Driven (27 page)

H
e turned away,” Bill yelled.

Gavin’s immediate relief was tempered by the distance they had to cover to catch the boat. Amy was still hostage in this horrific
cat-and-mouse game.

Instead of traveling directly toward each other, Bill and his friend were aiming for a common intersection, angling toward
the fleeing lobster boat. The racer slowed to the speed of the ultralight as Bill aligned with it, about fifty feet above.
Gavin eyed the boat, which was long and narrow, like a bullet.
Sudden Pleasure
was marked on the yellow ocean racer in bold orange letters with black shadows.

Bill lowered the ultralight until the inflated monofloat pontoon was but a few feet from the racer’s windshield.

“You first, Detective. Move slow and steady. You’ve got to hang from the pontoon mount and drop. Easy as pie,” Bill yelled.

Gavin could not have been happier to get off the flying machine
and into a boat. He quickly and confidently shimmied down and hung from the pontoon. He had no fears at this height. The worst
that could happen would be that he missed the boat and got wet. He let go and fell softly to a crouch on the engine cover.
He looked back up and saw Bill motioning for Buck to follow.

“No!” Between the noise of the ultralight and the boat Gavin couldn’t hear Buck’s cry, but could read his lips clearly. The
preacher, who had shown no fear while flying through the air at two thousand feet in little more than a motorized kite, had
drawn the line. Gavin, not wanting to lose a second of precious time, motioned angrily for Buck to try. Obviously knowing
his limitations, Buck refused.

Gavin considered going on without him. But what if things turned out like that ordeal with Sabah? How much worse would Krogan
be? Frustrated, he hopped into the plush, vinyl cockpit alongside Bill’s friend, who appeared to be in his early forties.
The man turned to Gavin, offering his hand. His wide, friendly grin made Gavin feel like he already knew him.

“Hi! I’m Vinny.”

“Gavin. I’ll buy the boat and give you whatever you want for driving,” Gavin said.

“Forget the driving fee,”Vinny said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It comes with the boat. But you could put me down
for one of those PBA badges.”

“Done. Did Bill tell you who we’re after?”

“Yeah. That’s another reason the ride’s free. I’ve been docking at the Hempstead Harbor Marina for years. I didn’t know the
guy who got killed, but the owner of the sailboat that idiot wrecked is a good friend of mine. No one has any idea how many
long hours he put into that boat, trying to make a business of chartering it,” Vinny said, shaking his head. “But why Bill
and me? Where’s the police?”

“I am the police and there’s no time for backup. But Bill’s going to have to land that thing to get my friend off,” Gavin
said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb to the bobbing aircraft.

Vinny nodded, glancing up at Bill and pointing out ahead of the boat. Bill visually acknowledged with a thumbs-up, then veered
away like a huge, rainbow-colored prehistoric bird. Vinny pulled back on two chrome levers, throttling down the powerful engines
to a low, bubbling rumble. For the first time since takeoff, Gavin could hear, though a buzzing sound in his ears remained.

Unlike the takeoff, the area needed for landing was short. Once the pontoon touched the water, the aircraft slowed to a stop
quickly. Bill shut the engine off as Vinny pulled up next to him under the wing. Buck wasted no time in unbuckling his seat
belt and stepping onto the pontoon. But when he tried to hand off the mysterious wooden chest to Gavin, a wind gust hit the
wing and separated the two crafts, leaving Buck with a decision to make: either drop the chest and grab onto the ultralight’s
rising struts, or fall into the water with the chest. He dropped it.

“Get it,” he pleaded urgently to Gavin. “Don’t let it open.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Gavin screamed as he took his cell phone from his pocket, tossed it to Vinny, and jumped into
the water. The chest was beginning to sink, but Gavin reached it before it vanished with its unknown cargo. He swam to the
rear of the boat and handed the chest up to Vinny, then climbed up the ladder Vinny had unfolded for him.

Buck had already scrambled onto the boat and Vinny was powering up again when Gavin’s phone rang. Gavin grabbed it.

“About time,” he said into the receiver as the racer shot forward, leaving Bill and his plane to take off again behind them.

“About time? This is the third time I’ve called. What’s going on, Gav?” Chris said.

“Can’t talk about it now. What have ya got for me?”

“A Coast Guard boat called the
USS New York.
An eighty-foot sailboat called
Freedom.
”

“Where’s it kept?”

“Montauk Point.”

“No. Next.” As he spoke, his eyes scanned the area ahead of them, searching for Krogan and Amy. He hoped the delay wouldn’t
prove deadly.

“
Miss New York
and
Miss Freedom
are two of the three ferries that leave Battery Park for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island every half hour. The third
one is
Miss Ellis Island.
”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, about fifty variations on the theme, but then we’re talkin’ dinghies, rowboats, skiffs, and small ski boats.”

