I balled up in the gutter and the buildings, street, sky vanished. Visibility was close to zero. But as soon as the chopper came overhead, the downdraft would leave me exposed. I dragged myself on my elbows across the street. The bullet wound in my shoulder tore and burned. The tear in my thigh pulled and pulsed, sending hot flashes of pain down into my knee and up into my groin. The smokescreen twisted sound. The guns behind the lasers to the left began firing in reply to the police rounds coming from my right. It looked like the opening salvo of a horrific blue on blue tirade.

Stray bullets ricocheted off the shutters and street lamps. Window glass imploded. Shouted orders in French bounced off the buildings. Radios crackled. Distance, time, perspective – everything was confused in the swirling mist until, stretching out my hand, I gripped the back wheel of the police motorbike. I slung the carbine over my shoulder and climbed on, head low, hugging the chassis. Key in. I pinched the clutch, revved the throttle. The four-cylinder engine roared to life. I kicked the stand away and shifted down into first. I had no idea what was in front of me. But it had to be better than whatever was behind.

I gunned the bike and dropped the clutch and leapt out of the fog into the unknown.

14

For an instant the cloud clung to my shoulders and limbs – the ragged wings of a dirty grey angel curling out into the slipstream behind me. And then I cleared the smoke in a rush of grey-white winter light, pushing a quarter-tonne of Japanese metal out of the kill zone. A police van had stopped dead centre in the street. Thirty metres and closing. Fast.

Ten.

Five.

Two.

One.

Brake.

Officers in tactical gear spilled out, weapons up. I pulled a hard right, jumping the kerb on to the pavement between a row of metal bollards, ploughing through a brace of parked scooters.

Shouts.

Shots.

Blue-black uniforms scattering behind me in my wing mirrors.

I broke contact, gulping lungfuls of ice-cold air, adrenaline surging, raging. I turned left on to Rue Sedaine. The rear wheel of the heavy bike slipped right, but I held it and came around on top. I slowed down. Ahead: more blue lights. Above: the chopper closing in. I needed to get out of the chokehold of the side streets and find space and speed. The Yamaha was built for touring, not racing. But it had guts. I hoped it had balls, too. I pinched the clutch and opened the throttle. The tachometer touched red. A hundred metres ahead, patrol cars pulled up side-on, blocking the little lane by a car park entrance to my right. Uniformed cops swarmed up steps. Roofs came alive with sharpshooters. Paris in lockdown. On the left a rubbish skip blocked the pavement, fed rubble by two long wooden planks from the building site adjacent.