She cranked round in the direction of the shout. Behind the long sunken lines of the Kaigan, her colleagues’ own shorter, blunter Mitsubishi cruisers were parked with raked precision along the overgrown curve of the intersection roundabout. The two Nakamura wedge men were cutting up lines of edge on the sleek black hood of the closest car. One of them waved at her.
Jones pulled a face and turned to the motorway bridge railing on the other side of the road. Beyond the bridge, the green of the landscape rose in a series of granite flecked interlocking spurs that blocked out the view of the road at about five kilometres distance. She crossed the road and prodded at the feet of the fourth Nakamura team member, who sat with his back to the rails, checking the load on his Vickers-Cat shoulder-launcher. He glanced up as Jones kicked him and grinned through his beard.
‘Ready to rock ’n’ roll.’ It came out surfer-drawled. His English, like hers, was West Coast American. The association ran back a couple of years. He nodded across at the other two men and their edge ritual. ‘You cool with that?’
Jones shrugged. ‘Whatever works. New York says they’re the best we’ve got around here, and they should know.’
‘They should.’ The missileer laid his weapon aside and got up. Standing he was a giant, towering over Jones’s diminutive frame. ‘So what’s the disposition?’
‘Acropolitic are out of the game.’ Jones leaned on the bridge rail. ‘Shorn did the shit work for us, just like we figured. All we have to do is sweep them up.’
The missileer leaned beside her. ‘And you’re sure this is going to work?’
‘It worked at Denver, didn’t it?’
‘It was new at Denver.’
‘On this side of the Atlantic it’s still new. Total press blackout until US Trade and Finance thrash out the precedent.’ A cold smile. ‘Which, I’m reliably informed by our government liaison unit, is going to take the rest of the year. The report won’t be out till next spring. These guys aren’t going to know what hit them.’
‘It could still be disallowed.’
‘No.’ She seemed lost in the southward perspectives of the road below them. ‘I had the legal boys check the rulings back as far as they go. No discharge of projectile weaponry from a moving vehicle, no substantial destruction to be inflicted with a projectile weapon. We’ll get through the same loophole we used in Colorado.’
Out of the open door of the Kaigan battlewagon, the radio crackled again. The voices of the men they were waiting for wavered as the set strained to pick up and decode the scrambled channel. There was a sudden increase in volume and clarity as the Shorn team cleared some geographical obstacle in amongst the rising land behind the bridge. Mitsue Jones straightened up.
‘Better get in position, Matt. Feels like showtime.’
Mike Bryant saw the intersection bridge up ahead as they cleared the last spur and he let a fraction of his speed bleed off.
‘Watch the bridge,’ he said easily. ‘Watch your peripherals till we’re past. Keep it tight.’
On the northside ramp, Mitsue Jones heard him and grinned as she slipped her driving glasses on. In the rearview mirror, she saw Matt settle into a firing stance with the Vickers-Cat. She let off the parking brake and the Mitsubishi shifted on the hard shoulder.
The missile leapt out, trailing a thin vapour thread as it went.
As they hit the bridge, Bryant saw it. Through the windscreen a column of greasy smoke lifted from the hills up ahead. A muffled crump rolled in to accompany the explosion.
‘See that?’ He braked a little more, puzzled. ‘They must be in trouble up ahead.’
‘I don’t know, Mike.’ Chris’s voice crashed into the cabin. ‘Trouble with who? Tender was all over the news this week. No one’ll be out here who doesn’t have to be.’
‘Maybe one of those fancy Mits’ fuel feeds blew up on them,’ suggested Makin.
‘Could be.’ Chris’s tone said he thought it was a stupid idea, but since they’d started the run both he and Makin had shut down the bullshit. ‘I still don’t like, go right!! Right!!!’
The yell came too late. They were under the bridge and past the access ramp and the sleek black shapes on the left came spilling directly down the grass slope like commandos breaching a wall defence. The lead Nakamura car hit the highway at reckless speed, bounced and slammed into Mike Bryant’s BMW.
‘Fuck!’
Bryant hauled on the wheel, too slow. The second Nakamura vehicle scuttled through the gap behind him and came up on his right flank. There was a long grating clang as the two Mitsubishi cruisers sandwiched him. Bryant caught a flash of a third vehicle, longer and lower, pulling ahead and knew what was going to happen. He wrestled desperately with wheel and brakes, but the clinch was set. The Nakamura wingmen had him.
‘Can you get these motherfuckers off me.’ Bryant tried for a nonchalant tone, but sweat was beading on his face. Every move he tried to break free was matched. ‘They’re going to head-to-head me.’
A side impact jarred through Bryant.
‘No fucking way.’ Chris yelled his results. ‘They’re locked on tight, Mike. You’ve got to crash-stop.’
‘Can’t afford to lose the momentum, Chris. You know that.’
‘You can’t afford to stay in theah, Mike.’ The crisp edge of control in Makin’s tone made him sound almost prissy. ‘Chwis is wight. Dwop out, pick it up after.’
‘No fucking way.’
Up ahead, the long, low Mitsubishi battlewagon whipped around on shrieking tyres and came back up the highway towards the locked-up Shorn leader.
‘Nick,’ Bryant’s voice was strained. ‘That’s Jones up ahead. Get out there and see if you can’t derail her.’
‘On it.’ Makin’s BMW flashed on the edge of Bryant’s vision as it accelerated away from the three-vehicle clinch. Bryant blew out breath, hard and fast, and settled into his speed.
‘What about me?’
‘You hang back, Chris. This doesn’t work, I’m going to need you.’
Up ahead, he watched as Nick Makin drove hard at what had to be Mitsue Jones’s vehicle. A hot knot of hope pulsed through his guts in defiance of the icy knowing that told him Jones would not be stopped. The Nakamura team had set him up with consummate skill, and they’d left him with only two options. Slam stop and lose the duel inertia; in effect drop out of the combat, admit Nakamura’s tactical superiority and have to drive catch up for the next two hundred kilometres—
An image of Chris’s chessboard flashed through his mind.
Symbolic defeat.
Or—
The Mitsubishi flinched aside and left Makin stalled across the highway. Bryant grimaced and floored his accelerator. The two Nakamura vehicles matched it effortlessly. The battlewagon came on.
‘Chris, this is going to be messy,’ he gritted. ‘Get yourself clear.’
Seconds from the chicken head-to-head, the two Nakamura wingmen peeled away as if their vehicles were under the command of a single driver. Bryant caught a face grinning at him from the left-hand vehicle and a hand lifted in farewell. Jones’s car was almost on him. The radio crackled at him.
‘Sayonara, Bryant-san.’
Mitsue Jones must have jerked the wheel at the last possible moment. Bryant misread it and stayed on line, but Jones had left the rear of the Mitsubishi in his path. The BMW hit at speed and the front left wing of the car kicked into the air. Bryant yelled, incoherent with shock as his vehicle left the road. The Omega turned lazily in the air and came down on its side, trailing a carpet of sparks across the asphalt. Three seconds into the skid, it ploughed into the central reservation.
Jones heard the yell but had no time for anything other than fighting her own vehicle back under control. The Mitsubishi whipped about on the impact and staggered sideways. For three seconds the wheel was like a live thing under her hands, and then she had it back. She braked the cruiser towards a smoking halt, facing back the way she’d come.