“Then I guess that’s it.”

“What’s it? What are you talking about?”

“Gotta go,” Gavin said and hung up. Buck was examining his precious chest.

“What’s in that thing?” Vinny said over the noise of the engine.

“A one-room apartment,” Buck said, opening the chest and peeking inside.

“You okay?” Gavin said.

Buck nodded. “Just fine. Did your partner find any boats with the right name?”

“Too many, but there’s a
Miss Freedom
and a
Miss New York
that ferry tourists to the Statue of Liberty. That’s the direction Krogan’s heading. But why go all that way when he could
have done the same damage to that party boat?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. Like people, demons have varying personalities. They all stand before a watchful arena of spirits,
both light and dark. They’re all proud and like showing off to one another. Demons also spend a lot of time trying to own
what doesn’t belong to them. Krogan’s host is a fisherman and there are fish markets
in the waters near the Statue of Liberty. It’s not inconceivable that one of the ferries happened to get in his way at one
time or another. Vengance is a big part of why Krogan does what he does.”

Gavin inwardly shook his head. If Buck had tried to tell him this spiritual stuff even this morning, before Sabah, he would
simply have laughed and rejected it. Now he wasn’t about to argue with him about anything.

“In other words, Krogan might have a score to settle with one of the ferries and might have a better opportunity with this
host than his next,” he said, amazed to find spiritual logic coming from his own mouth.

Buck looked impressed. “Very possible.”

“Can we get to the Statue of Liberty before the lobster boat?” Gavin asked Vinny.

“I don’t know.” He radioed to Bill, and a minute later the ultralight was flying a straight path toward the Statue of Liberty
and
Sudden Pleasure
was roaring under the Throgs Neck and then the Whitestone Bridges with little more than the propellers touching the water,
Manhattan’s jagged skyline straight ahead. The racer’s chrome throttle levers were all full ahead and Vinny’s face was set
like stone against the seventy-mile-an-hour wind. His focus at this speed was intense.

Gavin’s eyes widened as a large tugboat crossed ahead of them. Vinny adjusted their path to avoid it but the tug’s steep,
rolling wake was coming up fast. “Hold the bar,” was all Vinny said. He gave a lightning-quick nod toward a chrome bar on
the padded dashboard before him. A second later they hit the wake and were airborne. After a long moment the racer landed
with a thump and aggressively settled back into its rhythmic gallop. The Rikers Island Prison passed by quickly on their left.

Gavin suddenly glanced at his watch and cursed.
Katz.
He’d forgotten about Katz. Crawling into the long, dark cabin, where the
noise was slightly diminished, he dialed Karianne’s apartment, hoping Sabah’s voice would not be the one to answer.

The phone rang twice and Karianne’s machine picked up. This was not an unexpected option. Throughout all the hypnotic sessions
her machine had intercepted all incoming calls. After listening to a breezy, pre-accident message, Gavin yelled for Katz.
If everything was all right Katz would hear him and pick up.

No answer.

After a long, confused moment Gavin hung up and called again, hoping Katz had been in the bathroom.

Again, no answer.

There were a dozen reasons why Katz wouldn’t have answered, but at the moment Gavin could think of only one.

With a sigh, he climbed out of the cabin, bracing himself with every step. Buck sat on the thickly padded bench seat in front
of the engine cover, holding on to the chrome bar with his left hand while his right cradled the chest. His eyes were closed.
Probably praying, Gavin thought.

He glanced at Vinny, whose eyes were wild and unblinking. There was certainly enough for Buck to be praying about.

A
my tried to lift her tired head to let the wind rid her face of her hair, soaked with the polluted waters of the East River.
The tide was at its highest and the murky water foamed on either side of the boat’s hull. The East River was fabled for its
mob executions, Amy remembered. She imagined an underwater city of people with concrete around their ankles. Soon she would
join them.

Amy’s hatred of Krogan was growing disproportionately to her fear of the monster that steered the boat into every large wake
he could find, howling raucously each time the wave smacked her stinging face. What had she done to deserve this? What had
her sister, Amber, done? Even as she asked herself these questions she remembered another Japanese saying: “Self-pity is always
the beginning of the end.”

She now hoped the police would not come. She thought about it as the pain in her chest grew with each bounce on the bow cleat.
Her anger had finally tipped the scale. She would rather die than have Krogan go free.

Krogan laughed heartily as another wave sprayed the front of the boat. Amy closed her eyes and prayed for Gavin to find her.

