Free A New Day in America by Theo Black Gangi Page B

breathing,” she answers as though she’s actually holding her breath.
    The exam lab is completely cleaned out. He looks out the window after the doctor and sees the small man in a full sprint down the hill, at least seven hundred yards off. Can’t risk putting a .50-caliber through his leg—might kill him.
    Nos hauls back down to the bike and turns down the hill after the doctor.
    He hears an engine start and run from somewhere in the distance.
A fucking engine
. The doc has a
car
.

Chapter 22
Leviathan in the Depths
    Nos rides toward the noise and a green Jeep Cherokee flies through the winding Central Park roads.
    The Jeep burns north as fast as it can go, and Nos checks Nay and accelerates, the jump throwing them backward before they duck and clutch and ride. They blast through the park, gaining on the Cherokee. The car breaks through the park at 110 th street and drives uptown. The doctor seems to know what he’s doing, where he can go, where he can’t. Nos barely keeps up as they blur through the city. The Cherokee breaks a hard left at 155 th street and then a hard right north on the West Side Highway.
    The straightway is a mistake for the doctor. Nos’ bike is too fast, too nimble. Nos quickly pulls up alongside the Cherokee. The doctor is panicking as he tries to manage the wheel. Nos steadies the bike handles with one hand, reaches to his holster, and pulls the Sig-Sauer. He aims at the doctor, and the doctor ducks and nearly swerves off the road.
    Nos slows, drops back, steadies the wild, rumbling bike, and fires—four shots, six
pops
. Concrete kicks up and the rear tires blow out. The Cherokee slams on its back end and swerves. The axels scream against the highway. The Jeep turns—the doc jerks the wheel too hard—the wheels skid out and the Jeep spins out.
Too goddamn fast
. The car body bangs the waterside railing. It spins and crunches through the railing. The massive vehicle is gone.
    No
. Not the doc. Nos
needs
the doc.
    He turns the bike around to the broken railing. The van bobs and sinks in the river. The green water of the Hudson looks maybe thirty yards down. Maybe the doc is alive.
    Maybe. Worth a shot
.
    Nos sets Naomi down. Without time for a word, he dives from the highway, and the water’s surface rushes up to meet him. He smacks and tunnels through the dark. He swims around the falling Jeep. The doc is still belted in. Nos pops the door and the doc is swallowing too much water—the doc—he should know better. Nos grips the open door, and the Jeep hurdles down lower and drags him along. The water pressure pounds against his head. The door closes on his torso like he’s in its jaws. He reaches across the driver’s seat and clicks the belt, grips beneath the doc’s armpit, kicks back against the door, and rips the doctor from the seat. As the Jeep falls into the depths, he kicks one more time up against its hull to the surface.
    Nos rolls the doc over on the soaking dock and pumps his stomach and huffs in his mouth.
Live, motherfucker
.
Live
.
    When the doctor awakes, he still sees nothing. He can feel the high breeze coming in off the Jersey side of the Hudson. Nos knows because he can feel it, too. Nos knows when the doctor wakes up because his breathing goes from even to sputtering. He chokes on panic.
    “What is in the suitcase?” Nos growls.
    “Nothing—inoculation,” the doctor says, spitting out the words. “You don’t need it.”
    “I don’t think you understand what kind of position you’re in,” says Nos as he slowly pulls his hand away from the doctor’s eyes.
Let him see it
.
    The doctor screams as soon as Nos’ fingers separate. He screams down through the hundreds of yards below to the surface of the Hudson River. He screams as if there is nothing between him and the water. He screams because he knows that a fall from this height would obliterate his bones to powder, because he knows he will remain conscious until the very last moment.
    It was a pain driving