Noah shouted like a raging lunatic, and Belyakov screamed in fear, as Zack fought to control the steering wheel.

With a full view ahead of him, Zack saw the opening through which the dirt road sloped and wound its way down toward the water, the black SUV at the entrance between a towering wall of rock and earth on each side. A scattering of people, no doubt tourists looking for sweeping panoramic shots of the village several hundred feet across the water, were on the side of the road, looking up at the charging SUV. Oh, Zack. What are you doing? This is not going to end well.

Zack, relieved he’d put on his seatbelt before the second chase had commenced, was jerked up and down inside the Range Rover as it tore across the ground. He faintly heard the screams of people as they ran from the two SUVs, but he couldn’t see them, as the ground rose and fell with each bump, the images initiating a slightly vertiginous feeling inside the car.

What felt like a jarring eternity later, the Range Rover slammed onto the dirt road and settled on all four tires. The road was empty of people, and the Mercedes was nowhere to be found. Zack floored the accelerator, his senses heightened by the knowledge that the pursuit was almost over.

He sped down the gentle slope, aware that he was nearly at sea level, and the Range Rover passed through the gap as if the tan walls and rock were swallowing the SUV, never to be seen again. The Range Rover came around one last slight curve, and Zack was greeted with the exact sight he had envisioned in his mind’s eye moments before—the concrete breakwater that stretched from the end of the road 250 feet into Anchor Bay, the deep blue hue of the water, the wooden village on the other side of the bay, and the black Mercedes, which had slid to a stop before driving onto the breakwater that had been collapsing in sections for years and looked like a series of slabs arranged in a straight line, uneven and unpassable by any vehicle. Zack pumped the brakes, and the Range Rover ground to a halt, fifteen yards away from the back of the Mercedes.

“What now, chief?” Noah asked with anticipation.

“What now is that I think you’re really going to enjoy this part,” Zack said.

The SUV’s red lights shone in the daylight, and Zack calculated his options, none of them appealing due to the proximity of civilians if stray rounds started flying and ricocheting off the rocks. Not overly prone to swearing—unlike Charles and Noah, a SEAL and a cop—Zack muttered, “Fuck it,” and pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor one more time.

“Oh yeah!” Noah exclaimed, and held on.

Belyakov’s muttering began once again as the vehicle shot forward.