“Call Mitch?” Reid repeated blankly. “And say what exactly…? Hello?”
Watson had already hung up. Reid swore under his breath and skirted around a minivan, swerving back into the left lane with one hand as he thumbed the flip phone. Watson told him that he’d programmed a number for the mechanic into the phone.
He found a number labeled with only the letter “M” and called as the siren continued to blare behind him.
Someone answered, but didn’t speak.
“Mitch?” he asked.
The mechanic grunted in response.
Behind him, the cop moved into the right lane and accelerated, trying to get up next to him. Reid jerked the wheel quickly and the Trans Am slid flawlessly into the lane, blocking the cop car. Behind the closed windows and the roar of the engine he could faintly hear the echo of a PA system, the trooper ordering him to pull over.
“Mitch, I’m, uh…” What am I supposed to say? “I’m doing about one-ten down I-95 with a cop on my tail.” He glanced in the rearview mirror and groaned as a second cruiser pulled onto the highway from a speed-trap vantage point. “Make that two.”
“All right,” Mitch said gruffly. “Give it a minute.” He sounded tired, as if the notion of a high-speed police chase was as blasé as a trip to the grocery store.
“Give what a minute?”
“Distraction,” Mitch grunted.
“I’m not sure I have a minute,” Reid protested. “They’ve probably already got the license plate.”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s a fake. Unregistered.”
That’s not going to inspire them to call off the pursuit, Reid thought glumly. “What sort of a distraction… hello? Mitch?” He threw the phone onto the passenger seat irritably.
With both hands back on the wheel, Reid veered around a pickup truck, back into the fast lane, and put the pedal fully down. The Trans Am responded with zeal, roaring forward as the needle leapt to one-thirty. He darted around much slower traffic, weaving in and out of both lanes, using the shoulder, but still the pair of cruisers kept up.
I can’t outrun them. But I can outdrive them. Come on, Kent. Give me something. It had happened several times over the last month, ever since the memory suppressor had been removed, that a particular skill set from his former life as a CIA operative would come rushing back in times of need. He didn’t know he spoke Arabic until he was faced with terrorists torturing him for information. He didn’t know he could fend off three killers hand-to-hand until he had to fight for his life.
That’s it. I just have to put myself in a desperate situation.
Reid grabbed the emergency brake just behind the gearshift and yanked it upward. There immediately came an awful screech from inside the Trans Am and the smell of something burning. At the same time, his hands spun the wheel to the right and the Trans Am fishtailed tightly, its back end once again crossing into the median as if he were trying to spin in the opposite direction.
The two cop cars followed suit, slamming on their brakes and trying to make the tight turnaround. But as they hit their brakes, facing south, Reid continued into the spin, doing a complete three-sixty. He pushed down the emergency brake, shifted, and slammed the gas again. The sports car jolted forward and left the confused cops quite literally in the dust.
Reid let out a whoop of victory as his heart thrummed in his chest. His excitement, however, was short-lived; he had his foot firmly on the gas, trying to maintain his speed, but the Trans Am was losing power. The speedometer needle dropped to ninety-five, then ninety, falling fast. He was in fifth gear, but his e-brake maneuver must have blown a cylinder, or else kicked dirt up into the engine.
The earsplitting wail of sirens made the bad news worse. The two cruisers were behind him and catching up fast, now joined by a third. The highway traffic moved aside to clear a path as Reid had to weave in and out of lanes, desperately trying to keep the needle up to little avail.
He groaned. It was going to be impossible to shake the cops at this rate. They were no more than sixty yards behind him and gaining. The cruisers formed a triangle, one in each lane with the third splitting the line behind them.
They’re going to try the PIT maneuver—box me in and force the car sideways.
Come on, Mitch. Where’s my distraction? He had no idea what the mechanic had planned, but he could really use it at the moment as the cruisers closed the gap on the failing sports car.
He got his answer an instant later as something huge leapt into his peripheral vision.
From the southbound side of the highway, a tractor trailer jumped the median doing at least seventy, its huge tires bouncing violently over the ruts in the grass. As it reached the pavement again—going the wrong direction—it teetered dangerously and the silver tank it was hauling tipped sideways, bearing down upon him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
For an instant, time slowed down as Reid found himself, and the entire car, engulfed in the shadow of an eighteen-wheeled machine that had all but left the ground.
In that oddly still moment, he could clearly see the tall blue letters stenciled down the side of the tanker—“POTABLE,” they read—as the truck bore down, poised to crush him, the Trans Am, and any hope of finding his girls.
His higher brain, the cerebrum, seemed to have shut itself off in the shadow of the enormous truck, yet his limbs moved as if of their own minds. Instinct took over as his right grabbed the e-brake again and pulled. His left hand spun the wheel clockwise, and his foot mashed the gas pedal against the rubber floor mat. The Trans Am turned sideways and darted out, parallel to the truck, back into the sunlight and out from beneath it.
Reid felt the impact of the truck crunching against the road more than he heard it. The silver tank struck the pavement between the Trans Am and the cop cars, closing in at less than thirty yards. Brakes squealed and the cruisers skidded sideways as the huge silver tank split open at the bolted seams and released its cargo.
Nine thousand gallons of clean water cascaded out and flowed over the police cars, shoving them back like an aggressive riptide.
Reid didn’t pause to see the fallout. The Trans Am was barely pushing seventy with the pedal to the floor, so he straightened out and headed further up the highway as best he could. The waterlogged troopers undoubtedly called in the conspicuous car with the unregistered plates; there would be more trouble ahead if he didn’t get off the road soon.
The burner rang, the screen displaying only the letter M.
“Thanks, Mitch,” Reid answered.
The mechanic grunted, as seemed to be his primary method of communication.
“You knew where I was. You know where I am now.” Reid shook his head. “You’re tracking the car, aren’t you?”
“John’s idea,” Mitch said simply. “Thought you might get yourself into some trouble. He was right.” Reid started to protest, but Mitch interrupted. “Get off at the next exit. Turn right on River Drive. There’s a park with a baseball field. Wait there.”
“Wait there for what?”
“Transportation.” Mitch hung up. Reid scoffed. The whole point of the Trans Am was supposed to be clandestine, staying off the agency’s grid—not to exchange the CIA for someone else that might track him.
But without it, you’d have been caught by now.
He swallowed his anger and did as he was told, guiding the car off the exit another half a mile up the interstate and toward the park. He hoped that whatever Mitch had in store for him was fast; he had a lot of ground to cover quickly.
The park was sparsely populated for a Sunday. In the baseball field a group of neighborhood kids were playing a pick-up game, so Reid parked