The banker—Martiel—stared at her, paralyzed with fear or incredulity.
That was bad.
Tam Broderick didn’t need him paralyzed with anything. She was committed to making the transfer between the two speeding vehicles, and if he didn’t get out of the way...
She didn’t want to think about what would happen.
“Tam!” The shout came from behind her, from Billy Sievers behind the wheel of the red Mustang. He must have been screaming at the top of his lungs in order to make himself heard. “Go! Now!”
She knew Sievers wouldn’t waste her time with an unnecessary warning, so she took him at his word. “Coming through!” she called out and then heaved herself forward.
Martiel yelped as she landed in his lap. Tam could feel the Lexus decelerating.
“Punch it!” she yelled. “I’ll steer.”
The Lexus coasted for another second or two, but then the car began speeding up again. She cocked her head sideways so she could see out the windshield. Given Sievers’ warning, she expected to see an obstacle or a curve ahead, but the road—as much of it as she could see by the Lexus’s high-beams—was as straight as an arrow. By some miracle, the car was still traveling straight down the outside lane.
Must have perfect alignment, she thought, and then wondered if maybe the vehicle was equipped with some kind of computer-assisted smart-steering technology.
That would definitely increase her chances of surviving the next fifteen seconds.
In the corner of her eye, she saw the red Mustang falling back. She hoped that meant Billy was going to drop back, run interference with the other car.
She twisted around, tried slipping her legs over his knees and under the steering wheel. There wasn’t quite enough room to make it work.
“Keep your foot on the gas,” she shouted. “And roll up the damn window!”
She made a mental note to drop a dollar in the swear jar but figured it was worth it when the window rose, shutting out the incessant rush of wind and immersing them in blessed silence.
Tam took a deep breath, let it out, took another. “All right, Mr. Martiel, here’s what you’re going to do. Unbuckle your seatbelt and recline your seat back. I’m going to get my foot on the gas pedal. Once I do, you’re going to slide backward, into the back seat so I can take over. If you do that, we just might make it out of this alive. Can you do all that?”
The unusually long pause seemed all the more surreal in the perfectly quiet interior of the luxury sedan. Finally, Martiel, a look of bewilderment painting his face, said, “Who the hell are you?”
Billy Sievers watched the needle on the temperature gauge, silently pleading with it to tick back down. He’d pushed the old GT a little too hard, ran the nitrous a touch longer than he probably should have, and now he was paying the price. The engine was ticking like crazy, misfiring and probably cooking oil. In his mind’s eye, he could see the valves disintegrating, the rods snapping like Milk Bone dog biscuits, the block glowing red hot like a furnace. It was a wonder it hadn’t seized already.
“Come on, baby,” he whispered. “Don’t blow up on me. I promise to take good care of you.”
He loved the car, a 1968 GT Mustang that he was still in the process of restoring. Sure it had some miles on it, but it was a car—a real car, not some computerized rolling robot like the Lexus. And it was his.
Trailing Martiel had been easy enough, but when the joker in the silver Toyota sedan had made his move, Martiel had rabbited. By the time Sievers and Tam had figured out what was happening, the Lexus was almost a mile away, and Sievers had been obliged to red-line the GT’s engine just to catch up so Tam could transfer to Martiel’s car...which was, in Billy Sievers’s opinion, just about the craziest thing he had ever seen anyone do.
It was actually kind of hot.
He shook his head, trying to purge that thought. Tam was the boss, and he actually liked working for her CIA task force—the Myrmidons—even if some of the gigs were pretty out there. It didn’t pay as well as contract work, but for the first time in a long time, he felt like he was one of the good guys.
Tam had still been half-inside the GT when the engine started ticking and rattling, and Sievers had known right then that if he didn’t slow down—and fast—the engine would blow and slowing down wouldn’t be a choice anymore.
