She cranked the wheel hard to the right and jammed the accelerator to the floor. The Mercedes leaped forward, but then it shuddered to a stop as the front corner met the rear bumper of the vehicle parked ahead of it. A strident wailing noise rose up as the lead vehicle’s anti-theft alarm went off. Jade muttered a curse, but refused to back off, keeping steady pressure on the pedal until, with a tortured groan, the SUV burst free of the snag and shot out across the asphalt.
There was movement directly ahead, and in the split-second it took for Jade to decide whether to slam on the brakes or keep going, she heard Dorion say, “Look out!”
Brakes it is.
The there was a screech of friction and the vehicle came to a complete stop, just a few feet from the man who had emerged from the roadside. It was Professor.
He clambered into the backseat and shouted, “Go!”
She went.
“Wasn’t sure you were coming,” she remarked as the SUV picked up speed.
He made a noise that might have been a strained chuckle. “What, you didn’t actually think I was going to make some kind of noble sacrifice did you?”
Actually, I did, Jade thought, but didn’t say it aloud.
“I was trying to rig up the laser as a decoy,” he explained. “Then you had to go and set off the alarm.”
“Oops.” Her sense of relief slipped away, replaced by embarrassment.
“Where are you going? Delphi is back the other way?”
“If I had gone that way, you’d still be walking,” she growled, embarrassment quickly turning to irritation. The truth of the matter was that she had not given much thought to what would happen after reaching the relative safety of the vehicle. The cars had been parked facing east and it had not occurred to her to turn around and head for town.
“Too late now. Here they come.”
Jade checked the side mirror and saw headlights flaring to life behind them. “We’ll just outrun them. This road has to go somewhere.”
She turned her attention forward again and for the first time since getting into the vehicle, realized that it was equipped with real time GPS. The screen showed their location on the highway; it also showed that they were approaching an almost ninety-degree bend in the road. Jade hit the brakes slowing to a crawl to get through the turn, and then accelerated forward once more.
The GPS showed that the highway was mostly straight for the next few miles — make that kilometers, Jade thought, mentally dividing the numbers in half. There were a couple of wicked looking switchbacks but beyond lay a small city called Arachova; a total distance of ten kilometers — about six miles — and according to the GPS, it would take about eight minutes at safe legal speed.
I wonder if we can do it in five. The trailing headlights reappeared in the rearview as the pursuing cars made the turn, and she realized that she would have to push the car — and herself — to the limit to keep them alive that long.
Jade didn’t need to look at the speedometer to know that they were going a lot faster than the safe, legal speed. She could tell by the vibrations rising up from the road and her own insistent inner voice cautioning her to slow down.
“Everybody down,” Professor shouted suddenly. A moment later, a series of loud cracks sounded against the exterior of the vehicle and the rear window became a glazed translucent mosaic of tiny glass particles.
Jade had to fight against every instinct of self-preservation to keep steady pressure on the accelerator. She wasn’t sure how Professor had known the shots were coming; maybe he had seen the lasers with his NV device, or maybe he’d had a premonition of his own.
“Jade. Give me your gun!”
She had forgotten about the machine pistol, unused and still hanging from its nylon sling. She uncurled one hand from the steering wheel just long enough to pull the strap over her head and deposit the weapon in Dorion’s lap; if felt like the most terrifying two seconds of her life.
Dorion handed the weapon back to Professor, and a few seconds later, Jade heard a mechanical clicking noise, the sound of the pistol’s internal mechanism ratcheting bullets into the firing chamber and ejecting spent casings. The smell of burnt gunpowder filler the air but the report was barely audible. In the mirror, she saw a set of headlights abruptly veer left and go out.
“Got one!” Professor crowed, but his triumph was short-lived. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”
“What?”
“More helicopters.”
Suddenly, Jade’s entire world was suffused with light. The illumination was as bright as sunlight and filled the interior of the car. She flinched away, reflexes overriding every other imperative.
The SUV started to shudder violently as one wheel left the paved surface. Jade let off the gas pedal and tried to guide the vehicle back but it was already too late. She felt an invisible hand lift her out of her seat as the Mercedes careened down the hillside.
The blinding light vanished, plunging the interior once more into darkness, but Jade was barely away of this change. It was all she could do to hold onto the steering wheel as the vehicle crashed through small trees and lurched over boulders. Then something struck her full in the face and everything went completely black.
TWENTY
Professor did not lose consciousness, but for several seconds — it might have been even longer — he had no sense of where he was. Everything was dark and his nostrils were filled with a strange mélange of smells, some he recognized — gunpowder, pine trees, gasoline, dust — and others he did not. It was the latter, a hot, metallic odor, like electrical wiring about to catch fire, that prompted him to start moving.
Something was pressing against his face; it took him a moment to realize that it was the side-impact airbag. He recalled being walloped in the head with it, like a mean-spirited blow in a pillow fight. He also felt something soft in his arms.
Ophelia. He had hugged her close just as the SUV had gone off the road. He felt a measure of relief when she began to stir.
He raised his head and saw that the interior of the Mercedes was filled with dust or smoke — or more probably some combination of the two — and illuminated once more by the helicopter searchlight that had transfixed them earlier, ultimately causing Jade to run off the road. He could hear it beating the air overhead.
“Jade? Paul?”
There were murmurs from the front seat. Everyone seemed to be alive.
“We have to get moving,” he urged. His hand found the lever, but he had to slam his shoulder against the door to get it open. It finally yielded to his efforts and it was only when he spilled out onto the ground that he realized why he had been so disoriented; the SUV had smashed into a tree and stopped facing down the steep slope at an angle.
The front door popped open and Jade tumbled out. She glanced up at the two helicopters hovering overhead, shining spotlights down on them and kicking up a small dust storm, then turned to Ophelia who was struggling to emerge from the SUV. “I don’t suppose you brought one of those RPG launchers along.”
Ophelia shook her head as if the question had been serious.
An electronically amplified voice sounded from the sky. The words were incomprehensible, but after a moment the voice spoke again, this time in English. “This is the police. Stay where you are.”
One helicopter — the word “POLICE” was plainly visible in big white letters on its blue exterior — circled slowly, as if looking for a good landing spot. The other one hovered in place, its searchlight beam still illuminating the wrecked Mercedes.