A Bridge to Love

by Nancy Herkness

  “No problem,” Randall said.

  “Do you have one of those radio transponders you told the boys about in this car?” Kate asked.

  “Yes, and I think it's about time to use it,” he said, reaching down to flip the switch. “Now we'll get serious about losing them.”

  Kate took a firm hold of the hand grip above her door as Randall raced the Jaguar through three lanes of traffic, accelerating and braking through openings that appeared too small for a Volkswagen Beetle.

  She glanced over at him as the bridge to Randall's Island whipped past. His eyes were focused on the road but a distinctly feral smile played over his lips. She realized that incredibly, Randall was enjoying this mad dash through the night. His voice startled her.

  “Do we take the brassy Triborough or the big guy?” he asked as the Jaguar practically flew over a rise in the highway.

  “The George Washington,” Kate said, refusing to allow him to joke about the situation. “The security company told us to stay in motion. You'll get stopped at the Triborough.”

  “All right but let's make 'em think we're taking the Triborough,” Randall said, speeding into the far left lane of the two which exited to the Triborough Bridge. He flicked a look in the rearview mirror. “Good, they're moving with us.”

  The lanes began to separate from the main highway and Kate gasped as Randall suddenly swerved right across one lane of traffic, a dividing berm, and into the left lane of the Harlem River Drive exit. She twisted around as she heard horns blaring and brakes squealing. The pursuing car had forced its way through behind them and was now rocking wildly right on their rear bumper.

  “That shook them up,” Randall said with satisfaction. Then he barked, “They're pulling up on your side. Keep your head low, but see if you can see how many people are in the car.”

  Kate scooted down in her seat and looked right. The driver had his window down and was clearly shouting at them although she couldn't hear his words.

  “There's a driver and another person beside him,” Kate said. She was trying to peer into the backseat when the passenger suddenly leaned forward and pointed a gun at her. “Duck, he has a gun!” she yelled, dropping her head onto her knees. Randall crouched down over the wheel and hit the gas harder.

  “Where are the God damned police?” he shouted, looking into the rearview mirror.

  Kate shifted in her seat. “Keep down,” he barked, putting his hand on her head and holding her face against her knees. “I don't want you to get shot. Call security,” he commanded the car phone.

  A different male voice answered instantly. “Mr. Johnson, we're trying to...”

  “They're pointing a gun at us,” Randall snarled. “Get the police here now.”

  “Mr. Johnson,” the voice tried again. “You're moving so fast that we're having difficulty tracking you. The police are on their way.”

  “Light a fire under them. We're on the Harlem River Drive headed for the George Washington Bridge. Tell them to meet us there.”

  “Roger, Mr. Johnson,” the voice confirmed.

  “I guess we made the bad guys mad,” Kate said, trying to sound normal from her doubled-over position.

  “I'm sorry. You shouldn't be involved in this.”

  He had stopped cutting in and out of traffic and was simply staying ahead of their pursuers' car. Kate took that as a sign that it was safe to raise her head.

  “As long as we're in it together, I'm fine,” she said and realized that it was the absolute truth.

  As they rounded a corner, Yankee Stadium lit up the sky on their right like a Christmas tree. Kate thought longingly of all the policemen who were stationed around the stadium. But it was too far away to help them.

  “The Yanks are home tonight,” Randall commented in what struck Kate as an absurdly conversational tone. “If the Series goes to seven games, I'll take the boys.”

  His attempt to ease the tension made her want to seem brave.

  “I'll buy the hot dogs,” she managed to choke out.

  A sign with a simple graphic picture of the George Washington Bridge caught their headlights and she had a sudden inspiration.

  “We can lose them on the bridge! The towers have all sorts of cross-girders and dark corners to hide in!” She closed her eyes to concentrate. She knew the GWB better than anyone. How could they best utilize her knowledge?

  “Last time I looked, it was hard to park a car in four lanes of traffic,” Randall said, weaving between two cars.

