And whipped into the left-hand lane on the wrong side of the miniscule triangular concrete traffic island, horn blaring to freeze traffic. He slewed across Presidio untouched because a sports car driver had damned good reflexes, fishtailed the rear end on fog-wet blacktop and was heading down Lincoln toward the old wooden building that had been Letterman Army Hospital until the new plant had been completed.
Behind him, the air was full of sirens. Directly ahead, an olive green Military Police jeep went into a skid of its own, broadside across the street to block his way, shedding MPs expecting the crash.
Docker jumped the left-hand curb, skun the left side of the Montego on the ancient stone retaining wall in front of some officer’s white frame house, hit the blacktop still accelerating, fighting it under control with big, competent hands.
Ahead on his right behind masking palm trees, the greyish stucco cube which housed the MP Headquarters spilled men in Army greens and wearing white plastic helmet liners. They ran at the road drawing cumbersome Army-issue .45s. Docker aimed the Montego at the closest one, slewed away as the man dove back.
Men were on their bellies, squeezing off shots. One slug smashed against the post between the windshield and the frame on the far side of the car, but then the fog had closed in behind Docker again. His last mirrored view was of men sprinting toward a whippet-aerialled jeep.
The Presidio of San Francisco is an Army post, and has been in the hands of somebody’s military since the Spaniard José Moraga erected an adobe stockade there in 1776. Since it has always been a defensive, not a training camp, relatively little of its total acreage has ever been in actual use. Most of its thousands of eucalyptus, monterey pine and cypress trees were planted by school children on Arbor Days in the early 1900s. Miles of earth and blacktop roads wander through these miniature forests.
But once pursuit had begun, the Presidio was not a particularly good place for Docker to be. It was a closed system; though the gates were always open, access could be controlled by sealing them up. Once inside, Docker had very limited options.
But he did have the fog. That was on his side.
On their side were their radios. Though Docker could not hear them, the air around him crackled with messages as he knifed the big car down the Lincoln Boulevard straight-away past the Parade Ground.
“Unit Three, do you read me?”
“10–4, Control.”
“Subject vehicle outbound on Lincoln. Vehicle is 10–99. Repeat, 10–99. Stolen vehicle.”
“10–4, Control.”
“Unit Seven, is the Broadway gate closed and locked?”
“Affirmative, Control. Am now sealing Presidio Boulevard gate at Pacific Street.”
“10–4. Is any unit in the vicinity of MacDowell and Lincoln?”
“Affirmative. Unit Five en route that intersection on MacDowell. ETA, sixty seconds.”
Ahead of Docker, Lincoln divided for an old red brick building which had been there much longer than the automobile and currently housed Army CID. He slammed the brakes to set up a skid, goosed it as he came out of the slide, nose to the right, braked, jammed the wheel left. The rear end caromed off the springy steel guard-rail which divided Lincoln from a steep embankment below the Doyle Drive skyway to the Golden Gate Bridge.
He was still moving, but a tire was scraping something now.
The fog shifted momentarily; thirty yards off to Docker’s right, serenely unconscious of it all, the freeway traffic whipped along, its many eyes fog-misted. The Mercury’s headlights took ineffectual bites at the swirling mist as he roared along Lincoln. To his left, the National Cemetery’s rows of honored dead under their simple markers marching up the hillside were invisible.
“Unit Five approaching MacDowell and Lincoln.”
“10–4. Stop vehicle. Repeat, stop the vehicle. Subject is considered armed and dangerous. Subject may be heading for Crissi Airfield, over.”
More sirens, they seemed to be coming from every compass point now, rising and falling as they cried to one another through the night. Docker’s window was down so their voices poured in at him with the fog and the wet. He was hunched over the wheel like a race driver, his face, by the upthrust glow of the dash lights, was rendered less than human from intense concentration.
Ahead, intersection. MacDowell, leading down to Crissi Field. His hands did not twitch the wheel that way. Headlights on MacDowell in the fog.
“Subject vehicle approaching at high speed...”
The jeep leaped from the fog, trying to cut Docker off. But he was by MacDowell ahead of them with inches to spare. The jeep shot right across Lincoln, rammed headfirst into a tree.
“Unit Five, come in.”
Docker heard only motor roar, saw only grey wetness, arc of his own lights.
“Unit Five, this is Control. What is your 10–20?”
“Bastard beat us to MacDowell. 10–51. Repeat, 10–51. Need a tow truck. No injuries.”
“We do not read you, Unit Five. Did you make connection with subject vehicle, over?”
“We made connection with a tree, over.”
“Unit Two, what is your 10–20?”
“Ruckman Avenue, heading for the underpass below US. One, over.”
“Intercept—”
“Subject vehicle just passed intersection with Ruckman.”
“Believe subject headed for Golden Gate Bridge access from view area. Can any unit block that intersection?”
Behind the wheel, Docker was laughing with apparent exhilaration. He shouted a snatch of song. He screamed through the stop sign where Crissi Avenue came up from the airfield below, shot a look down Crissi over his shoulder. Just fog.
“This is Unit Four. We are en route Golden Gate Bridge access from Lincoln Boulevard view area over Baker Beach. Will intercept subject vehicle.”
“10–4. If subject attempts to run roadblock, initiate fire. Subject armed and dangerous.”
Docker avoided the tempting trap of Marine Drive, which dead ended at old Fort Point under the soaring red steel parapets of the bridge. Instead, he drifted the yellow car around the curved approach toward the intersection with the bridge view area. He had a momentary glimpse of yellow pinpricks on the Marin headlands hiding Sausalito, then the fog slammed the door shut, closing him back into its narrow dripping grey room.
“Control, this is Unit Four. Turn-off to View Area is a hundred yards ahead. No sight of subject veh... Headlights!”
“Detain vehicle, Unit Four.”
The open window gave Docker the screaming sirens. Dim in the fog, a splash of light to mark the intersection. A hard right, a hard left, and he would have been aimed into the northbound lanes of the bridge. Northbound to Marin where a thousand suburban roads waited.
Headlights, glaring in his eyes. White flashes behind them whining bullets at him; none hitting.
Docker stood on the brakes. Docker put her into a skid, spinning the wheel hard.
But not going right. Going left. The nose tore through dirt, a rear fender wiped out a signpost bearing the words:
DEAD END. NO THOROUGHFARE.
But he was into narrow Armistead Road, behind him the jeep went by like a hog on ice, all wheels locked uselessly as the MPs within raked the darkness into which Docker had disappeared with equally useless carbine fire.
Ahead, Y-junction. Left, Hoffman Street, dipping seductively downhill. No hesitation. Docker stayed on Armistead, accelerated as the street climbed between enlisted men’s housing, past parked cars and the litter of the complex kids’ toys only an affluent technological society can create. Up, all four wheels momentarily off the ground.
Crash! the car struck the blacktop, rocked. Barrier ahead. Flimsy wood, another crash, boards flew. Roaring down a steep grade, following the twisting street unerringly, braking, braking...