A bullet whizzed past Scott's right ear and punched a hole through the windshield. From the back seat, Victoria screamed, "He's shooting at us."
In the passenger seat, his son was on his knees on the floorboard, his upper body and arms splayed across the two girls.
Scott tried to ignore everything else so he could concen-trate on driving. There were two cars in front of him, side by side, blocking both lanes. He straddled the lanes, kept the accelerator pinned to the floor, and laid on the horn. Neither car moved over. Scott swerved right and bounced over the curb, flying down the sidewalk like it was a passing lane.
"What are you doing?" Victoria shouted.
Ignoring her, Scott passed the cars that had been block-ing him and dropped back into the right-hand lane. A loud crash behind him drew his eyes to the rearview. The Subur-ban had slammed into the back of one of the cars. Then the big SUV shoved the smaller vehicle off the road. Like a bulldozer on crack.
Scott looked to the front. And slammed on the brakes.
The Oldsmobile slid on four locked-up bald tires and spewed a contrail of burned rubber and smoke. The street ended at a stop sign and a T-intersection, beyond which was a small park, the size of a city block.
The image of a map flashed in Scott's mind. He'd stud-ied maps of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo when he'd first ar-rived and had memorized the major thoroughfares. The streets on the Mexican side were particularly important be-cause DEA's unofficial policy was that if an agent got in trouble on the wrong side of the river he should run for the border as fast as possible. And Avenida Melchor Ocampo was a straight run to the Convent Street Bridge. Except that it cut through the Plaza Miguel Hidalgo, and while on the map it looked like the avenue actually ran through the park, it didn't. A wide pedestrian walkway cut through the park, but vehicle traffic had to circle around.
There wasn't enough road left for the Oldsmobile to stop, so Scott let off the brake and stomped the gas. The pe-destrian walkway was as wide as the street, and there was nothing blocking it except a curb. The Oldsmobile's front wheels smacked the curb hard but they didn't blow. The front end bounced high. Scott was sure both tires came off the ground. Then the back wheels hit and snapped the front end down. And they were racing down the walkway.
A handful of strollers scattered. There was a shout and a beer bottle bounced off the front passenger window. Scott kept his foot down on the gas.
Behind him, as the Suburban blew through the T, an old pickup truck crossing its path clipped the back fender and spun the SUV into a lamppost.
The Olds jumped off the curb on the other side of the plaza, and they were back on Avenida Melchor Ocampo, still headed north toward the bridge.
* * * *
A piece-of-shit pickup truck hit the back fender and knocked Jones into a goddamned streetlight. The impact drove his head into the doorpost and nailed a chunk of glass from the shot-out windshield into his forehead. But that pain was nothing compared to the shock his wounded guts took from the near-instantaneous deceleration. He screamed. Then he got hold of himself. A warning light on the instrument panel was flashing. But the Suburban's engine was still running, and the collision hadn't deployed any of the airbags. The vehicle was still drivable. At least he was pretty sure it was.
Jones threw the gearshift into reverse and stepped on the gas. The engine revved but the SUV didn't move. He stepped harder on the gas pedal. The back tires started spin-ning, but he wasn't moving. He was stuck on top of a broken piece of lamppost.
He shifted into drive and stepped on it. The Suburban edged forward, then stopped. He shifted back and forth. Rocking the vehicle forward and backward. Finally, he broke clear of the lamppost and raced through the park. Halfway across he was pretty sure he heard a gunshot. Prob-ably aimed at him. Fucking Mexicans. Who brings a gun to a goddamned park?