The Genesis Plague

29

‘Red light!’ Brooke yelled, throwing both hands on to the dashboard. Instead of slowing, Agent Flaherty stomped on the accelerator and blew through the intersection. He nearly clipped a green and white taxi that was cutting along Belvidere Street. The taxi slid to a stop in the busy crosswalk outside Prudential Center’s south exit.

‘Just hold tight,’ he said. In the mirror, he saw the Ford Explorer weave erratically around the taxi and shoot forward in pursuit.

‘Are you crazy! What are you—!’

‘That’s him in the Explorer … behind us.’

She turned to get a look. ‘Oh my God…’ she gasped. ‘Does this thing have airbags?’ she nervously asked, staying low in the seat.

He didn’t reply, and focused on the traffic up ahead. A meandering canary-yellow duck boat chugged along the centre lane, splitting between a bus in the slow lane and a car easing to queue for a left turn where signboards pointed to Prudential Center’s underground parking lot.

Flaherty’s anxiety spiked. ‘Come on … come on!‘ he yelled at the half boat, half truck.

‘You can’t stop!’

‘I know …’

He considered an evasive U-turn along the wide avenue, but the traffic coming in the opposite direction was too thick and allowed no adequate opening.

Any hope of making a right on to Garrison was instantly dashed as the bus eased to a stop with its right blinker on, waiting for pedestrians to cross the side street. The Chrysler Concorde’s front bumper practically kissed the duck boat’s rear as Flaherty angled around the bus. The rowdy tourists on board the modified WWII amphibious troop carrier began quacking loudly, just like they’d been told by the driver at the tour’s inception. Having been cheated of a full tour, thanks to the frozen Charles River, their pent-up energy was now fully directed at Flaherty’s Concorde. Under better circumstances, Flaherty might have thought the scene comical.

An aggressively driven taxi slipped in behind him, one step ahead of the Explorer. Flaherty expected the Explorer to move in behind the taxi, but it didn’t. His eyes darted back to the road. The next opportunity to make a turn would come on Harcourt Street, just ahead on the right. However, he could see that that walkway was also clogged with pedestrians.

‘Shit,’ he growled. Staying the course towards the bottleneck at Copley Square was a losing proposition.

‘Look out!’ Brooke yelled, pointing out his side window.

Flaherty turned just as the Explorer swerved into the centre lane and forced the duck boat to fall back with a dissenting blow of its air horn. The Explorer’s passenger window was already down and Flaherty glimpsed the assassin steadying the gun for a clear shot.

‘Down!’ Flaherty yelled. He ducked low and jammed on the accelerator just as the assassin fired a triple shot. The rounds blew Flaherty’s window into a thousand pieces. Luckily, Brooke had already squirmed down on to the floor, because the slugs that would have cut through her neck instead pounded through the door handle on the passenger-side door.

Flaherty popped up again.

The assassin nearly slammed into a bus that stopped abruptly in the centre lane, but made a hard turn that put the Explorer directly behind the Concorde, in the same spot the alarmed taxi driver had abandoned a split second earlier.

As Flaherty was about to pass under the enclosed pedestrian bridge that connected Prudential Center to the Copley Place shopping mall he saw nothing but taillights flashing red all the way to the split for Stuart Street. Worse yet, the bus had boxed him in on the left. Even steering up on to the crowded sidewalk and mowing a path through pedestrians would only get him so far.

If the assassin did manage to push him into the gridlock, things would get very ugly very fast. That left only one possibility — to outrun the Explorer; the worst possible scenario.

‘Here we go,’ he grimly warned Brooke.

Crouched low, Brooke saw the narrow pedestrian bridge sweep overhead, just before Flaherty cut a hard right that threw her up against his legs hard enough to make her see stars.

The Concorde careened through a line of garbage-can-sized orange construction barricades, giving the Explorer the split second needed to close the gap. The assassin drove full speed into the Concorde’s rear, shattering plastic and snarling metal. The trajectory of the impact nearly sent the Explorer into a spin, but did little to stymie the Concorde’s forward advance. The assassin righted the wheel and got the Explorer back on track.

The roadway fed into a wide tunnel with tiled walls and began a sharp descent beneath Copley Place. The Concorde’s tyres squealed as Flaherty steered into the bend.

Brooke was disoriented by what little she could see: ceiling tiles and lights. ‘You turned into a garage? What—?’

‘Not a garage. I’m taking a shortcut to the Mass Pike.’

‘Shortcut?’ That’s when she realized what he meant. ‘You’re going down into the tunnel?’

He nodded.

