Clive Cussler - Treasure

He was left with no alternative but to reach the summit with enough time to take a chair lift down the mountain to the town and become lost in the crowds.

"We're boiling," Giordino observed.

Pitt didn't need to see the steam starting to issue around the base of the radiator cap; he'd been watching the needle on the temperature gauge creep upward until it was pegged on HOT.

"The engine was rebuilt with close tolerances," he explained. "We've given it too much of a beating before it had a chance to break in."

"What do we do when the road ends?" asked Giordino.

"Plan two," answered Pitt. "We take a leisurely ride down a chair lift to the nearest saloon."

"I like your style, but the war's not over." Giordino nodded over his shoulder. "Our friends are back."

Pitt had been too busy to keep track of his pursuers. They had recovered from the accident and charged up the mountain after the Cord.

Before he could look behind, bullets shattered the rear window between Lily's and Hala's heads, traversed the car and passed cleanly through the windshield, leaving three small, starred holes. The women didn't have to be told to crouch on the floor again. This time they tried to melt into it.

"I think they're mad about the wrench," said Giordino,

"Not half as mad as I am over the way they're trashing my car."

Pitt hauled the car around a steep switchback, and when he straightened oirt again, he turned and stole a quick look at the chasing cars. The rearward view was not lacking in menace.

The twin Mercedes were violently slewing all over the snow-covered road.

Their superior speed was partially offset by the Cord's front-wheel traction. Pitt pulled away in the tight turns, but the Arabs narrowed the gap in the straightaways.

Pitt caught a glimpse of the lead driver twisting and turning his wheel like a maniac, ignoring caution and keeping the rear-drive wheels in a constant state of spin. At every switchback he came within a hair of sliding into heavy snow and becoming hopelessly stuck.

Pitt was surprised that the Mercedes showed no signs of wearing snow tires. He couldn't have known the Arabs had driven the cars over the border from Mexico to muddy their trail. Registered to a nonexistent textile company in Matamoros, they were to be abandoned at the Breckenridge airport after Hala's assassination was completed.

Pitt didn't like what he saw. The Mercedes were moving relentlessly closer. They were only fifty meters behind. He also didn't like the sight of a man sticking an automatic rifle through the smashed windshield.

"Here comes the mail!" he shouted, slipping under the wheel until his eyes barely peered over the top of the dashboard. "Everyone down!"

The words were barely out of his mouth when bullets began thumping into the Cord. One burst ripped the right fendermounted spare tire and wheel. The next tore through the roof, shredding the leather padding and mangling the metal skin underneath.

Pitt tensed and tried to duck even lower as the left side of the car was cut open as if attacked by an army of can openers. The hinges flew off a rear door and it fell open, hanging grotesquely for a few moments until it was torn away as the Cord brushed a tree. Glass fragments flew like rain. One of the women screamed, he didn't know which one. He became aware of a fine spray of blood on the dashboard. A bullet had ploughed a furrow through one of Giordino's ears, but the gritty little Italian made no sound.

Giordino probed the wound indifferently, almost as though it belonged to someone else. Then he tilted his head and gave Pitt a slanted grin. "I fear last night's wine is leaking out."

"Is it bad?" Pitt asked.

"Nothing a plastic surgeon can't fix for two thousand dollars. What about the women?"

Pitt shouted without turning. "Lily, are you and Hala all right?"

"A few scratches from flying glass," Lily replied gamely. "Otherwise we're unhurt." She was good and scared but not anywhere near the edge of panic.

The steam from the Cord's radiator was escaping like a high-pressure jet now. Pitt could feel the engine lose revolutions as it slowly began to seize up. Like a jockey riding a tired old nag long overdue for the pasture, he pushed the car as hard as he dared.

He worked coolly, concentrating on hurling the Cord around the last switchback before the summit. He had gambled and failed to elude the assassins. They clung to his rear bumper as if chained there.

The engine bearings began to rattle in protest from the excessive heat and strain. Another volley of bullets peppered the left rear fender and flattened the tire. Pitt fought the wheel to keep the rear end from careening off the side of the road and dragging the car down a 60-percent grade filled with large jagged boulders.

The Cord was dying. Ominous blue smoke filtered through the hood louvers. Beneath the engine, oil seeped through a gouge torn in the oil pan by a rock Pitt could not avoid. The oil pressure gauge quickly registered zero. any chance of making the temporary safety of the summit became more remote with each knock of the piston rods.

The lead Mercedes charged around the switchback in a wild skid. Pitt clutched the wheel despairingly. He could picture the look of triumph on his pursuers' faces as they sensed they were seconds away from naming their prey to the ground.

He saw no place for a desperation escape on foot. They were trapped on the narrow road between a steep drop on one side and a sharp rocky rise on the other. There was nowhere to go but ahead until the Cord's engine gave up and froze.

Pitt jammed the accelerator pedal against the floorboard with all the strength in his leg and uttered a fast prayer.

Incredibly, the battle-weary old classic had something more to give. As though a mechanical engine had a mind of its own, it reached down into its iron and steel for one final, magnificent effort. The engine revolutions suddenly increased, the front wheels dug in, and the Cord wiggled up the final grade to the sunmiit. A minute later, through clouds of blue smoke and white steam, it broke out onto the open crest of a ski run.

Not one hundred meters away stood the upper end of a triple-chair ski lift. At first Pitt thought it strange that no one was skiing on the slope directly below the Cord. people were dropping off the chairs and turning toward the opposite side of the lift before starting down a parallel ski trail.

Then he observed his section of the slope was roped off. Several signs hung on a line festooned with bright orange streamers warning skiers not to ski this run because of dangerous, icy conditions.

"The end of the trail," Giordino said solemnly.

Pitt nodded in frustration. "We can't make a break for the lift. They'd shoot us down before we ran ten meters."

"It's either fight them with snowballs or take our chances and surrender."

"Or we can try plan three."

Giordino peered at Pitt curiously. "Can't be any worse than the first two." Then his eyes widened and he groaned, "You're not-oh, God, no!"

The two Mercedes were almost within spitting distance. They had pulled side by side to box in the Cord when Pitt twisted the wheel and sent the car plummeting down the ski run.

"Allah help us," muttered lsmafl's driver. "The crazy idiots. We can't stop them."

"Keep after them!" Ismail shouted hysterically. "Don't let them escape."

"They'll die anyway. No one can survive a runaway car down a mountainside."

Ismafl swung his gun barrel and roughly pushed the muzzle into his driver's ear. "Catch those pigs," he snarled viciously, "or you'll see Allah sooner than you planned."

The driver hesitated, seeing death no matter which move he made. Then he gave in and turned the Mercedes down the steep incline after the Cord.

"Allah guide my actions," he uttered in sudden fear.