Driven

by W. G. Griffiths

  “Hey, uh, Bill, right?” he said, grabbing the man by the arm as he was climbing into the pilot’s seat of his experimental seaplane.

  “Huh? Oh, hi, Detective. Look, I’m really sorry for the holdup. I didn’t open my gas valve all the way and it conked out right here. But as you can see, the engine’s back on and purrin’ like a kitten. I’ll be outta here before you can tell me to, uh, get outta here.”

  “Forget that,” Gavin said, shaking his head. “The last time I saw you, you said you would take me for a ride sometime.”

  “Yeah, sure. But didn’t you say you were afraid of heights?”

  “This is an emergency. Did you happen to see a lobster boat leaving a short while ago?”

  “You mean Shadahd? You bet I did. I’ve always got an eye peeled for that guy when I’m around here. He hates me—always gives me the finger for no reason. For the life of me, I don’t know what I ever did to him. I think he’s dangerous.”

  “More than you know. He’s the Ghost Driver.”

  “No way! Him?”

  “That’s right. And right now he’s on the run with a hostage on board.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Dead serious. Will you help me catch him?”

  “Me?” Bill said, his voice rising. “Now? In this?”

  “Yes, yes, and yes. Please, we have to do this fast.”

  “But—”

  “I can’t tell you anything else. This is all extremely confidential. I’m desperate. Please!” Gavin tried very hard not to think about the fact he was asking to go into the air in a glorified kite with a motor. All he could focus on was Amy.

  Bill took a brief pause to frown suspiciously. “Why would this be confidential?”

  “That’s also confidential.”

  Bill rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever. You don’t have to explain yourself. A ride is a ride. Get in!”

  “One more thing,” Gavin said, seeing Buck approach with his wooden chest. “There’s two of us.”

  Bill turned to see Buck. “Him?”

  “Me,” Buck chimed in.

  “What’s with the chest?” Bill asked.

  “It’s… confidential,” Gavin said with a shrug. “I don’t even know.”

  “Weird,” Bill said, nodding. “But three is illegal.”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “I don’t have any extra helmets.”

  “Then don’t crash,” Gavin said, ready to explode with anxiety.

  “The extra weight will make takeoff a little harder and our airspeed a bit slower, but we have the power.”

  “Then let’s go, already,” Buck said.

  “Okay, you get in the seat,” Bill said to Buck. “And you sit in front of his seat, Detective. Hold on tight to the back of my seat and keep your feet on the mono-float.”

  In a few moments all three were snuggly in place. Gavin sat in front of Buck’s feet on a six-inch pipe, the main body of the plane to which everything appeared to be either bolted or strapped. His fingers dug reflexively into the back of Bill’s seat as the pilot throttled up. As the ultralight rolled down the rest of the boat ramp, Gavin looked to his left, then wished he hadn’t. Everyone around was staring at the spectacle. Their expressions mirrored the thought Gavin was desperately denying: they were doomed. He closed his eyes and prayed. He begged for God’s immediate attention. After all, wasn’t he chasing one of God’s mistakes? He held his eyelids tightly shut as the roar of the engine behind him grew louder and louder until the engine was screaming like a dozen lawnmowers and the waves blurred by, slapping with increasing frequency against the frame in a drumroll of noise. “Please remember Buck is with us on this thing,” Gavin verbally added to his prayer. “He’s on your side.”

  Just then, the barrage of watery noise stopped. Gavin’s eyelids remained stoically shut. He felt like he was in a confused elevator—weightless, then rising against gravity, then weightless again. The engine itself continued its steady roar. That was a good sign, he hoped. He cracked open his eyes, although he refused to look downward, focusing instead on the back of Bill’s white helmet and noting the microphone arm that jutted from the side.

  “How are you doing?” Buck yelled, tapping Gavin on the shoulder.

  Gavin released the grip of his right hand just long enough to make an OK sign, then quickly regrabbed.

  “We should be able to see them soon, no matter what direction they went,” Bill yelled over his right shoulder, inches from Gavin’s face.

