A Safe House

41

Fred watched the Mercedes-AMG rocket away from him, turning right on Sixth Avenue. He negotiated his way around a bus and followed as best as he could. He had no idea what had become of the black motorcycle.

Then Fred looked up and saw Central Park South, which bordered the park, rushing at him, and Jenna was showing no signs of turning. Did she know that the road through Central Park was closed to all traffic more boisterous than a horse-drawn carriage? Apparently not, because she went straight ahead into the park, narrowly avoiding a carriage, and began to scatter joggers, who were pointing and screaming at the disappearing station wagon. She was going to kill somebody.

Fred did his best to avoid the runners, then watched as Jenna turned left on East Sixty-Sixth Street, which still supported two-way auto traffic across the park. She blew straight through the traffic light at Central Park West, and Fred followed in her wake. She turned right at the next corner, then left on West Seventy-Second Street.

Did she have a plan, Fred asked himself, or was she just running? As he turned left on Seventy-Second, he looked over his shoulder and saw the black motorcycle still doggedly in pursuit a block back. A chorus of car horns wafted uptown, and Fred heard them.

Jenna had accelerated and she was crossing major streets like Broadway, then again running a light at Riverside Drive. The next choice was the street turning left and downtown, or a right onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, and for the first time, Jenna hesitated and appeared to be making a decision. To Fred’s relief, she turned right onto the parkway and stood on it, parting traffic. Fred took the precaution of actually looking for traffic on his left before following.

If Jenna had had a siren, she would be using it now, and astonishingly, no police vehicle had taken notice of her. She was staying in the left lane with her emergency flashers on and leaning on the horn. Terrified drivers tried desperately to get out of her way.

Fred’s immediate attention was drawn to his windshield, where a bullet hole had appeared. He looked to his left and saw the black cycle and its driver with a semiautomatic pistol in his left hand. Fred did what he thought would not be expected of him and leaned left. The black-clad driver stomped on his brakes and avoided a collision, but in his rearview mirror, Fred could see that he no longer held the pistol. In the commotion, he seemed to have dropped it.

Fred braked and came up to the other cycle’s right. He turned quickly left, and the black-clad driver was scraping along the steel medial railing. Sparks were flying, and he dropped back farther.

Fred took advantage of the moment and accelerated, looking for Jenna’s Mercedes. She was, perhaps, a quarter-mile ahead, and he asked of the Norton all that it could give.

Slowly he gained ground, and then, after they had passed under the George Washington Bridge, which spanned the Hudson River, he managed to pull even with her on her right side. The Harlem River bridge looked ahead of them now, and his efforts to flag her down had failed. The road narrowed at the tollbooths, and he fell behind her. Tolls had been overtaken by E-ZPass, so they were uninhibited. Fred mused that the automatic cameras would have some truly remarkable photographs today. Their two vehicles were now doing ninety miles per hour.

Past the George Washington Bridge even Jenna had to slow, if eighty could be considered slow, because of the curvy nature of the road. Then the road straightened as they merged with the Saw Mill River Parkway, and Jenna was doing a hundred. Approaching Yonkers, Fred’s Norton hiccupped, and he looked at the gauge to find it on nearly empty. He jammed on the brakes and exited at Executive Parkway, where he knew there was a gas station near the exit. He ended up pushing the bike the last block. Then, while his tank was filling, he called his boss.

“Fred?”

“Yes, sir,” Fred panted.

“You sound as though you’ve been running,” Stone said.

“In a manner of speaking, sir, I have. I ran short on fuel and lost her, headed north on the Saw Mill, at a great rate of knots.”

“You chased her that far?”

“Yes, sir, and at times we were doing the century.”

“Good God! What about the other bike, the black one?”

“I jammed him into the guardrail south of the GW Bridge, and he seemed to drop out.”

“Do you have any idea where she’s headed?”

“Sir, the only place I can think of would be your house in Washington, Connecticut. She knows about it, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but I sold the place to Bill Eggers.”

“You might try calling her and telling her that, sir.”

“I’ll do that. Did your chase interest the police at all?”

“Amazingly, no, sir. I never saw a copper, never heard a siren. I wished for one, though.”

“I can imagine. Come home, Fred. Keep your speed down and take another route. Don’t attract any attention.”

“What do we do about Ms. Jenna?”

“She seems hell-bent on killing herself. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. I can’t think of anything else to do.”

Fred paid for his gas and headed home on surface streets. He did not catch sight of the black motorcycle.