FSE

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After a two hour flight from Thunder Bay to New York, Xavier stepped out of JFK with one thing in mind; finding Eric and Matt. He was not sure how he would find him, but he knew if they were heading to an airport, they would be heading to the one he was at. He also knew that with Matt's cautiousness, they could not have been caught yet.

Since the interrogation, Xavier could not get Tom Benson, the head of the CIA, out of his head. The way he mocked him - as if he thought he had everything under control. The way he sounded - so calm and unnaturally at ease. Even after the bear had jumped out of its seat, clearly about to shift and rip the man apart, he did not flinch; he even laughed. Something was fishy about him.

He had also viewed the daily brief from the government that morning. For some reason, the representative did not speak of Matt at all, and literally denied their entire involvement with him. "Did something happen to Matt?", he wondered. "Did they capture him?" He needed to find out for sure, because he did not want to be the one who caused his capture.

He found New York to be a gigantic city, bigger than he'd have ever imagined it to be. Regrets were beginning to pop up in the back of his head, wondering why he had decided to go there without a plan, without any leads, and with a whole city filled with 20 million people to look through. Things looked impossible in his perspective.

He figured he had to start somewhere. There was a payphone on one of the walls surrounding the airport, so he went over to call a cab. He would not have been able to navigate through New York by himself and with 700$ in hand, he had a ton of money to spare for the ride. Because of the high density area, it was not very surprising to have seen a cab come by in less than 45 seconds. He hopped into the back seat of the bright yellow car and asked for a drive around Queens, - the region he was in - to wherever the driver felt like going.

The taxi driver agreed for an extra fee, and took him north, where he followed traffic into "downtown" Queens after 15 minutes. Forest Park was one of the places the driver had brought him to; an old forest in the middle of an urban area, occupying around 500 acres of land. However, Xavier was not in the mood for scenery, and declined the cab driver's offer to allow him to go look. Middle Village was the next stop, with nothing other than houses and apartment buildings to see. Xavier was growing tired.

"Not to be a burden, but could you hurry this somewhere a bit more populated, or more interesting?"

The cab driver seemed taken aback by the query, wondering how Xavier did not consider any of his stops "interesting", but nevertheless, calmly replied. "Of course. Sorry."

He decided to go a bit further northwest onto Queens Boulevard, which went through a more commercial section of the city, which was what Xavier was looking for; somewhere denser where Eric - and hopefully Matt - could have been hiding. Soon enough, they entered the region of Elmhurst.

...

Eric and Diane were strolling with their car, trying to find their way through even more traffic. Diane had given him the ticket information, which did not please Eric, who considered himself on a tight schedule.

"Are you sure there were no earlier flights available?", Eric verified, in a persistent manner. "I really don't want to hide for nine hours. I just want to get to my flight. Too many things can happen in such a timeframe."

"Yes, Eric. That was the earliest time. You and I both know international flights need to be booked in advance. We're lucky we weren't obligated to wait a full day."

"Yeah, but if I would have known, I would have driven to Newark in New Jersey... Damn! I should have thought of that a long time ago! Now I have no money for another ticket."

"Don't get frustrated, there's nothing we can do now. Although, if you want, I can give you money for another ticket for Newark..."

Eric snapped out of his frustration and sighed. "No, I want you to be able to go back home. Saving my ass isn't worth being stranded out here, trying to get back home a thousand miles away. I can live with waiting several hours."

"Do you like your new sunglasses?", she asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah. They're pretty cool."

Silence ensued, before Diane tried to spark another conversation. "So, I was wondering", she mouthed. "How did you think you would be able to get through airport security, customs, and the thousands of people at JFK? That would pose quite a challenge."

Eric had never really thought of that. "I'm... not sure, really. But I made it past Wilkes-Barre International with complete improvisation, so I don't consider it to be too much of a burden in my thoughts. I'll think about it later." He shifted his look towards her, off the wheel, eyes closed halfway to mock her. "I have a whole nine hours to do so."

She couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, would you stop complaining. It'll do you some good to relax."

"Nah. I'd rather be on my toes 24/7 than to sitting down doing nothing productive for half a day. I know it's not your fault you didn't get a ticket. I can wait."

She thought about the ticket once more, and remembered something. "Oh, Eric. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"I know this might seem greedy to you, but could I have that 250$ you were planning to use for buying your ticket? I don't mind helping you and all, but for me to pay it all is quite a blow to my wallet."

"Of course." He stopped at a red light, and took this opportunity to get the money from his wallet. "I wasn't expecting you to pay it anyways."

"Okay, phew", she sighed, followed by an awkward laugh. "I was worried there."

As Eric went to give it to her, he stopped, and froze. An extremely disturbing thought flew through his head. He pulled back his hand carrying the money, and spoke in a frantic voice. "Diane... how exactly did you pay for the ticket?"

...

"We've got something!", yelled one of the men in front of his computer. Alan Parker just happened to be in the surveillance room at the time, and managed to intercept the comment.

