Summer scrunched her nose. “I don’t know. Boyd seems to recognize its importance. One of them must have published a paper on it.”
“I suppose,” Dirk said, “but it could be as forgotten as the stone.”
“We can email St. Julien and the museum tonight,” she said, “and do more digging when we get aboard the Sargasso Sea tomorrow. Assuming Dad doesn’t have a mountain of work waiting for us.”
Finishing their meal, they paid the bill and hopped into the VW for the short ride back to the cottage. Turning onto the coastal highway, they were approached by a battered pickup that rode up on their bumper. Dirk accelerated, but the truck hung on his tail.
Summer glanced in the mirror at the truck’s rusty grill bouncing dangerously close behind. “This guy makes a New York cabbie look polite.”
Dirk nodded and pressed deeper on the gas. The winding road broke into a straight stretch that was free of oncoming traffic. Dirk edged the Beetle to the shoulder and slowed to let the truck pass. But the driver kept on Dirk’s bumper.
“The guy can’t take a hint,” Dirk muttered, forgoing the courtesy and speeding up.
“Maybe he’s taking the highway advice to heart,” Summer said, pointing at a weathered road sign that proclaimed Undertakers Love Overtakers.
The road wound down a small hill and over a bridge that spanned a marshy creek. As they reached the bridge, the truck finally made its move and pulled alongside the Beetle.
Dirk glanced at a tough-looking Jamaican in the passenger seat who flashed an unfriendly grin. Then the man leaned out the truck’s window, pointed a pistol at Dirk, and pulled the trigger.
29
The shot whistled by as Dirk instantly stood on the brakes. The truck swerved hard over, smacking into the Volkswagen and driving it toward the meager bridge railing. The Beetle’s left fender tore through the guardrail, shattering its wooden supports like they were toothpicks.
Dirk downshifted, fighting to keep the wheel straight. Summer let out a yelp as they veered off the shoulder, the left tires half hanging over the edge. The popping of the gunman’s pistol sounded over the fray. The Beetle’s windshield shattered as Dirk and Summer ducked low in their seats.
Amid a screech of grinding metal, the VW fell back before the heavier truck could knock it into the creek. Dirk snapped the wheel right, barely escaping a plunge off the road. Finding no oncoming traffic, he swerved into the far lane and stomped on the accelerator.
The Beetle’s turbocharged four-cylinder engine howled as the small car shot past the slowing pickup. The truck’s driver reacted quickly, gunning his own engine. A well-tuned 5.7-liter Mopar Hemi under the hood belied the truck’s shabby appearance and gave it more than enough juice to give chase.
“How did they track us here?” Summer yelled, gripping the dashboard as Dirk pushed the Beetle hard through a tight curve.
“I don’t know, but they’re serious about finding the other half of the stone.”
The VW hit a large dip in the road and bounded into the air. The rear bumper scraped the pavement on their return to earth, sending a trail of sparks flying. Summer turned and watched the pickup wallow through the same dip, its driver nearly losing control.
The Beetle was faster through the corners, but the truck easily gained ground on the straightaways. Charging down a straight section, the truck approached and smacked the rear end of the Volkswagen. The Beetle skittered, but Dirk maintained control and gained separation on the next bend.
“Do you know where this road goes?” Summer shouted.
“I know it runs along the north coast to at least Port Antonio, but that’s a ways off. If we come to a sizable town first, we can try and lose them or find the police.”
Summer noticed a road sign indicating that the town of Ocho Rios was eighteen kilometers ahead. “Maybe we can find police there.”
The VW approached some slower traffic, which Dirk hopscotched between oncoming vehicles. The truck followed suit but lost ground in the process. Dirk was forced to slow as they entered the town of St. Ann’s Bay, the site of the island’s first Spanish capital. A handful of ornate Georgian buildings peppered the town center, giving Dirk and Summer promise of finding police assistance. Their hope was short-lived as the sound of gunfire again erupted behind them.
“Get down!” Dirk said, glancing into the rearview mirror.
The pickup had somehow bypassed a row of cars and was right behind them. The passenger was now leaning out the side window, firing. Whether by faulty aim or the mistaken belief that late-model Beetles were still rear-engined, the shooter fired three rounds harmlessly into the trunk.
Dirk stomped on the gas and blasted through a stop sign, barely avoiding a fruit truck. “Apparently our friends don’t hold the local constables in high regard.”
“We’ll have to try for Ocho Rios,” Summer said. “I think that’s a port of call for cruise ships, so there will definitely be a police presence.”
Dirk maneuvered past a stopped bus and sped out of the town, leaving the truck wedged behind. The coastal road cleared of traffic, and Dirk nudged the Volkswagen north of ninety miles per hour. In another ten minutes, they’d reach the larger city.
“Try calling the Ocho Rios police,” Dirk said. “Find out where they are and tell them we’re coming.”
“Nine-one-one?” Summer asked.
“I think it’s the inverse here, one-one-nine.”
Summer started to dial when Dirk stood on the brakes, causing the phone to fly out of her hands. Rounding a bend, he had spotted a tour bus stopped on the road ahead. Oncoming traffic had also stopped, allowing a throng of tourists returning from the beach to clog the road while boarding the bus. Additional buses up the road were exiting a side parking lot.
“This isn’t good,” Dirk said, seeing there would be no quick resolution to the bottleneck. He quickly scanned the road for a possible exit or point of concealment.
They had only one choice. Just shy of the bus, a small dirt road angled into the jungle. If Dirk could get the VW up the road before the pickup turned the corner, their pursuers might think they’d gotten ahead of the stopped traffic.
Dirk let off the brakes and accelerated toward the parked bus.
Summer threw her hands on the dash to brace for an impact. “What are you doing?”
She fell silent as he stomped on the brakes and yanked the car in a blunt right turn. Screams erupted from the frightened tourists boarding the bus, but their cries were muted by the Beetle’s screeching tires as it slid in an arc, then shot up the dirt road. Dirk held his breath as the car bounded up and into the jungle. He glanced to his right and down the highway to see if they had been detected.
The nose of the pickup appeared just around the corner, pursuing at high speed. A second later, the Volkswagen was lost under cover of the thick brush. The car bucked and shimmied over the rut-filled road, which looked like it hadn’t been used in the last decade.
“Do you think they saw us?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I sure hope not. We’re certainly not going to outrun them on this road.”
A hundred yards behind, the pickup’s driver had missed seeing the Volkswagen turn. But he didn’t miss the fresh skid marks that led to the side road nor the light cloud of dust floating above it. With a shark-like grin, he wheeled onto the side road and barreled up its washboard surface.
Ahead, the road climbed through thick foliage that clawed at the VW’s blue paint. Summer saw a vine-covered sign with an arrow pointing to Dunn’s River Lookout. As they turned through a tight switchback, she peered behind them and caught a faint glimmer of steel through the bushes. “Bad news. They’re still on our tail.”