“Faster,” said Demetri, even though Sofia was already struggling to keep up.
Jack picked up the pace to a near trot. They reached a T-intersection in the walkway, and Jack took them to the left. A paved parking lot opened up before them, and they stopped for Demetri to make sure there were no police.
“It’s the green Mustang,” said Jack.
Demetri almost smiled. Jack cringed.
“Keys,” said Demetri.
Reluctantly, Jack handed them over. Jack crammed himself into the tiny backseat, and Sofia rode shotgun. It was a bad time for Jack to discover that the rear seat belts were broken. Demetri fired the engine and raced toward the exit, gaining speed until another car pulled out and blocked his way. Demetri stood on the brake, and Jack slammed into the backside of the front seats as the Mustang screeched to a halt.
“Shit!” said Demetri.
Jack looked up in time to catch a glimpse of the other driver’s face, but it was Demetri who told the story.
“It’s him!” said Demetri.
He slammed the five-speed into reverse and steered backward with the intensity of an Indy racer.
“Slow down!” said Sofia.
“Hang on!” said Demetri.
Still in reverse, Demetri steered the speeding Mustang toward the walkway. Jack was still in the back, which meant that he was effectively in the front, as Demetri gunned it straight toward the narrow opening between buildings.
“It won’t fit!” said Jack.
“Will too,” said Demetri.
“My car!”
A quick glance at the speedometer nearly stopped Jack’s heart. Tail end first, the Mustang shot into the narrow walkway, its side mirrors brushing the leafy vines on either wall as they burrowed deeper and deeper into the darkness.
“Stop!” said Sofia.
Demetri pressed on. Jack spotted a pair of window boxes ahead. Behind. Whatever.
“Look out for-”
Too late. The rear fender took out the window boxes like a wrecking ball.
“Ouch,” said Jack, cringing. It was like a bad dream-his beautifully restored Bullitt Mustang in a “bass-ackward” chase scene, all with Jack at the mercy of a crazy son of a bitch who was no more Steve McQueen than the flat streets of Florida were the hills of San Francisco.
“Hold tight,” said Demetri.
They flew past the T-intersection in the walkway, the brick walls on either side a blackened blur in the night. Finally, the Mustang came out on the other side of the Hotel San Pietro and spun to a stop in the middle of a four-lane street. An SUV was about to T-bone them when Sofia screamed and a horn blasted. Demetri found a gear and hit the gas to speed out of the way.
Sofia reached over and slugged him. “You’re going to kill us!”
Demetri didn’t seem to care. In seconds he had the fastback in fifth gear, weaving in and out of urban traffic at double the speed limit.
“Red light!” said Jack.
Demetri blew through it, sending a crossing car into a screeching tailspin.
“You’re scaring me!” said Sofia.
He didn’t respond.
“Demetri, I’m too afraid.”
“This will work.”
“I don’t like this,” she said.
He kept driving.
“I don’t deserve this!”
Demetri hit the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop at the curb. Jack expected to see another temper flare, but Demetri didn’t look angry. Sofia’s last remark-I don’t deserve this-had simply resonated on a level that even Sofia could not have expected.
Demetri reached across her lap and opened the passenger-side door.
“Run!” he said.
“What?”
“It’s just like the first time. It’s me they really want. Run fast and disappear.”
Sofia looked at him for several long moments, her eyes welling. It seemed to Jack that she didn’t know how to say good-bye. Finally, she just turned away and got out of the car without a word. The door closed, and Demetri spun the tires.
“What now?” said Jack.
Demetri didn’t answer. The speedometer was quickly up to seventy.
“This is pointless,” said Jack. “You’ve got the Russian Mafiya after you. By your own admission, Madera’s men are out to kill you. And in about two minutes the police will be chasing you down. It’s over.”
“Ain’t over yet,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
The tires squealed as Demetri made a sharp turn toward the expressway ramp.
“You and me are gonna talk to the president,” he said.
Chapter 39
They were flying past cars as if traffic were standing still.
The speed limit on this stretch of interstate was seventy miles per hour, and Demetri was pushing well beyond that. Jack was about to tell him to slow down when a pair of motorcycles shot past them like silver bullets. The bikers weren’t wearing helmets, of course, and their girlfriends clung to them like frightened koalas as they maneuvered around cars with the precision of slalom skiers. For a second, Jack wondered if one of them was Theo. No such luck.
“You think we can catch those guys?” said Demetri.
“Before or after they kill themselves?” said Jack.
Demetri snorted. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”
Jack’s hands were feeling numb. The cord around his wrists was too tight, and sitting in the cramped rear seat with his knees up to his chest and his hands behind his back didn’t help the circulation.
“You don’t actually plan to drive my car all the way to Washington, do you?” said Jack.
“What are you worried about, the mileage on your precious Mustang?”
“No,” said Jack. Well…yeah.
“Just sit tight and don’t make trouble.”
“You said we were going to talk to the president.”
“And that’s what we’re gonna do.”
“That’s just crazy. Do you know how many crackpots have demanded to speak to the president? It never works.”
