"Turbocharged diesels to be exact, capable of 220 kilometers per hour."
"They gaining?"
"Like tigers after a -toed sloth," Giordino replied drily. "They'll chew our ass long before we reach the local sheriff's coffee hangout."
Pitt jammed the clutch to the floor, grasped the end of the gear-shift arm that extended from the dashboard and shoved it into third. "Better we save lives by staying away. Those killcrazy bastards are liable to slaughter a hundred innocent bystanders just to assassinate Kamil. "
Giordino peered to the rear again. "I think I can see the whites of their eyes."
Ismail screamed a dozen curses as his gun jammed. In a rage, he heaved it out of the Mercedes onto the highway and snatched another from the hands of his follower in the backseat. He reached out the window and squeezed off a burst at the Cord. Only five shells spat from the muzzle before the armno clip emptied. He cursed again as he fished in his pocket for another clip, wrestled it free and pushed it in the slide.
"Do not excite yourself," said the driver carefully. "We'll catch them in the next kilometer. I'll come around on the left while Omar and his men in the other car take the right. We can snare them in a cross fire at close range."
"I want to kill the scum who interfered," Ismail snarled.
"You'll get your chance. Patience."
Almost like a sullen child who can't have his way, Ismail slumped in the seat and stared vengefully through the windshield at the fleeing car ahead.
lsmail was the worst kind of killer. He was utterly incapable of remorse. He would have celebrated after blowing up a maternity ward.
First-class hit men recorded their kills and studied ways to improve their craft. He never bothered to react or count the bodies. His planning was sloppy, and on two occasions he had wiped out the wrong quarry, which made a fanatic like Ismail all the more dangerous.
Unpredictable as a shark, he struck indiscriminately and without mercy at any innocent victim who was unlucky enough to step in his way. He justified his bloody deeds by killing for a religious cause, but in another time, another place, he'd have been a serial murderer, leaving a trail of dead for the full of it. Ismail would have sickened John Dillenger and Bonnie and Clyde.
He sat there moving his fingers over the rifle as if it were a sensual object, waiting, waiting to pump its lethal fire through the thin walls of the old car and into the flesh that had temporarily cheated him of his prey.
"They must be saving their ammunition," sadd Giordino thankfully.
"Only until they box us in and can't miss," Pitt replied. His eyes were on the road, but his mind was desperately turning over escape schemes.
"My kingdom for a rocket launcher."
"Which reminds me. When I got in the car this morning, I accidentally kicked something under the seat."
Giordino bent down and probed the floorboard under Pitt. His hand touched a cold, hard object. He held it aloft. "Only a socket wrench,"
he announced sadly. "Might as well be a hainbone for all the good it'll do."
"There's a Jeep trail just ahead that leads up to the top of the ski runs. Maintenance vehicles sometimes use it to carry supplies and equipment to the peak. Might give us a slim chance to lose them in the woods or a ravine. We're dead if we stick to the highway."
"How far?"
"Around the next bend in the road."
"Can we make it?"
"You tell me."
Giordino looked back for the third time. "Seventy-five meters and hauling ass."
"Close, too close," said Pitt. "We'll have to slow them down."
"I could show my ugly face and make obscene gestures," Giordino said dryly.
"Only make them madder. We have to go to plan one."
"I missed the briefing," Giordino said sarcastically.