“One at a time.”
“Okay, okay. Coming up.”
The black Navigator was closing fast. The only advantage McCauley had was the knowledge of where and when he was going to turn. It might be enough to throw off his pursuer until they could have the protection of more traffic.
The straightaway on Planz gave Katrina time to re-locate the cellphone under her seat and continue to move it forward.
“He’s gaining on us.” The SUV was barely six car lengths behind.
They were silent for a few blocks, not that there was anything to say. Also, Alpert was concentrating on the retrieving the phone.
Come on, she silently mouthed. Come on.
The Ford Fiesta hit a pothole. McCauley struggled to control the car. A few inches deeper and he’d have blown out the tire. The SUV careened around it giving McCauley a little more lead. But that disappeared in seconds. McCauley was now honking fiercely before every intersection. It helped him avoid two collisions, but he missed the turn onto Akers.
“Yes!” Alpert exclaimed. She grabbed the phone, brought it up to her lap and dialed.
“What’s next? I couldn’t turn.”
“Go down, no that won’t work…left on Stine Road. Next big left. Up there!”
The traffic light was with him, not with the SUV. But the pursuer blasted through nonetheless.
“Next left on White Lane. Another main street ahead.” She repeated the route. “White Lane. Make a left. Then the right on a big cross street, Wible. The freeway is off Wible, but another left turn against traffic.
“Ok and call the police now!”
“Willingly!” Connected, she explained, “Hello, please just listen to me, We’re in a blue Ford Fiesta, pursued at high speed by a crazy driver in a black SUV who’s trying to run us off the road.” She’d taken McCauley’s advice and kept it to the basics. “Right now we’re on”—she checked the screen—“Stine. He wants to—”
At that instant the SUV rammed their car. It took all of McCauley’s wits to maintain control, but the phone flew out of Alpert’s hand and hit the windshield. It bounced back and caught her right cheek.
“Where’s that turn?” McCauley yelled.
Alpert ignored the pain. Her eyes view shifted from the screen to the road. Getting her bearings, she shouted, “There!” She pointed straight ahead and to the left.
“Brace yourself. He’s going to hit us again. Then I’m taking that turn as fast as I can.”
McCauley was more prepared for the next slam. He held the wheel straight. The impact propelled them ahead again. At the last possible moment, he tapped the brake, slowing just enough to control the car through the turn. It was too fast and too late for the SUV to make the same move and he continued straight across Stine, missing White.
“Two big blocks,” Alpert called out.
McCauley’s hands gripped the steering wheel in the most harrowing white knuckle driving of his life. He raced through the orange light at Wible Road and made a fast cut to the on-ramp of 99, entering at sixty-eight mph and speeding up to ninety on the highway.
“We’re clear.”
Less than a mile down the road they heard sirens wailing.
“This might be a good time to slow down,” she said.
“You think?” He said it like a joke. Katrina laughed nervously.
A minute later the Bakersfield Police cruiser was signaling them to pull over. Quinn complied. The fact that their rear bumper and trunk were smashed and the window had been blown out should certainly help their case. But they still had a lot to explain.
Thirty-eight
Now an entirely new problem: the local police.
The Kern County Sheriff’s Department had 575 authorized deputy sheriffs who patrolled Bakersfield and county streets, held down the substations, detective units and court services and ran the special investigations units. If there was an understanding officer with a sympathetic manner in the ranks, he or she had the day off. Dr. Quinn McCauley and Dr. Katrina Alpert were being questioned by an intimidating pair, Sgt. Buck Todd and Sgt. Judy Tenant. They looked like a real match. Two five-eight blonds. Short hair. Chiseled faces.
McCauley was surprised they needed separate bodies. They could have been Siamese twins, and saved the department the cost of a uniform, he thought.
“You heard my call to 911,” Alpert stated.
“And the calls from the people you just about killed, the cars you nearly hit, and then there’s the school bus,” Todd glowered. He hovered over McCauley and Alpert, seated on an uncomfortable bench in a holding cell. “You’re damned lucky to be alive. Here on out, I’m not so sure.”
“Didn’t anyone say we were being chased?” Katrina said sharply.
“Excuse me, Miss Alpert?” Tenant interrupted.
“It’s Dr. Alpert,” she shot back.
McCauley tapped her arm, an indication to dial back.
“May I explain again?” McCauley offered.
“You can explain,” Sgt. Tenant said, “all the way to the arraignment.”
“Someone will confirm that an SUV was chasing us. For Christ’s sake, he rammed us! Just look at our car.”
“Could’ve come that way.” Todd argued weakly.
McCauley now realized these officers were neither detectives nor skilled investigators. They were the missing link.
“There’s got to be wreckage along the route. We were driving for our lives. This man had just blown up a house and…”
This opened the door to a longer conversation, which had started when they’d been arrested on Highway 99.
“And why where you there, Doc-tor Mac-Cauley,” Tenant said stretching out his name with deliberate disrespect.
“Shouldn’t we have a lawyer?” Alpert whispered.
“A lawyer? People claiming innocence need a lawyer?” Todd asked.
Quinn decided to reply.
“We were discussing a research project that might have been in his field.”
“Then you left and minutes later his house blew up.” Tenant continued her sarcastic tone. “A little odd wouldn’t you say?”
“I can’t say. But that same SUV was there when we arrived and when we left.”
“And this mysterious vehicle which we haven’t seen. It chased you through the streets of Bakersfield? Do you think we’re idiots?” Todd demanded. “Why would he do that?”
“Because we could identify his car…and him!”
“So in full view he tried to run you off the road,” the female officer said incredulously.
“More than that, Sgt. Tenant,” McCauley said. “He tried to kill us.”
An hour later, Todd returned to the holding cell. “Looks like you both have an angel on your side,” he said unlocking the door. “Follow me.”
They passed through two secure doors and entered the lobby. There, standing in the corner with the most recent National Enquirer in his hands, was a very much alive…
"Greene!” McCauley exclaimed.
“In the flesh.”
It was too good to be true. Alpert ran over and hugged him. McCauley followed with a good strong handshake. Sgt. Todd held back. Tenant was at the door looking on in disgust.
“How?” Alpert asked.
Greene turned his back on the officer and gestured for them to come closer.
“Let’s just say I have my own early warning systems. After you left, I watched this guy approach the door with a backpack. He left it without ringing the bell. That didn’t require a PhD on my part. I scrambled down my basement stairs and into a bomb shelter I built years ago. The blast-proof room wouldn’t have saved me from a direct nuclear hit, but it did me well a minute later.”