She’d driven this ramp many times — a main exit for Interstate 90, which the ambitious Big Dig had diverted through massive tunnels snaked deep below the city centre. Problem being that she knew the traffic flow only went up. ‘This tunnel is a one-way exit! You’re going the wrong—’

‘I know! I know …’ He checked the mirror and could see the Explorer’s headlights skimming the curved wall behind him. ‘The ramp’s closed for construction. It’s okay.’

But up ahead, where the ramp merged at a Y, he spotted a contradiction to what he’d just told her — a hulking utility truck mounted with bright lights and workers in hardhats repairing tiles in the tunnel ceiling.

Not okay, he thought.

The truck was at a standstill in the centre of the roadway with barely any room to spare to its right. But there was no stopping now, thought Flaherty.

He punched the accelerator and leaned on the horn.

Seeing the headlights racing towards them, the befuddled workmen barely had time to react. They hit the deck and grabbed hold of the safety rail that looped around the truck’s platform, fully anticipating a violent collision. One brave worker vaulted the rail and dropped clumsily to the roadway before scurrying out of view.

Flaherty gripped the wheel at ten to two, pulled slightly to the right to aim for the narrow opening. He winced on the approach and clenched his teeth.

The wide-bodied Concorde slipped cleanly through the gap with inches to spare on either side. But not fifteen metres ahead, a second truck blocked his lane. Flaherty corrected the wheel hard to the left and slalomed around the truck, so close that the passenger-side rearview mirror sheared off with a loud clack.

His heart was in overdrive and adrenaline had all his senses buzzing. And knowing that the most dangerous leg of this obstacle course still lay ahead only added to his anxiety.

In his remaining side mirror he saw the Explorer bob and weave to avoid the second truck. But the assassin’s slight miscalculation ground the Explorer’s metal side panels along the tunnel wall with a showering plume of orange sparks. It cost the assassin precious seconds, but he quickly resumed the chase.

‘Son of a bitch. Can’t shake him,’ Flaherty grumbled.

He focused again on the tunnel, which now began arcing downward like the curl of a question mark. He braked lightly along the sharp bend that gradually semicircled until yielding to a long and empty straightaway. He hit the gas hard again and the surreal sensation of rocketing through the tunnel’s tight confines made him feel like a bullet being shot through the barrel of a gun — the lights whipping by.

Knowing the worst was yet to come, he clamped his hands tighter around the wheel.

The straightaway angled slightly and Flaherty spotted construction barriers topped with flashing amber lights shaped like lollipops. Immediately beyond the cordon, the ramp tunnel yawned open where it joined the wide interstate tunnel at an extremely tight Y. However, with Flaherty coming the wrong way down the ramp the turn would be treacherous. He could see the headlights of vehicles zipping through the tunnel at highway speed, as well as the formidable cement barricades that lined the tunnel median.

He drew breath, held it, stomped on the brake pedal. The car bowled through the barriers, flinging them up and out. He pulled the wheel all the way to the right and the car commenced a runaway spin into the oncoming traffic.

The next second was a blur of screeching tyres and blaring horns.

The Concorde dragged heavily across the roadway, managed to avoid hitting a sedan cruising along the slow lane, but careened sideways into a yellow moving truck that was speeding in the fast lane. Flaherty felt the Concorde’s front end crumple and snap. The collision was bone crunching, but prevented the Concorde from striking the cement median, even managed to pull the car straight with forward momentum. Disbelieving that he was still alive and that the truck’s driver had enough wherewithal to not lose control, Flaherty immediately hit the accelerator and cranked at the wheel to tug free from the truck. The manoeuvre blew out the truck’s front tyre, forcing it to roll to a stop.

‘Sorry, buddy,’ Flaherty muttered.

Flaherty’s heart nearly gave out when he heard a bellowing air horn that could only belong to a very large truck. All his muscles went tight as his eyes snapped to his side mirror. He saw the Explorer cut blindly into the roadway — a grave miscalculation that put the assassin directly into the path of a hulking semi. The big-rig locked its brakes … the cab jostling madly from side to side … the tractor swinging wide with its locked tyres churning grey smoke.

But still the Explorer couldn’t accelerate fast enough to skirt the semi, which struck with brute force. The Explorer seemed to explode into a thousand pieces — glass and metal shooting out in all directions.

Flaherty barely glimpsed the assassin’s body as it was catapulted out through the Explorer’s windshield, over the median, and into the windshield of another big eighteen-wheeler barrelling through the Pike’s westbound tube.

In the side mirror, he stole a final glimpse of the jackknifed tractor trailer and the mangled Explorer. Then he sped off through the tunnel.