“Oh, I didn’t realize you wanted to come.”
Alex rolled her eyes and slapped his shoulder. “We can take the Jeep to the airport if we can just get out it out of here without getting shot to pieces!”
“How far away is the airport?” Hawke said.
“A little under twelve miles,” Brooke said. “We go down Valley Road and then we hit 75. That takes us straight to Hailey and the airport.”
“And we definitely can’t take the Corvette?”
Alex gave him another of her looks. “Get in the Jeep, Limey.”
“Sure thing, Septic.”
Brooke and his daughter both turned to Hawke at the same time. “Huh?”
“Septic tank.”
“And…?”
“Septic tank, Yank.”
“Oh…” Alex said, confused.
They were startled back to reality by the sound of gunfire and the sight of half a dozen bullet holes being punched into the steel walls of the outbuilding. The light now shone through the holes in beams.
“We have to get out of here… right now.” Brooke ran his hand along the little board where he kept all his keys until he found the right ones for the Jeep. “Take these,” he said, tossing them at Hawke. Then he pocketed the other keys and grabbed a shotgun from under the bench. “Assholes aren’t chasing me in my own damned cars!”
Hawke climbed into the driving seat of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and fired up the 5.9 V8. A deep growling noise emanated from under the hood. He revved it and the entire vehicle rocked from side to side. A broad smile spread over Joe Hawke’s face.
Brooke climbed in the back and dumped the shotgun on the seat.
“Get us out of here, Joe!”
Hawke stamped on the throttle and the two-and-a-half ton vehicle jumped forward and raced toward the double doors. The Englishman instinctively covered his face as the Jeep smashed through the doors in a cloud of dust and bent metal and then he skidded it around to the right in the direction of the property gates. It sprayed an impressive arc of dust and dead pine cones up into the hot air as it went.
Behind them, a hail of bullets erupted from the two men who were still using the spruces for cover. Hawke watched in the rear-view mirror as the men sprinted into the outbuilding.
Brooke shook his head. “Those assholes better not hotwire any of my babies.”
“I think that’s the plan, Jack,” Hawke said, and increased the speed of the Jeep. “Only eleven miles to the airport now so let’s hope they’re not very good at hotwiring.”
Alex sighed. “You might want to try something a little stronger than hope, Joe. Check the rear-view.”
He checked the mirror and saw Brooke’s beloved Corvette skidding out onto the highway behind them. It didn’t take long for the gunmen to catch up with the much slower Jeep, and the three lanes of ID-75 meant Hawke had a much harder fight on his hands to keep the Corvette trapped behind them.
Brooke turned in his seat and stared forlornly through the rear window. “Oh crap, they’re going to wreck my baby.”
“I’m your baby, Dad.”
Without turning he raised his hand and patted his daughter’s shoulder. “I know you are, honey, and I love you.”
“Yeah, that’s not my shoulder, Dad.”
Brooke turned to see his hand was on Hawke’s shoulder and pulled it back fast.
“My apologies, Joe.”
“That’s okay, Dad,” Hawke said. “And I want you to know I love you too.”
Alex smiled, but Brooke simply returned his gaze to the Corvette, which was now accelerating and swinging to the right in a bid to overtake on the shoulder. Hawke responded by gripping the wheel and heaving the Jeep into the path of the flame-red sports car, but it was a feint. A second later the Corvette braked and skidded to the left, swinging out into the oncoming lane and rapidly accelerating alongside the Jeep.
The gunman in the passenger seat aimed a Remington 1100 tactical shotgun at them, leaning through the open window.
Hawke saw what was happening and hit the brakes.
The Corvette shot in front of them for a few seconds but the driver responded in a flash. He hit the brakes and raced behind the Jeep, swerving into the right-hand lane as he went. Before Hawke could respond they floored the accelerator and swung out into the path of an oncoming SUV narrowly avoiding a head-on collision as they overtook them once again. They were now in front of the Jeep.
Remington twisted around in his seat and leaned out the Corvette’s window. He pulled the long shotgun out of the car and lifted it toward the center of the Jeep’s windshield.
Hawke looked ahead and saw a massive Kenworth Road Train bearing down on them in the left-hand lane. He thought about skidding around it to the left but that would leave him in the fast-lane of the oncoming traffic, and the looming presence of the Kenworth meant he had no way to tell if there was anyone in that lane or not. He knew he could be a daredevil at times, but a head-on smash at nearly two hundred miles per hour was too much even for him to contemplate. Luckily Cairo Sloane wasn’t here to talk him into it, he thought.
The gunman raised the weapon to his eye and prepared to fire.
Hawke had only one play.
He pulled the wheel to the right and sent the Jeep hurtling off the road.
The gunman fired, and a puff of white smoke was followed by the sound of lead shot peppering the back left of the Jeep. Hawke struggled to control the vehicle as it skidded down an embankment and smashed through a low wooden fence which marked the boundary between the highway and a sunburnt wheatfield.
Brooke pointed at the crop stretching out in front of them. “Holy crap, Joe!”
Alex screamed and instinctively raised her hands to protect her face.
The engine over-revved wildly as the Jeep bounced over the rough-ground at highway speed and plowed through the long, dry grass like a combine harvester. Clouds of dried wheat heads and stems burst into the air and left a corn-yellow trail of dust in their wake stretching all the way back to the road.
Hawke winced. “This is definitely not how I was planning on spending today…”
From his base in New Orleans, Alan Pauling tapped the keyboard of his laptop and increased the power on the Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout. He watched through the camera as the unmanned autonomous helicopter drone lifted away from the back of the flatbed truck and into the air. The Rolls-Royce M250 turboshaft engine roared to life as Pauling directed the Fire Scout higher and turned it one-eight degrees to face its target.
Driving the Presidential limo by remote control had been enough of a challenge, especially when being chased by the Secret Service Escalades, but flying an armed, stolen, military drone into the heart of the American capital was in another league completely.
Through the camera he saw the familiar skyline of Washington DC appear on the horizon and smiled as he accelerated the chopper toward downtown. The drone was loaded with a startling variety of weapons, including Viper Strike GPS-assisted laser-guided glide bombs and Hellfire missiles.
That should just about do it, Pauling thought as the capital got larger on his monitor.
And then some.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Brooke pointed his shotgun through the window and got a shot off at the Corvette but it missed. The sports car was too far away now, up on the highway to their left, and accelerating out of sight.
“You think they gave up?” Alex asked.
“Maybe,” Hawke said.
Brooke sighed and shook his head as he reloaded the shotgun. “I doubt it.”
Hawke decelerated the Jeep as a line of Washington hawthorns rapidly approached them. The automatic box changed down to second and then first as he applied the brakes and drove down into a thicket where a narrow stream was running from west to east.