Gauntlet Run: Birth of a Superhero by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, & Andrew McCoy
“Nothing, sir.”
The people in Washington, as opposed to the local hicks, knew who he was and treated him with proper respect.
“So she could be anywhere on any link road whatsoever?”
“No sir. Interstate 80 runs straight on but on any link road she would have to run through a town with Watcheyes and we've been through the tapes. She’s on Interstate 80, unless she stopped somewhere.”
“She didn’t stop,” he said with absolute conviction, though he knew nothing firm to support the conviction. “She’s behind me on Eighty now.”
“Where are you, sir?”
“Evanston, Wyoming,” he told her, and waved at the Watcheye on the traffic signal.
“Right, I got you on the screen,” she said a moment later. “What happened to your face?”
“Never mind that. Ask your computer how far behind me she is, huh.”
“Do you want me to wake up the Evanston police?”
“No, don’t do that!” He waited until he brought his breath under control. “Look here, when I catch her, I’ll come up to DC and buy you the best dinner ever, how’s that? But I need to do it alone.”
“Gee, great! Just a sec, now.”
He drummed impatiently against the steering wheel while he waited.
“The least she could behind you is three minutes,” the girl in Washington told him. He straightened in the car seat. “And the most?”
“The computer won’t say. ‘Too many imponderables’, it says on my screen here. But she can’t be in front of you unless she broke the speed limit.”
“No, that would be stupid.” He settled himself comfortably in the Flyer’s seat again and watched Evanston’s main drag. Unless that goddamn woman turned off — and why should she? — everything was going her way — she would have to come through here.
The Watcheyes found her first. “She’s thirty seconds from you. Don’t forget my dinner,” the voice in Washington told him.
He fired up the Flyer and pulled it into the traffic just as Henty came by. The policeman’s cap in the back window incensed him: this woman kept taking Caring Society property and wrecking it! She knew no respect for what was right and proper. It was up to him to teach her a lesson. A permanent lesson.
That time of the morning, traffic was sparse; Evanston was hardly awake. He saw her glance in his direction and sank down in the seat until only his eyes were above the windowsill, feeling stupid about the instinctive action almost immediately because the glass was smoked and she couldn’t possibly see him.
CHAPTER 55
Henty recognized the discreet logo of the Chaser Bank on the door but was not perturbed: Chaser morguemobiles were everywhere, ready to rush out to accidents and reclaim bodies — and, some claimed, hurt but still living people — for their organ banks. Nor was she worried when the Flyer morguemobile took to the road with her because the only two other cars on the road with them were between them. She assumed the morguemobile driver was working on commission, so the man was cruising the highway, waiting for a pileup in that treacherous dawn light. She had no intention of crashing.
One of the cars pulled into the Last Chance service station and Henty glanced at the needle: plenty of fuel in the tank. She would refuel in the morning rush hour when she passed through Salt Lake City’s dormitory towns on her way to joining US-50. The other car turned onto a rutted dirt road half-amile outside Evanston.
Now Henty could see the Zuffhausen Flyer a hundred yards behind her, lazily holding station. It was a well-known tactic of Chaser Bank employees, to spook drivers into accidents; there were rumors of organ bank employees deliberately causing accidents to generate the bodies that earned them their commissions. But those chasers drove hefty 4WDs with three-inch stainless steel bull bars all round so that there was never any evidence against them. This Flyer lacked bull bars and was anyway lighter than the policeman’s Cadillac she drove. Henty decided to ignore him.
In convoy, they passed the sign and crossed into Utah.
Henty watched the mirror very carefully and also he.dsd her breath. Like all commission workers, the organ bank chasers were allocated strictly enforced territories. It was highly unlikely that such a territory would cross the convenient demarcation line of a state border and in any event the chasers were licensed by the States and the job protection laws made it virtually impossible for anyone in a state-licensed profession to practice in more than one state.
Three miles into Utah, Henty clicked the cruise control off, held 55 milesperhour for a couple of minutes and then, grimly, breathing evenly, increased speed ever so slowly so that, ten minutes later, she was covering 70 in every hour. All this time the Flyer never grew any smaller or larger in her mirror.
