: Redline
The sports car was a precision machine, cutting through the heavy Moroccan traffic like a scalpel. She slammed her foot down on the accelerator, shifting gears manually as the engine whined to its redline. Her throat burned from the fixer's grip, and her skin was raw from the asphalt tumble, but none of it mattered. Her eyes were locked onto the distant horizon, scanning the sea of yellow taxis and dust-covered sedans for the black SUV.
Up ahead, traffic slowed to a crawl near a crowded market square. Then, she saw it—the black SUV, its rear windshield completely shattered, aggressively shoving its way through a line of cars to make a sharp left turn toward the industrial docks.
They were trying to get Ethan to a boat. If they made it to the water, he was gone forever.
She yanked the steering wheel, threading the sports car through a gap between two delivery trucks with millimeters to spare. She bypassed the gridlocked street entirely, roaring up onto a pedestrian sidewalk, scattering baskets of spices and sending vendors diving for cover.
The driver of the SUV looked in his side mirror and realized the sports car trailing him wasn't his partner. He panicked.
The front passenger window of the SUV rolled down, and a hand emerged holding a submachine gun. A spray of bullets chipped the asphalt ahead of her, one round shattering the sports car's passenger-side mirror.
She ducked her head, keeping her eyes on the road. The docks were looming ahead, a maze of massive shipping containers and heavy cranes. The SUV tore through the open chain-link gates of the port facility, and she followed them right into the labyrinth.
It was a dead sprint now. The SUV swerved hard around a towering stack of blue cargo containers, trying to break her line of sight. But she anticipated the move, pulling the handbrake and throwing the sports car into a controlled, screaming drift around the corner. She straightened the wheel, accelerating hard, and rammed the front bumper of the sports car directly into the SUV's rear quarter panel.
The PIT maneuver was flawless. The heavy SUV fishtailed violently, its tires losing traction on the oil-slicked concrete of the docks. It spun 180 degrees before slamming sideways into a massive steel shipping crate, the impact deploying the airbags and bringing the vehicle to a grinding, smoking halt.
She threw the sports car into park, drawing her weapon before the smoke could even clear.
The SUV is disabled, the remaining kidnappers are dazed, and she's closing in. What happens when she opens that door to get Ethan?