Youngstown, Ohio. Shaw had chosen it before he was halfway across Pennsylvania. He’d never been through the town before, but it was a reasonable bet the two men in the white Jeep Cherokee tailing him hadn’t either.
He’d clocked the Cherokee as one of a dozen cars keeping pace behind him on the same Jersey stretch of I-80. As the miles wore on, the other candidates had dropped out, either exiting the freeway or falling far behind.
Rounding a curve outside Lewisburg, Shaw had crossed quickly to the right lane and let the Ford coast. As the Cherokee came up the fast lane where he’d been moments before, he caught the dark outlines of two men in the front seats. They were experienced enough not to immediately slow to match Shaw’s speed. The Cherokee drifted alongside. Shaw hadn’t glanced at it, not wanting to reveal his interest. Over the next twenty miles, their vehicle had gradually faded back, almost out of sight.
They were good. It had taken him a lot of miles to be sure of their intent. And being skilled, they had to know he’d make them sooner or later. They’d be expecting him to run.
The next three hours had passed without change. His pursuers seemed to have started with a full tank, like he had. Shaw didn’t want a war of attrition, letting his tank run low in the process. The Cherokee might be the heeler, the dog that stays behind the flock, driving it forward into the pen. Or into the chute leading to slaughter.
Shaw wouldn’t wait for that moment. Youngstown would have to be the place.
The town was optimal. It lay at the intersections of multiple highways and interstates, leading to every point on the compass. Even if the men tailing him assumed that Shaw would still ultimately head west, he might go north or south or even backtrack for a short while before picking a state route or a suburban back road in that direction. Too many possibilities for even a large coordinated team to cover.
Eight miles over the state line into Ohio, he pulled off the freeway and headed south on a five-lane thoroughfare toward the city. A stretch of inns and strip malls, banks and family restaurants, with plenty of elbow room between each for abundant parking. All of them chain stores or franchises. The same street might exist in Fort Worth or Anchorage or Tallahassee. Apart from the telephone poles, the tallest things on the horizon were business signs on their posts, lining the thoroughfare like monuments to corporate logos.
The Cherokee followed him, keeping a hundred yards distant. Shaw might be preparing to stop for gas or food at any of two dozen places. He imagined the men in their vehicle flexing sensation back into their limbs, checking their weapons. Readying themselves to finally make the kill after their long chase.
When the upcoming light turned yellow, Shaw hit the gas through the intersection and then immediately turned left into the vast parking lot of a Walmart, a structure large enough to host a college football game. He accelerated, cutting a diagonal path across the empty acres of lot nearer the road.
In the rearview he caught the white flash of the Cherokee as it swerved around cars stopped in the intersection. They knew he was fleeing now. They had no choice but to run him down.
He kept pressure on the gas, roaring out the side entrance of the lot and onto a two-lane road to swing hard right, back toward the thoroughfare. A driver turning into the store stomped on her brakes, leaving rubber. A thick line of trees shielded the road from the Walmart lot. The two men in the Cherokee would have to slow, if only for an instant, to see which way he’d gone. Every yard Shaw could put between them counted.
The Ford was doing fifty miles an hour when he crossed the five-lane road, straight through a red light and over a flattened curb into what looked like a park. Car horns blared, too late to do more than announce their fury and fright. He braked and swerved, narrowly missing a tree. No sign of the Cherokee in his mirrors.
Not a park, Shaw realized. A cemetery. Beyond the spruces and oaks, a path formed a winding perimeter around a collection of low headstones and crosses, with dozens of other markers beyond. He veered to follow the path, the only safe way through the minefield of memorials.
Shit. He had hoped to haul ass directly through a field and lose himself in the streets on the other side. Maintaining speed was impossible here. He couldn’t drive directly off the cemetery grounds; an ivy-covered fence ringed the block. He sure as hell couldn’t go back.
Had they seen him enter the graveyard? The trees and fence would provide some cover. He would have to keep moving forward. Find another way out. The path curved gently every few yards, forcing Shaw as slow as fifteen miles an hour. People walking among the stones in the distance stopped and stared at the black Ford’s intrusion on hallowed ground. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.
There. The mortuary office, a hundred yards away. The path would take him directly into its lot. He could cut around the building and escape.
Shaw heard the Cherokee’s engine first. To his right, on the road running parallel to his path. Racing to get ahead of him, to beat him to the end of the fence and cut him off. The cemetery was nearly empty. An optimal place to make their move.
He glanced left, searching for an opening in the crop of tombstones. Nothing. The cemetery was old and had filled every available plot. Moss and water stains and crumbled corners on the markers for the dead. He might join their ranks soon enough.
The Cherokee reached the end of the fence line, forty yards ahead of him. It turned left, banging over the curb and onto the grounds. Shaw swerved right to skim the fence. His sideview mirror tore strands of ivy from the links. Maybe he could cut behind them, reach the open road before they could turn around in the tight confines of the cemetery—
No good. The Cherokee stopped abruptly, a wall ten yards from his front bumper. He had an instant’s glimpse of the driver, a bushy black tangle of Viking beard and tattooed forearms like Christmas hams. He’d have to stop. He couldn’t stop. Stopping would mean the end. He stood on the gas and hauled the wheel sharp left, away from the fence.
The driver saw Shaw trying to veer around them. Maybe he’d been waiting for just that moment, a chance to hit Shaw broadside as he passed and smash the Ford into the dragon’s maw of tombstones. He punched the gas.
Too hard. Too eager for the kill. The Cherokee’s front wheel spun for half a second on grass still wet from the afternoon sprinklers. It lurched forward just as Shaw’s truck raced past. Their front bumper clipped the rear of the Ford. The impact knocked the tail of the Ford sideways. Then the Cherokee slipped free with a screech of tearing fender. Left without anything to impede its momentum, the charging vehicle flung itself across the path and into the gravestones beyond.
Shaw heard the agonized crack of something large and metallic snapping. He saw only the jostling view ahead as his truck fishtailed on the grass, finally gaining traction and bouncing over the curb onto the road. He floored it, roaring away into the residential streets on the far side of the cemetery. Only when he had ten blocks and two turns behind him did he slow.
No sound of sirens. But the cops must be close. With any luck they would arrest the two assholes in the Cherokee.
If any of the people at the graveyard got involved, they would report his black truck. A sharp-eyed witness might have noted the New York plates. Disposing of those was a priority.
Take the side roads, backtrack the few miles to Pennsylvania. Find plates there. And check the damage from the love tap he’d received from the Cherokee. Getting pulled over for a busted taillight would do him no good at all.
If Paragon sent more teams after him—and Shaw figured that was a given—his saving grace was that they wouldn’t want the cops to find him before they did. If he put distance between himself and Ohio fast enough, he could hold on to the truck for another day, maybe more. Driving through the afternoon and all night and taking the state routes to avoid I-90 would put him somewhere close to Kansas City.
Eight hundred miles to figure out his next move. Which had better be good. The closer he got to Seattle, the greater the danger. They knew he was coming home.