Page 116 of King’s Ransom

This was serious.

The Feds were giving Audrey—the last person to see the QuantumSpeed-7 chip—an armed escort to New York-

Presbyterian.

There was even a black FBI Hostage Rescue Team van among the vehicles.

We got there just in time to see Audrey—lying on a wheeled hospital bed with an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth—get loaded into the back of a large ambulance marked ‘New York-Presbyterian: Emergency Medical Services’.

Special Agent Trey Hooper strode alongside the gurney, along with three other suit-wearing agents, all with their hands on their holstered pistols.

A male paramedic climbed into the back of the ambulance with Audrey and slammed its rear doors shut.

Hooper and the other agents hurried for their cars.

The motorcade took off.

Four NYPD cruisers—their lights flashing—led the way.

Then the ambulance.

Then two unmarked FBI cars, the first one containing Special Agent Trey Hooper.

And last of all, the big black FBI HRT van.

While this didn’t bode well for my chances of seeing Audrey any time soon, I was actually glad to see that the FBI were taking her safety seriously.

Whoever was after the QuantumSpeed-7 chip may still have wanted to try to get information out of Audrey as to its location.

‘Dr Sam? What should we do?’ Georgy asked me.

‘Follow them,’ I said.

THE MOTORCADE ROUTE

New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s Irving Center is at the northern tip of Manhattan Island, very close to the enormous George Washington Bridge.

The drive there from Sleepy Hollow would normally take about fifty minutes, but at this time of the evening, going against the flow of traffic, and it being three days after Christmas, it’d be closer to thirty.

As the motorcade escorting Audrey’s ambulance made its way south down the Saw Mill River Parkway, heading toward the glow of Manhattan, Georgy, Heidi and I followed it from a respectful distance in Georgy’s little Toyota.

The motorcade made good time.

Pretty soon, it had reached the Henry Hudson Parkway and was sweeping over the Riverdale interchange just north of Manhattan Island when—

—I saw a gang of four black vehicles sweep quickly up an on-ramp on the right-hand side of the interchange, join our parkway and accelerate quickly, gaining on the FBI motorcade in front of us.

They were four large black pickup trucks.

Ford F-150s.

Each had men crouched in their rear trays, wearing black ski masks.

And then one masked man popped up from the rear tray of the lead pickup brandishing a rocket launcher.

‘Oh, gosh . . .’ I said.

‘Fuck me . . .’ Heidi gasped.