  “Then you didn't look very hard. There's space on the upper level just before you get to where the cable meets the roadway.” She pulled up the picture in her mind. “Right after we go under the apartment building built over the access road, the right lane has to merge left and two lanes come in from the right. If you can get across the two right lanes, there's a pull off for maintenance vehicles.” She could tell he was listening intently. “We go over the pedestrian railing onto the walkway and make a run for the tower. The only flaw is that we'll be running in the same direction as traffic.” She tried to gauge how far they'd have to run and decided that it was possible. Especially with fear-induced adrenaline. “Thank goodness we're both wearing dark colors.” Kate looked down at her pumps. “These won't do though.”

  “Wait a minute, Kate,” Randall said, as she slipped out of her shoes. “What happens when we get to the tower?”

  She closed her eyes again, conjuring up both blueprints and memories of family walks on the bridge. “We get onto the stairs and go down toward the lower level. There are catwalks there that will take us onto the supports for the upper roadway.”

  “What's stopping our friends from doing the same thing?”

  “Surprise for one thing; they won't expect us to stop on the bridge. Also there's the slight problem that the stairs are behind solid steel gates with locks so you have to know how to get on them. It can be done though.”

  “All right, how?”

  She could tell from his tone that he was now seriously considering her plan.

  “You have to climb over a four foot railing onto an extension of the security fence. Then you reach across to a brace girder on the tower, and from there the stairs are just an easy climb over another railing.” She deliberately omitted the fact that below the security fence extension there was nothing but two hundred feet of thin air over solid bedrock, and that the wind whipping up the Hudson River was going to be powerful and cold.

  She underestimated Randall's analytical skills. “I don't suppose there's a safety net.”

  “Umm, no,” she admitted.

  “And hitting water from two hundred feet up is not a good idea.”

  “Actually, the New York tower is on the shore. There's a nice park around the base.” And a fence topped with razor wire, she mentally added. But that didn't really matter except to one's imagination.

  Randall actually chuckled. “Well, that's much better. All right, we'll do it.”

  Kate took a deep breath. She briefly considered the fact that Randall was trusting her with his life. Then she dismissed the thought as too disquieting and concentrated instead on envisioning every step of their route.

  Randall spoke again. “When I pull over, you get out and start running immediately. I'll catch up with you.”

  “Got it,” she said, bracing herself.

  “Hang on. Here we go,” Randall said.

  Kate glimpsed the awesome tangle of highways, bridges and access ramps which all converged on the George Washington Bridge. Then they were charging up and around the exit ramp, and a quick glance behind revealed that their enemies were in hot pursuit. The next few seconds were a confused blur of taillights, overpasses, and merges left and right. Randall rocketed unerringly toward the upper roadway of the bridge. They blazed through the weird pinkish light of the apartment building underpass and past the blinking electronic merge sign.

  He put his hand on the horn and yanked the car right.

  Mass pandemonium among the cars in the right
hand merge was the immediate result. But then the Jaguar's brakes were squealing and they slammed to a halt at the pullover. Kate unclipped her seat belt, jumped out of the car and ran between the rails of the fence.

  The noise of the wind and traffic assaulted her ears as she raced along the concrete sidewalk. Despite her exertions, she was freezing in a few seconds and her feet were throbbing from the pounding and the cold. She drew comfort from the dark shape that almost immediately came up running beside her.

  As they raced past the fence protecting the two massive cables that carried half the load of the bridge, Kate prayed that the sidewalk access gate was open. It was easy to get around, but it would cost them precious seconds to do so. Luckily the barred metal gates stood wide open. From there the sidewalk ran straight to the tower. Randall reached for her hand and picked up his pace, sharing his strength with her. The evenly spaced sets of vertical support cables on either side of the walkway seemed to mark their progress as they sprinted past.

