Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

Kurt stole a quick glance. Emma shifted in her seat and took it all in.

“How much traffic do you think this road gets?” she asked casually.

“Not much,” he said. “We’ve passed two trucks and an old Jeep in the last hour. Why?”

“I count three cars following us,” she said. “Two black, one white. By the dust they’re kicking up, I’d say they’re moving a lot faster than they should be.”

Kurt set his jaw. “I was hoping we’d left all that behind.”

Emma reached into the “picnic basket” at her feet. She pulled out the 9mm Beretta, made sure it was loaded and switched the safety off.

Kurt drove faster, but there wasn’t a turnoff until they hit the plateau. If the cars behind them proved to be trouble, they’d have to deal with them here and now.

It took several minutes but the trio of vehicles finally appeared in the rearview mirror. Between the vibration from the road and the dust streaming out behind them, it was a blurred image, but it was all Kurt needed. The two black cars were staggered up front in an attacking formation, the white car trailing a short distance behind. All of them charging up the hill in a cloud of dust.

“Here they come.”

Emma slipped out of her seat belt and lowered her window. Holding the Beretta on her lap, she poked her head outside and risked a look. She could see little inside the dark interiors, but when a man popped out through the side window, she knew what was about to happen.

He brought a submachine gun up and opened fire. Emma ducked back into the Rover as a series of tiny explosions raced along the dusty slope to the right. The first shots went wide, but a second burst clipped the driver’s side-view mirror and shattered it. “So much for our relaxing drive in the country.”

Kurt mashed the pedal to the floor. The supercharged engine answered and the Range Rover surged ahead.

For a moment, it seemed they might leave their enemies behind, but the cars following them were also high-performance models. They had the horses to answer and they quickly closed the gap.

Kurt crouched low on the wheel as another spread of bullets punched angry holes in the sheet metal. One blasted out the taillight, while another hit the rear window, rendering it a mess of cracks and fissures that was impossible to see through.

Emma leaned out the window to return fire. She hit the lead BMW with several shots, but it drifted to Kurt’s side and the back of the Rover blocked it from her view.

She turned in her seat and aimed for the back window. “Cover your ears.”

There was no hope of that, but Kurt appreciated the warning. She opened fire, blasting out the remnants of the back window with her first shot and empting the rest of the magazine into the nearest chase car. It dropped back for a moment but soon came on again.

Kurt pulled the .45 out of his shoulder holster and handed it to her. “Try this.”

Emma took it and aimed. The first shot almost knocked her out of her seat. She righted herself and fired three more times.

The armor-piercing shells found their mark. Steam and smoke blasted from the punctured engine block of the BMW as its radiator exploded. The car swerved toward the cliff and then back the other way, going up the slope at an angle, rolling over onto its roof and then sliding back onto the road and coming to a stop just short of the cliff’s edge.

The other cars passed and left it behind.

“I like this,” Emma shouted over the noise. “Can I keep it?”

“Get rid of the two cars and it’s yours.”

Emma climbed between the seats and into the back for a better spot to shoot from while Kurt did his best to present an elusive target. He kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor as long as possible, thundering toward each turn and then tapping the brakes before cutting the wheel and hitting the gas again.

On one inside turn, they banged an overhanging rock. It put a huge downward dent in the roof. A sharp outside turn came up quicker than Kurt had expected. As Kurt hit the brakes, the Rover started skidding.

Kurt released his tight grip on the steering wheel and stepped back on the gas. He’d raced in off-road rallies both in cars and on dirt bikes; he knew that getting through a turn like this required power to the wheels.

They hugged the edge, sliding and drifting and threatening to tip. From Kurt’s position, all he could see was the drop, not an inch of road left. As if they’d gone over the edge and were already airborne. And then the heavy tread bit into the road once more, the tires spat dirt and the Rover surged back to the inside of the curve.

“That was close,” he shouted. “Almost found out if man was truly meant to fly.”

Emma didn’t reply. It was so loud inside the Rover that she didn’t hear him. She was perched on the backseat, holding the .45 in a police grip with two hands.

The cars had fallen back as they refused to take the turns at full speed. But instead of closing in on the straightaway as they had before, they held their distance this time.