University and flew into the intersection heading toward the spaghettilike maze of highways a block to the south. Quinn knew that if he was on the run, that’s the direction he’d go. He gambled that Zafir would do the same, scanning the trees and side streets. Cars moved lazily up and down the four-lane under the glare of a morning sun. They showed no evidence that a motorcycle had just sped past.
“Jacques!” Quinn called out again as the maze of buttressed overpasses and sweeping concrete ramps loomed in front of him. “Coming up on the freeway now. You’ve gotta tell me which way to go!”
“West! West!” Thibodaux’s gumbo-thick voice flooded across the Bluetooth in Quinn’s ear. “Take a left on the West Freeway, then keep left onto I-30. We’re still on the freeway running alongside. Doc’s runnin’ the GPS. She says we got another ramp a mile or so ahead where we can join you.”
“You still have eyes-on, right?”
“Roger that,” Thibodaux said. “We’re on the road above him. Can’t get to him from where we are, but I can see the son of a bitch plain as day, rippin’ down the interstate like he don’t have a care in the world.”
“Stay with him,” Quinn said, leaning the bike hard right to follow the signs toward Interstate 30. “Get Megan to call 911 and report him as a DUI-”
Quinn had to swerve to avoid a tow truck that drifted into his lane, narrowly missing a TEXANS DRIVE FRIENDLY sign post. Directly ahead, a gray-haired man in a black BMW sedan slammed on his brakes for no apparent reason. Quinn cut the bike back to his right again, finally finding a clear lane. If Zafir and his men didn’t kill him, one of these city drivers seemed bound to.
Desperate for information, Quinn called out to Thibodaux again. “I’m taking the access ramp now. Tell me if he gets off the highway.”
“You got it, beb,” Thibodaux said. “He’s still below us. Another half a mile and we’ll be right on top of him. We’re gonna lose sight of him for a sec, but he’s got nowhere to go…”
“I’m on the interstate now.” Quinn called out the exit numbers as he shot by them.
“You’re a mile behind us,” Thibodaux said.
Quinn poured on the throttle, thankful for the Night Rod’s powerful Porsche engine. Merging onto the four- lane interstate, he sped past a Texas Highway Patrol unit working radar on a pullout. He glanced down at his speedometer and grinned when he saw the needle bounce over a hundred and twenty. The state black-and-white fishtailed on the pavement, throwing up a curtain of gray smoke as it fell in behind. This was one way to make sure he had some backup.
The siren wailed mournfully as Quinn took the inside lane to fly around a swaying tandem tractor trailer. Wind from the big rig shoved him around like a rag doll and he sped up to one-thirty-five to move around quickly. The highway trooper was in a regular Chevrolet Impala instead of one of their interdiction Camaros so he had a little trouble keeping up.
Thibodaux’s frantic voice suddenly crackled in Jericho’s ear. “We got two marked cop cars gettin’ in behind Zafir… Looks like they’ve spooked him… He’s doubling back! Repeat. He’s coming back at you!”
“On the other side?”
“Smack dab at you, beb!” Thibodaux said. “Into oncoming traffic. Maybe he’ll wreck and solve all our problems for us.”
“We can’t be that lucky,” Quinn spat, more to himself than the Cajun. He let off the gas, allowing the Highway Patrol car time to catch up as he scanned the road ahead. Traffic had slowed to seventy-five with the trooper’s siren screaming in the background. Jericho had to weave the bike in and out between the rapidly congesting packs that had only moments before been well spaced along four lanes of interstate. Without a helmet or even a pair of sunglasses, he was well aware that a piece of flying gravel could blind him-or even knock him off his speeding bike. Remnants of a blown-out tire or any other road debris that happened to be in his path would have deadly consequences. He leaned into the wind and rolled on more throttle, pushing the dangers out of his mind.
They were nothing compared with what he had to do next.
Zafir’s motorcycle suddenly appeared in the distance, growing quickly from small speck on the horizon. Horns blared. Cars and trucks parted like the Red Sea before Moses, swerving in both directions to avoid the oncoming missile.
