Born to Run

compared to the noises around him-ominous splashes, echoes of the one he’d heard upon hooking that bull gator. Two more, five more, ten more.

Gators!

They were fleeing the barrage of bright lights.

Or maybe it was the Secret Service agents diving in to rescue him.

The life jacket should have kept him afloat, but he felt himself sinking into the muck. Or being dragged down. The pain in his chest was now crushing, and he struggled to overcome it, but his mind was swirling. His body felt stiff and unresponsive. His only choice, it seemed, was to respect nature, to become one with black water, to be the third and weakest leg in a bizarre and deadly triangle. One angry gator. Untold pythons.

And Phillip Grayson-the vice president of the United States.

“Sir, give me your hand!” he heard a man shout.

But he couldn’t lift his arm. He couldn’t turn his head to look. He couldn’t move his mouth to speak.

Vice President Grayson couldn’t even breathe.

There was that intense brightness again-the emergency spotlights, or some other kind of light. And then everything was black.

Chapter 3

It was the big one. The other side of the mountain. The downward slope. Half dead. Four-oh.

Forty.

Jack Swyteck was born on December 7, exactly twenty-five years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He’d been stepping on land mines ever since.

“I can’t afford this,” said Jack.

He and his best friend, Theo Knight, were in the chrome-and-glass showroom at Classic Cars of Miami, standing beside a fully restored 1968 Mustang GT-390 Fastback. Jack was on his heels, reeling from sticker shock.

“You can’t afford not to do this,” said Theo.

“I have no desire to make a big deal out of forty.”

“Dude, I said it before: ‘There’s two kinds of people in this world-risk takers and shit takers. Someday, you gotta decide which you’re gonna be when you grow up. And today is that day.”

The Mustang’s Highland Green finish gleamed beneath the halogen lights. Jack could hardly wait to see it in the south Florida sun.

It had been four years since Jack’s beloved 1966 Mustang convertible with pony interior had gone up in flames at the hands of some pissed-off Colombians who had their own special way of getting his attention. Theo was at Jack’s side as the wrecker towed the burned-out shell away-just as he’d been there for Jack’s divorce, Jack’s run for his life in Cote d’Ivoire, and everything in between. Theo was just a teenager when they’d first met, the youngest inmate on Florida’s death row. It took years of legal maneuvering and last-minute appeals, but Jack finally proved Theo’s innocence. Becoming the best of friends with a badass from Miami’s toughest African American gang had not been part of Jack’s plans, but Theo had vowed to pay his lawyer back.

Sometimes, Jack wished he would call it even already.

“You don’t think this smacks of a midlife crisis?” said Jack.

“Dude, your whole life is a crisis.”

The car salesman returned with the keys in hand. Jack’s girlfriend, Andie, was with him. She was smiling-a good sign.

Jack had met FBI agent Andie Henning under the toughest of circumstances: she was tracking a serial kidnapper with his sights on Jack’s girlfriend. She was now officially Jack’s longest steady since his divorce. Even more important-for present purposes, anyway-any woman trained in hostage negotiation had to be able to cut one hell of a deal on a used car.

“Here’s your number,” she said, as she handed him a slip of paper.

Jack checked it. “Nice work,” he said.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“So, let’s see the Mustang run, shall we?” said the salesman.

Andie glanced at the cramped, fold-down backseat and said, “You boys have fun.”

“You’re not coming?” said Jack.

“I have a haircut appointment. I think it’s time for that short, professional look, don’t you?”

Jack was speechless. He loved Andie’s hair-long and raven black. With her amazing green eyes and high, Native American cheekbones, it made her a captivating, exotic beauty.

“You’re going to cut off your hair?” he said with trepidation.

“Naturally. It’s what women do when they-wait a minute. I’m sorry. You’re turning forty, not me. Whew, what a relief.”

“Very funny.”

“Love you,” she said.

The L word had entered their relationship in August. Having watched it slowly evaporate from the vocabulary of his first marriage, Jack didn’t take it lightly.

“Love you too.”

He kissed her good-bye, and it was just Jack, Theo, and their own little piece of automobile history.

Theo snatched the keys from the salesman. “Let’s roll,” he said.

With the push of a button, the salesman opened the showroom door, and then he climbed in the backseat. Theo settled behind the custom leather-grip steering wheel as if the car were made for him.

“Shouldn’t I be driving?” said Jack.

Theo glared. “I’m in the bed naked, about to have sex with Beyonce Knowles, and you’re telling me to move over so you can take a nap?”

“What?”

“It’s a test drive, Swyteck. We ain’t just kickin’ the tires here.”

It was one of the things Jack loved about Theo. He could hurl insults to your face and still make you laugh.

Jack rode shotgun and, with Theo’s turn of the key, smiled at the sound of a perfectly tuned V8. He felt the vibe as the car rolled slowly out of the showroom, and Jack lowered his window. It was one of those mornings that screamed “convertible”-seventy-two degrees, blue skies, not a cloud in sight-but for every perfect December day in Miami there was hell to pay in August. One leaky canvas top on a vintage automobile with crappy air-conditioning was enough in Jack’s lifetime.

The showroom garage door closed automatically behind them, and Theo burned rubber out of the parking lot.

“Easy on the new tires,” said the salesman.

“Sorry,” said Jack, as if it were his fault.

Theo didn’t apologize. He just beat it up U.S. 1.

The salesman made his pitch over the roar of the engine.

“This baby isn’t quite show quality,” he said, “but it’s a dead ringer for the modified Mustang Steve McQueen drove in the Bullitt movie. Highland Green paint. Black interior. Three-ninety big block engine pushing four hundred horsepower. I’ve met dozens of Mustang know-it-alls who swear it was a Shelby flying over the hills of San Francisco in the famous chase scene, but it was a fastback, just like this one. Which is a good thing for you. A restored Shelby in this condition would set you back well into six figures.”

Theo downshifted and stopped at the red light. A couple of fit young women clad in running shorts and breathable tank tops were jogging in place at the curb, waiting for the walk signal. Theo revved the engine as they passed in the crosswalk. The Latina with long legs smiled and waved. Jack waved back.

Theo grabbed Jack’s arm with enough force to break it.