"What is it?"

The man stood up and answered. "Okay, I was just routinely checking both of our suspects' bank and credit card statements, and found a new entry on the female's; one purchase on her Visa for a ticket from New York to Moscow at 12:15, around five minutes ago, totaled at 275$. I highly doubt it was for her. It was purchased online, though, and I can't find any trace to their location."

Alan spoke next. "Contact the online flight booking agency immediately, requesting the IP address of the buyer. The faster we get this, the better of a chance we can find them before they're gone."

Keystrokes were heard, and only a minute later, someone got up and gave a response. "They say the IP is '138.184.21.103'. I did a reverse IP lookup and found it came from an internet cafe in Elmhurst. That's four miles from here."

Someone else got up. "I've got the camera feed. I'm transmitting it on the screen." Soon enough, they saw Diane walking into the internet cafe and take her seat, confirming their analysis.

"Alright", Parker proclaimed. "Get as many police forces as you can in that area. Search for the car used in the police chase back in Wilkes-Barre. They would not have risked stealing another one."

The first man got back up. "Do you want us to get Echo in there as well?"

"Well, where are they now?"

"From their status report, they flew back here in New York along with Alpha, Charlie and Foxtrot about two hours ago."

"Okay, alert them too. We don't want to fuck up this time."

...

Eric was furious. "Why the hell did you pay by credit card?! That's the easiest thing to track on the planet! For fuck's sake, they probably know where we are right now!"

"I'm sorry!", she pleaded, for the second time. "I didn't know!"

"I don't care! You practically cost us both of our lives! If you didn't know what to do, you could have simply come back to the car and asked!"

"It doesn't matter. There was no other method of payment..."

"Then you could have bought a prepaid credit card, borrowed someone else's, even get another one or something! Now they'll find us any minute, and we're stuck in this god damn traffic!"

Diane felt terrible over the mistake she had made, and knew it was completely irreversible. Eric was fuming with anger towards her and the situation, and wondered why he needed her help in the first place. He thought over how different the situation would have been if he had let her grab a plane back to Fargo, away from him; he had let his emotions get control of him, and once again, he was suffering the consequences.

Sure enough, sirens were heard behind, and in front of them. Eric and Diane both noticed they were higher in numbers and getting away from them all would be a tough challenge to face. Unlike in Wilkes-Barre, they were in groups of seven, and tried to follow him as close as possible. With the traffic being a major problem for him, Eric took the nearest exit out of the area and onto the Queens Boulevard, to head farther north-west in order to escape them. This proved to be quite a challenge, because not only did more cops appear at the next intersection; they tried to box him in all at once. His bumper was quickly hit into from the back, pushing Eric forward, and hitting into the police car in front of him, who tried to brake and box him in.

Eric took a giant risk and initiated a sharp turn to the left, successfully avoiding the trap the police had created, and barely evaded an oncoming cop car speeding behind him. He zoomed through the two lanes to the left of him and onto the opposite side of the boulevard, into oncoming traffic, risking his life as other drivers tried to avoid the speeding car. The 17 year-old tried to alert as many drivers as possible by honking his horn, which awakened those who were dozing off at the wheel, and avoided many of them, in spite of the heavy 4 o'clock traffic.

The police caught onto his move and jumped onto the opposite side of the street as well, with their sirens waking more and more people who were off-guard. They continued to follow Eric very closely, with many more cops adding to the chase. At an increasing speed of over 110 km/h, Eric knew he needed to get out of their view in order to try and get away. With this in mind, he slowed down his car, avoided another oncoming driver, and made a sharp turn to the right, to cross onto 39th street. Many police cars did not react quickly enough to the sudden move, and continued straight, unable to follow, while some a little farther behind managed to slow down and catch up once again to Eric's speeding vehicle.

...

The cab driver tried his best to keep Xavier entertained, in order to deserve his cash bonus. The former, however, had not found any sign of Eric, at all. He began to think that his idea was not so great after all and he should have simply gone back home.

They were in the middle of Queens Boulevard, watching all of the old-style apartment buildings and the small businesses striving to sell their products or services. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and that was what bothered Xavier. He had the sudden urge to tell the driver to turn back, but something made him refrain from doing so.

In what seemed to be a split-second event, traffic jammed completely. People were honking their horns impatiently, trying to figure out what was happening. After a few moments, Xavier was even more unimpressed.

"Is traffic always like this?", he asked, clearly showing his annoyance.

"No, this is unusual. There must've been an accident or something. You can take a stroll if you want; we won't be moving for a while."

Xavier complied and got out of the car. He walked down the road until he found what was blocking traffic; roughly 50 police officers were in the area, looking east towards 39th street. Curious, he went up to an onlooker hanging out on the sidewalk.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure...", the man replied, with a tone expressing his confusion, and looking back toward the scene. "Some car zoomed by a while ago and there were several dozen police cars chasing him, before he turned on 39th. Some people thought it was that dragon on the news."

