sounded like the rumble of a V8 engine. It seemed to catch and roar to life, but then abruptly died. He ran toward the end of the building and Bern followed.
As he rounded the corner, he saw the Mustang at the far end of the lot. Someone was inside. Lobec started running toward it.
He motioned for Bern to get the car and pulled the SIG Sauer from his jacket.
Kevin nervously searched the parking lot as he let the engine pause before trying again. He was just about to reach for the key when he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. To his right he saw a man sprinting from the opposite side of the parking lot. His hand fumbled for the ignition. The engine had almost started the last time, and it looked like he’d only get one more chance. He frantically turned the key.
The engine caught on the first crank. Kevin mashed his foot on the accelerator, but he was now surging with adrenaline and was almost unaware of how fast he released the clutch. The car lurched forward, coughed, and then roared back to life, the needle on the tachometer leaping toward the redline. The rear wheels emitted an ear- piercing screech, and Kevin could smell the tires burning on the hot cement.
He twirled the steering wheel to the left, the Mustang gyrating wildly on the spinning wheel. Kevin tried to get it headed in the direction of the apartment complex exit. As he completed the 180 degree turn, he quickly glanced out of the window.
The man, who he now recognized as the fake officer calling himself Barnett, stopped only fifty yards away and raised his arm, pointing it at Kevin. Kevin realized what was happening almost too late and ducked down as the passenger’s window disintegrated. He yelled “Shit!” and raised his arm to shield himself from the bits of glass ricocheting around the car’s interior. He heard another bullet smash the driver’s side mirror and others pepper the door. The tires finally gripped the pavement, and the Mustang shot past the end of the building and out of Barnett’s sight.
Kevin saw the front gate growing quickly and only then remembered he would need to stop and wait for its sensor to detect the car’s weight before opening. As the Mustang skidded to a halt within inches of the gate, he looked in the mirror. Barnett came to a stop 200 yards back and a large Pontiac rounded the corner. It stopped barely long enough to let Barnett yank the door open and jump in. The car leapt towards him and would close the distance in seconds.
Kevin gunned the engine as the gate crawled along its track, still only three-quarters open. It had always seemed slow, but now the wait was agonizing. He looked in the mirror again. His pursuers were now only 100 yards back. He couldn’t wait.
The engine roared as the Mustang sprang forward, and Kevin winced as he heard the tearing of metal from the passenger side, the mirror ripped from its mounting. For a second the car seemed to be hung up on something, as if a piece of metal was caught on the gate, but then whatever it was tore loose and he was free. Turning right onto Gulfton, Kevin floored it.
As he rocketed past a puttering Honda, he suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was going. He knew he had to get to the police, but until this moment, it had never crossed his mind that he didn’t actually know the location of a police station. The only contact he’d had with the police was a few tickets, but he’d always paid them through the mail. His only hope was to get caught in a speed trap. He’d cheerfully accept another citation if they would stop him.
He was coming up on Chimney Rock. The Pontiac was lagging behind, but not as much as Kevin had hoped. Apparently, it had almost as much power as the Mustang’s V8, and the driver was putting it to good use.
Kevin was about to randomly pick a direction when a sign caught his eye. It advertised the wholesome atmosphere at Houston Baptist University. Suddenly Kevin realized that he did know the location of a police station. The campus police station at South Texas University. At the rate he was going, he could be there in ten minutes. And the quickest way was to get on the Southwest Freeway. Which meant turning left onto Chimney Rock.
He bothered to slow long enough to time his entrance into the heavy cross traffic. Then he saw an opening and punched the accelerator. The Mustang blasted through the stop sign and swerved sickeningly, missing the front of a pickup by inches. He proceeded to weave past cars, honking the horn whenever someone blocked the way.
The Pontiac tried the same maneuver, but it sideswiped a UPS truck, which knocked the battered car into the median. Kevin was elated until he saw the Pontiac rebound off the median and continue in his direction.
