"No," Cavanaugh said.
"But-"
"The PIT maneuver barely damages the other car," Ca-vanaugh said.
"The what?"
"Unless that car broke something when its side struck that barrier, those men'll soon come after us again." Cavanaugh stared toward the fuel indicator on the dashboard. The needle was now at one-quarter. "Plus, we've got too many bullet holes in the gas tank. We'll soon be on empty."
In the distance, a new group of sirens wailed.
Cavanaugh checked the rearview mirror: no sign of the second car pulling onto the highway. He peered ahead through the rain and saw an exit ramp. He was far enough along the highway that the men in the car behind him might not notice the rusted sedan leaving. Or so he hoped.
The sirens wailed louder.
"Time for a change of plan." Cavanaugh took the exit ramp, came to the bottom, saw a shopping mall on the left, and headed toward its crowded parking lot. People in other cars gaped at the smashed front end of Cavanaugh's car.
"Prescott, use your shirtsleeve. Wipe everything you touched. Smudge your fingerprints."
Counting on the rain to obscure his movements, Cavanaugh entered the expansive parking lot, but every space in the row he chose was filled. Cursing, he steered through puddles toward the next row, where all the spaces were also full.
Sure, he thought. A rainy Sunday afternoon. How do people pass the time? They go to the shopping mall.
Cavanaugh tried the next row, and the next, and the next. All were filled with vehicles.
In the distance, the sirens stopped, presumably at the car whose engine Cavanaugh had disabled.
The black car suddenly steered into the row Cavanaugh was headed along and sped toward him. Through the car's flapping windshield wipers, the three passengers and the skinhead driver glared at him.
Cavanaugh braked, put the car in reverse, and started backing away, but not before a man on the passenger side lowered the window and leaned out into the rain, aiming a pistol with a silencer on it. Cavanaugh didn't hear the shot, but he did hear the bullet's impact against the radiator.
Steam rose from the puncture. Whump. A second bullet hit the radiator. The assault team had learned from the way Cavanaugh had disabled the first car by firing the.45 at the engine and the radiator. The pistol the passenger used wasn't large enough to be a.45. It wouldn't damage the engine as much, but it would definitely play hell with the radiator.
Backing swiftly, Cavanaugh swung the steering wheel, pivoting the sedan 180 degrees. In the limited space, on wet pavement, he couldn't execute the backward half spin as neatly as he was capable of doing. His right front fender glanced off a parked van's taillight, sending a shudder through the sedan. Even so, in a rush, he corrected the steering and now faced the mall instead of the pursuing car. He rammed the gearshift into forward and sped along the row.
But as rain suppressed the steam from the radiator, Cavanaugh felt his chest cramp when a woman holding an umbrella stepped from between cars. She walked halfway across the open area and froze at the sight of Cavanaugh's car rocketing toward her.
14
Never look at what you're trying to avoid. Always look at where you want the car to go. Cavanaugh's instructors had drilled that rule into him at the Bill Scott Raceway in West Virginia, where Global Protective Services and various intelligence agencies sent their operators for training in evasive driving.
"Why is it that, in many accidents, cars get hit directly on the side or the front, as if there wasn't any attempt to evade them?" Duncan had demanded from the passenger seat.
Cavanaugh hadn't been able to answer, too busy rounding a curve at 120 miles an hour.
"Why is it that if a driver hits a patch of ice and skids off the road, the only telephone pole for a hundred yards or the only tree in a field will be what that driver slams into square on?"
Again, Cavanaugh hadn't been able to answer, too busy feeling the hum and pulse of his car's tires, knowing that if the hum sounded any higher, if the pulse got any faster, his tires would lose their grip on the curve and he'd fly off the raceway.
Duncan had answered for him. "Because the driver looks at the car that veers in front of him, or the driver looks at the telephone pole at the side of the road, or the driver looks at the tree in the middle of the field, and although the driver wants to avoid them, he hits the damned things. Why does he hit them?"
"Because he looks at them," Cavanaugh had finally managed to answer, speeding out of the curve.
"Yes. You steer where your eyes lead you. If you look at what you're trying to avoid, you'll head in that direction."
Suddenly, a large cardboard box had hurtled across the track in front of Cavanaugh. Startled, he'd looked at it and almost steered toward it. With a flick of his eyes, he'd stared forward again and managed to remain on the track. His speeding car had veered only slightly as he passed where the box flew into a ditch. He thought he'd seen a rope on the box.
"Did somebody hide at the side of the track and yank that box across?" Cavanaugh had rushed into another curve.
"Eighty percent of the beginning students here see that box and follow it into the ditch," Duncan had replied. "So what's the lesson?"
"Look at where you want to go, not at what you're afraid you'll hit."
"Yes!"
Now Cavanaugh stared past the paralyzed woman toward rain splashing a puddle beyond her.
Don't move, lady.
Cavanaugh stepped on the brakes, feeling their pulses through the pedal, judging their increasing frequency. At what he estimated was 98 percent stopping power, he kept his foot steady. Any more pressure and the brakes would lock, making it impossible for him to control the direction of the sedan. But as long as the brakes weren't locked, he could steer the car while reducing speed.
He was so close to the paralyzed woman that he saw how huge the pupils of her eyes had become as he twisted the steering wheel to the right.
No! Don't look at her! Look at the rain in the puddle beyond her!
Cavanaugh felt the car threaten to slide out of control on the wet pavement. At once, the sedan shifted to the right the way he wanted. Continuing to stare toward where he wanted to go, toward the puddle, he twisted the steering wheel to the left now, veering around the woman, sensing her umbrella zip past him as his car reached the puddle and he released the brake.
For a heart-skipping moment, as Cavanaugh jerked his gaze up toward his rearview mirror, he feared that the pursuing car would hit her, but the near miss had broken the woman's paralysis. She raced toward cars at the side just before the black car sped past her, splashing water from a puddle, drenching her.
Wary of other pedestrians who might suddenly appear, Cavanaugh sped along the row heading toward the mall. He steered to the left, toward one of the mall's entrances, a group of glass doors beckoning on Prescott's side of the car.
"Prescott, open your door! We're bailing out!"
"But-"
"Do it!" Cavanaugh skidded to a stop in front of the doors. He grabbed the Sig and the.45. "Now!"
Behind him, he heard the black car speeding close as he and Prescott charged into the mall.
15
Two levels high, the place was warm, dry, and bright, packed with shoppers, loud with conversations, but all Cavanaugh paid attention to was an electronics store immediately on his left.
"In there!" he told Prescott.
The black car would stop at the rusted sedan, Cavanaugh knew. The three passengers would rush into the mall. The driver would stay with the car and use his cell phone to keep in touch with the gunmen as they tried to find where Cavanaugh and Prescott had gone. That way, the driver could be alerted to speed to another section of the mall if Cavanaugh and Prescott tried to leave via other doors.