The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [30]
‘They’re going east, so right,’ Boyce told her. An intersection ahead; she turned the wheel sharply to make the turn. ‘No, not this right! It’s a one-way—’
A single headlight in their path—
They both screamed as Nina swerved on to the sidewalk to dodge the cable car clanking up Jackson Street. The Charger’s side scraped a wall, sending up a shower of sparks and smashing the wing mirror as the tram rumbled past.
‘Okay,’ Nina gasped as she straightened out, ‘you tell me things like that before I turn from now on, okay?’ A car was also coming up the hill, but the strobes and siren prompted it to dart out of her way. ‘You know the city - where are they going?’
Boyce had gripped the shotgun rack for support, and forced himself to release his clenched hands. ‘I - I don’t know. If they want to get out of the city, the only routes from here are the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate - but they’re not heading towards either of them.’
‘So what’s in the direction they’re going?’
‘Just the marina. We’re less than a mile from it.’
‘They must have a boat,’ Nina realised. She indicated the radio. ‘Tell the cops they need to get to the waterfront!’
The robbers followed a zig-zagging course across the city grid before heading east again, now speeding up Union Street. The road ahead rose steeply as it climbed the western flank of Telegraph Hill, a park topped by the white pillar of Coit Tower at its summit.
Fernandez checked the mirror. The Honda’s headlight was still behind them in the fog, an irritating gnat that just wouldn’t go away. The Spaniard had been over every centimetre of the route before; he thought for a moment, then picked up the radio to issue a command.
Even the mighty XR650R was labouring on the incline, but Eddie saw the hilltop ahead. The Nemesis crested it, engine growl fading. He eased off on the throttle, not wanting to make a flying leap into the unknown when he reached the summit.
The fog was lighter on the hill’s eastern side, the lights of the Bay Bridge dimly visible in the distance. The road forked, to the right making a ninety-degree turn, the left route continuing a short way downhill before doing the same.
No sign of the Nemesis. Which way had it gone?
Eddie could still hear the raw snarl of its engine somewhere below. He went left. Lights blinked ahead, warning of construction and remodelling work on a house built on the steep hillside. He turned the corner—
And rode into a storm of gunfire.
Bullets blazed from an MP5K, a biker stationary in front of a smashed fence at the road’s end. Eddie glimpsed the Nemesis disappearing down the steep wooded hill beyond it - but the only thing on his mind was staying alive. No time to turn and retreat.
He twisted the throttle - and crashed the bike through a barrier, flashing lights scattering as he ripped through plastic sheeting into the house.
The raider tracked him, plaster and lath no obstacle for 9mm sub-machine gun rounds. Debris stabbed at his face and hands, tools and paint cans scattering under his wheels.
The bullets got closer. As did the far wall—
He didn’t stop.
Another sheet of plastic burst apart as he ploughed the Honda through it into open air, the hillside whirling below him . . .
He landed with a painful slam on the roof of another house, the next in a steeply stepped terrace running down the hillside. But he knew even as he clenched the brake levers that he was going too fast to stop before the edge.
Falling—
A hard landing on another house. The tyres tore at the roofing felt, skidding, but he still couldn’t stop . . .
‘Shiiiiiit—’
Eddie hit the last roof, finally halting less than a foot from the edge. He looked down at the treetops below, suppressing a shudder.
Noise to his right, glimpses of lights bouncing down the hill through more trees. He projected their course to a street at the foot of the hillside. Above, police sirens wailed in useless confusion as the cops arrived and once more found themselves with nowhere to go.
Eddie surveyed the