C. Graham - The Solomon Effect

The desk clerk, a small man with fair, receding straight hair and a long, thin nose, threw a nervous glance toward the front of the inn. A worried spasm crossed his nipped features. “Where?”

“The black GL-Class. Next to our red Jetta.”

He cleared his throat. “You would like me to phone the police?”

“I don’t think we need to do that.” Jax laid the Jetta’s key on the desk, along with a hundred marks. “The last thing we want to do is disrupt your patrons with an unpleasant incident. Perhaps you could simply bring our car up to the front and leave it running for us?”

The man’s thin nose quivered. Germans hated scenes almost as much as the British. His hand closed around the key-and the hundred-mark note. “Yes. It would be better. I’ll get it right away.”

“And leave both doors open, would you?” Jax called after him.

They stood just inside the door and watched the man walk briskly across the shadowy lot toward their car. “As soon as he pulls up in front,” Jax told Tobie, “we run out and jump in the car. I’ll drive.”

“But it’s rented in my n-” she began, then broke off. She’d never seen anyone who could handle a car the way Jax could. “All right. But please, please don’t wreck it.”

“I’ll try.” They watched the Jetta’s reverse lights come on, just as the big SUV beside it roared to life. “Here he comes.” Jax slapped open the gasthaus door. “Now.”

They sprinted down the short walk to the curb. Tobie dove in the Jetta’s passenger door, pulling it shut behind her just as Jax hit the gas. They were halfway out the parking lot before Jax’s door slammed shut.

He spun the wheel, the Jetta’s backend fishtailing as they screeched out onto the narrow country road. “What’s he doing?”

Tobie swung around to stare out the back window. Careening out of the parking lot on two wheels, the big Mercedes barreled after them. A second GL-Class roared after it.

“Shit. There’s two of them!”

Jax floored it, the engine whining as he shifted rapidly up through the gears.

They tore through a darkened countryside of flat farmland edged with hedgerows, the road curving around shadowy groves of silent trees. As they pulled clear of the last straggling houses of the village, the first SUV swung out into the opposite lane, hit the gas, and laid on his horn. Jax yanked the wheel to the left and swerved into him.

Tobie let out a yelp. “What are you doing? He’s bigger than we are!”

Jax flashed her a grin. “Yeah. But is he braver?”

She made a grab for the armrest. “Oh, my God.”

At the last possible nanosecond, the Mercedes chickened out and dropped back, horn blaring.

“See?” said Jax, spinning the wheel again.

“You’re crazy.”

Tires squealing, he rocked the Jetta back and forth across the centerline, weaving from side to side, cutting off the SUV each time it tried to creep up beside them.

Suddenly, the headlights of an approaching car pierced the darkness, bearing down on them. Tires screeched. Jax cut back into his own lane the instant before a sleek BMW convertible whipped past, its angry driver leaning on his horn.

The Mercedes swung back out into the other lane again, moving up fast. Jax hit the gas, crowding him over.

Tobie said, “Uh…curve coming!”

“I see it.” Shifting down, Jax cut back into his own lane.

The SUV stayed in the other lane, pulling abreast of them as they swung around the bend.

“Oh, shit!” cried Tobie as a glare of lights hit her in the eyes. She heard the blast of a horn, the squeal of brakes. The driver of the SUV swerved to the left, careening off the far side of the road and down a small embankment to crash into a darkened stand of shrubs as a panel truck tore past in the opposite direction.

“What’s the second SUV doing?” said Jax, shifting rapidly back up to fifth.

Tobie craned around to stare at the twisting road behind them. “He’s staying with us. But it doesn’t look like he’s trying to crowd us.”

They raced through the dark night, past a farm with a looming old barn and a neat white picket fence that glowed out of the darkness. “I don’t get it,” she said, just as Jax’s phone began to ring.

He unclipped the phone from his belt and hit Speaker.

“What the fuck are you doing, Alexander?” demanded a man’s gruff voice. “You were supposed to pull over.”

Jax cast a quick, incredulous glance at the phone. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You just ran my guys off the road.”

Jax raised his gaze to the rearview mirror. The second Mercedes was still there, its headlights two bright unwavering points of light racing after them. “Who the hell are you?”

“This is Agent Farnsworth, with Homeland Security.”

Jax kept his foot on the gas. “Like that explains anything?”

“You’re in trouble, smartass.”

When Jax said nothing, the voice barked, “Pull over, damn it. We need to talk.”

Jax smiled and feather-edged a corner, the Jetta’s engine purring. “We are talking.”

“Just pull the fuck over.”

Jax said, “I’ll pull over when I can see you in a well-lit area with lots of people around.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. Just careful.”

There was a moment’s fuming silence. Farnsworth said, “There’s a village about a mile up ahead. Will that do?”

“Probably.”

The houses whizzing past on either side were growing closer together. Jax eased up on the gas. They thumped across a narrow old stone bridge, into a main street where the curtained windows of close-packed stuccoed houses glowed brightly with light. A man in a raincoat and hat looked up as they passed, the little wire-haired dachshund at the end of his leash letting out a halfhearted woof.

“It’s well lit, with lots of people,” barked the voice on the phone. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

Near the far outskirts of the village they came upon a closed market, its small lot well lit by a high bank of sulfurous lights. Rolling into the lot, Jax threw the Jetta into reverse and backed into a slot just in front of the market’s closed doors, his headlights stabbing out into the lot.

“I want you to park directly across from me and turn off your lights,” he said into the phone.

“You got it, asshole.”

Jax watched the big Mercedes back into the row across from them. Turning the phone off Speaker, he covered the mike and whispered to Tobie, “Get out your gun and cover me.”

She dug the compact Beretta out of her bag. “You know I can’t shoot, right?”

“You’ve got twelve bullets. If anything goes wrong, just point it in these guys’ direction and let it rip.”

Tobie eased off the safety with trembling fingers. “Right.”

“Now open your door, slowly, and stand behind it,” he told her quietly. “Keep your gun out of sight, but ready.”

She nodded and cautiously lifted the handle of the door.

On the far side of the parking lot, the driver of the Mercedes killed his lights. Jax could see two tall figures silhouetted against the streetlamp behind them.

Agent Farnsworth said, “What now, asshole?”

“Now get out of your car. Carefully. If you’ve got an ID, I want it in your hands. And that had better be all that’s in your hands. Hold your ID up to your chest with both hands and walk across the lot toward me. Your friend stays in the car.”

“You got it.” The passenger door of the Mercedes swung open. A tall, lean man slid out carefully and began to walk toward them.

Jax opened his own door and slowly straightened, his Beretta in his hand. He waited until the guy was maybe three feet away, then said, “That’s far enough.”