swung west, looping around the city, and changed into the L258. Another half mile brought him to a cloverleaf. He followed the Highway 256 exit, which swung south and east, back into Neuwied proper. As the waters of the Rhine came back into view, he looked in his rearview mirror but saw nothing. But they were there, matching his speed, flowing with the traffic, trying not to attract attention. The police from Hammerstein were also nowhere to be seen, but witnesses from the marina would have been certain of the BMW’s direction. By now, the Neuwied police were on alert.
Fisher passed a sign that read RAIFFEISENBRUCKE 3 KM. He punched the gas pedal and the BMW’s powerful engine responded instantly. As the speedometer swept past 100 kph, then 120, he swerved around cars ahead of him, honking and flashing his lights and gesturing wildly. A half mile back a pair of Mercedes did the same, moving into the passing lane and accelerating.
Now he could see it, the two-lane Raiffeisen Bridge rising from the river, its central A-shaped pylon jutting 150 feet into the sky, angled support cables stretching out like threads from a spider’s web. In the passenger side mirror he saw flashing blue lights. He glanced over his shoulder. A pair of police cars raced up the Sandkauler on- ramp and fell in behind Hansen’s Mercedes.
Two more curves and another kilometer brought Fisher to the bridge. He tapped the brakes, jerked the BMW left, around a slow-moving lorry, and then he was on the span and over the water. To his left, over the railing, he could see the curved dagger shape of Herbstliche Insel — Autumn Island — in the middle of the channel.
Fisher felt his pulse quicken. What he was about to do would either kill him or allow him to slip away and leave no trail whatsoever.
He waited until he saw Hansen’s Mercedes appear on the bridge a few hundred yards behind him, then pushed the accelerator to the floor, putting some distance between himself and the closest following cars. He then slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, with the BMW’s tires straddling the center line. Tires screeched. Horns began honking. Across the center guardrail, traffic in the eastbound lanes was slowing to a crawl.
Fisher closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, tried to block out the blaring car horns, the warbling of the approaching police sirens, the shouting… He looked in his rearview mirror. People were now getting out of their cars, peering at the lone BMW sitting still in the middle of the span. Fisher leaned over, pulled his backpack off the passenger floor, tossed it into the backseat, then closed each of the dashboard vents in turn.
He shifted the BMW into reverse, spun the wheel, and backed up until his rear bumper thudded into the center guardrail and his hood was pointed at the opposite guardrail. He unbuckled his seat belt.
He shifted into drive, took a final calming breath, then jammed the accelerator to the floor.
16
If not for the BMW’s six liter, 537 horsepower engine, Fisher’s escape attempt would have ended before it started, when the car’s front bumper hit the guardrail. But the engine, combined with fine German craftsmanship, was no match for the waist-high rail and the abutting suicide-prevention hurricane fencing — a bit of irony that didn’t escape Fisher’s attention as the BMW tore through the fence and plunged toward the river below. The drop was fifty feet, but trapped inside the car, listening to the banshee wail of the engine and watching horizon and sky and water turn to a smudge before his eyes, it might as well have been a thousand feet.
As it had hundreds of times before, Fisher’s training took over when every muscle of his body wanted to freeze up. He rolled over and threw himself over the seats and onto the floor in the back, atop his backpack. Most victims of bridge collapses die in the front seat, arms braced against the steering wheel or dashboard, every muscle in their body tensed as they stare, transfixed, at the water’s surface rushing up to meet them. Whether being in the backseat would provide any great protection, he was about to find out. He took a deep breath, let it out, and commanded his body to relax.
The BMW stopped dead, as though it had hit a brick wall, which, in terms of physics, was more true than not. From fifty feet up, the car had gained enough momentum that the water’s relative solidity was equal to that of concrete. Fisher was thrown against the seats, and the seats tore free of their floor mounts and slammed into the dashboard and windshield. He felt the BMW porpoise — the hood plunging beneath the surface, then breaching again as the rear of the car slammed down. With a prolonged sputter the engine died.
Fisher groaned, tried to push himself off the seat backs. White-hot pain arced through his chest and he gasped. Having experienced the sensation before, he knew he’d bruised a rib, perhaps more. He craned his neck and peered between the seats. The windshield was intact. He could feel the car settling lower, could see the water boiling up over the windshield and side windows. He heard the gurgle of it pouring through the nooks and crannies in the engine compartment. Water began gushing through the vents. Fisher felt a flash of panic. Words and half- formed images flashed through his mind:
People who survive bridge collapses only to drown in their cars invariably make one fatal mistake: They try to keep the water out, realizing only too late that it is the water pressure that’s keeping them from opening the doors or rolling down windows. Panic sets in, the mind freezes up, and they drown.
Most modern cars are equipped with thick and precision-fitted weather seals, and Fisher’s BMW was no exception. While water was gushing from the vent slats, the door seals were holding, save dozens of rivulets streaming down the glass. These would get worse as the water pressure increased, but he still had time. Teeth set against the pain in his chest, he rolled over and looked out the back window. Light from the surface was fading rapidly; he estimated the car was dropping past twelve feet. The current, which ran at an average of four miles per hour — a walking pace — had taken hold. It would be ten minutes or more before rescue craft arrived on the scene. By then, provided the Rhine was as deep here as he’d guessed, he and the BMW would be a half mile downstream.
Ninety seconds later he was passing thirty feet, and the BMW slipped into complete darkness. Fisher dug an LED headlamp from his jacket pocket, donned it, turned it on. The backseat was bathed in cold, blue-white light. The water pouring from the vents had reached the mangled steering wheel. All around him the car popped and squelched as the exterior pressure increased. Occasionally pockets of air in the engine compartment would find their way out, then bubble past the windows and disappear into the gloom.
Working under the headlamp’s beam, Fisher unzipped the backpack and pulled out a black aluminum cylinder the size of a Pringles potato chip canister. Modeled on the commercial version known as Spare Air, this DARPA- modified miniature scuba tank had been named OmegaO by some long-forgotten techno-geek with a dark sense of humor. Omega for “last,” and
Fed by spring snowmelt, the water was shockingly cold but not so much so that hypothermia was a worry. Not yet at least — not as long as he got out of the water within the next half hour. Fisher wondered how Hansen and his team had reacted. Whether they believed he was dead was a toss-up, but he wasn’t counting on that but rather on the mess with which he’d left them: a high-speed chase ending in a car plummeting off the bridge into the Rhine. If nothing else, his pursuers would be occupied for the next hour or more.
The water was roiling now, being forced into the car under ever-increasing pressure. The level reached his chest. One final time, he checked the OmegaO hanging from the strap around his neck.
With a grating jolt, the BMW hit the riverbed; the car continued to slide for another ten feet until the tires sunk into the mud, bringing it to a halt. He could feel the current buffeting the sides. Water bubbled up to his chin. He got to his knees and, head pressed into the ceiling, donned his backpack. He put on the regulator and punched