“Hello, Mr Bloody Banker,” Henty said to her mirror. She slowed back to 55 and switched the cruise control back in. “Next move’s up to you.”
Now she drove with one eye permanently on the mirror and one on the road in front of her.
An hour later Henty was white in the face with the tension and her teeth were clenched in frustration. There was more traffic now as people from outlying areas headed to their jobs. But still the banker held his distance. Sometimes he would let other drivers come momentarily between them but soon the other drivers would pass Henty as well and then he would be in her mirror again.
At Santaquin Henty refueled. The Flyer stopped across the road until she pulled out, then pulled in to refuel too. H“What the devil’s he up to?” Henty asked herself. They had already covered a good deal of open road with very little traffic if he wanted to take her. But now, as they passed through Heber, the routefinder showed her several closely spaced towns: Provo, Spanish Fork, Payson, Santaquin, Eureka. After Eureka, there was an hour’s clear run to Delta, then just a road without towns through the desert and into Nevada, the next town being Ely, forty miles into Nevada. He won’t do anything until beyond Eureka, Henty decided. He wants to take me where there’s no chance of local citizens then grabbing me or the Fist from him.
Henty was only two miles towards Eureka when he came up behind her in a big hurry and braked sharply to settle down at his self-imposed distance. Henty’s hands clenched on the wheel and her face set. She was hungry and thirsty and tired and, most of all, she wanted a long, long cold shower and to sleep twenty-four hours straight in a comfortable bed between cool sheets. And she wanted to be free from fear, not to be hunted.
“Eureka!” Henty shouted. But it was to relieve some of the bottled-up tension and in greeting for the town, not because she had any idea. The initiative was firmly in the banker’s hands. His car was faster and would easily out-handle a vast, soft Cadillac.
And out the other side of Eureka they drove. Henty was determined that her nerve shouldn’t break, though more than once her hand hovered over the cruise control on-off switch and her foot over the accelerator. Ten miles, fifteen, twenty.
“Come on!” Henty shouted. “Make your move!”
Still the smoked windows of the Flyer fifty yards behind her mocked her blankly in her mirror.
By the time they passed through Delta, Henty was a nervous wreck: she knew it was stupid, that that was his intention, that she was playing into his hands, but still she could not help it. Her fatigue and fear and the continual pressure were combining to disintegrate her. She could take no more.
She would deal with that damn ghoul from the Chaser Organ Bank once and for all, even if she perished in the attempt. She would show him a little something about driving an American car.
She would show him some Texas spirit. Her thumb clicked the cruise control off. She held a steady fifty-five, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gear lever. She breathed deeply, letting her breath out slowly, one, two, three times.
Then she hit the shift straight through into low, Spun the wheel, jerked the handbrake, floored the accelerator, released the handbrake just at the right moment, and, having executed a perfect bootlegger’s u-turn, was heading for the Fl
“I've been persecuted enough! Hear me?” Henty screamed, both hands now firmly on the wheel, holding it dead straight ahead, her right foot trying to tread the accelerator through the floor, her left foot bracing herself firmly, her elbows and knees ready to absorb the impact.
Henty’s Cadillac was ten yards from the Flyer, its blacksmoked windows no longer mocking her, but reflecting no fear either. Grimly she held on. She would drive up the slope of its nose and the weight of the Cadillac would squash it like a bug.
“If you want to jump before it’s too late,” Henty said calmly, “that’s up to you.”
Five yards, fifteen feet.
But that banker didn’t make his living as an assassin of criminals without being cool and fast. At the very last moment he sashayed his Flyer past the roaring Cadillac as if he was doing nothing more important than disco-dancing.
Henty’s Cadillac spun out as she threw another moonshiner turn, the engine stalled, and for a moment she just sat there, shaking.
The moment was long enough for the banker to screech the Flyer to a near-halt beside the Cadillac and, jumping from the Flyer while it was still moving, to run up to the Cadillac and jerk her door open. He reach for reached for Henty.
