Blowback

Harvath and Alcott needed to get as far away from the gendarmes and Ristolas as possible. Leaning down, he removed the gold chain with the medallion of Saint Bernard from his pocket and placed it in Marie Lavoine’s hand. At least now she and Bernard were together, he thought as he straightened himself up and stepped from behind the reception desk.

Walking to the windows near the front door, he peered out from behind the curtains and was not happy with what he saw. The tiny driveway in front of the Carré de l’Ours was crammed with provincial police cars. Apparently, Broussard had entered the hotel with the first officers on the scene, the motorcycle cops, and had told the rest of the police to remain outside. From an investigative standpoint it was a smart move. The less people tramping through the hotel, the less chance of evidence being damaged. But from an escapee’s standpoint, Harvath and Jillian were screwed-doubly so, as he noticed teams of officers moving around to secure the back of the property.

“Shit,” said Harvath as he pulled his head back in from the window.

“What’s going on?” asked Jillian.

“It’s crawling with police outside.”

Jillian came up and looked out the window for herself. “What are we going to do?”

“As far as the authorities are concerned, you and I have been on a three-day killing spree. They’re not about to let us just walk out of here, and I’m not about to draw them into any sort of fight.”

“So what do you suggest?”

After thinking for several moments, Harvath looked out the window again and focused on something at the end of the driveway. “Do you know how to ride a motorcycle?”

“No, why?”

“Because I only have one idea on how to get us out of here, and we’ve probably only got a million-to-one shot at making it work.”

Five minutes later, wearing the visored helmets and uniforms of the two unconscious motorcycle cops from the kitchen, Harvath and Jillian exited the hotel and began quickly walking past the officers waiting outside.

When the gendarmes began asking what had happened inside, Harvath held up a plastic evidence bag containing Khalid Alomari’s tactical machine pistol and continued walking. The officers seemed to understand. They knew a murder had been committed, and the presence of such an exotic weapon confirmed what they all secretly believed-that the scene inside was particularly gruesome. Obviously, the captain had dispatched the two motorcycle officers on some important assignment involving the weapon, and they had no time to talk. That was fine with most of them. Hopefully, they would soon be allowed inside and would be able to see the crime scene for themselves. There wasn’t a man among them who had ever had the opportunity to see a murder scene before.

They went back to talking among themselves, but when Jillian climbed onto one of the motorcycles at the bottom of the driveway behind Harvath, and with a backpack no less, several of the gendarmes began to suspect something might be going on.

Please let it start on the first try, thought Harvath. It did, and they were half a block away before the first of the cops had run inside the hotel, discovered his colleagues in the kitchen, and come back outside to send the other officers to apprehend the wayward police motorcycle and its two fugitive riders.

Instantly, sirens started echoing off the stone structures of the small village. As Harvath drove the high-powered motorbike up both streets and sidewalks, he was thankful it was evening and most people were inside.

While he drove, Alcott stuck to her part of the plan. With their rented Mercedes surrounded by police cars in the Carré de l’Ours’s driveway, their only hoping of getting away was in whatever car Khalid Alomari had left behind. All they had to do was find it.

Harvath knew that Alomari was professional enough not to have parked right in front of a murder scene, but needing immediate access to the only route to the Col de la Traversette, he wouldn’t have parked too far away either.

As they drove up and down each of the village’s narrow streets, Alcott repeatedly pressed the remote panic feature on the car key Harvath had found in Alomari’s pocket.

The police were less than two blocks behind when Alcott finally got a hit, and the headlights, taillights, and horn of a black BMW 7-series sedan started going crazy. Immediately, Alcott pushed the panic button again and shut down the alarm.

Having seen the proficient way she drove her MG, Harvath had little doubt Jillian could handle the big BMW. Skidding to a halt beside it, he helped her slide off the motorbike and then told her to meet him on the other side of the bridge outside the village

Once she was in the car with her head down, Harvath took off, the police just turning the corner behind him.

Having been through most of the streets in Ristolas already, he had a pretty good idea of where and how he could shake the gendarmes from his trail.