  “Aren’t you ever afraid of this thing crashing?” Gavin yelled back.

  “Nah. It’s a lot stronger than it looks. Besides, if there’s a problem, there’s always the ballistic chute,” he said, tapping a white canister the size of a two-quart soda bottle mounted over his head on the front of the wing. “It fully deploys in a second and a half with a pull of the lever under my seat. And if that fails, I have a smaller version attached to my vest. I like to know I can abandon ship if I need to.”

  Gavin suddenly wanted his own personal ballistic parachute.

  50

  Amy’s terror-filled eyes widened as Krogan drained the last of his bottle and dropped it on the floor with the others. She turned her head away, then squealed in pain as he grabbed her hair. She was tense with fear and anger. If he were going to rape her he would have to tear her pants off because she was going to fight as hard as she could.

  Krogan laughed casually and pushed her face into the mattress until she couldn’t breathe. She fought desperately to lift her head or turn it to the side, but he was too strong. Her concern about composure vanished as she screamed hopelessly, her muffled panic swallowed in cotton. Something cold, hard, and abrasive dragged against her calf and then ankle. Suddenly her legs were free. A rusty knife was now on the side of her neck. She felt faint and didn’t know if it was from lack of oxygen or raw fear.

  Krogan grabbed a fistful of hair, yanked up her head, and slid the knife to the front of her throat. The serrated blade was corroded but painfully sharp as she gulped for precious air. The cabin was stiflingly hot and sweat saturated her clothes, but there was a chill in his grasp that nothing could warm. He pulled back on her head and met her eye to eye. The foreign calmness of his handsome smile was more frightening than if he’d had the head of a jack-o’-lantern. Deep in his eyes she could see a different life, more animal than human. She suddenly believed Buck’s claim to be able to see beyond the man-host. In that instant she knew Karl Dengler was not the one whom she was looking at. She was facing the immortal, Krogan. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. The many faces he had worn through the centuries could not hide who he was in Karianne’s vivid descriptions, nor could the human face of Karl Dengler. She looked away.

  “Do you know what a figurehead is?” Krogan whispered, his breath reeking of cheap tequila.

  Her breathing came fast and shallow and she feared she would hyperventilate and faint into the knife.

  “During what you would call ancient times, figureheads were carvings of idols and deities mounted on the bow, supposedly to scare away evil. The fools. They were invitations. Of course, eventually the carvings were mostly of women. I think this boat deserves a figurehead for its final voyage. Now, we can go up there the easy way or the hard way. Personally, I prefer the hard way,”

  He took the cold, rusty knife, which had probably been used to cut bait, from her throat and stabbed it into a crusty Styrofoam buoy. He yanked her off the mattress and steered her with his hand, holding her hair in a vise grip. Her legs felt strangely weak and shaky. She tripped over the bottles, but did not fall; his strength held her upright. As much as she wanted to kick him, preferably in the groin, she knew that was exactly what he wanted. Not that he needed an excuse to beat her. She didn’t know what hideous plan he had for her, but at least she was out of that hellish cabin and into fresh air.

  She breathed in deeply as he maneuvered her onto the bow and considered jumping into the water if given the chance. With her hands tied behind her ba
ck, she would probably drown. If she managed to somehow stay afloat, he would surely run her down. It all sounded worth it just to be free of his cold, slimy hands.

  “Kneel,” Krogan commanded, forcing her to her knees. Her left ankle was quickly tied to the boat, then her right. He then tied one end of another rope around her abdomen and fed the other end through a cleat at the tip of the bow.

  Her heart banged against her ribs. What was he doing?

  He drew the line, pulling her forward on her knees. A few feet from the tip of the bow, the ropes tied to her ankles caught. Krogan yanked, slamming her down until her face hit the deck just before the front cleat. He fed some slack into the ankle ropes, then pulled again from the front, dragging her forward until her head was completely beyond the bow and out over the water. He then tightened all the ropes, stretching her out until she was nearly raised off the deck.