  They were almost at the tower when a sudden squeal of brakes and honking of horns made them both redouble their efforts. Their pursuers had stopped. “Stay low,” Randall yelled as a tractor-trailer roared past.

  As they approached the soaring steel structure, what looked airy and graceful from a distance became a complex puzzle of giant girders, trusses and plates. The sidewalk turned to the right and Kate led Randall past the caged passageway through the tower to the corner where guardrail and security fence met. Just as they reached it, two men ran out of the pedestrian throughway to their left. Randall pushed Kate against the fence and flattened himself over her. Kate literally held her breath and thanked her lucky stars that the Port Authority's budget didn't allow for illuminating the tower except on holidays.

  She couldn't see or hear the men because Randall's coat was covering her face. She was grateful for the warmth of his body counteracting the achingly cold metal bars of the fence she was crushed against. Suddenly the warmth was gone.

  “They're headed toward our car. Let's go,” Randall said.

  Kate closed her eyes for a split second and uttered a brief prayer. Randall helped her over the railing. She resolutely kept her eyes up but she could practically feel the thinness of the two hundred feet of air beneath her. She gulped and released her right hand to grasp the fence extension. She slotted her right foot between two of the fence's vertical bars and found the horizontal crossbar. Then she shifted her left foot and left hand onto the fence. Now she had to maneuver around the end of the fence so that she could reach for the girder slanting up on the other side.

  Without thinking, she looked down to see where to place her feet. Panic struck, freezing her in place. Suddenly the gusts of wind and the vibration of the traffic seemed to conspire to shake her loose from the fence and she locked her fingers around the bars in a death grip.

  “Kate, are you all right?” Randall's voice cut through the fog of terror.

  “N-n-no,” Kate quavered.

  “Hang on. I'll be right there.”

  Kate felt rather than saw him come over the guardrail and onto the fence. Then he caught her wrist in a grip that was reassuringly firm. “Let go now and turn your hand to hold my wrist,” he instructed.

  Unhesitatingly, Kate obeyed.

  “Good girl. I'll hold you while you move your feet to the end of the fence. That's it. Now wait a minute while I catch up to you.”

  Kate felt his suit jacket flapping against her side. The panic subsided as quickly as it had flared. With Randall holding her, she would never fall. She swung gracefully around the end of the fence and moved far enough down for Randall to join her. She saw his eyes narrow as he gauged the gap between their perch and the girder.

  “I make it about four feet,” he shouted over the wind. “I'll keep hold of your wrist while you swing across. Then I'll follow.”

  Kate freed her right foot. “I'm going on three,” she yelled back to Randall. He nodded.

  “One. Two. Three,” Kate counted and released her grip. Randall's hand was clamped on her wrist like a steel vise, and Kate had a brief sensation of soaring across the space. Then both her right hand and foot hit solid metal cross-trusses and held. For a moment she hung spread-eagled in the gap. “I've got it,” she yelled.

  Randall released his grip, and Kate swung her left limbs onto the girder. “I'm going on to the stair platform now,” she called to Randall, as she climbed down perfectly spaced cross-braces.

  “I'm right behind you.”

  By the time Kate had climbed over the railing around the landing for the maintenance stairs, Randall was climbing down the girder. He swung onto the platform and yanked her into his arms. “Don't ever do that again,” he whispered in her ear. “Where to now?” he asked, as he released her.

  She scooted down the steps to the lower roadway of the bridge. As she jogged along a catwalk, she thought she heard a gunshot and flinched.

  “I think they just shot the lock on the gate to the stairs,” Randall said. “Let's move.”

  She cut left and then they were in the underbelly of the upper level. She stepped off the catwalk and onto a girder leading out over traffic. She had walked girders before on construction sites, but it was a different experience in a skirt and bare feet. She wished heartily for her rubber-soled running shoes. Her pantyhose were in shreds across the bottoms of her feet, and it took all her willpower to keep stepping onto the frigid, filthy beams.