If that had happened while Tam was in mid-transfer, she would probably have been ripped in half. She’d made it, though, and now he was coasting ahead in neutral, hoping that when the engine cooled, he’d be able to cripple the GT to a garage and get her back to working order in a few hours. He definitely wasn’t going to be able to catch up to the Lexus.
He could see its taillight growing smaller in the distance. He could also see the lights of the silver Toyota that had just blown past him in pursuit.
“It’s all you now, Tam.”
Once Martiel was out of the way, and Tam had the seat returned to its upright position and scooted forward—which turned out to be a lot more complicated than she would have ever imagined—she gave the bank executive the answers he had demanded.
Sort of.
“Someone’s trying to kill you,” she started.
“Are you one of them?”
She pursed her lips, checked the rear-view mirror. Something told her that the headlights coming up behind them did not belong to Sievers’ GT. “I’m trying to save you.”
“Why? I mean, why are they trying to kill me?”
She glanced over at him. “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that.”
“What?” Martiel gazed back, goggle-eyed.
“No? Nothing?” She checked the mirror again. The pursuit car didn’t appear to be getting any closer. Sievers had only been able to catch up to Martiel by switching on the NOS and running at full burn for almost two minutes. Judging by the torrent of profanity that had accompanied the rocket-fueled acceleration, he hadn’t been thrilled about it.
There weren’t any other lights, and she wondered what had happened to Sievers. She thought about calling him but decided that trying to dig around for her cell phone was probably a bad idea under the circumstances. Besides, if something had gone wrong—if Sievers had wrecked or broken down—there wasn’t anything she could do for him. Not in the short term, at least.
“Guess I’ll have to ask them,” she muttered, shifting her foot onto the brake pedal. The Lexus immediately began shedding momentum.
“Wait, what?”
“Short version. I’m a federal agent. I received information about a threat against you. Looks like it was a solid lead. Now, shut up and let me drive.” Tam brought the Lexus down to a respectable sixty m.p.h. and held it there. No sense in making it look too easy.
Martiel did as instructed, giving her about a minute of peace in which to contemplate her next move as the approaching headlights got brighter in the mirror.
If the guy or guys in the silver Toyota were pros—former intelligence officers or military veterans—then they probably had the same tactical road training as she. Her only advantage was that they didn’t know she was in the driver’s seat now.
The sedan crept closer, and an exit flashed past. Tam eased off a little more, coaxing the other vehicle even closer. The silver car was now only a couple hundred yards back.
“Come on,” she muttered, squeezing the steering wheel in anticipation. “Make your move.”
One hundred yards. Fifty.
The Toyota swung into the left lane as if intending to pass but Tam knew the driver had something else in mind. He was going to attempt a pit maneuver, a police technique for stopping a fleeing vehicle with a precise tap from the front bumper to the rear wheels of the escaping car. The “pitted” car would then spin completely around, the resulting compression causing the engine to stall, ending the chase.
Tam knew how to do the pit maneuver, too. And she knew how to beat it. When the Toyota surged forward, its front wheels coming even with the rear wheels of the Lexus, Tam stomped on the brakes. Instead of cutting right and bumping her car’s rear, the Toyota swerved in front of the Lexus, missing it by mere inches.
The other driver jerked the wheel back, straightening out before his car could careen off the road, but he had already given up his only advantage, and Tam was not about to let him get back any of what he had lost. She punched the accelerator, feeling an immediate, almost uncanny surge of horsepower, and swung the Lexus into the left lane. She fixed her gaze on the Toyota’s rear wheel like a missile lock, and when the moment was right, cranked the steering wheel to the right.
“See how you like being on the other end of it,” she growled.
The front end of the Lexus swung toward the Toyota. Lights on the dashboard began flashing, and warning alarms filled the interior. Tam braced herself, not because of the imminent impact—she knew from experience that there would only be a slight bump—but because if the driver realized their positions had been reversed, he might try to do unto her as she had done to him.
She was ready for that. She was ready for anything.
Except what actually happened.