[Steven Lyle Jordan]

11: Chase scene

Chase scenes are much more fun to watch on television than to actually experience. Gail and I were finding that out the hard way. We only had to go two miles, but right now, they felt like the distance from here to the Moon. Instead of being excited… we were scared s**tless.

Gail swerved around two trucks as she went on. She was driving like a demon… probably because she was having flash-forwards about being cavity-searched by a three-hundred pounder named Flo. I didn’t blame her. The one in my head was named Larry. But we’d done our bit: I’d sent the packets to the FBI, and all it would take would be one more attempt by BM to hack into NASDAQ, and they would be the ones being cavity searched.

In the meantime, we had to get to checkpoint Gail, come hell or high water. And we were close—

“Sonofab***h!” Gail snapped, and yanked at the wheel. In her zeal to get to the last checkpoint, she had been running a red light, but the sudden appearance of a semi caught her by surprise. She put the car into a skid that ended up parallel to the side of the semi, and pointed up the wrong street. She cursed again, and floored it anyway.

“Oh, s**t…” I was beginning to panic. Yeah, finally. We were now headed away from our safe point, which made it all the more likely that we’d be caught before we got there… or if I tried to change my plans at this point. “We have to get—”

“I know, I know,” Gail nodded as she looked for a place to turn.

I assumed she would try to make the next left, and braced myself… which was why I almost threw myself into her lap when she made the next right. “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?”

“Who’s driving, Green Hornet?” Gail spat as she dodged a scooter and a Think! Car. She reached the next intersection and made another right, bolted to the corner and took the next right, then proceeded in a leisurely pace down the block. I started to ask again what she was doing, but a warning glance from her kept me quiet. As we approached the intersection that we had just flown through a minute ago, I watched a flurry of unmarked cars shoot through the intersection, in the direction we had gone. Gail reached the corner, stopped like a good driver, and waited. As we watched, a few more fed cars barreled through the intersection. When it looked like the last one had passed, Gail made the right turn and followed them.

Up ahead, it looked like at least one car had seen us make the right turn thanks to the semi. They had apparently passed the word, and now every car was making the same right turn! And behind the fed caravan, Gail drove the Eclipse straight through the intersection, on-course for checkpoint Gail.

I looked at Gail, and the s**t-eating grin on her face. “You go, Kato.”

“Thanks, boss.”

But moments later, I heard a familiar drone in the sky. I glanced up just in time to see that helicopter, swinging north to follow the other drivers, and in the process, crossing over our block. The ‘copter disappeared beyond the buildings, and the drone receded in the distance. But a moment later, I heard it again. It had reappeared over our block, and now it was swinging our way.

“We’ve been made!” I snapped. “Hit it, Kato!”

“Hittin’ it, boss!” Gail floored it, and we shot forward again. We only had three blocks to go, not nearly enough time to lose the ‘copter… but with no cars close to us in pursuit, we could still make it work.

“Are you sure this can still work?” Gail asked as we hit the last intersection.

I saw our destination ahead. “I am now,” I said. We were on a street of hotels, and I could see the Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel on the far right. I pointed at the entrance to the hotel’s parking garage. “There’s our bolt-hole, babe!”

Gail gritted her teeth and yanked the wheel. As onlookers either stared in shock or ducked for cover, the Eclipse squealed in a wide arc, bounced up the driveway entrance and power-slid at the turnstiles. At the last second, she took her foot off the brake, and the car shot forward, threading the space between the parking turnstiles and into the underground parking garage at forty miles an hour.

“Christ,” I muttered as she hit the brakes again and brought us down to a more-or-less sane speed in the garage. Perfect: The ‘copter would have seen us enter, but we had some time before any G-men got down here after us. I looked around carefully, remembering the online diagrams of the garage that I’d seen the other day. “There!” I pointed at an elevator bay, and some nearby parking spots. “Put it there!”

Gail slotted us into a parking space at a garish angle, leaving me just barely enough room to get my door open. I squeezed out as she dashed out of the car and met me at the other side. I pointed at our destination and said, “Go, go!”

We made a mad dash down a corridor, found a set of stairs, ran up the single flight, and opened the door into the hotel lobby. Checkpoint Gail was immediately to our left, and we slowed to a casual walk as we entered and sat down at a table.

Seconds later, we watched through the shop’s glass storefront as the phalanx of fed cars came screaming up to the hotel entrance, and down into the parking garage … it scared people even more than our arrival had, which was saying something. I could just picture the guys down in the garage: They would’ve found the car by the elevator bay, radioed their guys upstairs that we were already in or near the Starbucks, and bolted for the stairs.

As we watched, a squad of cheap suits busted into the Starbucks, guns drawn, sending customers scattering and male baristas screaming, as more suits flooded into the hotel lobby. The suits ran back and forth, checking the customers and under the tables, scampering into the back, then back out… then started chattering into their shirtsleeves. Because they couldn’t find us.

As Gail watched, fascinated by the show, she reached across the table and patted my hand. “Fiendishly clever of you, Mister Hornet, sir.”

“Elementary, my dear, sexy Kato,” I said.

If any of the feds had happened to be sharp enough to look a little further than the confines of the Starbucks, they could have seen us in plain sight… through a plate-glass window… right across the street. Gail and I watched the entire tableau from the shop in the opposite hotel… the one that had a below-ground access to the parking lot. As Gail watched the feds running around like Keystone Cops, I opened my Toughbook and checked the status of our little game. Sure enough, BM had run Merc a final time, and the FBI monitoring systems had had enough data from my earlier packets to recognize and trace the signal right back to its source. Agents in Baltimore would already be heading for BM in Baltimore, before they even knew they were ID’d.

And it was time for my final packet to the FBI, documenting all of my notes and steps, including the events that had gotten me fired and blacklisted, and finished off with a last note:

“This corrupt accounting firm wrapped up in a pretty red bow for you
by your friendly neighborhood IT guy: M.D. Schitz. ”

I hit the send button, just as two G-men crowded through the door of the shop and made eye-contact with me and Gail. I just turned my head to the nearest barista, and said, “Can I get a grande double-shot skim milk espresso with room, to go?”

The barista looked at me, and said, “We do ‘medium’ here, not ‘grande’. This is Seattle’s Best, not Starbucks.”

I looked at the G-men, then at Gail, and smiled. “I stand corrected.”