The Darkest Day

FORTY-ONE

A block away Victor found a car he liked the look of. The streets were a lottery in terms of gridlock, but the cops were looking for a suspect on foot. He wrapped his belt around his elbow and smashed the passenger window. He cleared away some stubborn shards and reached inside to the door release. With a knee on the passenger seat, he leaned across to unlock the driver’s door. He then went round to climb behind the wheel and sit on a seat not covered in glass.

The car’s interior was a mess even before he had smashed the windows. Dust was embedded in the grooves of the dashboard and the footwells were full of rubbish. The exterior hadn’t been any better. The bodywork was smeared with grime and spotted with rust.

He tore the panel out from under the steering wheel and hot-wired it blind, knowing from long experience where to find the correct wires and how to cross them.

The car vibrated as the engine woke from its slumber. A sweep of the mirrors and quick look around told him no one had entered the area. For now, he was as safe as he could expect to be. A temporary respite, but he was glad of it all the same.

He eased the car out of the space, still cautious, still expecting an ambush.

His reflection looked back at him, tired but energised, hunted but focused.

In his rear-view, he saw a vehicle turn on to the street behind him. It skidded, spraying rainwater, because it had gone into the corner fast, and was now accelerating hard out of it, back end fishtailing. It was a dark blue Ford sedan. Anonymous, except for the antenna protruding from the roof.

A government vehicle, but not a cop car. Two silhouettes the other side of the windscreen had to be federal agents.

He gripped the wheel tight, arms rigid. Ahead, red tail lights glowed through the rain.

He floored it as he approached the intersection, trusting to speed as he shot across and through the slow-moving traffic. Headlights flashed around him. Horns sounded. He glimpsed vehicles braking and skidding and swerving to avoid him, creating unpredictable obstacles that hampered his pursuers.

The car clipped a parked sedan, sheering off metal. Its alarm sounded as Victor rebounded away. He controlled the steering wheel, avoiding a crossing pedestrian, tyres splashing through puddles, spraying up tall fountains of water. He punched the horn to warn the vehicles passing up ahead he was hurtling towards them.

Two cars heading in opposite directions heeded the warning and missed him as he shot between them, but caught each other as they swerved out of the way. Steel buckled and was torn away. Glass shattered. A bumper tumbled through the air. Shrieking tyres sent up clouds of smoke and misting rainwater. Debris scattered across the intersection.

The dark blue Ford hurtled along the street behind him.

Victor shifted into drive and accelerated away, rubber hissing and screeching, the car shaking and swerving. The Ford grew larger in his rear-view, the two silhouettes forming into two men, the passenger black, the driver white. Both suited. Both serious and determined.

He slid into a hard right and the Ford charged, but missed his rear bumper by inches. He worked the wheel and saw the guy driving the Ford doing the same, crossing over his hands as he fought to keep the car under control, going at speed on a slick surface. It clipped the kerb before he managed to control the Ford’s lateral movement.

By that time Victor was already fifty metres along the road, residential buildings flashing by.

Cold air rushing through the smashed-out passenger’s window made his eyes water. The rain soaked his hair and shirt. Pedestrians were blurred smudges of colour in his peripheral vision.

A stationary bus blocked the lane, the driver and passengers having long since abandoned it. Victor swerved around its left side. He jerked as the front wheel jumped the kerb for a second before dropping back down on to the road, hitting a puddle and splashing up a wall of dirty rainwater.

He saw no pursuing vehicle in his rear-view. No headlights sparkled through raindrops on the rear windscreen. He doubted he had lost it with such ease. He wasn’t prepared to fool himself into thinking so. It was still out there. Still close. Where?

The question was answered as he shot across an intersection and the Ford appeared at his side, swerving from the bisecting road.

Horns sounded as they rounded other cars moving at slow speeds, cautious and sensible drivers taking no risks with the lack of street lights and traffic lights.

The Ford nudged into the passenger side, denting bodywork and forcing Victor to fight the wheel to stay straight. The driver threw him a look of satisfaction that said you’re mine.

The engine roared as he pushed the car for all it had. The Ford stayed with him, the newer vehicle having the advantage in horsepower and torque. He wasn’t going to lose it in a straight-line race.

He yanked the steering wheel, careering into the Ford as it had done to him. Steel buckled. The driver hadn’t expecting Victor to fight back, only to run. Rending metal shrieked. The impact took the Ford driver by surprise and he reacted too hard, fighting the wheel too much. Tyres skidded and screeched on the wet road. The Ford swayed in a lateral back and forth rhythm. The driver, panicking, fought harder to control it. The wrong thing to do.

He lost control. The Ford spun. Black smoke from burnt tyre rubber mixed with the mist of rainwater.

In his rear-view, Victor saw the Ford crash side-on into a parked taxi.

For now, he’d escaped. But the car was a dented, broken wreck. Still drivable, but its plate and description no doubt already gone out to every cop and federal agent in the city. A mile away, he brought the car to a juddering halt and ditched it on a quiet street beneath an overpass.

The air by the river was cold and refreshing. Victor drew in big lungfuls. Looking at the river made him aware of his thirst. His mouth and throat were both dry. He was hungry.

The blackout was helping him in several ways. Without street lights many roads were blocked by traffic or clogged with pedestrians, making the NYPD’s job more difficult. They were struggling to get enough manpower into the area, even if their resources weren’t already strained dealing with an overload of emergency calls. Otherwise there might be forty or more cops in the area by now, sealing it off and searching for him.

He walked away from the car. Even if they weren’t here yet, more agents or cops would be on the way.