“He’s insane!” Ivo cried as they watched the truck weave a zigzag course as it dodged cars in the oncoming traffic. Tires screeched, horns blared, but the truck kept going.

Vuk wasn’t about to let some old govno in a rust-bucket truck outmaneuver him. “Jebi se!” he shouted. “So am I!”

High beams on and horn blaring, he gunned the Lincoln across the street and up Fifty-eighth. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic, but still it was scary.

Up ahead the truck had made a right on First Avenue, and they got there just in time to see it make a left onto Fifty-ninth.

“He’s heading for the bridge!” Ivo said.

Vuk followed and spotted the truck taking the on-ramp to the Queensboro Bridge.

He floored the Lincoln up the incline, screeched into the turn, and pulled onto the span.

Ivo pointed straight ahead. “There he is!”

Vuk grinned. Did this old fool really think he could outrun them?

He accelerated up behind the truck and was about to pull alongside when the car started bucking.

“What’s wrong?” Ivo said.

Vuk looked at the dashboard and saw that the temperature gauge was into the red.

“We’re overheating!”

The engine coughed, bucked, and, with an agonized whine, died. The Lincoln ground to a halt.

“Sranje!” Vuk pounded on the steering wheel. Through the haze of steam rising from under the hood he watched the truck disappear over the arch of the bridge. “Sranje! Sranje! Sranje!”

Ivo was already out of the car and moving toward the front. Vuk got out and joined him. Horns blared as traffic backed up behind them.

“There’s the problem,” Ivo said, pointing to the smashed-in grille. “Big hole in the radiator.”

“Bastard!” Vuk shouted, slamming his hand on the steaming hood. “The lucky bastard!”

“Was it luck?” Ivo said, staring along the bridge to where they had last seen the truck.

“You think that old govno did it on purpose?”

“Why do you say old? Because he had a white beard? It could have come from a Santa Claus costume.”

“You think it was the man from the beach?”

Ivo shrugged. “I’m just thinking, that’s all. I’m thinking that if it was the man from the beach, and if he wanted to remove us from the front of his house, he succeeded very well, didn’t he.”

Vuk was fuming. He wanted to punch Ivo for looking so calm. Instead he spit.

“Sranje!”

How were they going to explain this to Dragovic?

13

Nadia was ready to call it quits for the day. As she waited for the molecular imager to go through its shutdown sequence, she checked her voice mail. One message: Jack wanted to meet her at the diabetes clinic at five. He had something for her. He left his own voice mail number in case she couldn’t make it.

Nadia checked her watch. Almost five now. She dialed Jack’s number and told him it would be easier to meet in front of the drugstore across from her office at a little after five. As she was hanging up…