CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2056 Words
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Reid slid into the driver’s seat of the still-running car. Watson jumped in beside him.
“Was that them?!” Dr. Barnard practically shouted from the back seat. He had witnessed the two men assault the valet and steal the sports car.
“Yes,” Reid said breathlessly. “Buckle up.” He slammed the gas and the SUV lurched forward onto the city street, barely missing an oncoming car.
“Jesus, Kent!” Watson shouted from beside him. “How do you know that for sure?”
Reid swerved expertly in and out of traffic. The roads in this part of Athens were tight, two lanes wide and lined with storefronts and cafes. “They were speaking Arabic,” he said calmly. “They mentioned the Imam.”
“Imam can mean a lot of things,” Watson countered. He gripped the handle over his door with white knuckles.
“They ran, Watson! They stole a car!” Reid resisted the urge to shoot his partner a sidelong glare and focused on the road. He blew through a red light, inviting a slew of honks and Greek profanity.
Where are they? They couldn’t have gotten too far ahead. The silver sports car the Syrians had hijacked could certainly outpace the SUV on the open road, but on the busy streets of Athens it would be more of a level field of play and come down to the more experienced driver.
Reid kept his eyes on the road, not blinking, his hands expertly maneuvering the steering wheel smoothly. His heart was pounding harder than it had in a month, and his mind was racing with the possibility of losing the terrorists, but his hands—his hands were steady.
You’ve done this before. Plenty of times. Again the familiar sensation crept into his mind; just like realizing he could speak Arabic or speed-load a pistol clip, Kent Steele handled the SUV like a rally car driver. And he was not going to allow them to get away.
Up ahead he caught a flash of silver as the sports car weaved in and out between lanes. “There you are,” Reid murmured. He jerked the wheel slightly to the right. The passenger side tires bounced up onto the sidewalk as he skirted around traffic. Passersby cried out and leapt aside, though he was careful of pedestrians.
“Take it easy, Kent!” Watson scolded from the passenger seat. “This is an urban area!”
Reid said nothing. The sports car had a good lead on them but the SUV had a better engine—a five-point-seven-liter Hemi, by the sound of it. If the Syrians wanted to lose them, they would have to find a highway or a stretch of road with no traffic.
“Kent?” Maria’s voice crackled in his ear. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
He had forgotten for a moment about Maria and Carver, still at the hotel and awaiting their arrival. He pressed a finger to his earpiece. “We’re in pursuit of a pair of Arabic men that jacked a car. They must have been coming down in the elevator as you were going up the stairs.”
“Ten-four. Carver and I are going in to see what we can find in the room.”
“Be careful,” Reid told her. “There might be more than just two.” Only static hissed in his ear. “Maria?” No response; they must have exceeded the two-mile capability of the radio.
Not more than thirty yards ahead, Reid saw the back end of the silver sports car drifting sideways as they attempted a tight left turn. The light was changing, so Reid slammed the gas, jumping to nearly sixty. “Hold onto something!” He did not slow down as he approached the turn; instead, he yanked the emergency brake up as he jerked the wheel. The SUV slid sideways into the intersection and Reid counter-steered. He held his breath for a moment as the driver’s side wheels came off the road for a moment.
“Christ, Kent!” Watson shouted.
Then he straightened the steering wheel and the tires met ground again. The smell of burnt rubber filled his nostrils as he slammed the gas anew to catch up to the Syrians. Pedestrians scattered; he could hear their surprised cries even through the closed window and over the roar of the engine.
His heart was pounding a mile a minute and adrenaline coursed through his veins. Reid had to fight to keep the grin off his lips. This was the hunt, what he missed most about being in the field. This was his runner’s high, his endorphin release, his drug of choice.
Twice more the sports car turned wildly, trying to lose them, but the Arabic driver was not as skilled. The car’s tires skidded in protest, slowing them, and Kent’s expert driving closed the gap between them. Watson continued to protest from beside him, but Reid ignored it. Behind them, Barnard muttered quietly to himself, though at least once Reid could have sworn he heard the phrase “Please God…”
Funny, he thought. I guess we all get a little religious when we think we’re going to die.
They hit a straightaway with only tight alleys as turn options. Reid rode the line at sixty-five, praying that no one jumped out from the narrow side roads. The Syrians would have to try to turn again eventually; Reid had closed the gap to between thirty and forty feet from bumper to rear fender.
“Good, that’s close enough,” Watson said breathlessly. “Let me get a license plate number, and… What the hell are you doing?!”
Reid reached into his coat and unholstered his Glock 19, keeping the car at speed and driving with his right hand. Time to see if Bixby’s biometrics work, he thought as he rolled down the window.
“Kent… just hold up a second…”
Any moment now… He wrapped his hand around the Glock, with his thumb naturally positioned over the biometric pad. Something inside the gun clicked; the trigger lock sprang open.
“Kent!” Watson barked angrily.
The silver sports car careened to one side as the Syrian driver attempted a left turn. The driver’s side wheels came off the ground slightly. They were taking the turn too tight and too fast. Reid didn’t even try to follow into it.
Instead he leveled the gun out the window, aimed, and fired off two shots.
Barnard gasped from the back seat at the sharp report of the Glock. The first shot missed, but the second found a home in the rear tire. As rubber shredded, the sports car lost traction with the ground and rolled. Time seemed to slow as the vehicle flipped twice on its side, each impact with the road sending a sickening crunch echoing into the air. The car crashed into the storefront of a deli with a stupendous racket. Glass exploded outward. People on the street screamed and scattered as the sports car came to a sudden stop upside-down on its roof.
