Driven (28 page)

Y
es!
” Gavin shouted to Amy, who had turned to see him shaking his fist triumphantly in the air. She was still alive and he was
bent on keeping her that way.

The impact of the ocean racer into the side of
Shadahd
’s bow had thrown Krogan from the steering wheel to the floor, allowing the powerful engines to drive the lobster boat off
course, barely missing the rear of the ferry. The top left bow of the racer was badly damaged from the angular slam; loose
and shattered pieces of fiberglass flapped in the high wind. Gavin was wet with water—and sweat from seeing Amy nearly crushed
before his eyes. Buck was on the floor. Gavin was unsure if he had been knocked there from the impact or if he was praying
again. Perhaps both.

Vinny, now a certified mental patient in Gavin’s mind, had assured Gavin they would make it with inches to spare—as if an
inch could actually be determined while flying along at seventy miles an hour. He’d been right, though, give or take an inch.
His only concern had been whether or not Gavin would still buy the boat if it were damaged. When Gavin assured him he would
buy it even if it were completely destroyed, a small, frightening grin had appeared on Vinny’s otherwise intense expression
and never left.

Vinny continued to keep pressure on the lobster boat’s bow, pushing it left toward the rear of Liberty Island. Krogan reappeared
by the steering wheel, a lone trickle of blood tracing the border of his right eye socket. He no longer wore the smirk he’d
had at Giants Stadium—the smirk he’d had only seconds before. Gavin considered that
a small victory. He managed a brief smile as they made eye contact, fluttering his fingers in a mocking salute intended to
irritate Krogan. He thought Krogan might be more likely to slip up if he was mad.

With a roar, Krogan yanked the wheel to the right, his huge arm muscles rippling. Vinny also turned to maintain his angular
advantage. Even though the ocean racer had the speed to catch the lobster boat and the quickness to outmaneuver it, Krogan
had the leverage of sheer weight and power on his side.

Gavin looked past Krogan toward Liberty Island. The granite bulkhead surrounding the island did not continue all the way around
to the west shore. In one section a cobblestone shoreline had been installed, sloping from the high tide mark to a chain-link
fence. On the other side of the fence was lawn, a few trees, and several weather-beaten brick homes, presumably where the
park staff lived.

“Run him aground there!” Gavin shouted to Vinny, pointing past Krogan.

“I’m trying! I can’t!”Vinny yelled back, shaking his head, fighting desperately to maintain his position. Suddenly his eyes
widened and he spun the steering wheel to the right, banking hard and away from
Shadahd.
Before Gavin could ask why, there came a deafening blast and the windshield by his head exploded. He winced, the left side
of his face stinging from tiny glass projectiles. Vinny dropped to the floor, keeping one hand on the wheel, wanting to put
distance between them and the shotgun.

Gavin was emotionally torn. He’d already done the unthinkable in having Vinny chase down Krogan, but how could he ask him
to continue after being shot at? The man wasn’t a cop and didn’t even know the truth of what he was up against. Gavin made
his decision.

“Stop the boat, Vinny,” Gavin yelled. “Ellis Island is an easy swim from here. You’ll be safe there. I’ve got to go back.”
Gavin pulled his gun from his ankle holster and slipped it into his pant waistline for easier access.

With a nod Vinny pulled back on the throttle and made a tight U-turn. Krogan, who had been heading away since the gunshot,
was now making a wide turn. Oddly, he was still traveling at full speed. Vinny looked glumly at the nearby south shore of
Ellis Island, obviously not wild about Gavin’s proposal.

Ellis Island had dramatically changed since the 1800s and early 1900s, when it had been the country’s only immigration bottleneck
and later a jail for alien enemies. For the past half a century it has been little more than a deteriorating monument. From
the south shore all that could been seen of the once busy facility was a dilapidated three-story building that reminded Gavin
of his Long Island elementary school, with its once spectacular, steeply gabled Spanish-tile roof. Now, abandoned for decades,
doors hung off hinges and an overgrowth of strangling vines crept up walls and into broken windows. Its greatest value was
to the pigeons that lined its ridge and swooped through gaping holes in the roof. It was a home for the homeless, inhabited
by ghosts, compliments of the unswimmable currents of the merging Hudson and East Rivers. Only its grand history, holding
the promise of future restoration, kept the bulldozers away.

