Safe House Under Fire. Elisabeth Rees

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ with me and she’s scared out of her mind.” She kissed Astrid’s fingers and briefly looked over at her. “I’ll keep you safe, honey. I promise.”

      But then the van on their tail revved its engine hard and lurched forward, touching Lilly’s bumper. The car skipped, Astrid screamed and Lilly gripped the wheel with both hands to steady their path.

      “Mom! Please do something,” Astrid yelled. “Make him stop.”

      Lilly floored the accelerator and tore around the corner of Filton Road, the car’s back end skidding away slightly on the wet asphalt.

      “What’s going on there?” the agent said, still on speakerphone.

      “We’re being rammed off the road.”

      “Take evasive maneuvers,” he said. “Do whatever it takes.”

      “I’m trying,” she shouted as the van hurtled toward them once again. Thinking fast, she swerved onto the wrong side of the road. Fortunately, this residential street was always quiet, and she faced no oncoming traffic.

      The van was now alongside them and she noticed the driver’s gloved hand sharply yank the wheel. He was intending to ram them from the side.

      “Hold on, Astrid!” Lilly yelled.

      The crunch of metal seemed to sound forever as the van sideswiped her car, pushing it onto the sidewalk, toward the thick trees that grew there.

      “Mom,” Astrid cried, now beside herself with fear. “I don’t want to die.”

      “Nobody’s gonna die, sweetheart. Not today.”

      She slowed right down to let her assailant pass and then attempted a hand brake turn. But she messed it up and the car ended up sitting awkwardly in the road, straddling both lanes. Meanwhile, the guy in the van was clearly a much more accomplished driver and spun easily on the asphalt, tires squealing and billowing smoke.

      Lilly’s hand shook as she put the stick in reverse, desperately trying to turn the car around before the van would reach them. But she messed that up too and couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the strike. The driver’s side of her car bore the brunt of the impact from the hurtling van. Lilly was jolted sideways with huge force, her head banging on Astrid’s shoulder. All she could think about was protecting her daughter. This man was crazy. He wanted them dead.

      When the car finally stopped shaking, Lilly leaned across her daughter and opened the passenger door.

      “Run, Astrid,” she yelled. “Run.”

      Astrid could barely speak through her hyperventilating. “Mom, no, no, I can’t leave you.”

      “Please, honey,” Lilly pleaded, seeing the man exit his vehicle and walk toward them. “You gotta go now. Run to Mr. Peter’s house and don’t look back.”

      Yet Astrid seemed frozen, unable to move, unable to do anything except cry out in anguish. Lilly turned to see her assailant move calmly and steadily toward them, gun in hand. The hood on his sweatshirt was pulled up and, with his head slightly bowed, his appearance reminded her of the grim reaper.

      “Please don’t hurt my daughter,” she shouted through the shattered window. “I’ll give you whatever you want.” She grabbed her expensive cell from the dash, a gift from her parents. “You can take this. It’s worth over a thousand dollars.” As his hand reached up and removed his sunglasses, she forced herself to look him in the eye. “Please.”

      That’s when she recognized him. “Mr. Berger?” she said, confused. “Why are you doing this?”

      This man was her important client at the bank. He had visited in person the previous day, wishing to transfer his bank accounts overseas before returning to his native country of France. She had handled the paperwork, shaken his hand, chatted to him about his family. Why did he now want to kill her?

      Mr. Berger pointed his gun at her window, and with the sound of Astrid’s screams resounding in the car, a bullet cracked the air.

      Agent David McQueen heard the unmistakable bang of a gun being discharged as he raced to the intersection of Harewood and Filton. The car was being driven by his FBI partner, Goldie Simmons, and she had wasted no time in rushing them to the scene with the siren blaring. Through his phone’s speaker he had been listening to the screams and cries, but they had abruptly stopped. He prayed they weren’t too late.

      Goldie tore around the corner of Filton and instantly slammed on the brakes to avoid colliding with a blue compact car blocking the street, a gray van stopped behind it.

      “That’s our guy,” David said, seeing a hooded man in the road, weapon in hand. “That’s gotta be Henderson.”

      He jumped from the car, identifying himself as an FBI agent and ordering the man to lie on the ground. As expected, the suspect turned and fled back to his van without allowing David the chance to get a good look at his face. This guy had been successfully evading arrest for more than ten years and David had a very old score to settle.

      “You’re not getting away this time,” he muttered, pulling out his gun and aiming at the van’s tires.

      “Help! Help! I think my mom’s been shot.”

      A young girl of no more than sixteen suddenly flung herself from the blue compact and ran toward him, arms flailing, her long black trench coat flapping in the wind. She reminded him a little of his own daughter, Chloe.

      David couldn’t risk shooting now. He reholstered his weapon and called out to Goldie in the car.

      “Stay on Henderson’s tail,” he said, watching the vehicle race toward the busy road out of town. “You’ll have to get to the freeway via Harewood but do what it takes to find the van again. Don’t lose him.”

      “You got it.”

      As Goldie turned the car and screeched away, David put his hand on the girl’s shoulder to comfort her. “Is your mom Lilly Olsen?”

      “Yes.”

      He approached the car and bent to survey the scene inside, bracing for the sight of blood, but instead he saw an apparently uninjured blond woman with a flat palm on her forehead, breathing heavily in the driver’s seat. In the other hand she clutched a cell phone, her fingers trembling around the black casing.

      “Are you hurt, ma’am? Your daughter said you’d been shot.”

      She held up the cell phone, her face etched with an expression of pained shock.

      “It saved me,” she said. “I was holding it in front of my face.”

      The cell was all smashed up, a bullet lodged in the metal, creating a small hollow as though a tiny volcano had erupted in the center.

      Then she seemed to gather her thoughts and remember what was important. “Astrid! Is she all right?”

      “She’s fine, ma’am. She’s right here.”

      “Please СКАЧАТЬ