The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER NINE

“So you were right there and you forgot to pick up the Uzi?” Lea asked.

Hawke gave her a sideways glance, but said nothing.

“But I thought you were perfect, Joe Hawke. I’m so disappointed.”

“I got this thing, didn’t I?” he said, waving the strange golden semi-circle at her.

“Er, guys,” Ryan said, pointing at Vetsch. “Psychotic gunman on a Harley coming this way fast.”

“Sometimes he makes a good point,” Hawke said.

They climbed back into the battered hot rod and mounted the sidewalk in order to get away from the traffic. A block later they were in another car park, which they traversed with as much speed as they could, but Vetsch was behind them and closing fast.

Hawke drove onto Columbus Avenue amidst a hail of automatic fire from Vetsch, almost upon them now as he easily outmanouvered them in the faster and more agile Harley.

“Brace yourselves!” Hawke shouted. He slammed on the brakes, slowing rapidly and causing the Harley almost to go into the back of them.

“Get down, Ryan!” Lea shouted.

He ducked and a second later she blew out the back window. “Only two more shots left,” she said coolly.

“And with your aim that’s no joke,” replied Hawke.

Vetsch dropped back, the deep tones of the Harley’s shovelhead V-twin engine roaring against the Columbus Avenue Brownstones. Somewhere behind him they heard yet more sirens as the NYPD worked out where the trouble was and gave chase.

They weaved the hot rod neatly in and out of the traffic on Columbus and then Hawke swung the wheel hard to the right and skidded into West 86th Street so fast they nearly tipped the thing over.

The Harley made the corner more easily, and seconds later was alongside them. Vetsch was laughing maniacally as he casually pointed the Uzi at the Ford.

Hawke waited a split second then skidded into the Harley. The gun fired, spraying bullets up the front wing and into the cab before they collided with the bike and sent it flying off haphazardly toward a line of parked cars on the right side of the road.

“Newton’s First Law of Motion, baby!” Ryan shouted through the window at Vetsch who was now struggling to maintain control of the Harley. “You gotta love it!”

“Don’t speak so soon, Ryan.” Lea craned forward to look in her rear-view. “It's not over yet.”

Hawke heard the rasp of the Harley as it accelerated once again.

“He’s a determined little fellow,” he said. “I’ll give him that.”

Vetsch pulled alongside a second time and fired a long burst of bullets up the side of the car.

“Everyone get your head down, now!” Hawke screamed.

A second burst — what the SBS called the old ‘lead wasps’ — smashed the rear window and whistled past Hawke’s ear before thudding into the windshield with incredible velocity.

Ryan screamed again and put his head between his legs.

“Checking to see if you wet yourself, Rupert?” Hawke said.

“No I am not!” came the muffled reply. “And my name is Ryan!”

Lea sighed. “What is this, a dick-measuring competition?”

“He started it!” Hawke protested.

“I don’t think so — I think Mr Testosterone here started it.”

“Just pack it in, you two,” she said. She turned to Hawke to reply, but something caught her eye. “You’re hit!”

Hawke leaned forward to look in his mirror. “That’s nothing,” he said, wiping a line of blood off his cheek. “Just a flesh wound.”

“Sodding hell, Joe,” said Ryan. “You got shot in the face with an Uzi!”

“It’s nothing,” he repeated, keeping an eye on the traffic ahead while at the same time monitoring Vetsch’s progress behind them.

Thanks to a UPS truck parked up with its hazard lights flashing, the road ahead narrowed and they only just got through the gap.

Lea took out her iPhone and flicked to maps. “Nothing ahead but water, Joe.”

“Eh?”

“Those trees up there — see — that’s pretty much where Manhattan ends and the Hudson River begins.”

Hawke looked down at the speed — seventy-five miles per hour now, and racing in and out of traffic on West 86th. Behind them Vetsch kept pace, swerving from side to side like a madman, and then he fired another burst into the rear of the hot rod.

Behind Vetsch, Hawke saw the unmistakeable blue flashes of the police.

“When in doubt, go faster,” Hawke said, and stamped harder on the throttle. They all felt the jolt as the large engine instantly produced more power and the hot rod shot forward like a drag car. Hawke was beginning to enjoy himself again.

“Did you actually pass your driving test?” Ryan said.

“I’ve been driving since you were in nappies,” was Hawke’s blunt response. “If you don’t like it you can always get out and walk.”

Hawke dropped a gear and accelerated the Ford once again, haphazardly steering the old hot rod in and out of the busy Manhattan traffic in an attempt to lose the much faster Harley on their tail. The suped-up engine roared noisily as the car thundered forward.

“Watch out, Joe!” Lea shouted. “Lights!”

“Yes, thanks — I am looking out the same window as you are.”

They burned through a red light and skidded across a junction with seconds to spare, but Vetsch, insane in his pursuit of the golden disc fragment wasn't so lucky.

A Maybach pulled out on a green light and Vetsch rammed into it. As the old bike smashed into the front of the tank-like car, it stopped with a simple crunching sound and smashed into the wing.

Vetsch didn’t share the same fate. He was propelled from the seat of the Harley, Uzi still gripped in his hand, and flung like a stone from a caterpault through the air. He sailed across the junction and landed in the back of a passing garbage truck.

“Good riddance to…”

“Don’t even say it, Joe,” Lea said, sighing. “Don't even think about saying it.”

“Sorry. But at least that’s one problem out of the way.”

They watched as Vetsch tried to scramble out of the garbage in the back of the truck, his face twisting into a scowling mask of humiliation and revenge. His death threats were drowned out by the roar of the truck’s engine as it accelerated away from the junction.

“So what’s next?” Ryan asked.

They watched the garbage truck fade into the traffic beyond.

Hawke’s eyes returned to the road ahead. “We go and take a look at that golden fragment. Then I want a steak and some beer before I go and take out every one of those bastards who have been trying to ruin my day.”