. A second later his weight shifted and he pulled himself into a crouch, scanning
for the third bike. It was on the far side of the street, diagonally opposite, lining up for another run. This time McKenna found the target with his first shot. The bike’s front tire blew. The rear bucked vertically upward, and the rider was flung forward over the handlebars, landing in a heap of twisted limbs and lying inert as the remains of the bike somersaulted over him.

McKenna scrambled up and pulled two black discs from his pocket, each a little bigger than a hockey puck. He pressed down on a recessed section at the center of both of them with his thumb, then threw them in the direction the two remaining bikes had been going. They landed ten feet apart, rattling along the ridged surface of the blacktop and spewing dense clouds of oily black smoke.

“Come on.” McKenna grabbed my arm. “Not much time.”

I’d assumed he was worried about the bikes coming back, but then I realized the sirens sounded much closer than they had been. And then another thought hit home: If McKenna really was from Homeland Security, surely he’d welcome the police arriving? Why would he be alarmed by it?

We reached the other agent, who’d recovered enough to struggle up onto all fours. McKenna hauled him to his feet and kept on dragging us away from the barrier that the smoke had formed in the road. I tried to hold back, but then I heard the motorcycle engines growing louder again.

“Where—” I started to say, when a car swept around the corner and accelerated toward us. It was the blue Dodge that Peever’s people had been using. I expected McKenna to dive to the side again or turn back toward the smoke screen, but he just kept going straight. I took another couple of steps and realized why. I recognized the driver. It was the woman who’d been in the little Mercedes, earlier. Only she didn’t have long blond hair anymore. Now it was much shorter, and brunette.

The woman closed to within fifteen feet then swung the car around in a tight arc, tires locked and screaming, ending up sideways on to us. She leaned across and flung open the passenger door. Then a look of horror swept across her face. I turned and saw one of the bikes had
broken cover. It was bearing down on us, trailing little eddies of smoke in its wake. It seemed to be heading for the injured agent again, but at the last moment it swerved and the rider slammed his boot into McKenna’s back. McKenna—too occupied with helping his comrade—was slow to raise his arms. He hit the ground face-first, hard, and didn’t move. The bike slalomed around the rear of the car and kept on going, accelerating into the curve, but before it disappeared little sparks started to flash on the ground around it. I heard a rattling sound to my right, spun around, and saw the woman firing at him with a short black rifle.

“Shit,” she snarled as the rider escaped unscathed. Then she moved, rifle still at the ready, heading straight for me. “Are you Marc Bowman?”

I nodded, not sure what she might do.

“Good. Now listen. The police are nearly here. They’re not briefed on what we’re doing—their security clearance isn’t high enough—and we don’t want them finding us with our pants down. We have to move fast. OK?”

“Who are you?”

“I work with McKenna. Now move! Don’t waste time!”

I wasn’t sure I believed her rationale about the police, but I did know one thing: I didn’t want to fall prey to the bikes. One look at McKenna confirmed that. He was still motionless so I started to half carry, half drag him toward the car. Blood was streaming down his face from a ragged gash on his forehead and I ended up with plenty on myself as I wrestled him into the passenger seat. The sirens had become louder still, so I slammed his door, opened the one behind it, and turned my attention to the other agent. He could move a little faster, but we were still six feet from the car when the second motorcycle burst out of the smoke.

“You’re nearly there.” The woman was firing again. “Just get him inside.”

Her shots rang out behind me, three at a time, over and over, as I bundled the agent headfirst onto the rear seat. I reached back to shut the door, then kept on moving, planning to take cover behind the car.
The rifle fell silent. I swung around and saw the woman calmly climbing in behind the wheel. And the rider on the ground, twenty feet away, his bike sliding along the pavement behind him.

Then the woman’s expression changed.

“Get in,” she shrieked through her open window. “Quick!”

The bike that had hit McKenna was charging in from the rear. I yanked the door handle, opening a gap of maybe six inches. Not enough to fit through. I was too late. The bike was too close. It was almost on top of me. I was going to be crushed against the side of the car. But the rider didn’t hit me. He kicked the door, instead, slamming it closed. And he yelled at me before speeding off.

One word.

“RUN!”

I didn’t know how to respond, but the decision was taken out of my hands. Because at that moment, with me stretching for a door handle I could no longer reach, two police cars arrived. They’d turned their sirens and roof bars off for their final approach but their headlights cut through the smoky air like shiny steel blades. I froze. But the woman didn’t hesitate. She hit the gas and the blue Dodge disappeared into the smoke.

One of the police cars lurched forward in pursuit, suddenly alive in a swirl of sound and colored light. The other stayed where it was. An officer jumped out and started walking toward me, yelling at me to get on the ground.

If his gun had been in its holster, I might have done what he’d said. But it wasn’t. It was pointing at my chest. The spell I’d been under since I left my house was finally broken. I was innocent. I was sick of people attacking me. Following me. Breaking into my house. Taking my things. Spying on me. Stealing my work. Accusing me of crimes I hadn’t committed. Confusing me with contradictory stories. Shouting at me. Threatening me.