The headlights reappeared over a crest behind him, a half mile back. Fisher looked again: two sets of headlights. They'd cut his lead by a half mile in four minutes, so whatever they were driving had some horsepower. Some model of Audi, Fisher suspected. He glanced at the OPSAT. On the screen, a thread of a road appeared two miles ahead and off to his left. He zoomed in on it and traced its zigzagging course deeper into the forest, along the German border, and then across. It was unnamed. A fire road or construction site? It didn't matter. He would take it. The Range Rover's higher clearance and four-wheel drive would hopefully negate his pursuers' advantage in speed. The problem was, they would catch up to him before he reached the turnoff.
Fisher switched the OPSAT map to topographical view. The two-lane road had turned into a series of humps and dips a few hundred yards apart. Each time he topped a crest, he saw that his pursuers had shaved a little more off his lead, until a mile from the side road they were only a crest behind. The slope before the side road was steeper, at least thirty degrees, which meant the downward slope would be just as dramatic.
Time to throw a wrench into the works.
Fisher reached the trough and started up the incline. When the Range Rover's engine began to protest and he began bleeding speed, he downshifted hard and stomped on the accelerator. The Rover lurched ahead, topped the crest, and started down the backside. Fisher let himself get a third of the way to the bottom, then slammed on the brakes. The steering wheel shuddered in his hands and the Range Rover yawed, first left, then right, before straightening out. He came to a stop. The side road was a hundred yards ahead, marked merely by a gap between the trees. He turned off the headlights and waited.
Fifteen seconds. No more.He started counting.
At twelve seconds, the first set of headlights popped over the crest. As soon as the headlights angled downward again, Fisher flipped on his headlights, tapped the brake lights twice, then shifted into reverse and jammed the gas pedal to the floor.
The tires let out a squelch, and then the Range Rover began accelerating toward the oncoming headlights.
12
FISHER'Sgambit was a double-edged sword. If his pursuers were not quick enough to react, they would rear-end him, and if they reacted quickly but poorly, they might lose control and crash into the trees bordering the road. He wanted them off his trail, not dead.
He'd closed to within fifty feet of the car before its driver reacted, sending the car into a skid, turning it broadside as it slewed past the Range Rover and onto the right shoulder. Fisher could now see that the car was, in fact, an Audi, a black A8 twelve-cylinder model, which explained how it had gained so much ground so quickly. Just as the Audi slipped off the dirt shoulder and down into the ditch, the driver corrected, got the nose pointed back toward the road, and accelerated back onto the blacktop and screeched to a stop. Fisher slammed on his brakes, shifted into drive. Behind him, a second Audi crested the hill. This driver reacted just as quickly as the first, braking hard but then overcompensating, sending the car into a flat spin that took the Audi down into the left-hand ditch. As its taillights disappeared over the berm, Fisher punched the accelerator and aimed the hood of the Range Rover at the first Audi, which sat at a forty-five-degree angle, front tires on the blacktop, back tires on the shoulder.
A split second before he slammed into the Audi's front door, Fisher gave the steering wheel a jerk to the left. His headlights filled the side window, and he caught a glimpse of Ben Hansen's face squinting at the oncoming lights. The Range Rover hit the Audi broadside, side panel to side panel, shoving it sideways over the shoulder and down into the ditch. The Range Rover glanced off the Audi like a billiard ball as Fisher gave the steering wheel one more jerk; then he was accelerating again, straightening out and heading for the side road. As he drew even with it, he tapped the brakes twice, turned the wheel again, and shot into the gap between the trees. Within seconds the headlights of the Audis faded behind him.
NONEof the occupants was injured, Fisher guessed. Shaken up, yes, but uninjured. Having not seen how it came to a stop, he didn't know if the second Audi was drivable, but the first one certainly was, and with any luck, they would spend some time trying to get the second car back onto the road rather than piling into the first and giving chase.
The road ahead was narrower than it had looked on the OPSAT screen--barely fifteen feet wide and slightly overgrown by tree limbs that slapped at the Range Rover's hood and side panels. Fisher had the vague sensation of moving through a car wash. The rain had started falling again, light but steady. Ahead, his headlights illuminated a tree directly in front of him, and he spun the wheel, taking the left-hand turn too fast. The Range Rover's wheels stuttered, then found purchase again, sending up a rooster tail of dirt and gravel. Over the next hundred yards the road zigged four more times, each turn at a right angle to its predecessor. Fisher glanced out the side window, and in the amber glow of the Range Rover's side lights he saw a wall of dirt and foliage appear as he moved into a ravine. The branches that had been clawing at the windshield rose up and began scraping at the roof.
He caught a glimmer of light in the rearview mirror; then it was gone. He craned his neck around to look out the rear window. Nothing. Five seconds later the glimmer was back. Fisher turned again and saw headlights slicing through the trees; the lights blinked on, off, as the Audi negotiated the hairpin turns.
"Damn it!"
They'd recovered more quickly than he'd anticipated.
He depressed the gas pedal another inch, pushing the Range Rover harder. His headlights picked out a basketball-sized rock in the middle of the road. He swerved right. The Range Rover's front right quarter panel plowed into the berm, coughing out a horizontal rut; mud and gravel and vegetation pressed up against the side window. His front tire bumped against the rock and he corrected, bringing the Range Rover back onto the center of the road. He glanced at the rearview mirror, saw headlights--two sets of them now--then returned his attention to the road.
Rock!This one was bigger, roughly the size of a lawn chair.
This time there was no time to swerve. Fisher slammed on the brakes. The Range Rover bucked. A cloud of dirt enveloped him, obscuring the road, then cleared in time for him to see the rock looming before the hood. With a crunch of fiberglass, the bumper hit the rock. Though Fisher was half expecting it, the pop-hissof the air bag expanding caused his heart to lurch. He was pressed back against the seat. A plume of talcum powder effluent filled the car.