Gavin could not waste time with Vinny’s indecision. Some of the Coast Guard and police boats were closing in again. They had
apparently divided around Liberty Island to block off any escape to the south. What they didn’t know was that Krogan had no
intention of escaping. He wasn’t trying to live. He was trying to die while causing as much damage as possible. Gavin wished
this could have remained between Krogan and himself.

The demon was angrier than Gavin had ever heard mention of in any of Katz’s sessions with Sabah. If Gavin had learned anything
about Krogan, it was that he was compelled to attack whatever he was angry at. And Gavin had just made him mad as hell, literally.
In one day he and Amy had combined to wreck the football game, destroy the lobster business, and thwart Krogan’s dream of
crashing
into
Miss Freedom.
Gavin didn’t have to be psychic to know what Krogan wanted—needed—to do before dying. Could he work that predictability to
his advantage?

Just then a shadow moved across the boat. Gavin looked up, expecting to see a chopper filled with Emergency Service Unit troops.
He knew they would be on the scene. ESU troops trained for situations like this and taking out Krogan would be easy for them.
Their motto was, “When people need help they call the police. When the police need help they call the Emergency Service Unit.”
But it wasn’t the ESU that flew overhead. With all that had been happening, Gavin had forgotten about Bill in the ultralight.

“Oh, no,” Vinny said, watching the ultralight fly toward Krogan. He grabbed the radio handset off the dashboard. “Bill! Come
in, Bill.”

“Let’s get ’im, Vin.”

“Bill! He’s got a shotgun.”

“I know. I’ve been watching. But he can’t hit what he can’t see. Over and out.”

“What did he mean by that?” Gavin asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m not going to sit here and watch Bill get blown out of the sky like that helicopter we passed,” Vinny
said, pushing the throttle.

Relieved that Vinny had made a decision, Gavin grabbed the chrome bar as the boat lunged forward. “You okay, Buck?” he yelled
to the preacher, still on the floor. Buck motioned with his right hand that Gavin needn’t worry; with his left hand he held
tightly to his precious chest. The man was as mysterious as they came.

Krogan had completed his circle and was coming directly at them, as expected. The sun was in his eyes. Gavin hoped that wasn’t
what Bill had meant about not seeing. If so, the ultralight would be downed like a lone mallard flying over a duck blind.

Racing toward Krogan, Gavin saw the shotgun leveled at them out
Shadahd
’s front window. “Keep your head down,” he yelled. He
glanced back to make sure Buck was still on the floor. “Pray for bad aim, Buck.”

Vinny pressed a black spring-loaded switch that read “Trim.”The bow began to rise and a rooster tail of jetting water appeared
off the stern. The angular degree-change slowed the racer, but created a shield Krogan immediately tested. A basketball-sized
chunk of the high-gloss yellow bow edge exploded, leaving ravaged strands of fiberglass blowing furiously about. The hit was
followed immediately by the sound of the gunshot, the slower speed of sound playing catchup with the deadly lead buckshot.
Gavin and Vinny ducked as most of the debris careened off Vinny’s windshield.

The ultralight, a robotic bird of prey, swooped toward the charging lobster boat. With Krogan’s shotgun pointed out the window
and the gap between them narrowing fast, they looked like two jousting knights.

Another hole blasted into the bow. Gavin cursed, knowing the shotgun was firing just behind Amy, barely missing her head each
time. If she survived this she would be shell shocked. And what was Bill doing? Gavin half expected the Statue of Liberty
to glance over her shoulder and ask the same question. Krogan was apparently curious enough to allow the ultralight closer.
Then again, Bill had mentioned a tense relationship between them. Maybe Krogan was waiting for a point-blank shot.

Gavin could see Bill holding something in his hand. His vest? He was going to throw his vest at Krogan? Gavin was about to
question Vinny when, like magic, a huge white sheet appeared below the ultralight, directly in front of the lobster boat.
Bill’s emergency ballistic chute!

The ultralight banked away as the lobster boat rode full speed into the fully deployed parachute. The canopy covered the entire
front of the boat, including Amy and, most important, Krogan’s windshield.

“Hold on,” Vinny yelled, then hung a sharp U-turn. A moment
later the lobster boat was once again a few yards off the port side of the racer, both boats pointed at the shallow bulkhead
of Ellis Island. Krogan’s arm appeared out the draped window, reaching, pulling, struggling with the chute. The violent yanking
and wrenching of the giant white blindfold pulled harshly against Amy’s head; the contours of her face were defined like a
pale mannequin in the tight fabric.

