Granger struggled to his feet and ran to the brown coupe, shouting and gesticulating to the people inside.
The police cruiser was right behind the coupe, but the cops seemed slow to act.
Judy realized the terrorists were about to flee.
Charlie came to the same conclusion. “Go down, pilot!” he yelled through the headset.
“Are you out of your mind?” he shouted back.
“Those people did this!” Judy screamed, pointing over the pilot’s shoulder. “They caused all this carnage and now they’re getting away!”
“Shit,” the pilot said, and the helicopter swooped toward the ground.
Priest yelled at Oaktree through the open window of the ’Cuda. “Let’s get out of here!”
“Okay — which way?”
Priest pointed along the road that led to the town. “Take this road, but instead of going left into Main Street, turn right along the old country road — it leads back toward San Francisco, I checked.”
“Okay!”
Priest saw the two local cops getting out of their cruiser.
He leaped into the truck, raised the plate, and pulled away, heaving on the steering wheel. Oaktree scorched a U-turn in the ’Cuda and headed down the hill. Priest turned the truck around more slowly.
One of the cops was standing in the middle of the road, pointing his gun at the truck. It was the thin youngster who had told Priest to enjoy the rest of his day. Now he was shouting: “Police! Stop!”
Priest drove right at him.
The cop let off a wild shot, then dived out of the way.
The road ahead skirted the town to the east, avoiding the worst of the damage, which was in the town center. Priest had to swing around a pair of crashed cars outside the destroyed glass office building, but after that the road looked clear. The truck picked up speed.
Then the FBI helicopter landed in the middle of the road a quarter of a mile ahead.
Priest saw the ’Cuda screech to a halt.
Priest floored the gas pedal.
Agents in SWAT gear, armed to the teeth, leaped out of the chopper one by one and began to take cover at the roadside.
Priest in his truck careered down the hill, gathering speed, and roared past the stopped ’Cuda.
“Now follow me,” Priest muttered, hoping Oaktree would guess what was expected of him.
He saw Judy Maddox jump out of the chopper. A bulletproof vest hid her graceful body, and she was holding a shotgun. She knelt behind a telegraph pole. A man tumbled out after her, and Priest recognized Melanie’s husband, Michael.
Priest glanced in his side mirrors. Oaktree had the ’Cuda tucked in right behind him, making it a difficult target. He had not forgotten everything he had learned in the marines.
Behind the ’Cuda, a hundred yards back but going like a blue streak and gaining fast, was the police cruiser.
Priest’s truck was twenty yards from the agents, heading straight for the chopper.
An FBI agent stood up at the roadside and aimed a stubby machine gun at the truck.
The chopper lifted off the ground.
Judy cursed. The helicopter pilot, bad at taking orders, had landed too close to the approaching vehicles. There was hardly time for the SWAT team and the other agents to spill out and take positions before the carnival truck was on them.
Michael staggered to the side of the road. “Lie flat!” Judy screamed at him. She saw the driver of the truck duck behind the dash as one of the SWAT team opened fire with his submachine gun. The windshield frosted, and holes appeared in the fenders and the hood, but the truck did not stop. Judy cried out with frustration.
She hastily aimed her M870 five-chamber shotgun and fired at the tires, but she was off balance and her shot went wide.
Then the truck was alongside her. All firing stopped: the agents were fearful of hitting one another.
The chopper was lifting out of the way — but then Judy saw, to her horror, that the pilot had been a split second too slow. The roof of the truck’s cab clipped the undercarriage of the helicopter. The aircraft tilted suddenly.
The truck charged on, unaffected. The brown ’Cuda raced by, close behind the truck.
Judy fired wildly at the retreating vehicles.
The helicopter seemed to wobble in midair as the pilot tried to correct its lurch. Then a rotor blade touched the ground.
“Oh, no!” Judy cried. “Please, no!”
The tail of the machine swung around and up. Judy could see the frightened expression of the pilot as he fought the controls. Then, suddenly, the helicopter nose-dived into the middle of the road. There was a heavy
The pursuing police cruiser, traveling at maybe a hundred miles an hour, braked desperately, skidded, and smashed into the crashed helicopter.
There was a deafening bang, and both vehicles burst into flame.
Priest saw the crash in his side mirrors and let out a victory whoop. Now the FBI looked stuck: no helicopter, no cars. For the next few minutes they would be trying desperately to rescue the cops and the pilot from the wreckage in case they were still alive. By the time one of them thought of commandeering a car from a nearby house, Priest would be miles away.
He pushed out the frosted glass of his shot-up windshield without slowing the truck.
Behind him, the ’Cuda was swaying in a peculiar way. After a minute he figured it must have a flat. It was still traveling, so the flat must be a rear tire. Oaktree could keep going for a mile or two like that.
They reached the crossroads. Three cars had piled up at the junction: a Toyota minivan with a baby seat in the back, a battered Dodge pickup, and an old white Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Priest looked hard at them. None was badly damaged, and the minivan’s engine was still running. He could not see the drivers anywhere. They must have gone looking for a phone.
He steered around the pileup and turned right, away from the town. He pulled up around the first bend. They were now more than a mile from the FBI team and well out of sight. He thought he was safe for a minute or two. He jumped out of the truck.
The ’Cuda pulled up behind, and Oaktree jumped out. He was grinning broadly. “Mission successfully completed, General!” he said. “I never saw anything like that in the goddamn military!”
Priest gave him a high five. “But we need to get away from the battlefield, and fast,” he said.
Star and Melanie got out of the car. Melanie’s cheeks were pink with exhilaration, almost as if she were sexually aroused. “My God, we did it, we did it!” she said.
Star bent over and threw up at the roadside.
Charlie Marsh was talking into a mobile phone. “The pilot is dead, and so are two local cops. There’s a hell of a pileup on Route 101, which needs to be closed. Here in Felicitas we have car wrecks, fires, flooding, a busted gas
