Chapter 31
He does ride relatively slowly, but still, I’m not very comfortable. I feel like I will fall off on every corner.
After the Turnpike, we cross the bridge and turn onto Memorial Drive, the sidewalk full of people, shoppers with large after-Christmas-sale bags, families with children, joggers.
I turn my head, resting my helmet on his back, looking at the clear blue river through the grid of the naked trees lining the bank of the Charles.
As we ride, Sam keeps looking at the side mirrors, one, then the other, then back. Constantly. Every now and then, I halfway turn my head back to check, but I don’t see anything unusual. Just cars, following the road like small branches on the surface of a river, trailing the curvature of the riverbed.
After the main traffic light, rather than going straight, Sam turns left instead. Using small one-way roads and several turns, he brings us to the back side of the campus and parks the motorbike next to a small truck, hiding it behind the truck’s gray tarp-covered cargo area.
He turns off the engine, then turns his head to look back at me. “You’re okay?”
I nod. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine, thanks.”
He holds out his hand. “Let me help you.”
I put my palm in his, then lean in for support and clumsily get off the bike. He dismounts as well, then turns around and steps toward me. He brings his hands to my neck and lifts my chin to unbuckle the helmet. I keep looking at him, transfixed, dazzled in this strange hypnotic state he has somehow induced in me.
He takes off the helmet and hangs it on the handlebar, all the time looking into my eyes. We stay like this for a few seconds, an evanescent microworld containing only him and me, where I’m trying to see behind these two blue heart-stirring oceans, read his thoughts, sense his feelings . . .
Then, he looks away, and the moment is gone. “Let’s go find your friends.”
He takes my hand and walks to the end of the truck, then peeks behind it. I lean in and look too. There’s no one here. The street is deserted.
Sam parked the bike just a few feet away from the side entrance I typically use during the weekends. He looks back at me. “Can we get in through the back entrance?”
I look down at my jeans and touch my ID card, hooked at my belt loop. “Yes, we can. But how did you know about this entrance?”
Sam looks back down the road and starts walking, pulling me along.
“Sam, you’re not answering my question.”
He sighs and slows a bit, looking at the ground. “I’ll explain, but later, when we have more time. And are not under immediate threat.”
Threat? I look around the empty street. It doesn’t seem like we’re under threat now. But I let it go. Fine, we’ll talk later.
We reach the gate, and I’m just about to scan my ID card when we hear a noise coming from our left. Sam and I both turn in the direction the sound came from, the main entrance of the institute.
Coming around the corner, we see a group of people heading our way—four men wearing all black, encircling a fifth person. He staggers, his head is bent forward and there is a cut over his right eye, bleeding profusely.
I feel a sharp grip at my heart, my legs turning weak. Oh, no!
It’s Frank.
Sam grabs me before my knees give in.
The people stop next to a black van, open the back door, and push Frank inside, but just before his head disappears behind the tinted window, he sees me.
And then he shouts, “Jane! Run!”
The men around him look up at Sam and me.
“Damn!” Sam says, then spins in the opposite direction and pulls me so hard I almost fall down.
As I run behind Sam, I turn my head, trying to look behind me while still keeping my speed. Two men start running toward us.
Amazingly, I find some hidden strength in me, and I speed up.
Then, all of a sudden, a gunshot sounds. It shakes me from within: tearing, earsplitting, and full of terror. I instinctively look back. One of the men has a gun in his hand, but his arm is yanked down by another man and his gun points to the ground.
Then Sam reaches the truck where the motorbike is parked and he pulls me behind it, the large surface giving us cover.
Sam turns and looks at me from head to toe, his scan quick and deliberate. He puts the helmet on me and locks it in an instant.
“Sam, that was Frank! Did you see? They took him. Oh, my God, we need to call the police!”
Sam doesn’t answer.
“Sam?” I shriek.
“Later,” he says, mounting the bike. “Get on! Now!”
My legs and arms are shaking like crazy. I sit behind him, putting my arms around his waist, but they seem so weak that I’m not sure if I can hold on to him. He puts one hand over mine, pressing them on his belly, holding them tight, keeping the other hand on the handlebar.
The engine starts, but instead of turning onto the road, Sam maneuvers the bike onto the pavement and turns left, the truck cargo box still shielding us from the men behind us. We ride on the narrow sidewalk between parked cars and a red brick wall on our left, heading to the main street.
“Hold on!” Sam shouts and lets go of my hands, grabbing the bar now with both hands. For a brief instant, the front wheel is standing still as the back wheel skids, leaving a black mark on the gray concrete. Sam turns right onto the main street, narrowly avoiding the flow of cars.