  “Don't move,” Randall's voice hissed behind her. “They're coming down the steps.”

  Kate froze as dark shapes pounded down the steps behind them. As they kept going down to the lower roadway, she dropped to a crouch and headed for the center of the bridge where it would be hard for their pursuers to follow.

  Suddenly, Randall grabbed her wrist. She stopped and looked back at him questioningly. Silently, he pointed toward the middle of the span. Kate squinted to see what he was gesturing toward. Just beyond the tower, a corrugated sheet metal ceiling had been hung below the girders for some construction project. If they could get to it, they would be invisible to anyone below.

  Kate turned onto a perpendicular girder and threaded her way through the system of support beams. Fortunately, the lights hung below the superstructure and pointed downward so their progress was largely in shadow. The vibration of the speeding cars made the steel seem almost alive under her feet and suddenly a wave of exhilaration swept over her. She knew why Randall had been smiling as he piloted his car at high speed with an unknown enemy in pursuit. It had been his turn then, but now she was pitting her skill against that same enemy and winning. She almost laughed aloud.

  A few more careful steps, and they would be in the protection of the construction ceiling. A loud bang made her teeter. “They've found us,” Randall said, steadying her with his hands on her waist. “Go!”

  Kate no longer cared what she was stepping on as she raced for their hiding place. Another shot rang out. And then the ceiling was between them and their attackers. It was much darker and Kate had to slow down to give her eyes time to become accustomed to the change in light. The traffic noise was deafening as it echoed off the sheet metal below their feet.

  “Head for the eastbound lanes,” Randall yelled. “And take a few detours.”

  Kate simply nodded and took off on a diagonal beam, then another, then picked up a straight one for a few yards, zigging and zagging, but always working them over to the other side of the bridge.

  “Damn it!” she heard Randall yell behind her. He pulled her close to say in her ear, “They've come up a ladder. We need to get behind something bulletproof.”

  They both scanned the dim, thunderous interior. He found what they were looking for and tapped her shoulder, signaling her to follow him. Kate gave him full marks for nerve and balance: he jogged along the girders as though they were sidewalks. She glanced back to see if they were being followed.

  The two men had split up, and with guns held ready, were systematically working their way across
the westbound lanes, checking every shadowy niche as they went. Kate almost collided with Randall when he stopped abruptly.

  He had tensed in a crouching position for a moment and then suddenly leapt up and slightly forward to swing onto an overhead beam. He straddled it and reached a hand down to her. With his steely grip on her wrist, she leapt as hard as she could, catching the beam with her hand and leg, and coming up in front of him.

  He gestured toward a heavy steel plate that was bolted flat where two beams came together. Kate crawled over and rolled onto its welcome protection. Randall joined her and then inched forward to try to see their followers. “I can't spot them,” he said, sliding back. “Check over on the other side.”

  Kate pulled herself to the other edge, scraping along grit which she had a horrible feeling was pigeon droppings and cautiously peered into the confusion of steel below. “I see one west of us about five cross-beams. I can't find the other one.”

  “Neither can I,” Randall murmured back, his voice a low rumble in her ear. “I'm going to look behind us. Don't move.”

  Kate lay still as he used his elbows to pull himself around. She tensed and held her breath when she felt his hand grip her ankle in a warning. After what seemed an eternity, his grip relaxed. Then he moved back to her side again.

  “Where'd he go?”

  “I don't know but I'm not worried.”

  “Why not?” Kate demanded. “We're crawling around the underside of the GWB with two gun-toting maniacs after us!”

  “Listen.”

  She closed her eyes to concentrate. Very faintly at first but gaining in volume, she heard a siren and then another one and then a third. “Oh, thank heavens!”

  Their pursuers heard the sirens too. They exchanged shouts in a language Kate couldn't quite understand. Feeling safe, they looked over the edge of their plate to see the two men converge on the ladder and disappear from sight.

  “Were they speaking Spanish?” Kate asked.