Julian got only the smallest of warnings—a slight mushiness in the previously very crisp steering.
He was driving Oliver Ward’s car. A real engineering marvel. There couldn’t be a problem with the steering. It wasn’t possible.
Ward had tricked him once tonight but there was no way the magician could have known that he would take the custom-built car.
No one would dare steal Oliver Ward’s car.
No one except me.
He went into the next curve too fast. He stomped on the brakes and had to overcorrect with the steering. The tires shrieked.
The brakes and the steering suddenly went to mush. He was going into a turn much too fast. He had no control.
In the next horrifying instant, the fastest car in California was airborne, sailing over the high cliffs.
He had just enough time to realize that this time he had underestimated the target, that there was no exit strategy.
He screamed, just as so many of his targets had screamed. He wanted to beg for his life but there was no one to hear him.
His last conscious thought was that he could not be hurtling toward his own death. It was not possible. No target could fool him. He was Julian Enright.