***
We’re getting close to the river, Sam repeatedly looking in the rearview mirrors. We cross Harvard Bridge and turn left. He turns his head sideways for a second to check the traffic from behind, then looks to the front, leaning forward.
I hear him saying something, but I don’t understand. The engine is too loud.
The next moment, he accelerates, and I urgently latch myself onto him even more. I want to see what made him speed up, but I’m afraid to turn, scared I’ll lose my hold and fall off.
Sam looks back again for a fraction of a second, then accelerates even more. We are now way over the speed limit.
After several seconds of this wild ride, I gather my courage, make sure my arms are locked around his waist, and look back.
And I see it.
The black van, the one we saw behind the institute. It’s aggressively overtaking other cars and getting dangerously close to us.
Sam switches lanes all the way to the right, then brakes hard.
My body presses flat against his back as he turns right into Pickney.
Against the incoming traffic!
“Oh, crap!” I yell and I close my eyes hard, not wanting to look at the cars coming our way.
I am trying to tune out everything around me now. All I can feel are the movements of Sam’s body, hearing the orchestral cacophony of horns as he swerves between the cars. He speeds up and my head yanks backward.
At the first crossing, he turns left. A car coming our way squeals loudly as the driver slams on the brakes. It barely misses us.
Sam accelerates, my head yanking backward again, and we ride north alongside the river, following the flow of traffic again. I breathe out, then turn to look behind us. The black van is gone, but Sam is still riding fast. We’re coming to another crossing and the traffic light starts to change, but Sam speeds up and we pass through a very dark orange light. The type that would usually warrant a fine. I’m just hoping it went unnoticed.
Soon after, Sam turns right and heads for a tunnel. The next moment, the bright sunlight and blue sky are gone, replaced by plain white tiles under neon lights, rushing past me, looking like an old public bathroom’s walls.
I hear Sam saying something.
“What?” I shout back.
“Are you all right?” Sam turns his head toward me.
“Yes. Yes, I’m okay.” Sort of.
He nods and looks straight again.
Sam keeps overtaking, slaloming as if the cars he is passing are the red and blue flags on the ski slopes. He is riding a lot slower now than he was before, his movements smooth and gentle, but he still frequently checks the cars behind us.
Soon after Callahan Tunnel, Sam takes the airport exit, then heads toward the arrival terminal, but after a few moments he loops around a curve that tilts the bike sideways to a far greater degree than I am comfortable with and heads in a different direction. I look at the high concrete walls of the buildings surrounding us and I wonder if he really should have taken that turn, because I don’t see any other cars here.
After a few more seconds, Sam stops and parks next to several concrete yellow bollards, just behind a large building. I don’t think he’s allowed to park here, but he turns off the engine nevertheless.
I’m still holding onto him. Some kind of rudimentary newborn reflex, I presume, an instinct to not let go. Sam awkwardly turns to me while I’m still pressed tight to his body.
“We’re here,” he says, a smug smile on his lips.
“Okay,” I say too quietly for him to hear me. I slowly let go of his body and only then realize how sore my arms are from maintaining my tight grip around him. I shake my arms, trying to release the tension.
“Quite a grip you have there!” he says, leaning on the handlebar, looking at me. “You can only imagine how it was for me.”
“I’m . . . sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“I’m just kidding you, Jane. I can handle a grip or two.” He offers me his left hand and I climb off the bike. The pelvic bone between my legs feels sore as well and I squeeze my legs together.
“I’m sorry about that,” he says. “Probably not that comfortable on the passenger seat, huh?”
“I didn’t realize there was a passenger seat on that bike.”
He chuckles. “Well, you did great. Now, let’s go.” And he takes my hand and pulls me along, taking out his silver cell phone at the same time.
He guides me around the outer corner of the airport building, the deafening sound of planes landing and taxiing reverberating off the terminal walls. We keep on walking for several minutes, though none of the paths seem to be made for passengers. During all that time, he keeps his phone to his ear and talks, but with all the noise, I don’t hear a thing. I’m just following, confused and overwhelmed with all that just happened.
After several minutes, we stop at an automatic gate and a sliding door opens up, letting us through. There are several people around, mostly airport employees who raise their heads to look at us, slightly taken off guard. Sam ignores them, still focused on his conversation. We step onto the escalator, but Sam continues walking up so we’re moving even faster. At the top, Sam walks directly to an opaque sliding glass door and we enter a large, brightly lit hall, crowded with people. This time, most of them are passengers.
Then all of sudden, Sam abruptly changes his course.
I look up. “Um, Sam? What’s going on?”
He drops his phone back into his pocket. “Change of plans. We need to go to the international check-in, and we need to be fast.”
“International? I—I don’t understand. Where are we going?”
He turns his head slightly toward me but keeps his pace. “We need to leave the country.”