Not fast enough. He was opening a gap, but now the other drivers had their feet hard to the floor.
Adam changed up. One-twenty. Mirror. The lead Suburban was a couple of hundred yards back, out of the sub-machine gun’s effective range — but it was now maintaining the distance, its companions right behind it.
He looked ahead—
Red tail lights filled both lanes.
Fear sent an adrenalin shot through his system. He braked, sloughing off speed and swinging the Mustang right to avoid a collision. A vicious thump-thump as the wheels mounted the kerb, then the entire car shuddered with earthquake force as it rode along the bumpy grass verge.
It was like driving on ice. Adam grappled with the steering wheel, needing all his skill to hold the car in line as its tail threatened to snap out and send him into a spin. He overtook the obstructing cars, but now saw green rushing at him in his headlamp beams, shrubs and trees directly ahead—
A twitch of the wheel. The Mustang swung back to the left, kicking up dust and shredded grass before crashing on to the blacktop. The jolt as the suspension hit its limits felt like a kick to his spine.
He ignored the pain and straightened out, dropping back through the gears to accelerate again. The lead SUV switched on its strobes, unearthly blue pulses silhouetting the cars he had just overtaken. The one in the inside lane slowed, the other ducking aside to let the faster vehicles through.
The Parkway passed under a bridge. A sign at the roadside told Adam that the chase had just entered the District of Columbia. He was about six miles from his destination.
Six miles. Half of them on the highway. The other half would take him through the busy streets of Washington.
And he would be under attack the whole way.
He kept accelerating, back up to a hundred. This section of the road was a long, sweeping curve through woodland — with a speed limit of only fifty. More traffic ahead. His gaze flicked between the rapidly approaching tail lights and the blue strobes in the mirror. The cars ahead were reasonably spaced out…
Adam steeled himself — then pushed the pedal down, committing himself to the run.
He pulled into the right-hand lane, whipping past a car on the inside before swinging sharply back to the left to round another vehicle. No sooner was he past than he dived back to the right, barely a foot ahead of the car he had just overtaken. A horn sounded in anger.
Faster. More red lights rushed at him. Back to the left, foot dabbing the brake before he veered sharply across to the inside lane once more. Mirror. The cars behind were responding to the emergency lights, pulling over to leave the outside lane clear.
The lead SUV closed again, his slalom costing him precious momentum. Gear down, foot down. The rev counter wavered in the red zone. He swung past another couple of vehicles, cutting his turns as close as he dared. Another horn blast, a car weaving as its driver was frightened out of his highway trance.
He looked back. The gap was staying constant—
A pickup truck ahead suddenly pulled across to the outside lane, speeding up to draw alongside a Chevrolet Cruze — then cutting speed to match it. The pickup’s driver had seen the strobes behind and decided to make the automotive equivalent of a citizen’s arrest, blocking the Mustang’s path so that what he thought was law enforcement could catch the speeder.
Adam had no choice but to brake hard, the Ford snaking. He looked frantically to each side of the rolling roadblock. There was no crash barrier along the grassy median strip to his left, but the number of approaching headlights warned him that crossing into the oncoming traffic would be suicide.
A paved cycle lane ran parallel to the highway on his right. But it was too narrow to fit the Mustang…
No choice.
He braced himself and swerved over the kerb with another tooth-shaking crash from the suspension. Then the Mustang was straddling it, right wheels all the way over at the cycle lane’s far side while the left rattled in the Parkway’s gutter.
Foot down. The black car accelerated, drawing level with the Cruze occupying the inside lane — and making contact. The flanks of the two vehicles ground together as the Mustang passed. The door mirror on Adam’s side was sheared off with a crack.
The Cruze’s driver panicked, instinctively turning away — and sideswiped the pickup.
Adam accelerated and dropped back on to the highway. The Chevrolet swung across the road behind him, just missing the Mustang’s rear bumper. The weaving pickup braked hard. Its tail end slewed around, bringing it broadside on across the lane—
A collision was unavoidable for the lead SUV. Reed, driving, took the less damaging option, veering right to hit the smaller Cruze rather than the big 4x4. With two men and their gear aboard, the Suburban was more than twice the weight of the compact car. The result was inevitable. The Cruze was swatted aside, spinning on to the cycle lane with its flank caved in.
But the SUV also took damage. The impact shattered its right headlamp cluster and tore off the front bumper, Reed battling to keep control as the Suburban reeled over the kerb. It ripped through bushes at the roadside before finally slowing.
One down, if only temporarily — but still two to go. The other Suburbans also swerved to avoid the pickup, narrowly missing the wrecked Cruze before overtaking Baxter and sweeping back into pursuit of the Mustang.
The Parkway curved round in a long sweep to head north. Adam was a mile from the Frederick Douglass Bridge, which led across the Anacostia River into the heart of the capital. From there it was about three miles to his destination.
The traffic ahead was more spaced out. He shoved his foot to the floor. The Mustang surged forward. A hundred and ten, one-twenty. The wind noise through the broken rear window sounded like a jet taking off. At this speed the steering felt hypersensitive — the smallest mistake would throw him wildly off course. He gripped the wheel more tightly.
The strobes receded in the mirror. The upgraded Suburbans could probably match his speed in the long run, but he had superior acceleration.
The highway curved back to the north-west. Just seconds had passed, but he had already devoured half a mile, gliding back and forth between the two lanes to flash past other vehicles. Glaring lights to his right, buses lined up beneath them at the Anacostia Metro station.
Traffic lights ahead.
They turned red—
The road widened into four lanes at an intersection. All were filled.
Brake!
Adam stamped on the pedal. The Mustang’s tyres shrieked in smoking protest as the speedometer needle plunged. But he wasn’t slowing quickly enough, the back of a container truck looming directly ahead like a steel wall…
He jerked the wheel to the left. There was a narrow paved dividing strip separating the northbound and southbound sides of the Parkway. The Mustang rode over it with a bang, briefly airborne before slamming back down — heading straight into the oncoming traffic. He pulled hard at the wheel. His car fishtailed, the rear wheels shrilling again as they regained traction and flicked him back on to the right side of the road.
Metal crunched as a car braking to avoid him was hit from behind, but he was already past the collision. The road ahead was clear. Where were his pursuers?
The strobes of the lead Suburban were visible only as reflections off the sides of the vehicles at the lights. It had been forced to stop. The second—
Its driver was braver — or crazier. It leapt over the divider, following Adam’s path through the intersection to swing back in behind him.
The Mustang’s thunderous engine note briefly echoed back at Adam as he tore through a concrete underpass. He was coming up to the bridge approach, the two sides of the divided highway splitting apart.