True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(11)

They were carefully tracking Ian and Margo on the media wall.

“There’s a loaded Mercedes S-Class with autopilot parked on Madison above the intersection with Sixth Avenue,” Seth said. “If Ludlow keeps walking south, he’ll cross the intersection.”

“Let’s see the car,” Cross said.

Several windows opened up on the media wall, each showing a different security-camera view of a black Mercedes sedan facing downhill on a very steep street.

Cross glanced at Victoria. “Do you have access?”

“I do.”

Victoria hit a button on her keyboard and started the car’s ignition.



Ian and Margo approached Sixth Avenue. The light was red. A half block uphill, a black Mercedes rolled away from the curb. Without a driver. But they didn’t see that.

“They tried again three weeks ago,” Ian said, stopping at the corner. “I was riding my bike on Mulholland, up in the Santa Monica Mountains. I do that every weekend. I was going too fast. I tried to slow down but my brakes failed. I swerved into traffic, got clipped by a car, and went flying off a cliff. I smacked into a rock outcropping on my way down. It broke my fall and my arm; otherwise I’d be dead. Now I know my bike was sabotaged and the car hit me on purpose.”

“You’re just having a run of bad luck.”

“They are. I’m not. I’m on a winning streak. I’m still alive. But they will try again. They have to.”

The light turned green and Ian bounded into the street, rolling his suitcase behind him. Ian was centered in the Mercedes’ hood ornament like it was a gunsight. He didn’t see the black car speeding down the hill straight for him.

But Margo did.

She dashed into the intersection and took a flying leap that would have made Clint Straker proud, tackling Ian and taking them both down, the two of them barely clearing the car’s shiny grille. They hit the ground hard. The Mercedes smashed into Ian’s suitcase, splitting it open in a spray of clothes.

The Mercedes roared past Ian and Margo. They both looked up to get a glimpse through the flying underwear and socks at the insane son of a bitch driving the car.

But there was nobody in the driver’s seat.

They were still absorbing that chilling fact when the car blasted into the intersection and was T-boned by a bus.

The bus bulldozed the Mercedes down Sixth Avenue in a shower of sparks, broken glass, and ripped sheet metal and plowed it into the row of cars ahead, causing a chain reaction of rear-end collisions that stretched half a block.

Ian propped himself up on his good elbow and stared down at the intersection. It looked like the aftermath of a monster truck derby. People on the sidewalks, and from within the surrounding businesses, rushed into the street to help the injured and the trapped.

“There was nobody driving the car,” Ian said.

He felt oddly calm and it came through in the matter-of-fact way he shared his observation with Margo.

He’d felt a different kind of calm when he’d sat up naked in his bathtub, his hair singed, and realized that most of his house was gone. That calm was shock, the mental numbness that comes from experiencing a traumatic event. This calm was certainty, the intellectual peace that comes from achieving clarity and understanding. The CIA was definitely trying to kill him. But how did they know he would be crossing that street at that moment?

“It’s a steep hill.” Margo sat up, dazed and sore. “The parking brake failed. It happens.”

“Uh-huh,” Ian said. “Then why was the engine running?”

“Because some dipshit left his car double-parked with the engine running while he ran into a building to do some dipshit errand,” Margo said. “He deserves to lose his fucking hundred-thousand-dollar car.”

“If the car was idling at the curb when the brake failed,” Ian said, “why was it rolling straight down the center of the street?”

It wouldn’t be. Someone had to turn the wheel and keep it steady.

Ian was right and Margo knew it. But he didn’t see her eyes widen in fear as she accepted his argument. His gaze was fixed on the office building across the street and the array of security cameras out front that were aimed in their general direction.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ian Ludlow’s face on the media wall was like an angry giant peering down at the Blackthorn operatives through a window. He knew they were there, watching him, even if he couldn’t actually see them. Every operative was waiting to see how Cross would react to the failed operation.

But Cross was thinking about the Rogue Element, the one complication, behavior, object, or occurrence in any operation that couldn’t be anticipated, regardless of whether a mission was simple or complex, improvised or carefully planned.

Because Cross was exceptionally good at his job, more often than not the Rogue Element ended up being only a minor annoyance. Sometimes it was even a source of amusement, easing the tension of a deadly operation. But it could also lead to devastating failure and many lost lives.

The rock outcropping, the bathtub, and now a woman were the Rogue Elements that had saved Ian Ludlow from a premeditated accidental death. Those failures were embarrassing but the fate of the larger operation wasn’t jeopardized yet. They still had time to clean up their mess. However, the risk to them increased with each passing hour that Ludlow still drew breath.