hurry to close with his quarry.
He zoomed into the opposite lane when it was clear in order to pass a few cars and trucks ahead of him. He cut it pretty close, narrowly avoiding a southbound car by swerving back into the northbound lane. The other car honked loudly in protest at the near-collision, its blaring horn Dopplering away as he speedily left it behind.
A road sign swam up in the headlights indicating a curve ahead. Jack rode the brakes, tires yelping as he cut a curve too closely before getting back on track. The blackness of empty space beyond the guardrail yawned but the car held the road as it rounded the turn.
The road straightened out again. Jack slowed, thinking that Brad Oliver must have been driving somewhat like this when he’d made the fatal plunge.
The route passed a couple of turnoffs on the left, west side of the road that were cuts in the mountainside. The Mercedes entered a lonely stretch of empty road. An oddly shaped rock formation thrusting out above the road looked familiar to Jack, who recognized it from his previous trip to Mountain Lake.
He estimated he was halfway to the substation. A pair of red taillights winked far ahead, swerving left and disappearing as they rounded a curve.
Jack eased up on the accelerator. He didn’t want to show himself if that was an MRT car. He slowed to let the other vehicle gain some distance.
He rounded the curve. A scenic lookout area bordered the road’s eastern shoulder where a knob of rock jutted out from the cliffside, leaving enough space for a gravel parking area and a grassy patch studded by a boulder faced with a metal plaque tourist guide.
A pickup truck sat in the parking area facing north, its lights dark. The Mercedes zipped by it. A pair of headlights flashed their sudden bright, dazzling glare in the rear window.
The pickup truck zoomed out of the parking area and into the northbound lane with its high beams on. It was a big machine and the sound of its engine was loud as it took off after Jack in a hurry.
It ate up the distance between itself and Jack’s car, quickly closing the gap. It had a high suspension and its headlights were correspondingly raised so that they seemed to shine directly into the Mercedes, flooding its interior with white-hot glare.
The road hit a series of curves, forcing Jack to slow still further. The pickup was only a length or two behind him. The Mercedes handled beautifully but the pickup’s greater weight compensated for its height and Jack couldn’t shake it.
The curves were long, lazy, and looping but the pace was frantic. The pickup truck bumped the back of Jack’s car, jostling it. Jack had to fight to keep from losing control of the wheel as the right side tires slid on the shoulder but managed to whip the Mercedes back on to the pavement.
The pickup’s front was bolstered by a piece of solid steel plate that covered it from bumper to hood. Holes were cut in the plate to allow the headlights to shine through.
The pickup lunged forward, slamming the Mercedes again, delivering a bone- jostling thump to Jack. His belly knotted at the thought that another such blow might trip the car’s air bag safety device, a development that could prove fatal in this lethal game of high-speed bumper cars.
Trouble was that the pickup was doing all of the bumping and the Mercedes all of the catching. Jack could do nothing but thread the curves, riding both lanes and hoping no oncoming vehicle lay around each blind corner.
Another hit destabilized the car, causing it to weave crazily and slide sideways toward the guardrail and the abyss. The Mercedes fishtailed as it took the curve but it took it, tires digging in and biting deep into the pavement.
The pickup nudged the car, snugging its steel plated front against the vehicle’s rear at a tilted angle. The truck lunged with a snarl of power and shoved the Mercedes sideways.
The car would have been swept off the cliff if the tilt were angled outward. But the tilt was angled inward, causing the car to slide sideways toward the rock wall on its left.
The rocks loomed up in the driver’s side window, their craggy surfaces harshly lit by the intense glare of the pickup’s high beams. The car rushed sideways to meet them. There was the crump of collapsing metal and an explosion of shattered glass as the Mercedes plowed into the mountainside under the pickup truck’s impetus.
A stunning impact followed, setting off a massive fireworks display inside Jack’s head.
Then, blackness.
18. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 P.M. AND 9 P.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME
Jack Bauer’s awareness flickered, sputtering like a TV set with a loose connection. Bursts of sound and vision alternated with patches of darkness.
Rough handling jarred him into wakefulness, restoring his sense of self. He could think but not move. His seat belt harness was open and he was being hauled out from behind the air bag, which had mushroomed out of the top of the steering column to fill the driver’s side with a big white balloon. He was dragged across the passenger seat out the open door and dropped to the ground.
The fall jolted Jack into opening his eyes. He was bathed in white light streaked by red and blue flashes. He couldn’t see their source. He lay on his side on the shoulder of the road. His field of vision encompassed two pairs of legs and feet. Both sets of feet wore cowboy boots under loose-fitting trousers. One pair had sharp-pointed toes and fancy hand-tooled leatherwork, the other was squared off at the toes and unornamented.
A square-toed boot stepped on his upright shoulder and shoved him on his back, setting off fresh fireworks in Jack’s head. A body wash of aching soreness kept him from blacking out.
The boot’s owner straddled him and bent down. It was Taggart. He pulled Jack’s gun from the shoulder holster, said, “You won’t need this.” He straightened up and stepped away, tucking the gun into the top of his waistband. “Maybe I’ll keep it for a souvenir.”
He stood on one side of Jack. Hardin, the owner of the fancy boots, stood at the other. A third figure stood at Jack’s feet. The stranger was a grotesque, short, skinny, and bowlegged. He had a bony, close-cropped scalp and wore round wire-rimmed glasses that made his orbs look like those of a popeyed frog. He wore a thin vest, a dark T-shirt decorated with an elaborate skull emblem, and skintight jeans tucked into oversized combat boots with steel toes and three-inch soles.
Red and blue lights flashed on the trio, splashing them with weird highlights and color accents. The stranger gave a start, said, “Here comes a car!”
Hardin said, “What of it? We’re supposed to be here, we’re cops. Wave ’em on, Cole.”
“Right.” Taggart walked away out of Jack’s vision, his footsteps sounding on hard pavement. A car approached, its headlight beams sweeping across the scene. Its engine noise was loud as it slowed to a crawl and drew abreast; the noise lessened as the car passed and drove away. Hardin said, “That’s all there is to it, Mr. Pettibone. You’re nervous in the service.”
Pettibone, the third man, was restless, fidgeting. One of his legs shook, vibrating to an invisible rhythm. He said, “I ain’t got all night. You, neither.” His nasal voice had a Western twang with a bite as sharp as a crosscut saw. He said, “The Rebel wants things done quick!”
Hardin’s expression turned ugly. “I don’t take orders from Weld.” Pettibone fired back, “You both take orders from the same fellow— “
“Yeah, and you ain’t him, so no more of your lip.”
Taggart rejoined them. “What’s the problem?”
Hardin said, “Pettibone’s got ants in his pants, that’s all. He’s scared of Weld.” Pettibone said, “Never mind about that! You do your job and I’ll do mine.”
Taggart stood beside Hardin. “We’re doing it.”
Pettibone said, “Take him to the station.” By “him” he meant Jack Bauer. “I’ll get rid of the car and be by directly to pick him up and take him to Winnetou.” Taggart said, “Sure you can handle that car by yourself?”
Pettibone said, “Hell, yeah! I got me a set of chains and binders in the back of the truck. I’ll hook one end up to the car’s rear axle, drag it to the other side of the road, and push it off the cliff. I know what I’m doing, I used to
