approached the building. A cow was by the fence. It stopped chewing, its large wet eyes on me.
Looking round the corner of the barn, I saw a two-story house close by. There were lights on inside, people round a table. The farming folk had got up early, but they either hadn’t heard the gunfire or it somehow passed for normal around here. I glanced back and saw no sign of pursuit; an ominous silence hung in the damp air. I unslung the M16 and headed toward the building. There was a pickup parked beyond the front door. I would be in full view of the family, but I had no option. I kept to the dark spots in the yard as much as I could and made it to the vehicle without attracting attention.
I saw that the passenger-side door lock was up, but the keys weren’t in the ignition. I opened the door quietly, sliding the rifle to the floor. Then I moved over to the driver’s seat. My American friend Andy’s face swam up in front of me. He’d been in a gang in New Jersey when he was kid and he’d learned all sorts of useful tricks, one of which was hot-wiring cars. I remembered some lessons he’d given me back in London, but it was one thing hot- wiring your own car with no pressure and an expert beside you, quite another a few yards from where the owner was eating and a posse of armed police about to come down the road.
I felt beneath the steering wheel and wrenched out the wires. I could make out the colors in the lights that were shining out from the house, but I wasn’t sure they were the same in the U.S. Shit, my fingers were twitching like a kid’s on a first date. I took a deep breath and tried to remember what Andy had shown me. Fortunately, that strand of my memory seemed to be working perfectly. I stripped the ends of the wires with my fingernails, then twisted a few together. The starter motor gave a dull hum and then the engine turned over. I hit the gas, engaged Reverse, and shot away from the farmhouse. As I moved toward the road, I saw an elderly man in a plaid shirt come out of the farmhouse, waving and shouting.
Looking to the right, I saw a group of police officers in Kevlar jackets, carrying a mixture of rifles, shotguns and pistols. They were about fifty yards away but didn’t seem to notice I was the truck’s driver. I swerved to the left and floored the gas pedal, keeping my pursuers in sight in the mirror. It struck me that a smart operator would have blocked the road in both directions. Then again, a smart operator would have stationed personnel at the rear of the motel.
As I drove, I fumbled under the seats for a road map. No such luck. The farmer would have known his way around blindfolded. Then I remembered the compass. I took it out of my shirt pocket and oriented myself. As soon as possible, I needed to head south, or better, southwest. That much my memory was capable of supplying. There was another junction ahead, with a sign to Interstate 87. I decided to take the smaller road that hugged it for a while and then go for a vehicle upgrade.
A few minutes later, I reckoned the time had come. There was a clump of trees to the right of the road, with a narrow track leading there. I made the turn and drove up the rough surface. There was good cover in the trees and I left the pickup in the most out of sight place I could find. If the farmer found it before the cops did, he could have the M16 with my compliments, though I threw away the half-empty ammunition clip. I made sure the pistols were secure under my belt and jogged back to the road. There was very little traffic and no sign of pursuit yet. I ran onward to the right, the interstate entrance ramp about half a mile ahead in the rapidly brightening dawn. It was touch and go. If an obliging driver passed, maybe I had a chance.
I got to the road that led to the interstate, my lungs straining and my knee beginning to protest. I stuck out my thumb and, to my amazement, the first vehicle slowed and then stopped. It was an eighteen-wheeler carrying a forty-foot container. I stepped up and grabbed the door handle on the nearside.
“’Morning,” said the bearded figure at the wheel. “Cold enough to break a polar bear’s balls.” He grinned at me, running his eyes over me. “You one of those jogger assholes?” He engaged first gear and hauled the load up the incline toward the interstate.
“Uh…no,” I said, putting on an accent that I hoped would pass for Canadian. “Just in a hurry.”
“Where you heading, man?”
I decided to go for broke. “Washington.”
“Well, I can take you as far as Baltimore. That do?”
“Certainly will.” I remembered taking a day trip to the city from D.C. when I was at the crime conference. Joe Greenbaum and I had ended up in a waterside restaurant, eating crab and drinking a ridiculous amount of beer. Which reminded me. I needed to get in touch with Joe.
The driver extended a huge hand and grinned. “Name’s Derek. But you can call me Bo.”
“A perfect ten,” I said, with a laugh, remembering the movie. My memory was behaving more strangely by the minute.
“You got it.”
I decided to play safe in case he tuned into the local radio-station news. “I’m Pete,” I said, suddenly having a glimpse of a completely bald man-my gay friend Peter Satterthwaite.
“You a Canuck?”
“Yeah,” I said, taken aback that my attempt at an accent had hit gold.
“So you gotta like Neil Young.” Bo’s expression had turned grave. There were some things you didn’t joke about.
“Oh, yeah,” I replied.
“Gimme your top five songs.”
This guy was serious about his music. I thought I was going to have to kick-start my memory, but it had things well under control.
“Let’s see. ‘Thrasher,’ ‘Cortez the Killer,’ ‘Ohio,’ ‘Powderfinger’ and ‘Heart of Gold.’”
“Yeah!” Bo shouted, holding up an open hand. “Four out of five ain’t bad.”
I made the high five and grinned. “No points for ‘Heart of Gold,’ eh?”
He grunted. “Middle-of-the-road bullshit.”
I thought of the blonde woman called Karen. “The girlfriend likes it,” I said.
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” Bo said with a grin. “Whatever the little lady wants…”
I swallowed a laugh. If Karen had heard herself described in those terms, the bearded man would have been wondering where his reproductive organs had suddenly gone.
“So,” he said, passing another container truck, “what you got on in D.C.?”
I shrugged. “Meeting up with some friends.”
“What is it you do, Pete?”
I went with what made the real Pete his first million. “Computers.”
Bo glanced at me. “Is that right? I hate the fucking things.”
That was good. He wasn’t going to catch me out on techie particulars. “Yeah, well, I guess you don’t have much call for them in your line of work.”
“True,” he said, almost wistfully. “I just sit here all day driving other people’s stuff, a slave to the machine.”
I looked at him. I hadn’t expected to come across a revolutionary in the cab. He deserved encouragement. “You need to make a stand, Bo. What’s in the box?”
“Lobsters,” he said, shaking his head. “Rich folks’ chow.”
“You could always turn the heating up.”
He laughed bitterly.
I smiled. When he slid a CD into the player, I sat back in the comfortable seat as the unmistakable chords of Neil’s Rust Never Sleeps rang out. In a few seconds, I was miles away. Way across the Atlantic, in fact…
…watching Gavin Burdett as he comes out of the investment bank where he works in the City of London and heads to Bank underground station. He’s wearing one of those deeply untrendy gray coats with a black collar. The heels of his highly polished and doubtlessly ridiculously expensive shoes ring out on the pavement. I take up position about five yards behind him and start the tail.
I’m doing it for two reasons. The first is that effective tailing requires regular practice. Ever since Sara’s first threat, I’ve acquired as many useful skills as I can. The second is that Gavin Burdett is the chief suspect in Karen’s current major case-but she’s run up against the buffers with him, stymied by his lawyers and the care he’s taken to obscure his activities. I’ve been writing articles on transnational financial crime, so I have my own interest in nailing him. But I want to help my lover out, too. She’s confined by the parameters within which the police have to work. I have no such problem. Of course, if I do anything to bring Karen’s case into jeopardy, she’ll tie my intestines round
