Another series of explosions, machine-gun fire, flashes ahead in the fog. They passed a half-dozen demolished hybrids, still aflame. Mortimer’s heart pounded in his throat. He saw Sheila sitting rigid in the passenger seat, Tyler’s knuckles white on the steering wheel.
It came out of the fog like a charging bull, smashed through the left front quarter of a Yellow Group Cooper, sending it spinning off into the guardrail. A V-8 Mustang Mach 1. The engine roared. It had iron plates riveted across the front to guard the engine, more armor on the windshield, with only narrow slits for the driver to see through.
Tyler jerked the wheel, and the Mustang missed by an inch, passed them and immediately screeched the tires in a fishtail, coming back for them.
Tyler flipped to the channel for Blue Group. “Jimmy, you’re with me. The rest of you stay with the attack force. You there, Jimmy?”
– “Right on your six, boss.”
“This exit. Here we go.”
She took three lanes sharply, barely making the off-ramp in time, scraping the curb as she took the turn at the bottom, flying past a defunct gas station and a doughnut shack. Mortimer looked behind. Jimmy was right there, the Mustang right behind him.
– “He’s right on me, boss. Jesus, he’s coming fast.”
Mortimer saw Bill pop up through the moonroof. The machine pistol bucked in Bill’s hand, a three-foot jet of fire pulsing from the barrel. The lead sparked off the Mustang’s armor, doing it no damage, but apparently catching it by surprise. It swerved slightly, slowed its pursuit.
An arm came out the passenger window of the Mustang holding a weapon, rattled bullets at them. Mortimer ducked back into the car.
Tyler slammed on the brakes, fishtailed, turned suddenly down a residential street. Jimmy stayed right with her. The Mustang couldn’t make the turn so sharply, went wide and chewed up a line of mailboxes before wrenching itself back onto the street.
“Split up, Jimmy!”
– “Bad idea, boss.”
“We’ll never get a good shot at the thing if we’re both running away from it. Now go,” Tyler ordered.
– “See you on the flip side.”
Jimmy turned abruptly down a cross street. The Mustang never wavered, pushed the gas hard and came up behind Mortimer fast. Tyler turned, accelerated, turned again, zigzagging through what had once been a middle- class neighborhood. Malcolm had been right. The big bruisers had speed and muscle but couldn’t maneuver so well, and every time Tyler took a sharp turn, the Mustang lost twenty yards.
But the muscle car made up for it on the straightaways, the big engine howling as the Mustang pulled within three feet of the Cooper’s rear bumper, the faceless assailant in the passenger’s seat shooting wildly.
Sheila had her hands over her eyes.
Tyler was a taut, wired mass of muscle and sinew. She jerked the wheel suddenly, and the Cooper whipped into a circular driveway. Tyler tapped the brakes, slowed the vehicle only slightly, and the Mustang shot past on the street. Tyler stomped the accelerator.
She shot out of the driveway, back onto the street, right behind the Mustang.
“Blast ’em,” she shouted at Mortimer.
He popped out of the moonroof and unleashed the H &K, emptying a full clip in three seconds, ejecting it and slamming in a new one. He puffed the cigar like a lunatic locomotive. The Mustang had been modified for attack, not defense, and the exposed rear window presented an irresistible target. Mortimer fired, and the glass shattered. He fired again, and a neat row of holes appeared along the roof with metallic tunks.
The Mustang slammed on the brakes.
“Shit!” Tyler hit the brakes too.
Not fast enough. The MINI slammed hard, crunching the front end. Mortimer pitched forward, managed to hang on instead of flying over the MINI’s hood. The cigar flew out of his mouth. Tyler threw the car into reverse, backed up at full speed, headlight glass and the front bumper on the ground in front of them.
By the time the Mustang made its slow turn, the Cooper was flying back the way it had come. Soon the muscle car was on the Cooper’s bumper again. Tyler resumed the zigzag strategy, but finally made a wrong turn into a cul-de-sac.
“Oh, fuck,” Sheila said.
Tyler didn’t slow down, aimed the Cooper at a narrow opening between a brick house and a wooden fence.
Mortimer tensed. “We won’t fit. Turn it around. We won’t fit.”
“We’ll fit, God damn it!” Tyler’s grip on the wheel was iron, her whole face clenched and covered with sweat.
They flew up the driveway, across the yard and through the gap, each side clearing by less than an inch. Mortimer looked back, expecting the much wider Mustang to slam on the brakes.
The muscle car exploded through the fence, splintered planks sailing in every direction.
The Cooper scooted across the backyard, the Mustang gunning its engines behind, plowing jagged grooves into the soft lawn, kicking up dirt. The Cooper crossed over an already-down chain-link fence into the neighboring yard, dodging debris. The Mustang collided with patio furniture behind them, disintegrated ceramic pots, scattered pieces of a plastic swing set.
