John Winslow glanced into his rear-view mirror and said, “Oh no.”
“What?” said Jeff.
“I think we’ve got a tail.”
Jeff spun around to look out the back window, which, given that it was a pickup truck, was right in front of his nose. There was a sliding pane within the window that could be opened.
“It’s Harry Green’s van!” Jeff said. “I can see him behind the wheel!”
“Is he alone?”
“Hard to tell,” Jeff said.
Let me have a look.
Chipper got his paws up on the back of the seat and stared intently at the van, which was about five hundred feet behind them.
“Can you, like, magnify with those eyes of yours?” Jeff asked.
Yes.
“Has Harry got help?”
Yes.
“There were two people with him in the alley.”
I can make out two more humans in the van. One in the seat up front, one further back. A man and a woman.
“Can you see who they are? Is the man Daggert?”
Maybe. I cannot be sure.
“We need to lose them!” Jeff told Emily’s father.
“This truck isn’t exactly a Ferrari,” John Winslow said.
“Well, that van isn’t exactly a Corvette,” Jeff said. “It’s an old Volkswagen camper van and, believe me, it is not built for speed.”
They had been circling the city on a four-lane highway bypass, discussing how they might get into The Institute to rescue Emily and Pepper, when they’d spotted Harry tailing them.
“There’s no real way to lose them here,” John said. “No side streets, no tunnels, nothin’. I’d have to head back into the downtown area to lose them, and might end up getting stuck in traffic. Then we’d be sitting ducks.”
Jeff and Chipper had their eyes on the van. But then Jeff glanced down at the gun holstered to John’s belt.
“I have an idea,” Jeff said.
“What’s that?” Emily’s dad said.
“We shoot out their tires.”
John glanced at Jeff and followed his eye down to his belt. “Kid, do you even know how to fire a gun?”
“No,” said Jeff. “But I know how to drive.”
John blinked.
Jeff said, “Mr. Winslow, remember the first time you met me? It was at the dump. I was unloading all the garbage from my aunt’s place.”
“I remember.”
“Then you’ll also remember I drove up there on my own.”
Emily’s father glanced at him. “What are you proposing?”
“You shoot, I’ll drive.”
“You ever driven on a major road like this? Going this fast?” At that moment they were doing sixty miles per hour.
Jeff recalled he’d told Chipper only a short while ago there was no way he could drive in city conditions. But certain circumstances could make you change your mind.
“I can do it,” Jeff said. “We just have to switch positions.”
“Yeah, well, that should be a piece of cake,” the man said, shaking his head. “Okay, when you were a little kid, did your dad ever let you sit on his lap while he was driving and let you pretend you were doing it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re not a little kid any more, but we’re going to try the same thing now, because you’re still a lot lighter than I am. You get yourself on my lap, get hold of the wheel and then I’ll shift myself out from under you. Now, there’s going to be a few seconds when I have to take my foot off the gas, and they’re going to gain on us, but once you’re in position, floor it.”
“Got it.”
Chipper, who had been in the middle of the seat, leapt over Jeff and took a position by the passenger side window as Jeff shifted closer to Emily’s dad.
“It’s gonna be tight,” Jeff said, as he shifted himself up on to John’s lap. The steering wheel pressed hard into his thighs.
“Okay, grab the wheel. You got it?”
“I’ve got it!”
“Okay, on three. One…two…three!”
John shifted his body hard to the middle of the cab, allowing Jeff to drop into position. The truck suddenly slowed. Chipper, looking behind them, saw the van suddenly take a leap forward in their direction.
Jeff was not as tall as Emily’s father, so his foot did not immediately reach the pedal. He had to shift his butt forward to get his foot on the gas. But once he had it there, he pressed down hard and the pickup’s engine roared. The truck shot forward.
“Yeah!” Jeff cried.
John turned around in the seat so he was on his knees looking backward. He moved the pane in the rear window to the side. Fresh air whipped around the inside of the cab. He took out his gun and stuck his arm out the window, aiming it towards the passenger-side front tire of Harry Green’s van.
“Okay, kid,” he shouted. “When I pull the trigger, it’s gonna be loud. Just concentrate on your job. Keep a good hold on that wheel, and keep the pedal to the metal!”
“Don’t worry about me!” Jeff said. “I’ve got this!”
Jeff realized, at that moment, a part of him was having fun.
Edwin Conroy, sitting in the front passenger seat next to Harry Green, said, “What’s going on up there?”
Patricia, seated at the small table in the middle of the camper van, leaned forward, trying to get a better look.
“Is…Jeff trying to switch positions with that man?”
“Looks like it,” Harry said.
“Why would they be doing that?” Edwin asked.
Harry was shaking his head. “Hang on…they’ve done it. Jeff is driving! And it looks like…”
“That man—Winslow, you said?—is turning around,” Edwin said.
“He’s opening the little window,” Patricia said. “And he’s—is that what I think it is?”
Harry said. “It’s a—”
And then they heard the shot. A bullet hit the bottom right corner of the windshield and buried itself into the dashboard. The glass spider-webbed from where the bullet had gone through.
Harry twisted the wheel hard left, then hard right, then left again, swerving wildly to avoid the next shot.
“It’s us!” Patricia screamed frantically, as if anyone in the truck ahead could hear her. “Jeff, it’s us!”