“Go right!” Starkman shouted. Nina barely had time to brace herself before the Bentley screamed into a sharp turn.

“Shit!” the driver gasped as the car hit something with a flat thud. A person, Nina realized with horror. Shouts and screams came from outside as somebody tumbled from the car’s hood. But the driver didn’t stop, instead struggling to keep the Bentley under control as he accelerated again.

Starkman fired two more shots. Nina heard the other vehicle’s powerful engine revving behind them. As he took aim again, the gun was right above her.

She grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled his arm down, sinking her teeth into the flesh of his hand as hard as she could.

He let out a roar of pain-and fired.

The flash was blinding, and the noise, just inches from her head, momentarily overpowered all her senses. The bullet slammed into the back of her seat.

Starkman pulled his hand free. Huge colored blobs danced in Nina’s vision, afterimages from the gun’s muzzle flame. Her hearing started to return in time to hear more gunfire.

But not from Starkman’s gun.

The headrest of the driver’s seat burst apart in a flurry of shredded leather and stuffing, followed a millisecond later by the driver’s head. Dark red blood and gray brain matter splattered the pale lining of the roof and the front windows.

The Bentley swerved as the driver’s corpse slumped to one side. Starkman yelled and grabbed the steering wheel. The vehicle straightened, throwing the stilldazed Nina back across the rear seat.

Wham!

The SUV rammed them again.

Swearing, Starkman leaned over the dead driver and grasped the door handle. The door opened. He stabbed the seat belt release and shoved the corpse out onto the road, then pulled himself over the center console and dropped into the driver’s seat just as the SUV hit again, harder. The Bentley snaked from side to side before Starkman regained control, sawing at the wheel and flinging the car into a hard turn to the left as he stomped on the accelerator. The tires shrieked in protest, the heavy car wallowing.

Nina’s head hit the right-hand door again as the turn flung her across the car. She pulled herself up. If Starkman was occupied with driving, then he couldn’t use the gun…

The other vehicle, a Range Rover, drew level with them. She recognized the face at the wheel-the man in the leather jacket!

With a huge silver gun in one hand, pointing at the Bentley.

“Stay down!” he shouted.

She dropped flat onto the seat again as two booms like cannon fire came from outside. Starkman ducked and shielded his face as the windshield burst apart, the wind driving the fragments back into the car.

Holding the wheel with one hand, he twisted and fired three shots over his left shoulder. Nina heard the Range Rover’s tires screech as it swerved for cover directly behind its quarry.

More horns sounded as Starkman wove the Bentley through the evening traffic, a nerve-shredding grind of metal assaulting Nina’s ears as it sideswiped another car. She looked up. They were somewhere around 17th or 18th Street and rapidly approaching the western side of Manhattan, only the broad lanes of the West Side Highway ahead, and beyond that the cold waters of the Hudson River.

Starkman fumbled with his gun, barely keeping hold of the wheel. Nina realized what he was doing. The automatic’s slide was locked back; he was reloading…

Which meant he couldn’t shoot!

She sat up sharply and clawed at Starkman’s face. He swiped at her, trying to use his weapon as a club. She ducked to one side and continued her attack, feeling something soft beneath the middle finger of her right hand.

His eye.

She drove her nail against it. Starkman howled, thrashing the gun violently at her.

“Stop the car!” she screamed. A glimpse of the speedometer told her that the Bentley was doing sixty and still picking up speed as it careened down the street, directly towards a knot of traffic waiting at the lights.

She screamed again, this time in panic, and pulled her hands from Starkman’s face. Blood covered her fingers. He saw the danger just in time and threw the wheel to the right to miss the rearmost car by mere inches, slamming the Bentley up onto the sidewalk. A trash can spun into the air as they plowed into it, but that was the least of Nina’s concerns, because now they were heading right into the path of the traffic racing along the West Side Highway-

To her horror, Starkman sped up.

The Bentley flew off the end of the sidewalk and smashed back down onto the road, the underside of the car grating against the asphalt. Nina saw headlights flash and heard the desperate shrill of locking brakes. Cars slewed in all directions to avoid a collision, only to be hit from behind by other drivers too close to stop in time.

They shot across the northbound lanes, reaching the median unharmed-only for Starkman to turn into the traffic on the other side, heading uptown directly against the southbound vehicles!

“Oh my God!” Nina shrieked as he flung the Bentley between the lanes of cars and trucks. Other vehicles flashed past on either side just inches away, their drivers swerving frantically to dodge the maniac charging straight at them. More horns blared ahead and behind, an orchestra of fury and fright. “Stop the car before you get us both killed!”

She struck at his eyes again-but this time he was ready.

The gun smacked into her forehead, driving a spike of intense pain deep into her skull. She fell back, dizzy and sickened, as Starkman threw the Bentley hard to the left and plowed through a metal gate onto one of the piers jutting out into the Hudson.

Wind sliced through the shattered windows as the Bentley accelerated along the wharf. Nina struggled upright to see warehouses flying past on one side, the rust-streaked flanks of ships on the other.

And directly ahead, nothing but open water and the distant lights of New Jersey beyond.

She gasped, realizing what Starkman was about to do.

He looked around at her for a moment. His right eye was squeezed tightly shut, deep scratches cutting across it, blood trickling down his cheek.

Then he threw the door open and rolled out, tucking up his arms to protect himself as he fell. In a flash, he was gone, the door slamming behind him-leaving the Bentley still racing towards the end of the pier, the cruise control active and holding its speed at almost fifty miles per hour!

Nina barely had time to scream before the car ripped through the flimsy wire-mesh barrier at the wharf’s end and arced down towards the dark water below.

Sudden deceleration crushed her against the back of the driver’s seat. Freezing water cascaded over her, a tsunami rushing through the broken windows. Bubbles frothed past as the Bentley’s heavy front end tipped downwards, pulling the car and its occupant towards the bottom of the river.

Nina tried to get out through the rear window, but the high headrests above the back seat blocked her escape. Eyes stinging, she tugged desperately at the nearest door handle, but it still wouldn’t budge.

The side window…

The glass was smashed, and it was just large enough for her to fit. She grabbed the window frame and pulled herself through. Her shoulders cleared the door, her chest-

She was stuck!

Her dress had snagged on the metal rods supporting the driver’s seat’s destroyed headrest.

Nina kicked, trying to free herself. No luck. Her stupid dress was still caught fast. She kicked harder, pushing at the window frame with her arms for extra leverage. The material gave slightly, but refused to tear.

Her chest was about to explode. She wanted nothing more than to take a breath, but the only thing she would draw into her lungs was water.