Suddenly she heard a thumping sound swelling above her. She opened her eyes to see a blue-and-white helicopter drop into the
clearing beyond the bridge they were going under. Her heart sank as she read the abbreviation on its side: NYPD.

The police.

One of the hundreds of people who had seen her had actually decided to call the police. The cops would be quick to confirm
this was not your ordinary Sunday joyride. There was no way she could disguise the fact she was in mortal trouble. Tied up
and positioned the way she was, a human figurehead, what else could they believe?

“Police! Stop your vessel. Now!” came an amplified voice from the helicopter.

“Oh, no! What am I going to do now?” Krogan mocked, his words slurred. He must have found another bottle.

The helicopter maneuvered to the front of the boat, facing head on and flying backward, its downdraft flattening small waves
and spraying Amy’s face. Squinting, Amy could see the pilot and copilot. She shook her head desperately, pleading for them
to go away. Krogan’s speed remained steady and the helicopter lowered to a few feet off the water, apparently hoping to intimidate.
The pilot obviously had no idea who he was dealing with. He repeated his command.

Krogan answered.

The first blast from the shotgun sprayed the windshield, cracking it but not penetrating. Amy winced, knowing the buckshot
had to have been traveling mere inches over her head. The second shot followed immediately, and the helicopter instantly jerked
upward, the pilot obviously surprised by the gunfire exploding onto the windshield in front of his face. Amy watched in horror
as the front of the helicopter rose and the tail and rudder prop dipped, hitting the water. The aircraft immediately flipped
over. With a whine of propellers the craft crashed upside down into the swirling, inky currents.

“
Shadahd!
” Krogan roared, making no effort to steer away from the mess before him. Amy screamed as the helicopter came quickly upon
them, the landing gear sticking upright from the water like metal skis set to shear her head off. The skids were only inches
from
her paralyzed eyes when they were sucked downward by the current. The lobster boat cut the police helicopter in half as easily
as if it were a cheap toy.

Amy was surprised to be alive. Still breathing, albeit in quick, shallow gasps. Apparently, Krogan’s plans for her death were
flexible. He simply did whatever he wanted and whatever happened, happened. She wanted to let her head fall limply, but the
steel cleat tenderizing her sternum now shot pain through her chest like a branding iron, the slightest touch forcing her
to arch her back, further cramping already knotted back muscles. Even the minor back support found by pulling with her fingers
at the frayed cloth of her cut-off shorts came at the expense of Krogan’s lewd, verbal observations.

She again looked out before her as they neared what could only be the Brooklyn Bridge. In the lower right-hand corner was
posted a bold white sign that read “Pier 17 South Street Seaport.” She exhaled loudly as she thought of the possible targets
Krogan could find there. The children’s center, the
Titanic
memorial, the ocean library… Would she have to endure any more heart-pounding near misses? Perhaps one of the several historic
tall ships docked nearby would meet Krogan’s fancy. Or the Fulton Fish Market; surely, as a lobsterman, he’d had to deal with
many people there—people who might have angered him enough to want to retaliate in some vicious manner.

Amy suddenly noted movement out past the seaport and the fish market. About a quarter mile away two helicopters took off from
the Port Authority Heliport. The downed chopper had apparently grabbed their attention. Flying straight toward Amy and Krogan,
the sky’s crimson glow reflecting off their windshields, they looked like angry wasps whose nest had been disturbed.

Krogan’s throttle remained wide open. Was his gun still loaded? He had fired two shots, hadn’t he? If the gun had been fully
loaded,
he would have three or four shots left, Amy figured. As if they had come to the same conclusion, the two choppers simultaneously
increased their altitude. Amy followed them over her shoulder as they banked and took up positions behind them at a safe distance,
one at ten o’clock, the other at two.

Krogan appeared typically unfazed, draining the last of another bottle and tossing it into the river. Such detachment seemed
impossible. The muffled sounds of sirens drew Amy’s attention to the right, where flashing lights kept pace along South Street,
paralleling the river’s edge. She looked forward again and saw two, no, three large white boats, each with a thick diagonal
red stripe. She assumed they were Coast Guard. They motored into the mouth of the river like ducks in a row. Another large
boat with bold lettering came from the Brooklyn side—Police Patrol. Centered maybe a mile beyond the challenging armada was
the Statue of Liberty, three hundred and fifty feet tall. The statue appeared to be looking right at Amy.

Yet another police boat entered the picture. None of them advanced, probably waiting for the lobster boat to leave the highly
populated, busy confines of the East River. They wanted Krogan in the open waters. And after what had happened to the first
helicopter, Amy was reasonably confident there would be no more warnings. They would want him to pay dearly for that.

