“So where am I taking you?”
“Montgomery Field,” he said as he ran his hands along the smooth dash, appreciating the car in a way she never would. She knew her dad had admired the Corvette’s lines in the same way. He leaned back into the seat and turned to her. “Know where that is?”
“Yes,” she said. “I know where that is.”
She steered the Corvette through the main gate, crossed Alameda Boulevard, and stomped on the gas, pressing them both back in their seats. The muscle car’s engine roared, echoing off the beach cottages on either side of the street, but her eyes never stopped scanning the familiar island scenery.
“So, what do I need to know?” Colt asked, shouting to be heard over the wind noise.
Punky raced around slower-moving cars, weaving the nimble sports car in and out of traffic as she made for the bridge. She checked her mirrors but saw nothing that set off alarm bells, and she turned to look at the pilot, who appeared at ease in the passenger seat.
It was a beautiful morning in the San Diego area, and Li Hu didn’t mind the break from the monotony. He and several others had been assigned to the Southern California city as a sort of Quick Reaction Force for the Ministry’s agents if they found themselves in need of firepower. But since their job was to remain within the shadows and avoid drawing undue attention to their activities, Li Hu thought of his posting as a brief respite following his decades in special operations.
“Ping it again,” he said.
The man in the passenger seat tapped an icon on the tablet computer resting in his lap. “It’s moving.”
Li Hu nodded, feeling a slight fluttering of excitement welling from within. After all, he was unaccustomed to a life of peace or of sitting on his hands, waiting for a chance to put his skills to use. So, when Chen had called and told him she needed him to kill a Navy pilot, he felt a tiny sliver of hope that his boredom was nearing an end.
“Where is it?”
“On McCain Boulevard, headed this way.”
Li Hu put his foot on the brake and shifted the large SUV into drive. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw two more of his men sitting in silence as they scanned their sectors through the side windows. He picked up his phone and dialed Chen, listening to the call connect through the earpiece in his ear.
“Yes?”
“We are in position,” he said.
“Any sign of him?”
Almost as if the man in the passenger seat had heard the question, he pinged the target’s cell phone again. “Nearing the gate,” he whispered to Li Hu. “Ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds,” he told Chen.
He heard the men in the back seat slide the bolts back on their Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine guns, verifying their condition, before rotating the fire control levers off safe. The man next to him tapped the tablet computer again, then looked up through the windshield as a red Corvette launched through the intersection.
“Is that him?” Li Hu asked.
The man tapped the screen again, then set the tablet down and turned to him. “That’s him.”
He took his foot off the brake and pivoted it to the gas, smoothly and quickly pulling away from the curb. He turned right on Fourth Avenue, several cars behind the classic muscle car, looking at the back of a feminine head sitting behind the steering wheel. “We’re in pursuit,” he told Chen through his earpiece. “He’s with a woman.”
“Who is she?” Chen asked.
Li Hu turned and looked to the man sitting next to him. “Find out who the woman is.”
He picked up the tablet computer in response and opened a separate app. Li Hu kept his eyes glued to the matching pair of twin round taillights on the back of the Corvette, marveling at the way the woman veered the car in and out of traffic. He spoke into his earpiece. “What are my orders?”
Chen didn’t hesitate. “Kill them both.”
Chen ended the call and watched the silver sedan disappear into the Pismo Preserve parking lot. She was tempted to follow but instead made a hasty U-turn and returned underneath the highway overpass.
She wanted to finish this and get out from under the sedan’s surveillance, but she would do it on her own terms. She had turned the tables and harried her pursuer into a corner, making him question his resolve in continuing the chase. He would continue, of course, but she had bought herself some breathing room.
She dialed another number and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said. “I can’t make it to the primary pickup location.”
“Do you have an alternate?”
She turned left on Price Street and accelerated past the Shore Cliff Hotel again, continuing south into Pismo Beach. “Santa Maria,” she said.
“They just left there.”
Undeterred, she asked, “Well, how soon can they be back?”
There was a pause on the other end as he calculated the change in route. “An hour fifteen. Hour thirty, tops.”
“Good. Tell them I’m on my way. I need to take care of something first.”
He paused again, as if considering what that something might be. “Are you clean?”
She gritted her teeth, loath to admit that she wasn’t, but knew there was no point in keeping it a secret. Mantis already knew. “No, but I will be.”
“You know the code.”
He ended the call, and she took her foot off the gas, allowing the Jeep to slow as she neared the congested beach town’s center. As with most such towns, tourists wandered the sidewalks and clogged the streets with their aimless meandering, unaware of the pursuit that was taking place under their noses. Chen didn’t want to set her trap in the heart of Pismo Beach, so she continued south along the divided main thoroughfare, scanning the cross streets for a southbound on-ramp.
There were signs advertising veterinary services and decorative garden art, and even a few quirky ones that proclaimed all happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast and that wine is sunlight held together by water, but she hadn’t seen any showing her where to go. So, she pressed on, stopping at stop signs and yielding to pedestrians, but otherwise driving with the singular focus of escaping Pismo Beach and putting some distance between her and the silver sedan.
By the time the road crossed Pismo Creek, the downtown area had drifted into the distance behind her, and the traffic had become sparse, allowing her to plant her foot on the gas pedal and inch the speedometer needle upward. She didn’t know how long her pursuer would remain at Pismo Preserve, but she knew his car was faster and could gain ground quickly. Her only hope was to find a suitable spot. And find it soon. She merged back onto the freeway and raced south while checking her mirrors.
Still no silver sedan.
Where are you, my friend?
In Arroyo Grande, she exited the 101 and headed south on Halcyon Road. In terms of mileage, it wasn’t any longer than staying on the highway, but it was forecasted to take another ten minutes to reach Santa Maria — ten minutes that would be well spent if her plan worked. After cresting a slight rise above the expansive agricultural fields, Halcyon Road merged with Highway 1, and Chen removed the pistol tucked next to her seat and slipped it into her waistband at the small of her back.
Ten minutes later, she reached the small town of Guadalupe and found what she was looking for. On the right side of the two-lane road was a dealership with an eclectic assortment of used cars parked in a dirt lot underneath black and yellow streamers lining the property. On the left was a facility she suspected was used to store and distribute fertilizer or some other agricultural commodity. But it wasn’t the product that interested her. It was the large warehouse bordering the street.