Clive Cussler - Dragon

Pitt cramped the wheel as they hit the highway outside the racetrack, careening sideways in a protesting screech of rubber, fishtailing down the highway in chase of the Lincoln.

“They’ve got a heavy lead,” Mancuso said sharply.

“We can cut it,” Pitt said in determination. He snapped the wheel to one side and then back again to dodge a car entering the two-lane highway from a side road. “Until they’re certain they’re being chased, they won’t drive over the speed limit and risk being stopped by a cop. The best we can do is keep them in sight until the state police can intercept.”

Pitt’s theory was on the money. The charging Stutz began to gain on the limousine.

Mancuso nodded through the windshield. “They’re turning onto Highway Five along the James River.”

Pitt drove with a loose and confident fury. The Stutz was in its element on a straight road with gradual turns. He loved the old car, its complex machinery, the magnificent styling, and fabulous engine.

Pitt pushed the old car hard, driving like a demon. The pace was too much for the Stutz, but Pitt talked to it, ignoring the strange look on Mancuso’s face, urging and begging it to run beyond its limits.

And the Stutz answered.

To Mancuso it was incredible. It seemed to him that Pitt was physically lifting the car to higher speeds. He stared at the speedometer and saw the needle touching ninety-eight mph. The dynamic old machine had never been driven that fast when it was new. Mancuso held on to the door as Pitt shot around cars and trucks, passing several at one time, so fast Mancuso was amazed they didn’t spin off the road on a tight bend.

Mancuso heard another sound above the exhaust of the Stutz and looked up from the open chauffeur’s compartment into the sky. “We have a helicopter riding herd,” he announced.

“Police?”

“No markings. It looks commercial.”

“Too bad we don’t have a radio.”

They had drawn up within two hundred meters of the limousine when the Stutz was discovered, and the Lincoln carrying Loren immediately began to pick up speed and slip away.

Then to add to the growing setback, a good ole farm boy driving a big Dodge pickup truck with two rifles slung across the rear window spotted the antique auto climbing up his truck bed and decided to do a little funnin’ to keep the Stutz from passing.

Every time Pitt pulled over the center line to overtake the Dodge, the wiry oily-haired driver, who grinned with half a mouth of vacant teeth, just cackled and veered to the opposite side of the road, cutting the Stutz off.

Mancuso pulled his little automatic from its ankle holster. “I’ll put one through the clown’s windshield.”

“Give me a chance to bulldog him,” said Pitt.

Bulldogging was an old-time race driver’s trick. Pitt eased up on the right side of the Dodge, then backed off and came at the other. He repeated the process, not trying to force his way past, but taking control of the situation.

The skinny truck driver swerved side to side to block what he thought were Pitt’s attempts to pass. Holding the Stutz at bay after numerous assaults, his head began to swivel to see where the old classic car was coming from next.

And then he made the mistake Pitt was hoping for.

He lost his concentration on a curve and slipped onto the gravel shoulder. His next mistake was to oversteer. The Dodge whipped wildly back and forth and then hurtled off the road, rolling over in a clump of low trees and bushes before coming to rest on its top and crushing a hornet’s nest.

The farm boy was only bruised in the crash, but the hornets almost killed him before he escaped the upside-down truck and leaped into a nearby pond.

“Slick work,” said Mancuso, staring back.

Pitt allowed a quick grin. “It’s called methodical recklessness.”

The grin vanished as he swerved around a truck and saw a flatbed trailer stopped on the blind side of a curve. The truck had lost part of its cargo, three oil barrels that had fallen off the trailer. One had burst and spread a wide greasy slick on the pavement. The white limousine had missed striking the truck but lost traction in the oil and made two complete 360-degree circles before its driver incredibly straightened it out and darted ahead.

The Stutz went into a sideways four-wheel drift, tires smoking, the sun flashing on its polished wheel covers. Mancuso braced himself for the impact against the rear of the truck he was sure would come.

Pitt fought the skid for a horrifying hundred meters before the black tire marks were finally behind him. Then he was into the oil. He didn’t touch his brakes or fight the car but shoved in the clutch and let the car roll free and straight over the slippery pool. Then he eased the car along the grass shoulder beside the road until the tires were rid of the oil, then resumed the chase only a few seconds now behind the Lincoln.

After the near miss, Mancuso was amazed to see Pitt blithely carry on as if he was on a Sunday drive.

“The helicopter?” Pitt asked conversationally.

Mancuso bent his head back. “Still with us. Flying above and to the right of the limo.”

“I have a gut feeling they’re working together.”

“Does seem strange there are no markings on the bird,” agreed Mancuso.

“If they’re armed, we could be in for a bad time.”

Mancuso nodded. “That’s a fact. My pea shooter won’t do much against automatic assault weapons from the air.”

“Still, they could have opened up and shut off our water miles back.”

“Speaking of water,” said Mancuso, pointing at the radiator.

The strain on the old car was beginning to tell. Steam was hissing from the filler cap under the sun goddess, and oil was streaking from the louvers of the hood. And as Pitt braked before a tight turn, he might just as well have raised a sail. The brake lining was overheated and badly faded. The only event that occurred when Pitt pushed the pedal was the flash of the taillights.

Pitt had visions of Loren tied and gagged in the plush rear seat of the limousine. Fear and anxiety swept through him like a gust of icy wind. Whoever abducted her might have already murdered her. He pushed the terrible thought from his mind and told himself the kidnappers could not afford to lose her as a hostage. But if they harmed her, they would die, he vowed ruthlessly.

Driving as if possessed, he was consumed with determination to rescue Loren. Using every scrap of his stubborn spirit, he pursued the Lincoln relentlessly.

“We’re holding on to them,” Mancuso observed.

“They’re toying with us,” Pitt replied, eyeing the road between the sun goddess hood ornament and the rear bumper of the white limousine racing only fifty meters ahead. “They should have enough power to leave us in their fumes.”

“Could be an engine problem.”

“I don’t think so. The driver is a professional. He’s maintained an exact distance between us since the oil spill.”

Mancuso looked at his watch as the sun’s rays flashed through the trees branching over the road. “Where in hell are the state police?”

“Chasing all over the countryside. Giordino has no way of knowing which direction we took.”

“You can’t keep up this pace much longer.”

“Al will smell out our trail,” Pitt said with complete confidence in his longtime friend.

Mancuso tilted his head as his ears picked up a new sound. He rose up on his knees and looked back and upward through the overhanging trees. He began waving madly.

“What is it?” Pitt asked, decelerating around a sharp turn and over a short bridge that spanned a narrow stream, his foot pushing the near useless brake pedal to the floor.

“I think the cavalry has arrived,” Mancuso shouted excitedly.