pinning him in the gunman’s sights.
Another intersection—
Eddie made a hard left turn, slipping between two cars waiting at the junction and riding up on to Taylor Street’s sidewalk. A pedestrian ahead - he jerked the handlebars, passing so close that his arm brushed against her.
The second biker dropped back to get a better firing angle. Head low, Eddie shot past another startled pedestrian. A green glow in the mist ahead - traffic lights at a crossroads. The biker would have a clear shot as he crossed the junction.
A shape in the fog, a man with an umbrella—
Eddie snatched the umbrella from his hand as he passed. The slipstream immediately snapped it inside out as he held it up to the wind. It flapped behind him like the broken wing of a bat.
Intersection—
Eddie swung back on to Taylor Street proper, crossing directly in front of the other bike. He whipped the ruined umbrella into the rider’s face. With his helmet and heavy leathers as protection, its flimsy spokes and fluttering fabric couldn’t hurt him . . .
But it could block his vision.
Only for a second, as he raised his gun hand to bat away the obstruction—
Eddie didn’t even need that long. Braking fiercely, he swerved to shoulder-barge the other man into a parked van.
There was a huge bang as the Honda came to an abrupt stop, its rider flipping over the handlebars to slam spread-eagled against the van’s flat back. He hung for a moment like a pinned butterfly, then dropped twistedly on to the mangled bike.
Eddie didn’t look back - the noise of impact was enough to tell him he had nothing further to worry about from that quarter.
The dead biker’s comrade was another matter. He swept towards Eddie, gun at the ready.
‘They’re heading north on Taylor!’ Boyce breathlessly reported as Nina turned and accelerated up the hill, the siren encouraging confused drivers who had become embroiled in the chase to move out of their way.
‘Roger that, Mr Mayor,’ said the dispatcher. ‘Units are moving to intercept.’
‘Where does this road go?’ Nina asked.
‘To the top of a big hill . . . and then down again,’ said Boyce, checking his mental map of the city. ‘But they could be going anywhere from here.’
Nina wasn’t sure about that. The robbers had a reason for taking this particular route. But as she didn’t know San Francisco’s geography, it eluded her. All she could do was keep following, and hope the SFPD would trap them.
Over the snarl of the Bowler’s engine, Zec heard sirens ahead - distant, but closing. ‘What if they beat us to the top?’
‘Make sure they don’t,’ Fernandez told him. Zec got the message and pushed the accelerator harder. The Nemesis overtook a crawling Volkswagen Beetle and powered up a steep section of the hill, an intersection approaching fast—
The blocky bulk of a cable car loomed through the fog to their right on a collision course.
‘
Behind, the cable car screeched to a stop in the middle of the crossroads, blocking the street.
Eddie and the biker ducked and swerved in a deadly two-wheeled dance. The MP5K spat fire; Eddie heard - and felt - a burst of bullets crack past as he veered back across the street.
The other man tried to cut behind him. Eddie braked and swung the other way. If the raider got on his tail, it would expose him to an attack from behind. But if he slowed too much, he would make himself an easy target.
The road ahead steepened sharply, the front forks of both bikes compressing with a
Eddie saw his chance.
He blasted past the other man, racing up the hill. A VW was in one lane at the top; he moved to pass it. He needed to open up a gap on his enemy and catch the Nemesis. If he got close enough to the 4x4, it might deter the other man from firing.
An intersection was just ahead—
And a cable car right in his path!
5
There was no way Eddie could turn fast enough to avoid the tram - and if he stopped, his pursuer would kill him.
If he couldn’t go
He twisted the throttle as far as it would go and aimed at the sloping rear of the Beetle, pulling the bike into a wheelie. The Honda slammed into the back of the Volkswagen - and continued up over it. The rear window shattered, metal buckling under the bike’s weight, but Eddie was already clear, flying skywards . . .
Over the cable car.
The biker was less lucky, not seeing the tram through the fog until it was too late—
He smashed into its side at over sixty miles an hour.
The XR650R disintegrated into a mangled scrap as it hit the tram’s heavy steel chassis. Its rider was thrown through antique wood and glass panels, bursting from the cable car’s other side to crash down in the intersection of Taylor and California Streets - minus an arm, which spun past and bounced along the road.
A painful impact pounded up Eddie’s spine as he landed. He swerved violently to avoid the severed arm. Headlights loomed in his path. This section of Taylor Street had two-way traffic, increasing the risk of a head-on collision. He yelled and swung to the right, bringing the bike back up to speed after the retreating lights.
‘Car 643, 643,’ said the dispatcher. ‘LoJack shows you on Taylor approaching Pine, please confirm.’
‘This is the mayor,’ said Boyce into the handset. ‘I confirm.’
‘Be advised of a traffic incident at California and Taylor, use caution. Units are setting up roadblocks ahead of you. Other units about to enter pursuit from both sides of Washington.’
‘Excellent work, dispatch, thank you,’ said Boyce, voice switching effortlessly from panicked passenger to patronising politician.
‘What does that mean?’ Nina asked.
‘It means,’ he said with rising excitement, ‘they’re completely boxed in. We’ve got them!’
The Nemesis shot across the junction of Taylor and Washington. Zec glanced nervously to his right, seeing red and blue strobe lights cutting through the fog towards him. Another SFPD cruiser was powering down the hill to the left, further away.
‘Just stay ahead of them,’ said Fernandez, voice tense but confident. ‘Only four more blocks . . .’
Eddie heard multiple sirens ahead, getting louder. If they could cut off the Nemesis—
No such luck. Flashing lights swept out of a street to the right
