The laser swept through the car—
Pain exploded in his right arm.
Adam screamed. More bullets clattered against the Mustang as it veered out of control and ran up on to the grass. A tree loomed in the headlight beam. He somehow found the strength to overcome the agony and turned the wheel. The trunk whipped past.
Off the road, without street lights, he couldn’t see the wound. The bullet had hit his bicep, the muscle on fire. He tried to move his arm. Searing, stinging pain crackled through the nerves — but he still managed to grip the shifter. He changed down, a strained gasp escaping through his gritted teeth. The juddering Mustang found more purchase.
Lights ahead — another road through the park crossing his path. He aimed for a gap in the traffic and braced himself. Another slam came through the tortured suspension as his car hopped the kerb and hit the asphalt before pounding back on to the grass at the far side.
The Washington Monument was an unmissable beacon. Adam turned so that it was off to his right and angled through the park towards another thoroughfare. He swung on to it in front of a startled cab driver.
The pursuing 4x4 had barely been slowed by its off-road excursion as it charged after him. It was still on the grass, Reed running parallel to the road to give Baxter a clear shot. The laser stabbed between the two vehicles. Adam forced another car aside to take cover behind a van.
Baxter fired anyway. Rounds ripped through the van’s sides, mangled bullets smacking against the Mustang’s battered flank. Adam accelerated. The ex-Marine unleashed another burst as he emerged, but the shots went wide as Reed was forced to turn sharply to avoid a stand of trees. The Suburban bounced back on to the road behind Adam.
The other cars gave him enough illumination to see blood soaking his sleeve. The bullet had gone through his arm, torn flesh around the exit wound. All he could do to staunch the bleeding was to take the wheel with his right hand, clamping his left over the injury.
The burst of pain was so intense that Adam thought he was going to pass out — but pure adrenalin forced him on. The road ahead forked. He followed it to the right at well over twice the speed limit, at last on 17th Street.
His final destination was dead ahead.
And the man trying to stop him was closing fast from behind. The one-eyed SUV reappeared in the mirror. Baxter leaned out again. His MP5 spat fire. The window beside Adam blew out, more glass showering him.
He cried out again as he let go of the wound, left hand back on the wheel so he could change gear. The Mustang picked up speed. Tail lights rushed at him like meteors. He jinked between them, trying to give himself cover.
No good. He couldn’t shake the Suburban. Reed was an expert driver — and his vehicle was only superficially damaged, while Adam’s own had taken a severe beating. The Mustang’s engine note became rougher. Warning lights flashed on the dash — temperature, oil pressure.
He willed it on. Only half a mile to go. It had to make it!
Buildings ahead as he approached the north side of the Mall — and another red light at the intersection with Constitution Avenue. He pulled out into the oncoming lane to pass the waiting cars—
Someone was crossing the road!
Instinctive terror punched at his heart as he braked and swung wide to avoid the pedestrian. The man’s look of shock as he shot through the headlight beam burned into Adam’s vision like a camera flash. Then he was gone, falling away behind as the Mustang recovered.
The man was silhouetted by the SUV’s lights in Adam’s mirror—
The Suburban didn’t deviate, swatting him aside. The dark figure tumbled along the road like a rag doll.
Horrified, Adam looked ahead — and felt another shot of fear.
Flashing lights ran across 17th Street a few blocks away. A police barricade, multiple cars and vans lined up across his path.
Inevitable, Harper told him smugly. The Eisenhower Building is right by the White House. Of course they’re going to stop you getting anywhere near it.
But the cops were less of a threat than Baxter. The Suburban drew in, engine snarling. Adam tried to accelerate again, but the crippled Mustang was sluggish. All he could do was keep weaving as he powered up 17th Street, trying to shake off the laser sight.
It was impossible. The SUV loomed ever larger in the mirror — and then Adam’s rear view disintegrated as a bullet hit it, more rounds ripping into the roof and seats.
Buildings blurred past on the left. To the right was open parkland, but if he tried to escape that way it would lead him straight into the gunsights of the men guarding the southern perimeter of the White House.
He was out of options. The roadblock was coming up fast, past the intersection with E Street. The only way he could go was left, but that would take him away from Sternberg — and with Baxter right on him and the Mustang almost finished, he wouldn’t get far.
Escape, how to escape…
No. Attack.
A large panel van was waiting on E Street at the intersection, blocking Adam’s view of the building behind it.
His view — and Baxter’s.
Last chance—
Adam threw the Mustang into what he knew would be its final corner, the wounded vehicle’s pain as clear as his own. He passed the van’s front — then pulled on the handbrake.
The car went into a spin, its tail flying out wide. He controlled it, feathering the throttle as the Mustang whipped round through a full two hundred and seventy degrees. Its momentum sent it skittering backwards behind the van — then he stamped the pedal all the way to the floor. The rear wheels shrieked, belching out vortices of stinking smoke as they scrabbled for grip.
They found it, arresting the car’s rearward motion — and flinging it forwards.
It was the same trick he had used to vanish from Bianca’s sight when she had tailed him from STS what felt like a lifetime ago, making a seemingly impossible turn into the warehouse’s loading dock just before she rounded the corner and reappearing right behind her.
This time, he wasn’t going to give his pursuer a mere nudge.
The Suburban had followed him, Reed and Baxter momentarily confused by his apparent disappearance — before they saw him coming at them from an unexpected direction—
The Mustang rammed the SUV.
Reed’s door caved in, not even the airbags enough to save him from injury. The Suburban slewed around — then its right rear wheel struck the kerb. It flipped over, tumbling along the sidewalk before hitting a tree and spinning back into the road in a spray of glass and leaking fluids, ending up on its crushed side.
Adam’s car fared no better. The collision flung the Mustang on to the sidewalk. It crashed through the hedges outside an art gallery. He braced himself, grabbing the seat belt — but the force of the collision as it slammed sidelong into the building’s wall was enough to dislocate his left shoulder with a hideous crackle of cartilage. He hit the steering wheel again, tearing a deep cut into his cheek.
The engine stalled, the sudden silence almost shocking. He tried to sit upright, only to howl in excruciating pain as nerves scraped in his torn shoulder. He barely heard his own cry through the ringing in his ears. One eye was now blinded by the blood oozing from his forehead. He tried to focus with the other, the cabin swimming into view.
He could still move his right arm, barely. More pain burning through the ripped muscle, he gingerly placed his palm on the centre console and levered himself back into his seat.
A blur resolved into the overturned SUV. Passers-by looked on in astonishment, unsure what to do. A man ran up to the Suburban, peering inside — then jumped back as someone crawled out through the broken windscreen.