Up ahead, the Citroen’s taillights were again hooking left.
Jake pounded the accelerator.
I reached back, tugged and clicked my seat belt.
Jake made the turn onto Derech Jericho.
The Citroen had lengthened its lead. Its taillights were now two tiny red blurs.
“Where’s she going?”
“We’re on HaEgoz at this point, but behind us it’s called the Jericho road. She could be heading to Jericho. Hell, she could be heading to Jordan.”
Few cars moved along the pavement. Fog swirled the streetlights.
Purviance kicked it to fifty.
Jake stayed with her.
Purviance kicked it to sixty.
“Hang on.”
I placed two hands on the dash.
Jake floored it. The gap closed.
The air in the truck felt damp and close. Mist filmed the windshield.
Jake hit the wipers. I cracked a window.
Lights flicked by on both sides of the street. Apartments? Garages? Nightclubs? Synagogues? The buildings were black LEGO blobs. I wasn’t sure where we were.
A tower took shape on my right, neon logo shimmying in the haze. The Hyatt. We were about to intersect the Nablus Road.
Purviance made the turn.
“She’s heading north,” I said. Nervous talk. Jake knew that.
The traffic signal went red. Ignoring it, Jake spun the wheel. We fishtailed. Jake muscled the back wheels into line with the front.
The Citroen’s taillights had shrunk to dots. Purviance had picked up a quarter-mile lead.
My heart was doing flip-flops. My palms felt damp on the dash.
Now and then a billboard framed into view, faded. We raced on.
Suddenly signs flared out of the fog. MA’ALEH ADUMIN. JERICHO. DEAD SEA.
“She’s heading for Highway One.” Jake’s voice was guy-wire taut.
Something was up. The Citroen’s taillights were now expanding.
“She’s slowing down,” I said.
“Checkpoint.”
“Will they stop her?”
“This one’s usually a wave-through.”
Jake was right. After a brief pause, the Citroen blew past the guardhouse.
“Shall we tell them to stop her?”
“Not a chance.”
“They could pull her over.”
“These guys are border patrol, not police.”
Jake braked. The truck slowed.
“Let’s ask-”
“No.”
“This is a mistake.”
“Don’t say a word.”
We rolled to a stop. The guard looked us over, bored, then waved us through. Before I could speak, Jake hit the gas.
A sudden thought.
Back at the museum, Jake never asked about Blotnik.
I hadn’t given him time?
He already knew that Blotnik was dead?
I looked sideways. Jake was a black silhouette, long neck corrugated by the bony tube of his throat.
Sweet Jesus. Did Jake have an agenda of his own?
Jake accelerated hard. The truck lurched forward.
My palms slapped the dash.
The terrain turned desolate. My world narrowed to the two red blurs at the Citroen’s rear.
Purviance goosed it to seventy, then eighty.
We ran hard through desert older than time. I knew what stretched to either side of the highway. Terra-cotta hills, furnaced valleys, Bedouin camps with their shoddy huts and slumbering herds. The Judean wilderness. A moonscape of bleaching bones and seeping sand, tonight all lost to the fog.
Mile after mile of stillness. Nothingness. Now and then a rare lamp bathed the Citroen in artificial light. Seconds later, our truck would blink through. I’d see my hands, salmon surreal, bracing the dash.
Purviance edged toward ninety. Jake matched her.
The Citroen rounded curve after curve, taillights winking into our vision, then out, then in again. Our truck strained. We began to drop back.
The tension in the cab was palpable. No one spoke as each of us focused on those pulsing red eyes.
We hit a bump. Jake downshifted. The front wheels went airborne. The rear followed. My head whiplashed as the truck slammed down.
When I looked up, the Citroen’s taillights were disappearing in mist.
Shifting back into fourth, Jake gunned it. The lights ballooned. I stole a peek in the side-view. No one behind us.
In my memory, what happened next happened in slow motion, like an instant replay. In reality, the whole thing probably took a minute and a half.
The Citroen entered a curve. We followed. I remember glistening blacktop. The needle nearing ninety. Jake’s hands, tight on the wheel.
A car appeared on the other side of the highway, headlights blurry ribbons slashing the mist. The ribbons wavered, then swooned toward the Citroen.
Purviance jerked the wheel. The Citroen pitched right, dropped two tires onto the shoulder. Purviance jerked again. The Citroen hopped back up onto the pavement.
The oncoming car crossed the center lane, illuminating the Citroen. I could see Purviance’s head wagging back and forth as she fought the wheel. Steady red told me her foot was slammed to the brake.
The oncoming car veered wide, away from the Citroen. Action and reaction. The Citroen also veered wide, and again bit gravel.
Purviance cut hard to the left and regained the blacktop. Inexplicably, the car then surged back to the right. The Citroen bounced from the road, and careened off the guardrail. Sparks flew.
Panicked, Purviance fought to go left. The Citroen hit slickness, hydroplaned, and spun.
The oncoming car was now hurtling toward us, tires straddling both lanes. I could see the driver’s head. I could see a passenger.
I braced for the impact.
Jake jerked the wheel. We shot right and our front tire dropped.
The car thundered past.
Our rear tire dropped.
Jake’s leg pumped, his hands death-locked the wheel.
We bolted and pitched, stones and gravel peppering the guardrail.
I planted both hands against the dash and tried to keep my elbows flexed. I dropped my chin to my chest.
I heard metal slam metal.
I looked up to see the Citroen’s headlights lurch sideways. They hung a moment, then nose-dived into darkness.
