Empire (Empire 1)

I’m so clever, thought Cole. I’m taking a PT Cruiser uphill in order to evade pursuers.

Very quickly they were right behind him. They weren’t shooting yet. But as the sports car slowed down to let the van pass, Cole could see the plan easily enough. A few bumps from that van, and the PT Cruiser would be in the creek, against the cliff, or wrapped around a tree.

He picked up the cellphone and pressed SEND. Nothing happened. It wasn’t on. So he struggled to fi

nd the power button, and when there wasn’t one, he pressed everything, one at a time, and held it down until finally one of them worked and the screen lighted up. Then he pushed SEND.

Meanwhile, he was trying to drive around oncoming cars—there were rather a lot of them, this was a major commuting route into the city—and joggers. He couldn’t steer the winding road, hold the cellphone, and lay on the horn at the same time.

Where were the cops when you wanted to be arrested?

No. He didn’t want cops involved. They’d gone to too much trouble yesterday trying to save the lives of cops for him to want any of them to die today.

Rube was dead.

Don’t think about that. He pressed the cellphone to his ear with his shoulder and steered while pressing on the horn. The van came up behind him. He tried to swerve and nearly hit a runner. He hoped the guy was still on his feet and flipping him off instead of flat on his face torn up by asphalt.

It was Drew, the American University professor, who answered.

“Rube’s dead,” said Cole. “DeeNee shot him in his office. I’m alone, in his car. I’ve got his PDA. I know his password. I’m in Rock Canyon with two vehicles in pursuit, trying to ram me, and I don’t know where the hell I’m going.”

“I know the park,” said Drew. “Stay on Beach Road. Way up the canyon you come to a place where Wise Road is a very, very sharp left. Take that turn. It gets you up to Oregon Avenue. Take that to Western Ave. There’ll be traffic. You want traffic, right?”

“I want my mommy,” said Cole. But it wasn’t really a joke even though he meant it to be. “Rube’s dead. I’m sorry. It came out of nowhere. We were holding file boxes.”

“Shut up. I’ll call you back in a minute. I’m calling the other guys. We’ll try to get you some help.”

Cole pocketed the phone in time to swerve sharply. There were weapons in the car. He hadn’t thought to grab any when he got in. He reached behind him, fumbling to find something.

He was hit from behind. It nearly knocked him into a jogger, a woman, who screamed at him as he swerved and fishtailed. An on coming car ran off the road. Sorry sorry sorry. Not my fault. He got control of the car. He also got his hand on a pistol. That was something. He felt better.

He opened all the windows in the car. No reason to deal with flying glass shards if he needed to shoot.

There was an intersection ahead, with a light. He laid on the horn, jabbing at it to warn people he was coming through. He could see the van behind him lay back, trusting him to have his own wreck.

Instead Cole braked sharply and swerved off the road to the right. The car stopped abruptly and the airbag would have smacked him except he already had the door open and was leaning far to the left. He released the seatbelt and rolled out of the car.

The van was still going too fast to stop, despite squealing brakes and the fishtailing. Fine. He didn’t want the van. He wanted the sports car.

It was doing a better job of stopping. Cole didn’t want the windshield broken. But the passenger window was already open. There was a rifle pointing out of it. What an idiot, to bring a rifle to shoot out of a car window. Maybe these guys were amateurs after all.

Cole stood, feet planted, two hands on the pistol. He fired once and shattered the hand of the man who had been holding the rifle.

The driver’s door was already opening. Good. The moment the driver’s head showed above the roofline, Cole shot off the top of his head.

Then he ran back around the PT Cruiser, yanked open the back door, pulled out Rube’s M-240, and opened fire on the van, figuring that the bullets would easily go through the metal sides and the seats.

He scooped up Rube’s Mollie vest because it held the ammo for the M-240 and the pistol. Then he ran to the sports car. The guy he had hit in the hand was halfway out of the car, holding a pistol—he had a pistol all along, the idiot!—but it wasn’t his good hand and he hadn’t practiced with it that way. Cole shot him in the face so the bullet wouldn’t damage the car. He tossed the Mollie vest and the M-240 through the window and then ran around to the driver’s side. He could see now that the driver’s door of the van was open and there was a dead body draped down onto the asphalt.

He turned around as he went for the sports car’s door. He could see two humvees coming up the canyon at a high speed. So they had already called for backup.

The sports car was still running. He swerved out around the van just as the light changed and civilians started trying to turn into the lane he was driving in. He held the pistol in his left hand and showed the weapon out the window. They stopped honking at him. He ran the light and didn’t hit anybody.

Now he had some power going up the hill. The Humvees really weren’t built for this.

But they were undoubtedly calling somebody else to intercept him. How many military people were involved in this conspiracy?

No. No, these humvees were regular soldiers. Loyal guys who had got a call through military channels. No doubt they had described Cole as a dangerous assassin who just killed an officer, a civilian employee, and shot or killed multiple agents in a shootout in the Pentagon. There was no way—there would be no chance—for Cole to identify himself to them and wave the letter from the President. Besides, he didn’t have that letter. It was in Rube’s pocket. Probably about to be used as evidence to embarrass President Nielson.