The onlooker turned around and saw Xavier running back to the cab. The former sat down, and handed the cab driver an additional 20$.

"Where does 39th street lead to?", he queried, demanding a quick answer.

"Uhh, Northern Boulevard. Why?"

"Do you know a quick detour to get there?"

"Umm, sure... you can just take --"

"Step on it!"

...

39th street was a residential area, and many pedestrians were walking at that hour. Honking was once again necessary to gain their attention, while other onlookers wondered what was happening. Eric, harassed by the nearby cops, attempted to rid of them. Various maneuvers were attempted to try and do so, including a successful hit into one, which sent him straight into a telephone pole.

Diane's fright increased by the second. "Eric! Do you have any idea where you're going?"

Without removing his eyes off of the road, Eric answered her question in an aggravated tone. "Obviously not. I don't even think I'm going to get out of this one alive; why should I care where I'm going?"

She refrained from answering in light of his answer, and clearly did not want to bother him in his state. Coincidentally, at that moment, two police cars came on both sides of Eric's vehicle and sandwiched him, in an attempt to box him in. With his speed decreasing, Eric cringed at the thought of his ride being over. In a desperate move, he rotated the wheel of his car to the right, gradually pushing the eastern cop car in that direction. The left cop car, however, continued to push in his direction as well, keeping the box in place. Suddenly, Eric noticed the policeman he was pushing into take one hand off of his steering wheel and went into his pocket; he knew the cop was reaching for his pistol.

Eric pushed Diane's head down and out of the way, while the cop aimed. However, when he tried to duck for himself, a bullet went through Diane's window and flew through the back of Eric's shoulder, barely missing his neck and head. He cried from the immense pain rushing through his body, as Diane watched, horrified. However, the fact he was underneath his wheel - not watching where he was driving - petrified him the most. But, he knew the cop remained in place with his gun, preventing him from rising and taking control of his car. He knew he was going to die. He looked over to Diane, sitting next to him; he felt sorry for her. He had dragged her into a great big mess, and she was moments away from dying a horrible death. Eric's eyes watered as he mumbled what he thought would have been his final words.

"Diane... I'm sorry..."

...

A loud explosion was heard. Debris flew all over the place as the contents of the car were shattered in the horrible collision; and Eric heard it very well. Remarkably, he had pushed the police car just enough for it to hit straight into the 39th street's bridge's concrete rail anchor, barely missing it himself. When he heard the explosion, he sat up once again, watching sparks fly as he was still being pushed by the police car at his left into the railing of the bridge. He was shocked over what had happened and over the fact he had survived by a few inches. Diane was just as stunned, and her wide-open eyes proved it. While Eric was nevertheless thankful to be alive, he knew it was not the time to celebrate.

Glancing toward his rear view mirror, he noticed he was only being followed by four other police cars, as well as the one pushing him. At this moment, Diane's passenger mirror shattered under the pressure, which made Diane break down. She had enough.

"Eric! Do something! We're going to get killed!"

"I'm trying!", he replied, frantic.

He tried accelerating, but the cop simply matched his speed. When Eric noticed the bridge was nearing its end, he saw yet another rail anchor, large enough to tear his vehicle apart. He and the grinning cop knew this would have been his downfall. As sparks flew from the metal rubbing against the bridge's railing, Diane began to feel her door give way, pushing against her.

"Eric! Hurry up! The door is about to collapse!"

"I said I'm trying, god damn it!"

They came closer to the guard rail, with each second going by increasing the tension. In a final, eleventh-hour attempt, Eric grounded his gas pedal to the floor, catching the police officer off-guard. He was about half of his car's length in front of the police officer. 50 yards to the guard rail. The cop tried his best to catch up with him. 30 yards. The sparks were going off at an alarming rate, the heat slowly melting the door. 20 yards. Eric was a few inches away from the police car's front bumper. In the final ten yards, Eric turned to the right, barely missing both the guard rail and the cop's vehicle.

The police officer tried to get back onto Eric's left side once again, attempting another box-in, and made it a few yards later. Frustrated, Eric tried to shake him off once more, but to no immediate avail. Suddenly, Diane looked over to her side and yelled in horror.

"Eric! Look out!"

As Eric turned his head, he saw the danger Diane was yelling about. There was no time to avoid it. As he made it halfway through the intersection of Northern Boulevard and 39th street, a car coming from his east collided into the center of his car, sending metal shards in every direction. His speed of 100 km/h came to a complete halt as he was thrown violently to the left, along with the cop car for about 30 meters. The rubble which classified as a vehicle by definition veered and swerved across the boulevard, before finally flipping onto its side, rolling twice, to the horror of the onlookers watching on the sidelines. When everything came to a halt, the car was right-side up, the roof of which almost completely flattened, and the rear half completely obliterated. This time, unfortunately, it was not a police car.