Jerome Preisler - Net Force--Attack Protocol

But he needed to reach the crossroads. He would get nowhere otherwise. And the riders were in his way. There was really no decision to be made.

Bracing himself, Zolcu slammed on the gas and shot toward the lead bike.

Carmody broke radio silence to tell Kali to pull off, resisting the urge to do the same as the Regera swelled out of the darkness. Instead, he roared directly toward it, lining himself up between its headlights, reaching across his body with his left hand to draw his Sig. It was his weaker hand by far, but with his throttle on his right side, he could either take his chances or wind up a smear on the car’s front fender.

He had less than a second to choose his target. He could aim for the windshield, but it was probably ballistic glass. The driver might slow down a little, but a few shots in passing wouldn’t do much to stop him.

Trying to take him in a single swoop wouldn’t work. He would need several passes.

The Sig balanced in his fist, he held its barrel over his handlebars and angled the gun toward the car’s left headlight, taking quick aim. Two shots, right on the money, and the headlight disintegrated in a spray of glass. But the Regera kept belting toward him, snarling like an angry cyclops.

Riding one-handed, Carmody veered to his extreme right to avoid it, leaning hard in that direction. The car shot by to his left, missing him by inches as he roared past its passenger side, eased off the throttle, and swung back around behind it, staring at its taillights now, facing north, ready to make his second run.

Then its driver did something unexpected.

What Zolcu did was make another snap decision based on limited options. The Ninja’s rider had improbably aimed, fired, and blown out his headlight. Fired accurately with one hand from the back of a speeding motorcycle. And now he and his gun were right on his tail.

But Zolcu had certain skills of his own, and one of them was knowing how to handle a car. He would shake off the driver and make sure he stayed off.

Cutting the wheel sharply left with one hand, he pulled his passenger-side tires onto the gravel shoulder, lifted his foot off the gas, and engaged his e-brake with his free hand to lock the rear tires. Then he cranked the wheel hard to his right so the Regera began to spin like a propeller, its front tires scraping for traction, the weight of the engine under its hood whipping it around clockwise. He breathed in as it turned ninety degrees in a controlled skid, breathed out, and lowered the emergency brake to release it, restoring traction to the front tires with his foot still off the gas, letting the rotation continue until he turned a full one hundred eighty degrees into the left lane and was again heading north.

Zolcu’s reversal of direction took under three seconds. He could now see the rider about thirty yards up ahead, facing him from the Ninja’s saddle, coming straight toward him. Less than a mile farther on behind the rider, the sky bled orange and red from the flames raging alongside the blasted roadway.

He stared out his windshield. The bike kept rushing at him. He could hear the throb of its engine. He could see its rider leaning down over the handlebars, his black-gloved hand still wrapped around the gun. He was getting ready to fire again.

Cursing under his breath, Zolcu jammed his foot down on the gas and went at him head-on.

When the distance between them shrank to six or seven yards, Carmody opened his throttle hard, extending the Sig over his handlebars in his left fist. Then he took aim and pulled the trigger.

Three things happened as a result.

The right headlight blew to bits and pieces, spraying outward in a jagged constellation of glass. The Regera’s driver instinctively wrenched his wheel to the left, away from the shots, swerving toward the road’s soft shoulder from the south. And Carmody sliced to his right, onto the same dirt shoulder, from the north.

Neither vehicle slowed. They were still rushing toward each other, this time at the extreme edge of the road, a scant few yards separating them.

Carmody knew he had no chance of surviving a head-on collision. But if he tried swinging away from the Regera’s turn into the southbound lane, he would slam into its angling right flank and probably wind up dead anyway.

He had time for just one move.

As the Regera came within inches of him, he cut his handlebars abruptly to the right and veered off-road onto the bordering pasture. His front wheel jarred over the lip of the frozen grass. His rear wheel tagged along, and then he was completely on uneven ground, heading east, cross-country, rocking and bouncing and swaying astride the motorcycle. His headlight beams cast a silvery shimmer over the snowfield, reflecting off the colossal haystacks scattered ahead and around him like a village of high, white igloos.

He heard the furious pulse of an engine and glanced into his rear-camera display. The Regera. It was fifteen yards or so behind him. Following in a taper-straight line. In the pitch darkness and without headlights.

Carmody knew immediately that its driver could not only see him but see the whole pasture around them. And not with his naked eye. The Regera had a two-million-dollar price tag. It would have something better than the Ninja’s rearview camera onboard. Probably long-range night-vision cameras. Forward and rear.

He checked his side mirror and saw the car gaining on him. Checked his digital speedometer and saw that he was pushing eighty. Fast for riding off-road on snow and ice. Too fast. The Ninja wasn’t built for it. It was too low-slung. Its wide, smooth tires weren’t designed for gripping and quick turns. It was light for a street bike and had a good engine, probably over a hundred horsepower, but the Regera’s engine could generate ten times that. And it would have all-wheel drive and suspension, giving it balance and traction he lacked.

He sped forward. Glanced at the mirror again. The Regera was getting closer. He estimated that his own headlights gave him four hundred feet of visibility. The optics on the Regera’s cameras would reach much farther, but the driver would find it hard keeping his eyes on the dash for more than a few seconds. Cars weren’t like planes. They weren’t meant to drive on instruments. There were obstacles on the ground. There was glare and spatial distortion. And it would take getting used to the angle of sight. To the awkward posture. That wasn’t the sort of thing anyone practiced. It would slow his reactions.

Carmody looked up ahead. The cluster of haystacks he’d spotted from the road was about sixty yards off and slightly to his left. He would reach it in seconds. Time for his cat and mouse to end.

“Outlier, you in position?”

“Yes.”

His molars clicked.

“Good,” he said. “Coming right at you.”

“Eyes on the road,” said the Regera’s canned feminine voice.

Zolcu swore aloud as he bumped over the field. The driver-alert system had read the bent position of his head and determined he was either nodding off or paying unsafe attention to his dash screen. As if he were a stoned-out teenager mucking with his stereo settings.

The stupidity of a commercial AI could never be underestimated. Bad enough being without headlights, he could barely stand that badgering, repetitive voice. How had Drajan failed to disable it?

He kept his focus on the screen and did his best to block the alerts from his mind. The motorcycle’s lead was down to a handful of yards. Directly ahead of it were three stacks of hay made up of dozens of large, compressed bales. Zolcu had grown up in this farm country and guessed each of the bales weighed five hundred pounds. In this brutally cold weather, they would be frozen and dense. If the bike struck one of the haystacks going at its present speed, it would be like hitting a solid wall.