  She grunted as he kneed her back. The wind was forced from her and the cleat on the deck dug into the center of her chest. Krogan’s sodden breath fanned her ear.

  “Now, isn’t that better? You have a view, like I promised, and can catch a tan at the same time. Did anyone ever tell you you’d make a perfect figurehead?”

  The fact she was being spoken to by a demon conjured up fears Amy had never known existed. Looking back to one side and then the other, she could see she was hopelessly tied to cleats on either side of the boat. The friction from the rope was already burning her back.

  Whatever Gavin was doing, she only hoped he would hurry. She didn’t care if he brought the entire police department and killed Krogan right off. She abhorred the thought of Krogan returning in someone else, but if they didn’t kill him, he was going to enjoy killing her and, from what she could glean from his plans, himself, too.

  51

  That looks like them over there,” Bill shouted over his left shoulder.

  Gavin forced open his eyes and in doing so almost fainted. Buck grabbed him by the shoulders, steadying him.

  “Right there,” Bill yelled, pointing. “At ten o’clock. They’re stopped.”

  “Are you sure it’s them?” Gavin yelled. He saw the boat, which looked like a toy from this height, about two thousand feet up and a mile away.

  Bill bent over and pulled a pair of binoculars from a small metal box near his feet. When he leaned forward, so did the joystick he was holding with his right hand. Consequently, the plane dipped, enough so that Gavin tightened his already finger-cramping grip on the seat. When Bill sat back up, the plane straightened out again. Gavin wondered if Bill was aware or simply did not care.

  Bill brought the binoculars to his eyes and kept them there as he spoke. “That’s them all right. I can just about make out the name. Someone’s on the bow… Wait! They’re moving. And someone’s still on the bow. Take a look,” Bill yelled, handing the binoculars over his shoulder.

  Gavin froze at the sight of the binoculars. He would have to let go with one hand. Bill motioned again for Gavin to take them. Gavin released the grip of his left hand, then slowly, very slowly, extended his hand toward Bill’s, half focused on the seat he would grab if he had to.

  “I’ve got you, Detective,” Buck said, lightly touching Gavin’s shoulders to reassure him of his presence.

  Gavin took the field glasses and brought them straight to his eyes. The illusion of everything becoming larger and closer was somewhat settling, but the movement of the ultralight made focusing on any one thing difficult and the tighter he held on to the tubular frame the more the flight affected his vision. He exhaled and slowly eased his death-grip on the frame. His more flexible position helped him to stabilize the binoculars. He tried not to think what a sudden gust of wind would do.

  After a moment he found the boat and focused in on it. He grimaced at the sight of the body sprawled out on the front of the bow and his own fear of heights suddenly dwindled like tissue in flame. Amy’s head appeared to be beyond the bow. He could not see the ropes, but he knew she had to be tied there. What was Krogan going to do—use her as a battering ram?

  “Hang on,” Bill yelled as he veered left over the peninsula of Sands Point, straightening his angle to twelve o’clock.

  “Ahhh…” Gavin stiffened at the sudden change in direction and almost lost the binoculars. “How long till we catch them?” he yelled.

  “I don’t know. We’ve picked up a head wind since we turned west. Our airspeed is about sixty, but with the wind in our face, we’re only doing maybe forty to fifty ground speed. That’s only about five or ten more than him.”

  Gavin didn’t have to ask the obvious. He knew they would never catch them in time. All they would do was get close enough to clearly witness the unthinkable. “Oh, God,” he said quietly. He didn’t have much faith, but he was in desperate need of help. He thought of Amy’s fear and pain and he begged. “Please, God, please, God, please,” was all he could say as the lobster boat gathered speed. If God really could read his thoughts, there was nothing else that needed to be said.

  “Are there any speed boats in sight?” Buck yelled.

  Anything was better than watching Amy get further and further away. Gavin would not be denied as he had been at the boat ramp. If a speed boat was already in the water, he would take it—like a pirate if he had to—and deal with the consequences later, including the fact he had never driven a powerboat before.

  “If you want an ocean racer, I might be able to get you one,” Bill yelled back.

