Lopez had the unsettling feeling in his gut again, but he took the keys and unlocked the doors. “Plan what, Sara?”
“Tonight’s break-in, of course.” He froze outside the open door as she jumped in, slamming hers shut. “Let’s go, we’re running out of time. We’ve got a lot to do.”
Feeling dizzy, he got in the car, reset the seat and mirrors, and pulled out toward the gate, leaving the pyramid behind. Tonight’s break-in? The roller coaster was cresting at the top of the hill.
As they passed the high walls, several cars were entering in the other direction, and he steered clear of a few parked along their side of the road. With a sharp intake of breath, Houston suddenly stiffened on his right.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
He followed her gaze behind them. He felt his heart race as cold adrenaline poured through his veins. One car pulled out behind them as they passed.
It was a gray Civic.
26
Lopez instinctively pressed the accelerator, and the car lurched forward. He continued to increase speed down the two-lane road, and soon the trees on either side were a blur. Glances in the rearview mirror told him a grim story: the Civic was gaining on them. Houston drove a deep-blue, 3.6-liter, 280-horsepower VW Passat. Lopez had never driven a Passat, but he knew it should easily out-muscle a Civic.
Houston interrupted his thoughts. “No time to be a daydreaming priest, Francisco! Faster! Don’t let them pull up beside you!”
“I’m already at sixty!”
“Forget the damn speedometer! Increase the distance, now!”
He hammered the pedal, and the German car screamed into overdrive with a kick. Still the Honda kept pace. What the hell?
“We have to make it to the highway,” yelled Houston over the din of the engine. “There we have a real chance to lose them.”
As if hearing her voice, the Civic appeared to accelerate even more, and the distance closed to less than thirty feet between the cars as Lopez pushed the Passat beyond eighty.
“This is insane!” he cried.
“Francisco, the car ahead!”
A white Ford Taurus rapidly approached in front of them. Lopez checked the opposite lane — another car was coming! He had to hurry.
“Hold on!” he cried, bringing the car to over ninety and swerving into the left lane. The Passat tore past the Ford. With several seconds to spare the priest cut back into the right lane as a red blur and Doppler-shifted horn blared from the oncoming car.
“That was close!” cried Houston.
“Yes, it was! What do I do now?” He checked the mirror, and the gray of the Civic swept back into view as it passed the Taurus behind them. They had gained a little distance on their pursuers in the maneuver.
“Reach the turnoff. Don’t slow down! Whatever happens.”
“What do you mean, ‘whatever happens’?”
He was about to ask again, but Houston blurted out. “Hold tight to the wheel!” His hands instinctively gripped harder, and there was a jolt to the car as the Civic smashed into their back end. Lopez fought roughly to stabilize the machine. At one hundred miles an hour, even minor nudges could send a car spinning out of control.
“Jesus!” cried Houston.
Staccato bursts of sound erupted from behind, and metal on metal pinged as a barrage of bullets impacted the trunk and right side of their vehicle. It was unbelievable. They’re shooting at us! With machine guns!
“Faster, Francisco! Faster, damn it!” screamed Houston. She reached down into her bag.
He gunned the car harder. They were at one hundred and twenty, and everything not directly ahead was a blur. Another hit from behind at this speed, and he doubted he could hold it straight. He felt the engine strain as they began to ask heavily of it. How far to the damn turnoff?
Again the eruption of bullets. The first few embedded in metal again. Then the back windshield exploded. Mother of God! Fragments of supposedly shatter-proof material sprayed over them from the back. Dear God, help us! Francisco could see in the rearview mirror that an entire middle portion of the glass was gone.
Without warning, Houston released her belt and spun backward toward the Civic. Loud explosions burst near Lopez’s ear as she fired several shots. He glanced behind. Bullets were embedded in the front windshield of the Civic but did not seem to penetrate. The impacts momentarily slowed the pursuing car. Lopez accelerated to gain ground.
One hundred and forty! Nothing seemed real now. They would both die instantly if he lost control.
“Look out, Francisco. Ahead!” she cried.
“I see them!” To his dismay, there was a line of three cars in front, and they were rocketing toward them at reckless speed.
“You can’t slow down, Francisco,” she said, swinging back to look behind them. “They’re almost on us again!”
Lopez didn’t have to be told. His reflexes were amplified, his senses, sharper. He noticed everything and yet it was all unreal. The Civic was gaining again. Gaining! And he had only seconds until they crashed into the cars that approached.
“Oh, shit!” cursed Houston.
Approaching in the opposite lane was the long form of an eighteen-wheeler. The timing was perfect. There was no way to pass now. It was too close. But there was no way to slow down either with these madmen behind them. As if to emphasize the point, the machine gun fired again.
“Hold on!” he cried.
He pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor. The engine screamed maniacally.
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” he whispered.
The booming horn of the eighteen-wheeler flooded his ears as the angry grillwork approached faster than he could measure. The cars to his right blurred past.
“Blessed art thou amongst women.”
A head-on collision with the truck was seconds away. A second to finish passing. Which fraction of a second would be the lesser?
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Houston screamed. He ripped the wheel clockwise, and the car swerved rightward violently. They felt the air pressure pound them as the rushing blur of the truck blasted past on the left. A loud impact could be heard from behind.
Lopez looked in the mirror. The truck had begun to swerve at the last minute, the cabin twisting slightly, clipping the back bumper of the Civic as it passed. The Civic was knocked sideways, the momentum causing the car to enter a death tumble. In horror, he watched the vehicle roll end-to-end and then flip up violently. He returned his gaze to the road in front of him, bringing the car to a less crazed speed. An orange light bathed them from behind. A moment later, the sound of an explosion.
It was over! Dear Lord, it was over.
Lopez felt a soft touch on his hands. Houston stroked the snow-white tops of his knuckles on the wheel. “Calm down, Francisco. Ease up. We made it.” She touched his arm. “You did good.”
Lopez tried to relax his fingers. As soon as he did, he felt his entire body begin to shake.
27
They checked into a hotel under assumed names, paying cash. He dropped on the bed and felt the room spin above him. Houston commandeered the desk and opened her laptop, typing in the Wi-Fi password given to her by the motel staff. Lopez didn’t know how she was still functioning. He decided he needed to raise his game. But so much had happened.
After they had left the scene of the accident and reached the highway, Houston had them pull over at a gas station. The first reason was to get Lopez out of the driver’s seat. He didn’t stop shaking for half an hour. The second was so that she could monitor police bandwidth. “I need to know if they ID’d us, Francisco.” Reports of the accident and eyewitness accounts about a blue sedan filled the police airways. Fire trucks, ambulances, and possible CIA involvement were mixed into the chatter. Everything was well described, except the mysterious blue sedan.