"Oh Christ," Bridgett muttered. "Should I get you two a room?"
I ignored her, told Alena, "I missed you."
"I missed you, too," she said, and actually smiled at me, then followed it with another kiss, this one even sweeter than the first.
"Please, please, please stop doing that where I can see it," Bridgett begged. "For the sake of my stomach if not my sanity."
"One wonders what she would do if forced to watch us fuck," Alena murmured.
"Gouge my eyes out, to start. The car's this way, come on," Bridgett said, then turned and began threading her way out of the airport. I took Alena's hand, held it as we followed her to where their rental was parked, the same Ford Focus that Bridgett had been driving last time. We shoved my bags in the trunk, and Alena insisted on my taking the front passenger seat, I think mostly because she didn't want to be that close to Bridgett.
It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Ballygar, and the first half was spent with me relating what had happened since I'd left Ireland. For once, I didn't feel the need to spare any details. When I told them about the drop site in the desert, the concrete building with its jerry can and galvanized bucket, each of them swore under their breath, muttering the same curse, but in different languages.
By the time I was finished, we'd reached the N61, the road all but empty, the night sky clear and full of stars. For a while, none of us said anything, and there was only the expanse of Ireland's fields and the sound of the road and the engine.
Then Bridgett asked, "So am I finished here?"
"You could head home tomorrow," I said. "Cashel wants you to call when you get back into town, by the way."
"Of course she does. Tomorrow?"
"Sure."
"You don't need me around for another day or two?"
"I'd welcome the company," I said.
Bridgett lifted her chin, indicating Alena's reflection in the rearview mirror. "She wouldn't."
I expected Alena to offer a retort, or at least a confirmation, and when none came turned my head to see that the reason she'd become so silent was because she'd fallen asleep. Either that or she was avoiding participating in the conversation by pretending to fall asleep. I brought my attention back to the road.
"Maybe not, but she appreciates what you've done for us. I do, too."
"Good, you should." She sounded satisfied. "You know where you're going next?"
I shook my head. "Haven't had much time to think about it."
"You could come back to the States. It's a big country, I'm sure you two could find a nice quiet corner to hide in for happily ever after."
"You think?"
"Like I said, it's a big country."
"No, the 'happily ever after' part."
Bridgett grunted. "Fuck if I know. You two and baby makes three."
I thought about that, didn't speak. Thinking about the future, at least outside of the immediate future, wasn't something I'd devoted time to in years. When we'd lived in Kobuleti, the days had all seemed alike, and even as they passed, time felt like it was standing still. That was until Bakhar had died, until Tiasa had been taken, and in that, it seemed, our life there had been revealed for the purgatory it had been.
I was still thinking about it, lost in my thoughts, when the headlights burst into the car, shining much too close and much too bright. They appeared suddenly, no warning at all, and whoever was behind the wheel had been driving with them off, and as I realized that, I realized we were in trouble.
Bridgett knew it, too, managed to say "What the fuck?" and then followed it with an emphatic "Shit!" as the car behind us tried to clip our rear bumper. The Ford swerved, and she fought it back into line, accelerating. The road stretched straight and thin ahead of us as far as the headlights could see, no turnoffs, no buildings, just field on either side. From the backseat I heard Alena start awake. I twisted in the seat, got rocked a second time as the car following collided with us again.
"Stay down," I told Alena. She was wearing her seatbelt, which reassured me somewhat.
"Who are they?" Alena demanded.
"No fucking idea," I said. "Don't suppose either of you have a gun?"
"Talk to her," Alena snarled.
"I told you, it's Ireland," Bridgett snapped back, her eyes dancing between the view out the windshield and the view in the mirrors. "They don't like people having guns here!"
"Let's hope whoever's trying to drive us off the road had the same problem," Alena said.
"I hate you," Bridgett told her.
Behind us, the car was coming up for another try. As it swung out, I saw a new set of headlights revealed behind it, a second car, following close on the first.
"Now there are two of them," I remarked.
"I can see that!"
"Don't you think you should lose them?"
"The fuck you think I'm trying to do?"
The Ford rocked again, and I heard something crack on either our car or theirs, and suddenly our wheels broke with the road and we were spinning and sliding. Headlights seemed to flash from impossible angles, Bridgett swearing a blue streak, and I heard the engine scream in agony as she tried to treat the automatic transmission like it was a manual. We flipped around, facing the opposite direction, still moving, now in reverse, and the motor was shrieking like it was about to burst.
"Try to PIT me, motherfucker?" Bridgett said, and wrenched the wheel again, stomping pedals and yanking on the shifter. The Ford flipped around in a J-turn, once more heading the right direction, and then there was a gunshot, and just as suddenly, instead of being on the road we were off of it. The suspension bounced us like kernels in hot oil, and I realized we'd lost a tire to a blowout. The car slewed crazily in soft earth, and both pairs of headlights were still coming after us.
Whoever it was, they had demonstrated their sincerity, even if they lacked skill. The PIT-precision immobilization technique-as Bridgett had called it, was used mostly by law enforcement to immobilize a target vehicle during a pursuit. When executed properly, the fleeing car would be nudged just enough out of line to force a spin that would bring it to a halt. When executed improperly, any number of things could happen, normally beginning and ending with the word "crash."
Which was exactly what happened to us next.
CHAPTER
Thirty-seven There was an air bag in my face when I came back, the dust from broken safety glass in my eyes and nose and mouth, and I didn't understand why. Then I did, and I started, felt pain in my right knee and lower back and head. The car was at an angle, its nose tilted down, and Bridgett groaned behind the wheel. I pushed at my door, got it open, but couldn't understand why I was having such trouble getting out. Then I remembered my seatbelt.
"Out," I said, and then, louder, "Out, get out!"
The soil beneath my shoes was soft and wet, and I went for the rear door, but Alena had already kicked it open. The back tires were in the air, the whole car canted like a javelin thrust into the earth, and as I pulled her free, the headlights found us again, both sets of them. I turned, keeping a hand on Alena, and with the light from the approaching cars could make out the field ahead and around us, sheep bleating and scattering in fear. The Ford had gone front-first into a creek, a four-foot drop, maybe ten feet across.
"Run," I told Alena, but I needn't have bothered; she'd read the terrain the same as I had, and was already moving.
I rushed around to the driver's door, met Bridgett as she toppled out of the car. Headlights made the blood on her face shine, where it was flowing from above her right eye and her nose. She was unsteady as I helped her to her feet, and she managed two steps, then went down to a knee. I pulled her up, got an arm beneath hers, and dragged her with me down into the water. It was cold and moving fast, and the first part, at least, seemed to revive her, so that by the time we'd crossed to pull ourselves up the opposite embankment, she was shrugging me off, saying she was fine.