With both Harleys traveling over eighty miles an hour it wouldn’t take long to close the distance between them. Instinctively, Quinn tightened his thighs, squeezing them against the tank of Bo’s bike. He’d made the mistake of firing his pistol dry and was left with few options.
Traffic opened up on the wide highway as the two men bore down toward each other. Zafir was hunched forward, leaning over the handlebars as far as he could, as if riding on a sport bike instead of the big cruiser he’d stolen after his gunfight with the Denizens. His head snapped up when he saw Quinn, recognizing him instantly as an enemy.
Quinn let off the throttle, slowing to seventy but aiming the Night Rod directly at the oncoming motorcycle.
Distorted by buffeting wind, the Arab’s face pulled back into a tight smile, as if he knew what was about to happen. As it turned out he had no idea.
With each bike traveling over seventy miles an hour, it took them less than two seconds to close the hundred yards between them. Quinn released the left handgrip to snatch the Masamune blade from the scabbard in the small of his back. A fraction of a second later, he pressed on the right grip, leaning away as he passed the other bike. The men’s knees missed each other by mere inches. Quinn kept his left arm extended, holding Yawaraka Te’s gleaming blade at head height, parallel to the blur of passing pavement.
He felt a shudder as the sword connected with Zafir, but at such speed was unable to turn and check his accuracy without dumping the bike. He heard a grinding crash and the squeal of a dozen car brakes as highway traffic screeched to a halt. It took him another hundred yards to bring the Night Rod skidding to a stop on the inside shoulder.
The Highway Patrol car slid to a halt on the loose gravel behind him. Sidearm drawn and dead-steady, the aggressive trooper bailed out like an enraged guard dog and screamed for Quinn to drop his blade.
Quinn let the sword fall, gritting his teeth when he heard the seven-hundred-year-old steel ring against the pavement. Still straddling the bike, he raised both hands high over his head. He could feel the trooper’s pistol trained directly at his back.
“You freeze right where you are, ninja boy!” the lawman boomed. The “or I’ll kill you” was implied.
“I’m a federal agent,” Quinn yelled over his shoulder, keeping his hands in the air.
“Is that a fact?” the trooper said, his voice icy with professional calm. “So, the feds are hiring ninjas now to go on sword patrol? Frankly, mister, I don’t care who you are. You better have a damn good reason for chop-pin’ that sombitch’s head off.”
Thibodaux and Mahoney came up on the eastbound lanes and screeched to a stop on the far shoulder. “He’s one of the good guys,” Thibodaux called out, his hands in the air so as not to alarm the trooper any more than he already was. Quinn turned his head just enough to see Mahoney running toward the tangled wreckage of the red Harley where it was piled up along the guard rail. She’d taken the time to throw on a protective hood and gloves but wore no other safety gear.
Two more black-and-whites skidded to a halt on the gravel shoulder. Now that he had more guns on the scene, the original trooper finally allowed Quinn to lower his hands and show identification.
“What the hell is OSI doing hacking people to death on my highway?”
“We need to get a perimeter set up around the body,” Quinn said, nodding toward the center of the interstate. He watched from a distance as Mahoney stooped to examine the wreckage. “I know this seems odd, but we need to locate the head and make sure no one gets near that either. This guy has some seriously contagious diseases.” Quinn looked at the three troopers, capable lawmen all, but none over thirty. He thought they might not even know what hemorrhagic fever was. “The stuff he has makes swine flu look like diaper rash.”
“Well, why didn’t you say he was sick?” the first trooper on the scene scoffed, looking at Quinn through narrowed eyes. “That’s a damn good reason for chop-pin’ someone’s head off with a sword…”
Quinn ignored him. He put the Night Rod on its center stand and started to walk toward the wreckage, where Zafir’s body was plainly visible. Surprised to see Megan stand and remove her protective hood, he broke into a run, adrenaline still pumping from his wild ride.
Twenty feet away he noticed all the blood had drained from Mahoney’s face. “What?” he said, slowing to a