  “Now?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How?”

  “A good friend of mine is selling one. I was supposed to meet him for dinner at City Island.”

  “Where’s City Island?”

  “Right there,” Bill said, pointing to a small island at two o’clock, not far from the Throgs Neck Bridge.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “The boat’s a twelve-year-old, twenty-six-foot Welcraft, and he only wants fifteen thousand for it. It’s in perfect shape and the two engines can push over eight hundred horsepower. The thing’s a rocket. I could try to radio him. He might still be on his way to the island.”

  “Get him!” Gavin yelled. “I don’t care what it costs.”

  The aluminum tube Gavin was sitting on had become unbearable. He tried shifting himself while Bill spoke on the radio. He could not hear the conversation over the noise of the wind and the engine, but he could see Bill’s mouth moving. As he waited, he spared a moment to wonder about the incredible coincidence of getting this boat. It seemed almost too farfetched to be possible— that Bill had dinner plans with the owner… on the island they were currently flying past. Had God heard his prayers? At this point he was willing to believe anything.

  “My friend wants to know if you need for him to drive,” Bill yelled over his shoulder. “But I’ll warn you: he’s a little crazy.”

  “Yes! Just do it!”

  Bill talked a moment more, then signed off.

  “That’s all he had to hear. We’ll be seeing him any minute. To save time, I’ll fly directly over him. When I get close enough, you two can jump into his boat.”

  “Your friend isn’t the only one who’s crazy,” Gavin yelled.

  Holding firmly to the back of the seat, Gavin bravely raised himself until he could see over Bill’s left shoulder, hoping they were a little closer to Amy. They were not. The lobster boat was now passing under the Throgs Neck suspension bridge that connected Long Island with the Bronx. On the other side of the bridge sat a Merchant Marine ship that was permanently docked and used as a school. Gavin hoped it was not named Freedom or New York. He wondered what was taking Chris so long in coming up with a boat to match the names, then realized Chris might have been calling or paging him without him being able to hear over all the noise.

  Suddenly the angle of the plane shifted downward.

  “I see my friend’s boat leaving City Island,” Bill yelled. “We can gain some ground on them on the way down. Increasing the angle of attack increases our airspeed. Our ex
tra weight will speed us up on the way down, too.”

  He suited actions to words. The increase in speed made the craft vibrate. Gavin looked doubtfully at the colorful translucent fabric wings held in place by a few tubular struts and thin cables and waited for everything to suddenly fold in half.

  “Shadahd’s changing course,” Bill yelled. “She’s headed straight for a fishing party boat.”

  Gavin looked over Bill’s shoulder again. The path made by Shadahd’s wake had veered right. Dead ahead lay a party boat, just as Bill had said.

  “No!” Gavin screamed. He turned his head away, unable to watch. Then, unable to stand it, he looked back, unable to not watch.

  52

  Before Krogan turned Shadahd toward the Flounder Filet II party boat, Amy had been having a difficult time holding her unsupported head up, her muscles cramping as she tried to arch her neck and back. Now, however, she was unconcerned with spasms. Her head was raised toward the broadside of the charter boat before her, which quickly filled her vision until she became too horrified to keep her eyes open. The top of her scalp tingled wildly as she waited for the impact.

  “You might feel a little pinch,” mocked Krogan with a deep, boisterous laugh.

  Amy peered over her right shoulder to see he had opened his windshield. She could not remember if she’d ever seen anyone look like they were having more fun. He was sucking in life through her fear while crowing over her undignified, helpless position.

  Unable to keep from glancing ahead again, in the hope the fishing boat could stage an unlikely emergency maneuver, she saw the fishermen were no longer interested in their rods and reels. Their boat was twice, maybe three times the size of Krogan’s, but would that be enough to save them? At this speed Shadahd would certainly plow a sizable hole into their hull. Steel against steel. What could they do to prevent it? Who could save them on such short notice? If she could see them, then so could Krogan, probably taking in each individual expression as it evolved from casual interest to disbelief to helpless terror.