The driver cut across the track wildly, veering from right to left and back. I didn’t know why he did that. Maybe he’d seen it in a movie, on his little phone screen. Once he got where I wanted him, I touched the gas. Bertha responded. I kept the pressure on. Relentless. The Mercedes barely made a sound. The trail bike’s engine was going full-bore. Like a stone cutting saw. But it was a small 125 cc engine against twelve cylinders of German power. The left side of my bumper touched the bike and it went over. Easy as that.

Tactical contact. They spilled off to the left. I didn’t have to worry about running over them because of the angle. I stopped the car, put it into park, turned off the ignition and got out. Now that the bike was down, the river was quiet and pleasant again.

The driver was up and running. I didn’t bother chasing him, the ponytail guy was enough. It was even better not having to worry about two of them. The driver looked comical running flat out with his helmet on. I wondered if he might just bump into a tree and knock himself out, like in a cartoon.

The rider was pinned by the bike. He was trying to get out from under it. I pulled it off and threw it to the side. Grabbed the guy by his mohawk flame helmet like a handle and dragged him back to the Mercedes. He flailed around and made it a little more difficult than I liked. So I kicked him where it counts. He moaned and tightened up. Which made dragging him easier.

I dumped him by the car and put my boot hard on his chest. He was breathing heavily through the mouth guard. His eyes flashed wildly. I looked around nice and calm. It was a pleasantly wooded spot near the riverbank, with enough trees and brush to prevent a nosy onlooker from seeing anything from the other side. I opened the trunk. Got out the rope from the emergency kit. I dragged the guy up the little grassy incline to a more secluded spot. Unsnapped and pulled off his helmet. He looked terrified.

He spit at me. I punched him in the mouth and caved in a front tooth. After that he went limp. Simone’s emergency kit had just about enough rope to hog-tie him. Hog tying is a method by which one takes a single rope length and ties another person’s hands to their feet, and the feet to their neck. This interconnected binding is a wonderful restraining technique because when the subject struggles with either hands, feet, or both, they strangle themselves.