"They must have a supercharger in that thing," Henry said. "They're gaining by the second!"
"I know," Carter said, looking up at a passing sign and quickly back down at the map.
"Wonderful. So now we're in up to our ass!"
"Watch the road and drive, Henry."
Again, Carter peered through the back windows. The distance between the two vehicles was growing shorter by the second.
"He's good," Henry said. "A little too good. We'll never outrun him."
"I told you I know that," Carter replied.
He slid from the passenger seat and made his way to the rear of the van. He took the Uzi from Carlotta's hands, ejected the magazine, and jacked in a new one.
"Carlotta, you and Amani swing open the doors and hold them open when I tell you! Henry…"
"Yeah?"
There's a sharp curve just ahead. When you get beyond it, slow down!"
"Gotcha!" Henry replied with a resounding laugh, already seeing Carter's intent.
They started into the rum and. halfway around, caught a patch of ice. Luckily Henry was already gearing down, so it was easy for him to right the van and make the turn.
"Now!" Carter cried just as he saw the fog light beams come around. Amani and Carlotta threw the rear doors open and held them with their legs.
At the same spot in the turn, the other van caught the sheet of ice. But its speed didn't allow for the same reaction Henry had been able to make.
Carter narrowed his eyes against the gusts of cold air and swirling snow that filled the back of the van, and started spraying with the Uzi. He caught the left front headlight, and saw the slugs stitch a path across the fender, the door, and then shatter all the windows of the van.
There was a screaming cry of metal as the van hit the guard rail and careened by them on the shoulder.
By this time, Henry was crawling. When he came to a complete halt. Carter rolled from the back of the van, with Amani directly behind him and Henry pouring out the driver's side.
Just as Carter had hoped, the sudden reversal to an offensive position had left the other van's occupants stunned. He was ten feet from the rear of the van and running, when the doors suddenly opened. A monster crouched behind them, the magnum in his two hands looking like a toy. He got off one slug before Carter sprayed with the Beretta.
He was looking right into the big man's eyes just before they disintegrated.
The passenger side door of the van opened, and two men tumbled out as Carter fired another burst. To his left, he heard feet pounding on the snow-covered pavement. It was Henry, already firing his own Beretta. He nailed the driver right through the side window and hit the front fender as Carter cleared the back of the van.
Less than half a minute had elapsed since the initial crash.
There was a bank beyond the guard rail, with a drainage ditch at the bottom of it. Carter jammed a fresh magazine into the Uzi, took the guard rail in a dive, and rolled.
He drew no fire by the time he hit the ditch, so he chanced a look over its edge into the woods beyond.
Still no fire.
He rolled over the embankment and crawled into the trees for about twenty yards. The thick fall of snow had been hindered by the heavy foliage of the trees above. Those same trees now blocked out any light from the van's headlights above.
Carter took two steps forward, and a boyish-looking man with a claw for a right hand rolled around a tree ten yards in front of him.
The claw was across the trigger of a machine pistol.
Carter stitched him across the chest just as a blur of movement drew his eyes to the right.
It was Amani, and the barrel of his Beretta was pumping saffron flame. He emptied the whole clip into the second man who had been crouching in a praying position twenty yards behind Carter's victim.
The man groaned once and folded. When Amani reached him, he kicked him in the side as though he were still alive.
"Bastard," he hissed, then reloaded the Beretta.
"Wombo is in the van, dead. That was Pocky you just killed."
It was Carlotta at Carter's elbow. "And the other three?"
They look like French, probably locals that Sophia hired in Paris."
"And Sophia?"
Carlotta shook her head. T tried at the roadblock, but I think I missed her."
Carter shrugged and moved back up the bank. "Henry!"
"Yeah?"
"Will their van move?"
"I think so."
"Knock out the other headlight and drive it over the embankment, through the hole they already knocked in the guard rail."
"Gotcha!"
Carter moved back toward their own vehicle, Carlotta and Amani close at his heels. He slid into the driver's seat as they climbed into the back.
The sound of grinding metal had barely subsided before Henry was settling into the passenger seat.
"Let's go!"
They moved, and five minutes later found themselves hurtling south on the A10 toward Orleans as fast as the van could carry them.
Past the city, Henry gave Carter directions to the airfield. It was little more than a dirt strip cut into a small farm field. The hangar was an open barn.
Carter rocked the van to a halt and turned to Amani. "Okay, now we have to know where the hell we're going, because we might not be able to go. Tell him, Jason."
This storm is going north and east. If you're thinking about Switzerland, Austria, or Germany, forget it."
Amani smiled. "We'll be going south, gentlemen…to Spain."
"Where in Spain?" Carter asked impatiently.
"Near Cordoba," the Italian replied, then leaned forward, placing the Beretta just behind Carter's left ear. "I assure you, Signore Kashmir, I have trusted you up until now… but — just in case — I want you and Henry to pass your guns to Carlotta."
Carter barely managed to suppress a smile as he passed the Uzi and the Beretta over to Carlotta Polti.
The last words she had whispered to him before she and Amani had slipped from the Paris apartment were rattling around in his head: He's not going to kill you or Jason, but he's going to have you held while the two of us go on.
And when you go on, Carter thought, I'm going to be right behind you!
At Amani's orders, Carlotta buried all the guns except the Beretta he held. Henry checked out the plane while Carter transferred the bags.
"Believe me, Ali Kashmir, I am not double-crossing you. I am just unable to take you all the way with me. You and Henry will be completely paid when we reach Cordoba."
"And the other half of our agreement? The introductions to certain people?"
"Ah, I fear that was a little white lie. You see, one day soon, those certain people I spoke of will not need to buy their arms from you."
The plane was a twin-engine Beechcraft. It would carry six easily.
Henry was already in the cockpit and had the propellers turning when the rest of them climbed inside.
"I am sorry we must soon part on a sour note, Ali," Carlotta said loudly enough for Amani to hear.
Carter shrugged. "As long as I get paid. And I've always enjoyed Spain… particularly on a paid vacation." He leaned forward and patted his canvas flight bag. "I even brought my camera along!"
Carlotta smiled. It was she who had slipped the camera into the flight bag early that afternoon, after an AXE agent had draped it over her shoulder in a metro crowd with Amani not twenty paces in front of her.
Carter glanced forward. He could see that Jason Henry was seething.
Quickly, he stood and moved around Amani into the right seat. While he was buckling in, he flipped the radio toggle to «headset» and whispered, "Cool it!"
Henry's eyes widened and then narrowed. "That bitch," he whispered. "She screwed us!"
"No, my friend. The game is being played quite nicely."