The Hunt for Atlantis by Andy McDermott Read Free Book Online Page B

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