“What? We’re going to challenge them to a knife fight?”
“What did I just say about questions?”
“Sorry,” Cracker said, and worked the knife away off the key chain as Storm deftly picked his way through traffic.
“Now I felt some shirts in your tennis bag. Are those made of some kind of blended fabric? Something that wicks away moisture?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Cut one of them into six long strips.”
“Okay,” Cracker said and went to work with the knife on the shirts. Storm heard the ripping of fabric. More bullets were coming from the Lincoln. One shattered the right side-view mirror, evoking a yelp from Cracker. But, to his credit, he kept at his work.
“What next?” he said when he was through.
“Take those Poland Spring bottles and empty them.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care. On the floor.”
Cracker did as he was told. “Now?”
“Pour the Macallan in equal portions into all six bottles. And try not to spill any. We need those bottles as full as possible.”
Cracker apportioned the Scotch equally, filling each of the bottles roughly a third of the way. “Okay. Next?”
“Stuff those shirt strips in the bottles. Get as much of the fabric into the booze as you can, but leave some of the shirt sticking out the top.”
“Uh-huh,” Cracker said and applied himself to his task. He was apparently struggling with it: “The mouths of these bottles aren’t very big. I’m having a tough time getting them in there. Should I cut narrower strips?”
“No. We actually need a nice tight fit. Tight enough that it won’t spill if held upside down.”
“All right.”
Cracker worked diligently for two minutes, during which time Storm managed to keep the Jaguar shielded from gunfire.
“Done,” Cracker said.
“Great. Leave the bottles upright so that they lean against the back of the seat,” Storm said, then jerked his thumb toward the rear of the car. “Then go back there and unbuckle your daughter’s car seat.”
“Uh, all right.”
Storm allowed himself to feel optimistic for a moment. He was confident he would soon be rid of the Lincoln.
But the moment didn’t last. The Turnpike bent to the left, and Storm needed to make a decision: Going into the left breakdown lane would allow him to pass several more cars and reach an opening that would give him the opportunity to put some significant space between him and the Lincoln; but doing so would also give the shooter a more direct line of fire to the Jaguar’s tires for a few seconds.
Storm decided to risk it. He gunned the engine and burst into the left breakdown lane.
It turned out to be the wrong decision. The moment his tires were exposed, a burst of fire came from the pickup.
And the left rear tire exploded.
The Jaguar skidded and swerved to the left, scraping concrete. Storm fought the steering wheel to keep them from losing control altogether, engaging his triceps and biceps in the battle. There were still pieces of tire clinging stubbornly onto the rim, but they were little help. It was all he could do to wedge the Jaguar back into the left lane.
“What’s going on?” Cracker called out from the backseat.
“We lost a tire,” Storm said. “It’s not your problem. Just concentrate on what you’re doing.”
“Okay. I’ve got it loose.”
Storm was thankful the Jaguar was front wheel drive. The car hadn’t lost its power. Just its handling.
It made threading his way through and around the slower traffic an impossibility. Merely keeping the car in its lane had become a struggle. Storm was now limited to moving at the speed of the other traffic.
The Lincoln had taken advantage of this disability and had closed to within two cars. It would soon be directly behind them, or next to them, or wherever Volkov wanted it to be.
“Hand the seat up to me,” Storm said.
The car seat was a dense, unwieldy hunk of padding, composite plastic, and metal. It weighed in at roughly thirty pounds, and was bottom heavy, since that’s where the metal parts that anchored it to the car lived. Cracker struggled to get it through the narrow opening between the two front seats and into Storm’s lap.
“Terrific. While you’re back there, get that cigar case. There’s a lighter in there, yes?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s actually more like a small blowtorch.”
“Perfect. Put it behind my back in this seat. I’m going to need to grab it quickly when I turn around.”
As Cracker completed that task, Storm rolled down his window and punched on the cruise control at fifty. A small gap opened up ahead of him, but that was fine: He wouldn’t have to worry about ramming the car ahead of him while he attempted the stunt he had been planning.
There was now only one car — a green Toyota — between the Jaguar and the Lincoln.
“I’m going to need you to come up here and grab the steering wheel,” Storm said. “Keep us straight as best you can. It’s going to battle you and try to tug you to the left. But if you get to the side of the wheel, left becomes up and right becomes down. You can use gravity to keep it down. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yeah, got it.”
Cracker got himself in position, then put both hands on the wheel. The Lincoln pulled into the left breakdown lane to pass the one car that had separated it from the Jaguar. It was the move Storm had been waiting for.
“I’m letting go now,” he said.
The wheel tugged left, but Cracker had all the leverage he needed to hold it in place. Storm grabbed the car seat, twisted his body so he was facing backward, then perched himself on the side of the door, so that both the seat and his torso were outside of the Jaguar.
With both hands, he heaved the car seat at the windshield of the Lincoln, putting as much strength as he could muster into the throw.
It hit the windshield dead center, creating a huge crater. The Lincoln swerved violently, rocking on its suspension, and Storm briefly hoped it might spin out. Instead, it righted itself by side-swiping the green Toyota, which sparked a chain-reaction accident behind it — but did not, unfortunately, slow the Lincoln.
Storm focused on the pickup truck, assessing the damage he had caused. The force of those thirty pounds hurtling backward had not broken the entire windshield, as Storm had hoped — the shatterproof glass did its job and held — but it did punch a car seat–sized hole in the middle. That would have to do.
Storm retreated back into the Jaguar, which was being held steady — or at least somewhat steady — by a very determined Whitely Cracker. Storm seized the cigar lighter and the first Poland Spring bottle and lit the piece of shirt sticking out the top. He hoped Volkov appreciated this tribute to Vyacheslav Molotov, the Russian foreign minister who introduced the world to the crude, homemade bomb that still bore his name.
Storm waited until he was sure the wick was lit, then leaned back out of the car and tossed his creation toward the hole in the Lincoln’s windshield.
Unfortunately for him, because he was on the left side of the car and facing backward, he was using his less-accurate right arm. He missed. The bottle bounced harmlessly off the top of the Lincoln’s cab and did not ignite until it hit the pavement, well behind the pickup.
There was no more gunfire coming from the Lincoln. Perhaps the car seat had injured or killed the passenger as it hurtled through the pickup. Or maybe he was just reloading.
Storm lit the next wick, then tossed. It missed wide right. Attempt number three splattered into the grille plate and burst into a fireball, but it was like hitting a charging rhino with a BB gun. The Lincoln was not affected.
Attempt number four hit the windshield in front of the driver but bounced the wrong way and, more to the point, did not go off until it struck blacktop.
Storm had two more chances. Worse, there was once again sniping coming from the Lincoln. The shooter was leaning out his window and squeezing off rounds in steady succession. The first six missed. The seventh struck the Jaguar’s right rear tire just as Storm got the next shirt lit.