“What do you mean? You wanted him to come after you?”
“Oh yeah. This sweet little Audi A4 has all-wheel drive. He doesn’t.”
Julia looked back to see the Charger hit the beach hard some forty yards behind them, kicking up sand and water like a rooster tail. “He looks like he’s having a problem getting traction. No, wait, okay, he’s turning toward us. He’s coming, Cheney.”
Cheney was grinning again. She wondered whether, if she weren’t in the car, he’d have flipped the Audi back around to face the oncoming Charger, maybe gunned the engine a couple of times in challenge, and headed straight at Makepeace like a knight in battle.
But he couldn’t take the offense because he had to protect her. Another bullet struck, close to the back tire. In that instant Julia remembered her SIG was in her purse. Sweet Mary and Joseph, where was her purse?
She didn’t have time to find it. Cheney gunned the Audi toward the long storm wall. She’d sat on that wall many times with her legs dangling, watching the waves and the honking seals. Now it seemed a terrifying monolith waiting to crush both of them. She saw another beach access in the concrete wall, a dozen concrete stairs climbing up. As they closed on it, the Audi never faltered, never lost its traction. It took the stairs like a bullet and sped through the opening. Julia could have licked the concrete wall on either side. She was pumped. She yelled out a shout of wild exultant terror.
Cheney slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel at the same time. They screeched to a one-eighty. He threw the Audi into park, yelled for her to keep down, and jumped out the door hunched over, his SIG drawn.
But she didn’t get down, no way would she hide now. She stared, fascinated, as the Charger tried to pull out of a lunatic slide and gain some traction and speed toward those stairs, spewing sand. She saw the instant Makepeace realized the Charger wouldn’t make it up the stairs. He threw the car into reverse, bumped hard and fast back down the concrete stairs and lurched back onto the beach.
Cheney ran toward the wall, firing at him, emptying his clip. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out another clip, and fired again. The Charger’s windshield shattered, then the rear window, sending out shards of glass.
Makepeace jumped from the Charger and crouched behind the driver’s side door, firing back short bursts. Cheney threw himself down behind the concrete wall.
Julia eased out of the Audi, and looked over the top of her open door. Makepeace was twenty yards away. He looked as calm as a judge, his face expressionless behind his dark sunglasses.
She spotted her purse on the floor of the backseat. She grabbed her SIG and kneeled down on the concrete, keeping the door between her and Makepeace. She saw Cheney was pinned, and she fired her gun as she waved wildly at Makepeace.
He fired back at her in one smooth motion. She flattened herself on the concrete parking lot, her heart pounding in her ears, the sound of the bullets so close they deafened her for an instant. He continued to fire at her, emptying his clip. It gave Cheney his chance. He ran forward, nearly bent double, firing steadily. The Charger’s door window shattered, Makepeace’s arm jerked, and his pistol went flying to the sand.
Makepeace looked toward Cheney once, back at Julia, and leaped into the Charger, gunning the engine. But the Charger couldn’t find traction in the sand. Cheney kept firing as he ran down the stairs toward the car. A bullet ricocheted off the hubcap of the left rear tire. Cheney emptied the second clip trying to hit the tires, but they were spinning madly, kicking up blinding sand, the car jerking and heaving, fishtailing again in the sand.
He patted his pockets, but he knew he was out of bullets. Makepeace stopped trying to gun the car, and the Charger finally gained some traction. He headed back down the beach away from them.
Cheney stood there, his gun down at his side, staring after the car. “Well, damn,” he said as Julia came up to stand beside him.
“You shot him. I saw him jerk. Did you see him drop his gun?”
Cheney whirled around, grabbed her arms and shook her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m okay.”
He shook her again. “What were you doing? You shot at him, and waved! Made yourself a target! Are you nuts?”
“Most definitely. If you hadn’t been so set on shooting him, maybe you could have shot out his tires?”
“I tried. I got a hubcap.”
“Yes, you did. Too bad we didn’t stop him.”
Cheney let her go when his relief finally passed his anger. Still, he frowned back at her before he walked over to pick up Makepeace’s pistol, and stared at it. He’d seen only one like it before in his career—in a weapon collection owned by a former FBI assistant director. He ran his hand over the gun. “Would you look at this—a Skorpion VZ 61. This is a Czech-made machine pistol that hasn’t been manufactured since the seventies. I wonder where he got it, and why he’s not using a more efficient weapon. How did he get this thing into the country?” He shaded his eyes and looked down the beach. Makepeace was gone.
The sirens were blaring so loud it hurt their ears. They walked back up the beach access steps just as half a dozen police cars piled into the parking lot. The lead car screamed to a stop not six feet from them. Two officers jumped out, using the car doors for shields and aiming their weapons over the tops of the doors.
“Police! Drop your weapons now!”
Cheney didn’t hesitate. He dropped his SIG and Makepeace’s pistol to the concrete. “There, no guns. Don’t shoot us! I’m raising my hands over my head, nice and slow.”
The first officer’s gun continued to point right at Cheney’s chest. “Don’t either of you move! I said drop the gun, lady, drop it!”
Julia dropped her SIG. “Sorry,” she yelled back.
“Don’t move!”
“No, we won’t,” Cheney said.
They stood like a frozen tableau for an eternity—at least a minute—while the cops spilled out of black-and-whites and a couple of unmarkeds all around them. Cheney prayed no one would get rattled and start firing, when he heard a blessedly familiar voice. Captain Paulette yelled, “Don’t shoot them, Gibbs, they’re the good guys.” Cheney watched Frank climb out of his car, look south as he spoke on his cell—doubtless he was sending cars after Makepeace’s Charger. Frank punched off his cell, yelled out, “Hey, Cheney, my men tell me you were doing some wild-assed driving.”
Cheney yelled back, “I may have wounded him, his gun arm, but he’s still driving, a white Charger. His car’s all shot up so you can hardly miss it.” Cheney leaned down and picked up the two pistols. “Look at this sucker, Frank.”
Frank took the pistol. “Ain’t this something—long time no see. A terrorist’s wet dream, this pistol, way back when, particularly in Africa. It’s Czech—and surprise, surprise, the cartridge is American design.”
“Maybe we can trace it,” Cheney said.
“I doubt that, compadre, but we can try.”
Cheney picked up Julia’s SIG from the ground, handed it to her. “Hey,” he said to her, “we made it.”
“I think,” Julia said slowly, looking out over the pewter water, “that I just might let you teach me beach racing sometime.”
He laughed.
A patrol car skidded up. The officer yelled, “Captain, we found the car. The guy took off on foot, or maybe wired a car on the street. We ran the VIN already. The Charger was stolen out of a garage in Daly City last night. The owner sure isn’t going to be happy when he sees his ride.”
CHAPTER 39
CALIFORNIA STREET
Tuesday afternoon