“When the second SUV sped past, I tossed my Android in the open rear window. Made sure the volume was muted and the GPS engaged.”
“What’s your Android gonna do?”
“Watch.”
“How many targets you see total?”
“Three subjects in the first vehicle. Two in the second. All male.”
As Crocker cranked the pickup up to eighty, he saw Mancini to his right punching something into his iPhone. “What the fuck you doing now?”
“Accessing my InstaMapper account. You got a text from Cyndi. She wants to know where you want her to wait, at the Bellagio or Caesars Palace.”
“Leave my shit alone!”
“Relax. She’s waiting for you, buddy.”
“Focus.”
Mancini held the little screen to the right of Crocker’s face. It showed a map with a red dot moving down a highway. “See that?”
“That them?”
“Brilliant, right? They’re headed north on 15 toward Salt Lake City. You enter up ahead.”
Crocker swerved left up the ramp and merged into traffic at ninety miles an hour. Multiple car horns screamed behind him.
His mind was spinning, trying to figure where the diplomats/counterfeiters were headed and how they might stop them. All they had were the phone, a pocketknife, a walkie-talkie, and the truck, which had a quarter of a tank of gas.
“Check the glove compartment,” Crocker barked.
“Turning off on state route 95, toward Indian Springs.”
“I see ’em.”
He spotted the black Escalade two hundred feet ahead, burning down the left lane. The other Escalade was another two hundred feet ahead of it.
“Got ’em both.”
“Cool. Nothing here but registration cards and a bottle of perfume,” Mancini reported.
“Perfume? Radio Jeri. Tell her to contact the Las Vegas police and tell them we need help.”
Mancini tried the walkie-talkie. “We’re already out of range.”
“Call her on my cell. Her number’s on my contact list.”
“You’re real fucking demanding.”
Manny didn’t sound good. Crocker glanced right and saw blood trickling out of his ear.
“You get rung up pretty good?”
“Don’t worry about me. Jeri isn’t answering. You want to leave a message?”
“Hang up and try again.”
Mancini glanced at InstaMapper on the phone and exclaimed, “Yo, yo, yo, cowboy! They’re exiting ahead onto 95 north toward Reno.”
“No problem. Keep trying Jeri.”
Chapter Seven
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
– Duke Ellington
They were twenty miles past the city limits, and the landscape had become shades of black. No moon to help out. Just the occasional pair of headlights on the highway and a canopy of stars. Polaris ahead at ten o’clock. The escaping SUVs had extinguished their lights. So had they, for that matter. The cab illuminated by the blue glow from his iPhone, Crocker leaned forward to check the gas. It was an eighth of an inch away from empty. Probably another gallon or gallon and a half, which would get them twenty more miles, max.
Manny’s breathing was labored. In the glow from the little screen, Crocker saw that the left side of his face had swollen up. His eyes didn’t look right, either.
They’d never gotten hold of Jeri, nor had they gotten through to an operator when they dialed 911. The city behind them was still dark.
“Dude, you remember your name?” Crocker asked. “You okay?”
“Still smarter than you, asshole, with half my brain working.”
“More like a tenth, seems to me.”
“Pay attention,” Mancini growled as he looked at the screen. “They’re turning off.”
“Where? You see a road?”
“Up ahead to the right. Slow down!”
Crocker let up on the gas, applied the brake, and peered right into the darkness. All he saw was furry black and the sharper outline of a ridge in the distance.
“Turn here!” Manny shouted.
“Am I looking for a road?”
“No road. Just turn.”
“Here?”
“Yes!”
The truck bounced so hard across the shoulder that they had to hold on to prevent banging their heads on the ceiling.
“Motherfucker!”
Crocker applied the brake and eased the pickup down an embankment. They found themselves on relatively flat desert terrain interrupted by the occasional boulder or shrub.
“You trying to flip this thing over?” Mancini asked.
Crocker picked up speed. It was hard to see through the dust and darkness ahead.
“Any idea where the fuck these guys are going?”
Soon as he posed the question, automatic fire rang out to their right and bullets shattered the side window and windshield. Crocker ducked behind the dash and turned left as more rounds ripped into the pickup’s door and bed.
The vehicle hit a rock, dipped precipitously, and went downward fast.
“Fuck!” Mancini shouted.
“Hold on!”
They were airborne, but Crocker remained calm enough to check that both their seat belts were buckled. Twisted his torso hard right so it almost faced the seat and covered his head. Watched as Mancini did the same.
“Clench your teeth!”
The grille hit the ground hard, then the vehicle flipped over, spinning slightly right, and landed with a bang on the right side of the bed. Then it rolled onto the roof and was stopped by something hard that blew out the passenger-side window. Bam!
Crocker unclenched his teeth, exhaled, and shook the glass off.
“Manny?”
All he heard was a groan. Then he smelled gas.
“Manny, you all right? You hear me?”
The pickup had come to a rest on its side at a forty-degree angle, with the driver’s side up. He pushed open the door with his left foot, unbuckled his seat belt, then turned to attend to Mancini. He seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness, but was breathing freely and his pulse was only slightly slower than normal. Crocker unbuckled his seat belt, then felt carefully along his neck and back to check if anything was broken. His spine was intact.
“You hear me, buddy?”
No response, so he wrapped his arms around him and slowly lifted out the bear of a man-230 pounds of bone and muscle. Crocker managed to lug him a safe distance away from the vehicle and set him on the ground.
“Manny, can you hear me?” he whispered.
After a ten-second pause, Mancini groaned and responded, “Yeah.” Then, “Fuck. My head hurts. What happened?”
“We crashed. I’m going to look for the phone and call for help.”
He inspected Mancini more closely and found multiple cuts to his right arm and side, and a large contusion near his right eye. He didn’t have the iPhone in his pocket or clutched in either hand.
“Wait here,” Crocker whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
Turning and looking over his shoulder, he saw that they had fallen into a twenty-foot-deep gulch. As he took a step toward the pickup, he heard helicopter rotors echo off the incline ahead.
He scurried upward across the dirt and rocks on his hands and knees, looked up and followed the sound. The helo was drawing closer. He made out its dark form in the night sky. It hovered with lights out. Then suddenly the bright landing lights came on, illuminating a wide circle five hundred feet ahead and to the right, temporarily blinding him.
“Fuckers!”
It was descending, looking for a place to land. To the right of the circle he made out the two black SUVs. Men with automatic weapons stood around them.
“Now what?”
Without thinking he broke into a sprint, keeping his eyes on the ground ahead of him, juking to avoid boulders, holes, shrubs. Focused on his target and calculating that he should swing right of the SUVs and approach from behind. His legs and lungs burning, he pushed with everything he had left, making sure to land on the balls of his feet to minimize the sound.
The helo engines were idling now. He heard voices ahead, echoing off the mountain. They seemed to be speaking a foreign language. Sounded like barked instructions, said with urgency.