Reid slammed the brakes and the SUV skidded sideways to a halt. Watson breathed hard beside him. He wasn’t sure if Barnard was breathing at all. Gun in hand, he jumped out of the car and headed toward the crashed car.
Two Greeks emerged from the deli. A cursory glance told him they had only minor cuts and scrapes. “Go,” he told them in English. “Get clear.” They clearly understood his gesture, if not his words, and they did not have to be told twice.
He kept the Glock pointed at the ground as a figure crawled from the wreckage—the driver, inching forward on his knees and one elbow. Blood ran down his face from a gash across his forehead, and his left arm was certainly broken. Even so he managed to pull himself from the crash and then carefully climbed to his feet. As soon as he was up, he stumbled and fell again, crying out in pain at his broken limb.
“Stay on the ground,” Reid told him in Arabic. “Do not get up.”
The Syrian glared at him furiously, a snarl on his lips. Despite the warning, he tried to rise again, cradling his broken arm with his good one. Reid saw a glint of metal as the man yanked a small gun from his jacket. Before Reid could even react, the Syrian fired off two shots.
The man was disoriented, unstable, and the shots went wild. Reid leveled his gun, aiming at the Syrian’s shoulder, but another shot rang out. From behind him.
The man’s body went rigid as the bullet hit center mass. Blood flowered from the Syrian’s chest as his heart emptied, and he crumbled to the ground.
Agent Watson stood behind Reid, his pistol leveled. Watson had taken the shot. Reid had the Syrian dead to rights, about to disarm him, and Watson had put the man down.
“Why did you do that?” he demanded angrily. “We could have gotten information out of him!”
“Are you out of your damn mind?!” Watson shouted back. “He almost got the drop on you!”
“I had him…” Reid argued.
“Jesus, what part of ‘covert op’ do you not understand?” Watson slid his Glock back into the shoulder holster under his coat. “What if you had hit a pedestrian? What if one of his shots had gone through a window and hit a kid?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Reid shouted back. “Let them get away?”
“No, Kent. You were supposed to get close enough for me to get a license number, a make, and a model.” Watson lowered his voice. “Because then we could call it in and track the vehicle. It’s a new enough car to probably have GPS. We could have watched where they went and followed them.”
Reid scoffed. “We don’t have time for that.”
“Well, you may not remember this, but that’s what an intelligence agency does, Kent. We gather intelligence, and we act intelligently. Not… this.” He gestured to the dead man in the road, the overturned sports car, the destroyed deli storefront.
Reid didn’t have a good response for that. He had simply acted out of instinct, and if he was being honest, the thrill of the chase took over. Stopping the Syrians was the only thing that mattered in the moment. And now the fact that he didn’t have a logical response to Watson’s rebuttal only made him angrier.
“So that’s it then,” he said forcefully. “That’s your problem with me, isn’t it? That I do things a little differently than what you’re used to?”
“A little differently.” Watson chuckled bitterly. “Sure. Just a little differently. Good ol’ Ground Zero.” He approached Reid and lowered his voice to nearly a whisper. “And what if they had the virus on them, Kent? What then?”
“They don’t.” Neither of the Syrians had been carrying anything out of the Athens Grand, he was sure of it.
“All it would take is a vial,” Dr. Barnard said quietly. He too had gotten out of the SUV, still trembling slightly from the high-speed chase. “The tiniest amount could do untold damage.”
Reid stared at the ground. Jesus, he thought, he’s right. He had been so intent to catch them that he had neglected to think clearly.
“I’m going to go see if anyone’s hurt.” Watson sighed. “Search the body for ID or leads.”
Watson hurried over to the broken storefront as Reid approached the dead Syrian. He rolled the man over and checked his pockets, finding only a wad of euros and a cell phone. No virus, thankfully. He took the findings, along with the man’s gun, and stowed them in the SUV.
He turned his attention to the overturned sports car and knelt beside the passenger side. A face stared back, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Reid winced; the second Syrian looked like he was barely into his twenties, and he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt when they crashed. His body was upside down, head at an odd angle with the ceiling. The impact had broken his neck.
Watson ushered two more people out of the deli, a woman and an older man—the latter of whom was presumably the proprietor, since he was wearing a white apron that was slightly spattered with blood. At the sight of civilians exiting the now-destroyed deli, Reid felt a deep pang of remorse and hurried over to make sure they were all right.
“Superficial injuries, mostly,” Watson told him. “Nothing serious and no one killed. Luckily.”
Even though Reid was thankful for that, he was certain he was going to hear about this.
Sirens wailed in the distance; it was the police, either on their way to the Athens Grand or to their location. Maybe both.
“Let’s go,” Watson said. “Cops and Interpol will be all over that hotel any minute, if they’re not already. We’ll need to see if Maria and Carver came up with anything.”
Reid didn’t argue, even when Watson climbed behind the wheel. The three of them were silent as they headed back to the Athens Grand. Once they were within radio range again, Reid tried Maria. “Johansson? You copy?”
“I’m here,” she said quietly over the radio. “So is Interpol, and Greek authorities. They’re not happy. They said there was a car crash…?”
“In a manner of speaking. We’re fine. Did you find anything?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, but her voice sounded tight and anxious. “We found something. Get back here as fast as you can.”
He’
- Writer
