She ignored him as she waited for her partner to answer his phone. “Come on, come on…”
“Hey,” Colt said again. “Talk to me.”
Punky threw the phone down in frustration and downshifted, shoving them both back into their seats as she veered the Corvette onto the off-ramp at Kearney Villa Road. She continued accelerating up the hill, barely tapping the brakes as she slid around the corner, regained traction, and raced toward the Interstate 805 overpass.
“Something bad happened,” she said, more to herself than to the Navy pilot sitting next to her.
“What? What happened?’
She followed the road around a bend, but her foot had eased off the gas pedal as she fought to rein in her emotions. She knew Rick had been following TANDY on his own, and there was a good chance he had been made. But did that mean he had been targeted by a countersurveillance team and taken out? She came to a complete stop at the intersection with Aero Drive, then turned right.
“You okay?” Colt asked.
She turned to look at him, surprised to see he appeared calm and unfazed by her erratic driving. “That was my uncle… my partner. He called to warn me that they know your name.”
This did seem to faze him. “They? Who are they?”
She gave a little shake of her head. “We think it’s the Chinese. The Ministry of State Security.”
Colt held his hands out in front of him as if trying to stop the Corvette through telepathy. “Whoa, hold on a second. Why do the Chinese know my name? Why do they even care about me?”
Tall palm trees lined the road on their left, and Punky continued driving the muscle car as if she didn’t have a care in the world. The truth was, she was using the opportunity to open the aperture on her situational awareness and look for things that didn’t belong: idling cars at the curb or down side streets, pedestrians on the phone who gave the red Stingray more than the usual amount of attention, or dark SUVs with tinted windows. Like the one she saw in her rearview mirror following her onto Aero Drive.
“I’ve been investigating a sailor aboard the Abraham Lincoln, code-named KMART, who’s been in regular communication with who we believe is a foreign intelligence operative.”
“KMART?” Colt chuckled. “You’re joking, right?”
She took her eyes off the rearview mirror and gave him a deadpan look. “I wish I was.”
His lilting smile vanished. “Okay. But why KMART?”
“In 1985, John Anthony Walker, a former sailor, was arrested for selling secrets to the Soviets. When asked later how he had managed to get his hands on so many classified documents, he replied that ‘Kmart has better security than the Navy.’ So, now this bastard is KMART.”
The entrance to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport appeared on their left at the next intersection, but Punky turned right on Sandrock Road, keeping her speed low while staring in her rearview mirror.
“Uh, you turned the wrong way.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”
The black Chevrolet Tahoe made the right turn behind her, and alarm bells started going off in her head. Two consecutive turns was hardly concrete proof they were being followed, but given what Rick had just told her, it seemed an unlikely coincidence.
Colt noticed her gaze fixed to the rearview mirror and started to turn, but she stopped him. “Don’t. Keep your head forward.”
“What’s going on?”
She made another right turn onto Glenhaven, slowly increasing her speed through the residential neighborhood. If the Tahoe followed, she would have no choice but to take evasive action and prepare for contact. “Open the glove box. My backup gun should be in there.”
“Gun?” He seemed shocked but didn’t hesitate and opened the glove box to remove the holstered SIG Sauer P365XL she normally carried when off duty. “You’re starting to freak me out here.”
She glanced over and saw him remove the pistol from the holster and conduct a press check to verify it was loaded. He appeared competent with firearms, but it still made her nervous having an unproven shooter with an unholstered weapon sitting next to her. “You’ve fired a gun before, I take it?”
He gave her a look that said, Are you kidding me? “I have the exact same gun, though mine has the ROMEOZero Red Dot.”
The Tahoe turned the corner behind them. “Shit. Hold on.”
This time, she didn’t stop Colt from looking over his shoulder. She stomped her foot down on the gas pedal, and the Corvette’s engine roared a battle cry as it surged down the residential street, passing parked cars, white picket fences, and delinquent trash cans with shocking speed. Her eyes darted in front of her, looking for threats, and she took her hand off the shifter and tugged on her red hoodie, giving her a clear path to draw her pistol if it came to that.
“Is that the Chinese?” Colt yelled, twisting in his seat to keep sight of the Tahoe while pointing his muzzle at the floorboard.
“I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out.”
That was when the first shot rang out.
25
Colt had been in combat before, but from thirty thousand feet above the battlefield. Hearing bullets snapping through the air around his head and plinking into the Corvette’s rear end was a far cry from the type of combat he had experienced. To her credit, the NCIS agent comported herself well and ignored the gunfire as she focused on reaching the next cross street.
“Shit! It’s a school,” she yelled.
Colt turned and looked through the windshield at a tall chain link fence bordering a tan building with a blue roof. He racked his brain, trying to remember when school let out, but gave up when he saw mobs of children running on the playground. He wasn’t sure whether it was normal play or in response to the sounds of gunfire echoing up the street.
“Turn right!”
Without looking for crossing traffic, she cranked the steering wheel and skidded around the corner. Colt twisted his body and brought the pistol up, aiming it at the intersection as he waited for a shot. The Tahoe came into view just as the Stingray regained its traction and surged north on Afton, knocking his aim off. He took his finger off the trigger.
“No shot,” he yelled, then reached behind him and unbuckled his seat belt so he could plant his right knee in the seat and brace himself with his outstretched left foot on the floorboard. “Keep it steady!”
“I’m trying to get us outta here!”
The Tahoe wasn’t as nimble or as quick as the Corvette, but the driver was doing a remarkable job keeping pace with them. He didn’t see how she was going to build enough separation so they could bug out and make it to his plane. Colt craned his neck over his shoulder and saw the looming traffic light glowing yellow.
“Go straight,” he said.
“It’s turning red!”
“Run it!” He felt her press harder on the gas pedal and listened to the engine straining as they closed to within one hundred yards of the intersection. The light turned red, and he shifted his body to sit in the seat, scrambling to buckle in as he urged her on. “Faster! Faster!”
Less than fifty yards from the stoplight, traffic began moving on the cross street, and he leaned into his seat belt as he looked for a gap they could dart through. If they made it to the other side, the Tahoe might be stuck behind a wall of traffic, giving them the opportunity they needed. He looked for a side-view mirror to see if their boldness was paying off, but the Corvette didn’t have one on his side.
“They’re falling back!” she yelled in triumph, as if reading his mind. He felt her ease off the gas.