around her waist, and smiled through the tears. “That’s you.”
He gave her a sideways look. “Who?”
“My huckleberry friend, Dirk Pitt. You’re the perfect incarnation of Huckleberry Finn, always rafting down the river in search of something, you don’t know what, around the next bend.”
“I guess you could say that old Huck and I have a few things in common.”
They kept moving around the dance floor, still holding each other as the band took a break and the other couples drifted back to their tables. Neither was the least bit self-conscious at the amused stares. Maeve started to say, “I want to get out of here,” but her mind lost control of her tongue and it came out, “I want you.”
As soon as she spoke the words a wave of embarrassment swept over her. Blood flushed her neck and face, darkening the healthy tan of her complexion. What must the poor man think of me? she wondered, mortified.
He smiled broadly. “Say good night to the Van Fleets. I’ll get my car and meet you outside the club. I hope you dressed warm.”
The Van Fleets exchanged knowing looks when she said she was leaving with Pitt. With her heart pounding madly, she hurried across the ballroom, checked out her coat and ran through the doors to the steps outside. She spotted him standing by a low red car, tipping the valet parking attendant. The car looked like it belonged on a racetrack. Except for the twin bucket seats, there was no upholstery. The small curved racing windscreen offered the barest protection from the airstream. There were no bumpers, and the front wheels were covered by what Maeve thought were motorcycle fenders. The spare tire was hung on the right side of the body between the fender and the door.
“Do you actually drive this thing?” she asked.
“I do,” he answered solemnly.
“What do you call it?”
“A J2X Allard,” Pitt answered, holding open a tiny aluminum door.
“It looks old.”
“Built in England in 1952, at least twenty-five years before you were born. Installed with big American V-8 engines, Allards cleaned up at the sports car races until the Mercedes 300 SL coupes came along.”
Maeve slipped into the Spartan cockpit, her legs stretched out nearly parallel to the ground. She noticed that the dashboard did not sport a speedometer, only four engine gauges and tachometer. “Will it get us where we’re going?” she asked with trepidation.
“Not in drawing room comfort, but she comes close to the speed of sound,” he said, laughing.
“It doesn’t even have a top.”
“I never drive it when it rains.” He handed her a silk scarf. “For your hair. It gets pretty breezy sitting in the open. And don’t forget to fasten your seat belt. The passenger door has an annoying habit of flying open on a sharp left turn.”
Pitt eased his long frame behind the wheel, as Maeve knotted the ends of the scarf under her chin. He turned the ignition-starter key, depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear. There was no ear-shattering roar of exhaust, or scream of protesting tires. He eased out into the country club’s driveway as quietly and smoothly as if he were driving in a funeral procession.
“How do you pass NUMA information to your father?” he asked in casual conversation.
She was silent for a few moments, unable to meet his eyes. Finally, she said, “One of Father’s aides comes by my house, dressed as a pizza delivery boy.”
“Not brilliant, but clever,” Pitt said, eyeing a late model Cadillac STS sedan parked by the side of the drive, just inside the main gate of the country club. Three dark figures were sitting in it, two in front, one in the rear seat. He watched in the rearview mirror as the Cadillac’s headlights blinked on and it began following the Allard, keeping a respectable distance. “Are you under surveillance?”
“I was told I’d be closely watched, but I have yet to catch anyone at it.”
“You’re not very observant. We have a car following us now.”
She clutched his arm tightly. “This looks like a fast car. Why don’t you simply speed away from them?”
“Speed away from them?” he echoed. He glanced at her, seeing the excitement flashing in her eyes. “That’s a Cadillac STS behind us, with a three-hundred-plus-horsepower engine that will hurl it upwards of 260 kilometers an hour. This old girl also has a Cadillac engine, with dual four-throat carburetors and an Iskenderian three-quarter cam.”
“Which means nothing to me,” she said flippantly.
“I’m making a point,” he continued. “This was a very fast car forty-eight years ago. It’s still fast, but it won’t go over 210 kilometers an hour, and that’s with a tailwind. The bottom line is that he’s got us outclassed in horsepower and top speed.”
“You must be able to do something to lose them.”
“There is, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
Pitt waited until he had climbed a sharp hill and dropped down the other side before he mashed the accelerator against its stop. Momentarily out of sight, he gained a precious five-second lead over the driver of the Cadillac. With a surge of power, the little red sports car abruptly leaped over the asphalt road. The trees lining the shoulder of the pavement, their leafless branches stretching over the road like skeletal latticework, became a mad blur under the twin headlight beams. The sensation was one of falling down a well.
Peering into the tiny rearview mirror perched on a small shaft mounted on the cowling, Pitt judged that he had gained a good 150 meters on the Cadillac before the driver crested the hill and realized his quarry had sprinted away. Pitt’s total lead was now about a third of a kilometer. Allowing for the Cadillac’s superior speed, Pitt estimated that he would be overtaken in another four or five minutes.
The road was straight and rural, running through a swanky region of Virginia just outside of Washington that was occupied by horse farms. Traffic was almost nonexistent this time of night, and Pitt had no trouble passing two slower cars. The Cadillac was pressing hard and gaining with every kilometer. Pitt’s grip on the steering wheel was loose and relaxed. He felt no fear. The men in the pursuing car were not out to harm either him or Maeve. This was not a life-or-death struggle. What he did feel was exhilaration as the tach needle crept into the red, a nearly empty road stretched out in front of him, and the wind roared in his ears in concert with the deep, throaty exhaust that blasted out of big twin pipes mounted under the sides of the Allard.
He took his eyes off the road for an instant and glanced at Maeve. She was pressed back in the seat, her head tilted up slightly as if to inhale the air rushing over the windscreen. Her eyes were half closed and her lips partly open. She looked almost as if she were in the throes of sexual ecstasy. Whatever it was, the thrill, the fury of the sounds, the speed, she was not the first woman to fall under the exciting spell of adventure. And what such women desired on the side was a good man to share it with.
Until they came into the outskirts of the city, there was little Pitt could do but crush the accelerator pedal with his foot and keep the wheels aimed alongside the painted line in the center of the road. Without a speedometer, he could only estimate his speed by the tachometer. His best guess was between one-ninety and two hundred kilometers per hour. The old car was giving it everything she had.
Held by the safety belt, Maeve twisted around in the bucket seat. “They’re gaining!” she shouted above the roar.
Pitt stole another quick peek in the rearview mirror. The chase car had pulled up to within a hundred meters. The driver was no slouch, he thought. His reflexes were every bit as fast as Pitt’s. He turned his attention back on the road.
They were coming into a residential area now. Pitt might have tried to lose the Cadillac on the house-lined streets, but it was too dangerous to even consider. He could not risk running down a family and their dog out for a late night stroll. He wasn’t about to cause a fatal accident involving innocent people.
It was only a matter of another minute or two before he would have to slow down and merge with the increased traffic for safety’s sake. But for the moment the road ahead was deserted, and he maintained his speed. Then a sign flashed past that warned of construction on a county road leading west at the next junction. The road, Pitt knew, was winding with numerous sharp curves. It ran about five kilometers through open country before ending on the highway that ran by the CIA headquarters at Langley.
He jerked his right foot off the accelerator and jammed it on the brake pedal. Then he spun the steering wheel to the left, snapping the Allard broadside before tearing down the middle of the road, the tires smoking and screaming across the asphalt. Before the car drifted to a stop, the rear wheels were spinning and the Allard leaped
