Page 117 of King’s Ransom

The masked man fired his weapon.

The rocket-propelled grenade lanced forward from the chase truck, issuing a dead-straight smoke trail, and hit the FBI Hostage Rescue Team van.

The blast lifted the big HRT van fully off the road.

It was hurled sideways, slamming wildly into the guardrail before tipping completely over it.

What happened next could only be described as clinical.

Moving with practised coordination, the four black trucks sped past the two FBI escort cars . . .

. . . and as they did . . .

. . . I saw a man in the back of one of the trucks throw some small shiny objects onto the road in front of the two FBI cars.

Loud puncture-like whumps boomed as the FBI cars’ tyres blew out and the Bureau cars fishtailed wildly and smashed into the concrete divider, their tyres shredded by the spikes the man had tossed into their paths.

‘Go round! Go round!’ I yelled to Georgy.

We skirted the glittering spikes on the road and as we sped past the two crashed FBI cars, I saw Trey Hooper leap out of his car, swearing angrily and helplessly.

By then, two of the black chase trucks had sped ahead of Audrey’s ambulance and had started ruthlessly ramming the four much smaller NYPD cars.

Within seconds, two of the cop cars were toast.

Then the masked men in the black trucks opened fire with compact machine guns at the last two NYPD cruisers.

They ripped apart the drivers and the two cruisers peeled away and crashed.

Leaving Audrey’s ambulance alone and defenceless . . .

. . . which was when the other two black trucks swept into place on either side of it, wedging it in.

The passenger door of the left-side truck swung open and a masked man stepped nimbly out of it onto the running board of the ambulance.

He yanked open the ambulance’s door—fired his gun at the unseen driver then tossed the dead driver out the door, onto the speeding road—then he slid inside the ambulance, taking it over.

They now had control of Audrey’s ambulance.

It had taken less than sixty seconds.

Clinical.

Georgy’s mouth fell open as we watched all this go down.

Now the four black trucks were keeping pace with the fast-­moving ambulance, two in front of it, one on each side.

‘What’s happening?’ Georgy gasped.

‘They want Audrey alive.’ I threw Heidi a look. ‘They waited till she was out in the open and now they’re trying to snatch her. They want to find out what she knows about that quantum chip.’

‘But who are they?’ Heidi said.

‘Georgy,’ I said. ‘Quick, move. No offence, but can you let Heidi drive?’

Georgy and Heidi traded places. Heidi took the wheel, gripping it like a race-car driver.

(As I mentioned before, usually, I don’t like driving with Heidi. She’s a very fast and reckless driver, but that was exactly what we needed right now.)