“He’s gonna break her neck,” Gavin yelled.

Vinny turned hard left, slamming
Shadahd
just below Krogan’s arm, which disappeared behind the blowing cloth.

“If we get much closer I won’t be able to turn away,” Vinny yelled, looking dead ahead at the ghostly shoreline, desperate
for immediate instruction.

What was crucial was that the lobster boat be held on course until its grounding was inevitable, while leaving enough time
for the quicker, more maneuverable, racer to throttle down and turn away. Though the granite bulkhead ended only about a foot
above the water, at almost seventy miles per hour their survival, should they hit it, was anything but certain. The lobster
boat, made of steel and twice the size of the racer, would most likely survive intact, skidding to a halt somewhere on the
uncut lawn. There, Gavin needed to apprehend Krogan before the approaching armed forces turned him into used ammo storage.

“Pull away,” Gavin was yelling to Vinny when he was struck in the left shoulder by something blunt and hard as a cement block
that sent him crashing into Vinny’s dashboard. Without a second to lose, Vinny pulled all the way back on the throttle levers
and cranked the steering wheel to the right. The racer broke off from the lobster boat, but for only a few yards. Then it
slammed back into
Shadahd.

“He’s got us!”Vinny screamed.

Still stunned from the hit, Gavin turned to see Krogan at the side of his boat, gloating with smug triumph. A large, rusted
anchor held the side of the racer like a grappling iron, its heavy, corroded
chain wrapped around
Shadahd
’s trap pulley. Gavin immediately grabbed the anchor, but the tension between the boats was way too strong. Krogan laughed
tauntingly at the useless attempt.

With no time to jump from the boat without hitting granite shore instead of water, Gavin and Vinny dove for the floor next
to Buck. The carpeted deck offered nothing to grab hold of. Gavin clenched his teeth and futilely tried to relax. He was about
as flexible as glass when the two boats hit the solid rock. At the point of impact, his face dug into the hard floor. A moment
later, he was weightless, flying feet first toward the bow along with everything else not tied down, including Buck and Vinny.

There was instant silence. In the sudden rush of quiet, Gavin found himself in the racer’s dark, shallow cabin, fists still
clenched. As the buzzing in his ears cleared he heard the approaching Coast Guard and police boats cutting through waves,
their motors at full tilt. Also drawing near was the
whump-whump-whump
of helicopter blades and distant horns and sirens.

Amy!

Cat quick, he sprang forward, then just as quickly fell to his knees, grabbing for his side with a wincing cry. Struggling
to pull himself from the darkness of the long cabin, he found a jagged piece of wooden decking, ugly enough to slay a vampire,
had speared him low in the right side. Frantic to get to Amy, he took a deep breath and ripped it out with a scream. Blood
blossomed on his shirt and jeans.

Vinny lay next to him, moaning and moving slowly. To his right, Buck lay motionless, bright blood puddled at his nose. Gavin
touched Buck’s neck, searching for a pulse. He was alive.

“Don’t move,” Gavin said to Vinny, who had shakily struggled to his hands and knees.

Amy.

Gavin climbed to his feet, all his weight shifted to his left side. The
chute still covered the front of the lobster boat and he could see the shape of Amy’s body still there. There was no movement
or sound.

Was Krogan still in the boat or was he already on the run? Gavin craned his neck, hoping to see him. It was possible Krogan
was dead, or at least injured or trapped by the crash. Gavin touched his left rear pocket and felt the hard, curved steel
of handcuffs taken from the stadium security. The sooner Krogan was wearing them, the better. Every second of unshackled freedom
could mean a second more of recovered strength, a category Krogan needed no handicap in.

Amy.

Gavin hurdled the side, landing on his left leg, then both hands. Groaning, he scrambled like a wounded spider to the front
of the lobster boat. The bow angling upward; Amy was out of his reach, but the canopy wasn’t. He jumped up, pushing from both
legs, punctured muscles and flesh sending shock waves of searing pain as a handful of silky cloth filled his hands. He fell
backward, disrobing
Shadahd
and covering himself. The cloth was too strong to tear, but he fought the feather-light material, folding, compressing, and
finally tossing it aside. He looked up again.