But even on three tires the Boxster was outperforming the battered Beetle and now Aurora was making a call on her cell phone.
“She ordering a pizza or something?” Scarlet said.
“Damn it all!” Camacho said, and smacked the top of the steering wheel. “We’re not going to make it!”
“We’ll see about that,” Lexi said, and fired a second shot.
She hit the other rear tire and sent the powerful Porsche into a frenzy of sparks and smoke as the rear-engine sports car tried to drive forward on two wheel rims.
A second later they drew level with her but she swerved wildly into them. With another shower of sparks and a terrible grinding sound, the VW nudged the Porsche onto the shoulder and tried to force it from the highway but Aurora jammed the throttle and powered the damaged Porsche forward. A shower of sparks trailed behind her in the hot Mexican sunshine and as she accelerated they clipped the rear of her car and she spun around one-eighty.
The impact had a similar effect on the Beetle and it spun around ninety degrees until its front fender collided with the crash barrier and brought the car to a halt. Its engine began to putter. “Oh, crap,” Camacho mumbled.
Aurora seized the chance and pointed the Boxster’s nose at them, turning the powerful car into a missile.
“Er…” Kim said. “She’s heading this way.”
With the Boxster now bearing down on them in the bright sun, Camacho held his nerve. He pushed down on the clutch and revved the tired engine to keep it alive. If it failed now it was game over.
Then the engine died.
“Shit!” Kim screamed. “This Aurora bitch is batshit crazy!”
“Get us moving, Jack!” Lexi said.
Camacho tried to turn the engine over but it wouldn’t start.
“She’s getting closer!” Lexi said, and fired at the Porsche now bearing down on them.
Camacho tried again, but still it didn’t turn over.
“A hundred yards, Jack!”
Scarlet and Reaper now fired on the Boxster, puncturing the steel and shattering the window, but still Aurora kept driving. She blasted the tires on the left hand-side of the Beetle to shreds and Kim felt the car sink down.
“We’re listing to port, darling!” Scarlet added. “Time to break out the life jackets?”
“Twenty yards!” Kim yelled. This was a nightmare.
On the third twist of the key, Jack Camacho finally managed to turn the engine over and the car rumbled unhappily to life. By now the busy Acapulco traffic had backed up behind them and the highway was mostly blocked with cars, but the Porsche was still bearing down on them and Aurora Soto had only one thing in mind.
Camacho yanked the gearstick into reverse and slammed the accelerator down. In a cloud of rubber smoke he powered the Beetle back away from the crash barrier and spun the wheel to bring the car facing north again. With a second to spare the Boxster ripped past them, missing the front of their car by inches.
“That was too close!” Kim yelled.
Having missed her target, Aurora Soto swung the Porsche around and made another pass, firing wildly with Doyle’s gun as she shot past them one more time.
Reaper fired and blasted a line of bullet holes in the side of the Boxster but it was gone again.
“Time to end this,” Camacho said, swerving the VW harshly through the traffic in pursuit of the Porsche. “She’s out of her mind.” Drivers waved fists out of their windows and sounded their horns as he went, but the ageing CIA agent focussed on the job.
They hit the bottom of the peninsula and were now racing along an avenue running parallel to the beach. Aurora turned in her seat and pointed an Uzi at them before firing off a short burst. The bullets punctured the engine cover of the Beetle and snaked their way up the car shredding the vinyl on the rear of the roof.
“She keeps an Uzi in the glove box,” Reaper said. “I’m impressed. I keep those little mints in mine.”
Scarlet looked at him, narrowed her eyes in confusion and shook her head. “What?”
“Just saying.”
Lexi and Kim stood up and fired again, but Aurora returned fire with the Uzi. Bullets smashed through the window and shredded what was left of the vinyl roof which was now flapping loose behind them. A second later the wind got under it and tore it back off its frame. It flew back away from the car like a giant black bat before crashing into the road behind them.
Lexi stood up and gripped the windshield rim for support as she fired off another burst from her pistol. She struck one of the Boxster’s remaining good tires and the Porsche skidded off the road, totally out of control. She crashed through a break in the buildings which divided the road from the beach — an open-top bar through which Kim now glimpsed the sparkling ocean.
In hot pursuit, Camacho steered toward the bar, mounted the kerb and smashed through a line of potted palms.
Scarlet pushed back in her seat and shook her head. “You’re having a laugh!”
“Sorry, babe… but no.”
Aurora smashed the Porsche through the tables and chairs and skidded over the bar’s patio before crashing through the rail running around the decking. In a cloud of smashed wood and bent parasols the Boxster launched off the deck and flew through the air for a few seconds before crashing down on the hot sand of the beach.
Camacho never hesitated and followed in the Boxster’s wake of destruction. Now, Kim screamed, wide-eyed with terror but Camacho knew what he was doing. A second later the VW smashed hard into the hot, white sand of Condesa Beach and after covering several screaming tourists with an arc of sand, raced off to the north in pursuit of Aurora.
A crowd of disgruntled people had formed on the bar’s deck and were now busy making calls on their phones. Kim guessed local law enforcement wouldn’t be too far away.
Weaving in and out of various parasols on the beach as terrified tourists scattered for their lives, Camacho pushed the Beetle north in a desperate attempt to catch up with Aurora. Now they were on soft sand the blown-out tires were no longer the disadvantage they had been on the highway.
Kim gasped as Camacho piled through a line of coconut-matting sunshades. “Never did this in training.”
He laughed and nodded his head in agreement. “Me neither!” He checked ahead and saw the Porsche’s mighty engine was powering the car through the sand faster than he expected.
“I did…” Scarlet mumbled.
“She’s still getting away,” Kim said.
“She’s driving straight for those rocks!” Lexi added.
They peered into the distance and saw a stack of enormous rocks rising up out of the sand. A large white hotel protruded into the tropical sky above them.
Reaper sighed. “I know they’re some kind of suicide cult, but this is crazy!”
Then they heard an approaching chopper and looked up to see a Bell thundering over the top of them from behind. They felt the mighty downdraft as it swooped forward and slowed to keep pace with Aurora’s Boxster.
“Not a pizza then…” Scarlet sighed.
“Surely not,” Kim said.
Reaper gave an appreciative nod. “Mais oui… I think so.”
Camacho looked on in disbelief as Aurora Soto unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up on the driver’s seat of the Porsche. She grabbed the skid on the bottom of the Bell and then the chopper climbed sharply away from the road.
The Boxster, now a lethal runaway, careered along the beach and ripped through a line of parasols before crashing into the jumble of rocks at the base of the hotel. The gas tank ruptured and a second later it exploded into a tremendous fireball, scattering shrapnel all over the beach for hundreds of meters in every direction.
In the distance to the east, they watched the Bell turn hard to starboard and disappear over the bright white skyline of the city.