First order of business was to do a quick equipment appraisal.
Evan’s scuffed knuckles, a fetching post-fight shade of eggplant, ledged the steering wheel. His nose was freshly broken, leaking a trickle of crimson. Nothing bad, more a shifting along old fault lines.
He inspected his nose in the rearview, then reached up and snapped it back into place.
The Cadillac’s alignment pulled to the right, threatening to dump him into the rain-filled roadside ditch. The seat springs poked into the backs of his thighs, and the fabric, dotted with cigarette scorch marks, reeked of menthol. The dome light housed a bare, burned-out bulb, the brake disks made a noise like an asphyxiating chicken, and the left rear brake light was out.
He should have stolen a better car.
Rain dumped down. That was Portland for you. Or—if he was being precise—a country road outside Hillsboro.
Big drops turned the roof into a tin drum. Water sluiced across the windshield, rooster-tailed from the tires.
He sledded around a bend, passing a billboard. A moment later smeared red-and-blue lights illuminated the Caddy’s rear window.
A cop.
The broken brake light.
That was inconvenient.
Especially on this car, since a BOLO had likely been issued. The cop would be running the plate number now if he hadn’t already.
Evan blew out a breath. Leaned harder into the gas pedal.
Here came the sirens. The headlights grew larger.
Evan could see the silhouette of the officer behind the wheel. So much like a shooting target—head and chest, all critical mass.
Hillsboro prided itself on being one of the safest cities in the Pacific Northwest. Evan hoped to keep it that way.
As he popped the brakes and jerked the wheel, the heap of a car rocked on its shocks, fanning onto an intersecting road.
Two more cop cars swept in behind him from the opposite direction.
Evan sighed.
Three patrol cars lit up like Christmas, sirens screaming, spreading out across both lanes and closing in.
That was when the thumping from the trunk grew more pronounced.
He checked the wheel, loose enough to jog two inches in either direction with no effect on the steering. He was going to have to attempt tactical driving maneuvers in a car that should not be highway-approved.
Evan had spent a portion of the summer of his fifteenth year on a specialized course in the sticks of Virginia with Jack in the passenger seat keeping one hand on the wheel, steering him through everything from evasive driving to acceleration techniques in challenging traction environments.
Just another kid out with his old man, learning to drive.
In their final conversation, he’d told Jack, I wouldn’t trade knowing you for anything. He felt it now not as a sentiment but as a warmth in his chest. He was glad he’d gotten the words out.
The Cadillac backfired. The motor sounded like it had a marble loose in it. Evan grimaced.
All right, Jack. Let’s do this together.
He started to alternate brake and gas, playing with the pursuing cruisers, forcing them to alter their lineup. At last one separated from the pack, moving bullishly to the fore.
Evan held the wheel steady, luring the lead car closer.
A crackly loudspeaker pierced the rain. “Pull over immediately! Repeat: Pull to the side of the road!”
Evan called back to the girl in the trunk, “You might want to brace yourself.”
The girl shouted, “Great!”
He unholstered his ARES.
Seventeen bullets.
The lead car crept up alongside him, nosing parallel to the Caddy’s rear tires.
The PIT maneuver, or precision immobilization technique, was adapted from an illegal bump-and-run strategy used in stock-car racing. The pursuing car taps the target vehicle just behind the back wheel, then veers hard into the car and accelerates. The target vehicle loses traction and spins out.
The lead cop car was preparing for it now.
Unfortunately for him, so was Evan.
He waited, letting the cruiser ease a few more inches into position at the rear of the Caddy.
Then he hit the brakes.
He flew backward, catching a streak of the driver’s Oh, shit face as he rocketed by.
The cars had perfectly reversed positions, the do-si-do taking all of half a second.
Evan crumpled the sturdy prow of the Caddy into the rear of the cruiser, steered into the crash, and stomped on the gas pedal.
The cruiser acquiesced to the laws of physics, sheering sideways. It wrapped around the grille of the Cadillac in a series of elegant mini-collisions before fishtailing off. As Evan motored ahead onto open road, he watched in the rearview as the cruiser wiped out one of its confederates, wadding them both into the roadside ditch, where they steamed in a tangle of bent chassis and collapsed tires.
One set of headlights held steady, navigating through, sticking to the Caddy’s rear.
A quarter mile flew by, then another, as Evan and the last cop standing gauged each other.
The cop finally feinted forward, trying to steer into position, but Evan held him off by veering squarely in front of him. They kept on that way, swerving unevenly across the sodden road, the cruiser coming on, Evan answering with avoidance maneuvers.
The Caddy was growing weary, the reaction time a little worse by the second. Evan was pushing it to the limit, but it was a low limit.
He eyed the mirror. The cruiser gathered itself on its haunches, readying to dart forward again to deal a decisive blow.
All right, Jack. What next?
First of all, get off your heels, son. The Ninth Commandment: Always play offense.
“Right,” Evan said to the empty passenger seat.
He raised his 1911, turned away, and shot out the windshield. It spiderwebbed, but the laminate held it in place. With the heel of his hand, Evan knocked out the ruined glass, and rain crashed in over him, a wave of spiky cold. Evan stomped the brake hard and whipped the wheel around. The boat tilted severely as the back swung forward, sloughing through mud. For a moment Evan thought it might flip.
But it righted itself into a sloppy 180, Evan jerking the transmission into reverse and letting the wheel spool back through his loose fists. Gears screamed.
So did the girl in the trunk.
Already he’d seated the gas pedal against the floor, capturing what forward momentum he’d had, except now he was driving in reverse.
Nose to nose with the cruiser, their bumpers nearly kissing.
The young cop at the wheel blinked at him.
They hurtled along the road, two kids in a standoff on a seesaw.
Except the seesaw was traveling fifty miles per hour.
Wind howled around the maw of the windshield. Driving backward protected Evan from the rain. He had a clear view over the top of his pistol and no bullet-deflecting glass between him and the target.
Before the cop could react, Evan jogged the wheel slightly, offsetting the vehicles, opening up an angle to the side of the cruiser.
He shot out the front tire.
Fifteen rounds left.
As the cruiser wobbled and lost acceleration, Evan braked in time with it, holding it in his pistol sights the entire way.
Both cars slowed, slowed, gently nodding to their respective halts. They faced each other about ten yards apart.
Pistol locked on the cop, Evan got out of the Caddy. His boots shoved mounds in the soggy ground. The rain had stopped, but the air still felt pregnant, raising beads of condensation on his skin. His shirt felt like a wet rag.
The cop was still buckled in, fingers locked on the steering wheel, collecting himself.
“Out,” Evan said. “Hands.”
The cop unbuckled and climbed out. Sweat trickled down his face, clung to the strands of his starter mustache. He stood in the V of his open door. Evan indicated for him to step clear of the car, which he did. He looked earnest and stalwart standing there before the block lettering of his cruiser: HILLSBORO PD. A holstered Glock rode his right hip. His hands were shaking, but only slightly. He wore a wedding ring.
A muffled voice yelled from the Caddy’s trunk, “Don’t do it! Don’t you hurt him!”
The cop stiffened, licked his lips. “Who’s that?”