Luckily, there were no lights until the freeway feeder road, and Kevin was able to maintain the separation between him and the Pontiac. Then he saw the freeway rising ahead, and a sign saying “US 59” flashed by. Once he was on the freeway, he’d be able to open it up and maybe even lose the Pontiac.
During Kevin’s race to school on the same route the day before, the adrenaline had flowed, but now it was a tidal wave pounding through his system. He had always wanted to go to one of those driving schools, the ones where you learn how to slide through a controlled skid or accelerate out of decreasing radius turns without plastering the car on whatever unfortunate objects were around you. He’d even fantasized about being in a car chase just like this one, thinking it would be a blast to tear through the streets at eighty miles an hour with another car hot on his trail. But the reality was nothing like his fantasy; all he felt now was sheer terror.
His fear inched up a notch when he saw the traffic backed up at the feeder road stoplight. He’d be stopped for thirty seconds, easily long enough for the thugs following him to run up and drag him from the car, probably flashing badges all the way.
There was an entrance into a strip mall on his right. It was a new Wal-Mart, and Kevin was sure it had an outlet onto the feeder road. He wrenched the wheel to the right and flew into and over the steeply inclined parking lot entrance, mashing the nose of the Mustang in the process.
After speeding down the side of the Wal-Mart, he rounded the corner and almost ran down an employee wheeling an empty shopping cart toward the store front. The startled employee jumped back, pushing the cart directly into the Mustang’s path. The car’s nose hit it low, tossing the cart into the right half of the Mustang’s windshield, creating a maze of cracks in the safety glass.
Kevin turned left and bypassed the crowded store entrance, racing across the empty fringes of the lot and struggling to see through the crazed windshield. He wiped sweat from his forehead, wishing he could use the air conditioner but not wanting to sap any power from the engine. Not that the air conditioner would do much good with the shattered passenger side window.
He took another look in his one remaining mirror. The Pontiac was still there, now a mere seventy-five yards behind. Kevin aimed at the closest exit.
Then Kevin saw the freeway entrance ramp he had taken yesterday. It was a hundred yards to his left. The only problem was the feeder road was one way, with two lanes of dense traffic coming towards him. To get on the freeway on this entrance, he’d have to head into the oncoming traffic and make a 180 degree turn to get onto the ramp. With the cars racing along the feeder at 60 miles an hour, he’d never make it without crashing into another car. He’d just have to make it to the next freeway entrance.
He took the feeder road toward the Loop, the beltway encircling Houston. To his horror, he saw orange cones diverting traffic away from the freeway onto a temporary asphalt macadam. Houston’s ubiquitous construction strikes again, he thought. The macadam led to an intersection which merged into Westpark. The makeshift light was green, and Kevin made a tight left to keep heading in the direction of downtown Houston.
He thought about staying on Westpark the whole way and decided against it. Too many lights. He went under the Loop and saw that the feeder road was blocked here as well. He’d have to go up to Newcastle, which was the first road that would lead back to the freeway. He’d been on it just three days before and hoped it was still open.
Kevin looked in the rear view mirror. The Pontiac was now only fifty yards behind him. The traffic was thinning out. Kevin floored it and accelerated up an overpass rising above several railroad tracks. By the time he reached the top, the distance between the two cars had opened to 100 yards.
As he crested the hill, the Mustang coughed. Kevin ignored the old car’s wheeze. From his vantage point on the overpass, he could see Newcastle a quarter mile ahead. Fifteen feet to the right of the Newcastle-Westpark intersection was a railroad crossing which cut across Newcastle. The signal began to flash, but the gates were still up. Below and to the right of the overpass, he could see a train slowly moving in the same direction, parallel to Westpark, its engine a few hundred yards from the crossing. To the left, Newcastle headed toward the freeway. Just as he thought, it was clear. In thirty seconds he’d be on the Southwest Freeway and might be able to put some
