Lifeguard - James Patterson [61]
Then I glanced behind.
Oh, man!
The Hummer was back on our tail. And so was a black Mercedes. Only this time it was worse. Way worse. A projectile zipped by my ear with this piercing whine. Then another.
The bastards were shooting at us.
I clutched Champ tightly by the waist. “Geoff, hit it!”
“Aheadaya, mate!”
The Ducati jerked, righted itself, then blasted forward into some kind of kited-up supergear.
We shot by more big-time mansions, the wind and the salt from the ocean breeze lashing at my eyes. I saw the speedometer hit ninety, a hundred, a hundred ten . . . one twenty. We both tucked our bodies as far forward as we could. Face to the metal, ass in the air. We put some distance between us and the two cars.
Finally we approached the end of a brief straightaway. Trump’s place, Mar-a-Lago, was on our right. We rounded a steep curve, and then . . .
The South Bridge was in sight.
I took a last look behind. The Hummer was about a hundred yards back. We were going to be okay.
Then I felt the Ducati go into a giant downshift. I heard Geoff yell, “Oh, shit!”
I looked forward and I couldn’t believe it.
A Boston Whaler was putt-putting its way up the Intercoastal. My heart was going putt-putt, too—only really fast.
The bridge was going up.
Chapter 72
THE BRIDGE BELL was clanging. The guardrail was already going down. A line of cars and gardeners’ trucks was starting to back up.
The Hummer was coming up behind us.
We had seconds to decide what to do.
Geoff slowed, falling in at the end of a line of cars. The Hummer slowed as well, seeing that we were squeezed in—caught.
We could do a 180 and try to get past them, but they had guns. Maybe we could zip around the circle and head farther south, past Sloan’s Curve, but there was no way off the island until past Lake Worth, miles.
“Okay,” I yelled over the sputtering bike. “I’m taking ideas here, Geoff.”
But he had already made up his mind. “Hold on,” he said, staring ahead, gassing the engine hard. “Tight!”
My eyes widened as I saw what he had in mind. “You know what you’re doing?”
“Sorry, buddy”—he glanced behind one more time—“this one’s new even for me. . . .”
He jerked the Ducati out of line and gunned the huge bike forward, right under the guardrail. My stomach started to crawl up toward my throat. The bridge was opening now. First a couple of feet, then five, ten.
The bike started to climb up the slowly rising platform. “Stay bloody low!” Geoff yelled.
We zoomed up the ramp with the engine blasting, the g-force slamming my ribs. I had no idea how much space separated us from the other side of the bridge. I was tucked into a crouch, and I was praying.
We lifted off the edge of the road and into the air at about a sixty-degree angle. I don’t know how long we stayed airborne. I kept my face pressed to Geoff’s back, expecting to feel some out-of-control, spinning panic, then free fall, and finally the crash that would separate my body into parts.
But all there was, was this amazing sensation. How a bird must feel—soaring, gliding, weightless. No sound. Then Champ’s voice, whooping: “We’re going to make it!”
I opened my eyes just in time to see the tip of the oncoming bridge coming toward us, and we cleared it, our front wheel perfectly elevated. We careened off the pavement, my stomach lurching. I expected to fly off and braced for the crash, but Geoff held the landing.
We bounced a few more times, then he sort of touched the brakes and the bike glided down the platform. We’d made it! I couldn’t believe it.
“How’s that!” Geoff hooted, coasting to a stop in front of a backup of cars on the other side of the bridge. We were in front of a woman in a minivan, her eyes as large as dinner plates. “Eight-five on the dismount, maybe, but I’d say the landing was a perfect ten. . .