Chapter 5 - The High-Speed Compliance
The highway between the north bluff and downtown Port Emery was a ribbon of black, wet asphalt flanked by old industrial warehouses and salt marshes that gleamed like oil under the yellow streetlights. The armored Mercedes sedan moved through the sleet with a heavy, mechanical roar, its four-wheel-drive system fighting the slush as the storm began to break.
Mia sat behind the wheel, her seat moved forward until her knees were nearly touching the dashboard, her fingers wrapped around the leather steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip. In the rearview mirror, Lorenzo Duca sat in the center of the rear seat, his hands resting on his gold-headed cane, while Matteo occupied the passenger seat beside her, his long fingers manipulating an encrypted tablet.
"He’s at the Varro office," Matteo said, looking at the tracking dot on his screen. "Hensley’s clearing the digital logs from the main mainframe. He has a flight to Miami at five-forty-five."
"He won't make the flight," Mia said, her foot pressing down on the accelerator. The heavy sedan fished slightly to the left as it hit a patch of gray slush near the river bridge.
"Mia," Matteo said smoothly, his hand reaching out to steady the dashboard. "The speed limit on this bridge is forty-five."
"The speed limit is for people who aren't chasing the man who tried to kill you, Mr. Duca," Mia said, her eyes tracking a black sedan that had just pulled out from the warehouse lane behind them. "And currently, we have company."
The black sedan didn't turn its lights on. It accelerated through the slush, its grille closing within thirty feet of the Mercedes’ rear bumper. A sudden, sharp crack echoed through the bridge structure as a round struck the reinforced glass of the rear window, leaving a small, milky spiderweb in the upper corner.
"Ferretti’s clean-up crew," Matteo said, his voice dropping its sarcastic edge completely as he reached into the glove box, pulling out a heavy, dark-barreled Sig Sauer pistol and clearing the safety with a sharp clack. "They must have had a backup team near the spur."
"Hold on," Mia said.
She didn't try to outrun the sedan. She knew the armored Mercedes weighed nearly three tons; it was a fortress, not a race car. Instead, she slammed her foot onto the brake pedal while simultaneously twisting the steering wheel forty-five degrees to the right.
The heavy car executed a violent, controlled fish-tail, its massive steel rear bumper swinging outward like a pendulum. The trailing black sedan had no time to adjust; its front fender collided with the swinging weight of the Mercedes with the sound of a metal recycling plant collapsing.
The impact sent the black sedan spinning across the icy bridge deck, its tires screaming as it struck the concrete guardrail, flipped twice over the iron barrier, and plunged into the dark, freezing waters of the Port Emery channel fifty feet below.
Mia didn't look back at the splash. She straightened the wheel, caught the slide with a sharp tap of the throttle, and continued toward the downtown exit ramp as if she had simply avoided a pothole.
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In the back seat, Lorenzo Duca let out a slow, dry breath. "Carlo was right about your hands, Miss Callaway. Your feet, however, are an insurance hazard."
"We're four minutes ahead of schedule, sir," Mia said, her eyes fixed on the neon sign of the Varro Security Tower rising through the morning mist ahead. "Mr. Hensley is about to have a very bad performance review."