“Your father is about to be vice president. I bet he’ll have something to say about that.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what he’ll say: N-O. It just won’t work. Don’t you get it? It’s time to give it up.”
Demetri raised his pistol. “Did you ever see Pulp Fiction?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember that scene with Travolta and Samuel Jackson in the front seat and the guy that gets blown away in the backseat?”
Jack got the point.
Demetri suddenly fell silent, his eyes darting back and forth from the road to the rearview mirror. Jack checked over his shoulder and saw the reason for concern. A Florida state trooper was several hundred yards behind them but closing in, its beacon flashing.
“Hold on,” said Demetri.
The Mustang lunged forward, and Jack sank even deeper into the rear seat. Jack knew his Mustang had the horses, but Demetri was pushing it harder than Jack had even thought Theo would push it. At this speed, Jack felt as if they were passing mile markers like hash marks on the highway, and in just a few minutes they caught up to the motorcycles. The leader extended his tattoo-covered arm to flash them a thumbs-up. Jack glanced back through the rear window. The Florida state trooper had actually gained ground-and there were three of them now.
Demetri slammed his fist against the dashboard. “What does it take to lose these assholes?”
“It’s not going to happen,” said Jack.
“Shut up!”
“Check it out,” said Jack. “Choppers are already here.”
Demetri leaned forward and looked up through the windshield. The whir of the helicopters was audible even over the roar of the Mustang. It was a dark night, but the lights from the helicopter were bright enough for Jack to read the painted logo on the side.
“It’s the media,” he said.
“How the hell did they get here so fast?”
&
nbsp; “What did you expect?” said Jack. “You’re driving straight toward the studio for the biggest news station in Miami.”
Jack could almost see Demetri’s despair transform to hope.
“That must be the station over there, right?”
Jack peered out the passenger-side window. The sign and network logo were lit up against the night sky, easily visible from the interstate: ACTION NEWS-SOUTH FLORIDA’S NEWS LEADER.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“What time do they do their late news?”
“Right now,” said Jack. “All the networks but Fox do it at eleven. But you’re not thinking of-”
Before Jack could finish his sentence, Demetri drove off the interstate and headed straight for the station. It didn’t seem to faze him that they’d missed the exit ramp a half mile back. The whine of rubber tires on pavement gave way to the pop and crunch of flying mud and gravel as they blazed a virgin trail off the shoulder, across the swale, down into the ditch, and into a field. Jack tumbled around in the backseat like tennis shoes in a dryer. The ride was so rough that the headlamps were pointing up one moment and down the next, making it impossible to see the chain-link fence ahead in the darkness. The speeding Mustang ripped right through it, but it sounded as if they’d hit a train. The windshield cracked into a starburst pattern, both headlights were gone, and the Mustang suddenly sputtered like most cars its age.
“Flat tire,” said Jack.
Demetri gave it more gas, mowing down bushes and other landscaping that surrounded the studio. Jack braced for one more bounce as they jumped the curb and sped into the parking lot. The sound of shredded rubber flapping against the pavement told of at least two flat tires, maybe three.
“You think the doors are locked?”
“It’s nighttime in Miami,” said Jack.
Demetri pressed the accelerator to the floor, steered the Mustang up onto the walkway, and drove straight for the main entrance. It was a three-story wall of plate-glass windows.
“Down!” said Demetri.
Jack dived to the floor, and it sounded like a hurricane as the car crashed through the door and took down the entire wall of glass with it. Windows shattered, metal twisted, and furniture and debris flew everywhere. The wheels screeched across the tile floor as the car slammed into the reception desk and came to a sudden stop in the main lobby. Through it all, Jack’s hands remained tied behind his back, the knotted lamp cord holding like handcuffs.
Demetri drew his pistol, flung open the door, and yanked Jack from the backseat. Fortunately, no one had been in the waiting room or at the reception desk at this hour, but the alarm sounded, and a security guard came running down the open flight of stairs from the upper level.
“This man has a gun!” Jack shouted.
The guard drew his weapon, but not fast enough. Demetri dropped him with a single shot. As the guard tumbled down the stairs, Jack lunged toward the Greek, but he wasn’t much of a threat with his hands bound behind his back. Demetri wheeled and clubbed Jack across the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. The blow knocked Jack to his knees. He was even stronger than Jack had thought.
“I’ll kill you, too!” he said. “Is that what you want?”
Jack’s head was throbbing, and it took a moment to process what he was hearing. The Greek didn’t wait for a response. He lifted Jack to his feet and put the gun to his head.
“Now let’s do this right, Swyteck. And if you’re a good boy, maybe one of us will get out of here alive.”
He took Jack past the open stairway first, grabbed the security guard’s gun, and tucked it under his belt. Then he pushed Jack through the long hallway, past the darkened set for the Food, Glorious Food show, past the managerial offices and dressing rooms, and through the final set of doors that led to the evening news set.
“Nobody move!” shouted Demetri.