Krogan’s speed quickly closed the gap between the boats. Uniformed men armed with black rifles lined the boat sides. This
had to be what Krogan was waiting for. They would try to cage him in and he would drill them in the side head first—her head.
They would never expect that. They might open fire, hoping to kill him, then get out of the way of the unmanned boat. Then
they would have to somehow chase the boat down and get on board before it crashed into something else.

From nowhere, two F-16 fighter jets roared by and circled
around. Amy assumed they came from one of the patrols that had manned the New York airspace ever since the attack on the Twin
Towers. They were obviously focusing on Krogan as a terrorist.

“I give up! I give up! There’s too many of them. I’m frightened!” Krogan cried out in mock fear. “Oh, no! Oh, no! I can’t
slow down. What do I do? What do I do?”

“Uhhh!” Amy gasped as something struck her back—hard. Whatever it was made a clanking noise as it fell to the deck at her
side. She turned to look. The throttle lever—Krogan had broken it off with the boat at full speed. So much for the hope of
a safe rescue.

“Oh, no! Oh, no!” he continued, then laughed ferociously. “What do you like better, police boats or Coast Guard boats?” he
yelled to Amy, then laughed again.

Amy was no longer physically able to brace herself for impact. She could not even muster the strength to see the faces of
the riflemen on the boats they were seconds from hitting. If they were smart they would dive off now and save themselves.

With
Shadahd
showing no sign of slowing down, the wall of boats scrambled to separate, apparently realizing the bluff they were trying
to call was no bluff. Krogan shot through the middle of their small fleet with mocking laughter, leaving them to maneuver
and race to catch up. Other smaller and faster police boats had just arrived, running in the same direction just ahead of
Krogan; from the choppers it would almost look as though he were chasing them. Amy saw hope in this strategy. If they could
sandwich the lobster boat as it caught up to them, then they could conceivably control and subdue it.

The police boat at the far left slowed until it ran even with them, then carefully closed in. The far right police boat did
the same. At this rate they would be on him just before he crashed into Liberty Island.

“Oh, no! The whole world is closing in on me,” Krogan yelled. “I’m so scared. Go away! Go away!” Just then, he cranked the
steering hard to the right, heading straight for the nearby police boat. The boat tried to respond by turning with him, but
didn’t react fast enough. Amy screamed as the starboard bow of the lobster boat slammed into the port bow of the police craft,
missing her by inches. The sound of the collision was loud, leaving her badly shaken and in tears. If Krogan was trying to
scare her to death, he had nearly succeeded.

The police boat fell back, having been rocked badly from the unequal angle of attack favoring Krogan, then struggled to catch
up. Turning to her left, Amy could see the rest of the armada also in chase. She looked upward at the Statue of Liberty. How
ironic to be so helplessly enslaved before such a symbol of freedom… and the audience now gathered on the island’s granite
shoreline. Amy couldn’t bear to look at them. She looked forward—and froze.

“
Miss Freedom.
” She silently mouthed the words on the upper hull of the 135-foot tourist ferry. There was an audience there, too, but Amy
no longer felt embarrassed. If Krogan had been thinking of a sensational crash to end it all, this was it—a statement only
his demon onlookers would understand and applaud.

Unable to control herself, she fought frantically against the tight cords tying her wrists, rubbing and jerking her hands
back and forth, moving them no more than a fraction of an inch each time as the rope wore into her flesh. The steel hull she
would be crushed into drew closer by the second. The more she struggled, the louder Krogan laughed.

Before them, the ferry had picked up speed in a hopeless attempt to escape. All the increased velocity would accomplish would
be to relocate the point of impact from center to rear. Regardless, the lobster boat would plow into the tourist-laden vessel
like a guided missile, the end of another small chapter of Krogan’s ongoing
existence of terror and the end of Amy’s entire life. Krogan would die with her.

Die… With her?

She was going into an unknown dimension, but he was going into a world as familiar to him as the world he was leaving. More
familiar. He probably had friends there. He definitely had friends there. Would she be at his mercy there as well? Their mercy?
Engines roared, sirens wailed, helicopters clattered, ships’ horns blared, and water gushed, pounding against her face, yet
she could not blot out Krogan’s raucous laughter. In fact, his laughter became all she could hear. Moments before certain
death, he was downright excited. Confidently excited. About what? Death? Why? What was next? What did he know that she didn’t?
Everything! The possibility of her life extending into another world, another dimension, with Krogan there to greet her, was
horrifying.

With eyes tightly shut, Amy stiffened like a wooden beam, every muscle in her body braced. She could no longer struggle; her
fate was as inevitable as if she were falling from the sky without a parachute. She could not keep her brain from counting
down the seconds to impact. A strange weakness came over her as sound and motion slowed.

“
God!
” she cried out.

She was silenced by the explosive impact.