Chaos had already broken loose. Dozens of cubicles with computer terminals occupied a large open work area in front of the set, and the reduced staff that worked the eleven o’clock news were either racing for emergency exits or already outside the building. All but one cameraman had fled the set, along with the weekend producer, the director, the co-anchor, the former Miami Dolphin football player who did the sports wrap up, and the former Miss Florida who guessed at the weather. A single cameraman and an ambitious young anchorwoman were bringing up the rear, dutifully keeping Action News on the air as they raced toward the door.
“We have breaking news literally breaking into the Action News studio!” she said into the wireless microphone clipped to her lapel. She was a weekend substitute, not the regular nightly anchor, and Jack recognized her as the rising Action News star who had chained herself to a palm tree to keep from getting blown away during her report on Hurricane Wilma making landfall.
She was just steps away from the door when Demetri fired a warning shot. It tore through the carpet three feet in front of her, stopping her and the cameraman in their tracks.
“I said, Nobody move!”
Chapter 40
At 11:10 P.M. Andie’s home telephone rang. She was awake but in bed, wearing her most comfortable and unsexy pair of pajamas, all geared up for a night alone watching Saturday Night Live. Her gut told her it was Jack calling, and she was afraid to answer. She’d probably overreacted to the news that Jack was in a hotel room with his “client,” and she feared that if she picked up the phone she might still saddle Jack with the sins of her ex-fiance. No way would Jack do what that creep had done to her.
Then again, where the hell has he been for the past four hours?
She let it ring through to her answering machine.
“Andie, pick up.”
The voice wasn’t Jack’s. It was the assistant special agent in charge of the Miami field office, Guy Schwartz. Andie launched herself across the bed and grabbed the phone from the nightstand.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Turn on Action News,” he said.
It probably would have been fair to ask why, but Schwartz’s tone was too urgent to invite questions. Andie fished around beneath the covers and found the remote control beneath an empty bag of mini-marshmallows-consolation food that had nearly made her sick, which was one more reason to be angry at Jack. With a punch of the button she switched channels.
“That’s Jack,” she said.
It was stating the obvious, but the words had come like a reflex. Andie moved to the foot of the bed, closer to the TV.
Schwartz gave her a two-minute summary of everything the FBI understood about the standoff so far. Andie listened as she watched it unfold in real time on television. Action News was broadcasting in a split-screen format, the live hostage standoff on the left and, on the right, their lead anchor broadcasting from the parking lot outside the station. Andie heard her mention something about one dead security guard inside the building, which jibed with what Schwartz had just told her.
Andie said, “The media need to assume that the gunman is listening to everything they’re saying. We need to muzzle that reporter.”
“We’re on it,” said Schwartz.
On the split screen, Andie could see that police were indeed trying to move the entire Action News team to a safer distance.
“Once again,” said the reporter, “Action News has not yet confirmed the gunman’s identity. However, we do know that he has taken at least three hostages, including Action News weekend anchor Shannon Sertane, cameraman Pedro Valdez, and Miami attorney Jack Swyteck, whom you may know as the son of former governor and vice presidential nominee Harry Swyteck. The gunman has not-wait a minute. It looks as though he may be about to say something.”
Andie increased the volume. Action News changed the on-screen format from split screen to a picture-in-picture mode, relegating the reporter to a small box in the upper right-hand corner. But she kept talking.
“Up until now, we have seen the gunman securing the set inside the Action News newsroom, checking things out, tying up his
hostages with electrical cord. Basically getting situated. So far we have only been able to speculate as to his demands and…”
Andie spoke into the phone. “Somebody needs to tell her to shut up and let him talk.”
The reporter’s microphone suddenly went silent, someone presumably having pulled the plug.
The gunman looked into the camera and said, “Good evening.”
Andie noted the accent and waited.
“My name is Demetri, and I want everyone to know right up front that I don’t want to hurt any of these fine people who are here with me tonight.”
Tell that to the dead security guard, thought Andie.
“But I will do whatever is necessary if my demands are not met. Or if anyone is foolish enough to storm the building.” He was speaking very slowly, as if determined to hide his accent from the television viewers. “Let me assure everyone right now that there is no way for the FBI or anyone else to get inside this building without turning this into a bloodbath. I’ve checked it out, and the newsroom has no windows. Sorry, snipers. I’ve locked all the doors and rigged them up nicely so that I’ll hear it if anyone tries to sneak in. I’m sure some genius at the FBI is probably coming up with a plan right now to climb in through the air-conditioning ducts. Well, I’ve thought of that, too. I’m not going to get into specifics, but let me just say that it would be a very bad idea.”
“He’s into this,” Andie said into the telephone.
“A very desperate man making his last stand,” Schwartz replied.
The Greek continued, “I will have several demands to make, so let’s start off with a simple one: we stay on the air. This is a live broadcast, and everything is in real time. There are television screens all over the place in here, so I’ll know if this demand is being met. If it’s not, one of these hostages will die. It’s as simple as that.”
He walked across the set toward the news desk. Jack and the anchorwoman were seated on the floor in front of the desk, their hands tied behind their backs. He stepped closer to Jack, and the camera followed him.
“You don’t want that to happen, do you, Swyteck?”
He didn’t answer.
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