Henty turned the key but the shift was still in Low. She jerked the lever into Park. She turned the key again. With her other hand, with the Fist, she grabbed the banker’s wrist and tore his hand from her blouse. He howled as bone cracked.
Everything stopped for a moment out of eternity. “Oh, sorry!” Henty said contritely.
Then his other hand clawed for her.
CHAPTER 56
The Cadillac’s engine fired and Henty’s other hand, already on the shift, dropped it into Reverse and, since her foot was already on the accelerator, the Cadillac shot off backwards like Muhammad Ali had socked it in the grille, dragging the banker behind the open door for about ten paces before he fell and rolled under the door.
Immediately he was up and running back to get at her.
Henty had just then braked sharply to free him, the door swung to with the change in direction and Henty found Drive and floored the accelerator.
The banker stood looking thoughtfully after her for a moment. There was no need to rush to his car: the Flyer could catch any Cadillac with fifty or sixty milesperhour to spare. But attacking rather than running, that was smarter than he gave her credit for. And her car was heavier than his. He thought about that while he dusted himself down and climbed into the Flyer and strapped himself in. Then he spun gravel under the rear wheels as he took off after her. When the rubber bit into the blacktop, flame spurted from under the tires as he floored the loud pedal in a low torque-multiplying gear. He barrelled down the road after Henty’s Cadillac.
Flat out, the Cadillac was good only for a spot over 100 milesperhour and even on a straight road its suspension wasn’t up to even that: the whole car was the legacy of too many years of stultifying speed limits.
Henty held on to the wheel for dear life, shaking the wheel as if that could make the Cadillac go faster. But the accelerator was flat to the floorboards already and the engine screamed in pain.
In the mirror Henty saw how effortlessly the Flyer caught up with her. She spent her frustration by making a fist and hitting the steering wheel. Unthinkingly, she made the fist with the hand she normally used, with the Fist. She stared aghast at the half-a-steering wheel left after the piece under the Fist broke off and fell down beside her feet. Only the bottom half of the steering wheel was left, so she threw the loose piece in her right hand on the floor and took hold of what was left of the steering wheel very carefully indeed so that the Fist didn’t wreck that as well.
The Flyer was just tooling along behind her, holding station, psyching her. She resolved not to lose her temper again and give him an opportunity to kill her. After ten miles, Henty glanced from the mirror in which she had been watching him constantly, to the route finder to see how far it was to the next town.
The moment he saw her eyes leave the mirror, the banker made his move. If the roar of the Flyer’s engine hadn’t alerted Henty she would have been dead there and then. Even that split second of warning was nearly not enough.
The Flyer sped up right behind the Cadillac and at the last moment cut out, just barely brushing the Cadillac’s rear corner.
Henty felt the slight nudge and turned the wheel the other way, fighting to hold the big soft car on the road, frantically grasping thin air where the steering wheel had broken away. She and the Cadillac went down the road broadside, first this side on, then the other, and finally spun around four, five, six times.
Henty’s chest was heaving and sweat was dripping from her. Another piece of the steering wheel had broken off in the Fist and she stared at it blankly. Of the steering wheel only a spoke and a small piece of the rim was left.
The Flyer blistered back and once more the banker jumped from it before it stopped moving, running full tilt for the driver’s door of the Cadillac to grab her. This time the Cadillac hadn’t stalled, so Henty dropped the piece of broken-off steering wheel she had been staring at and drove off just as his hand touched the door handle. In the mirror she could see him sucking his fingers. She steered as best she could with the spoke and piece of rim, handling them with the greatest tenderness.
As if pulled behind her on rails, the Flyer fell in to keep station fifty yards to the rear.
“What now?” Henty asked herself. The next time he bumped her, she wouldn’t be able to control the Cadillac and she would crash. If she didn’t die in the crash, the organ chaser would kill her with a weapon or his bare hands — she was no match for a trained and experienced killer. “Between the Devil and the deep blue sea,” Henty muttered angrily. Her grandmother used to say that about intolerable choices.
Her speed was back up to over 100 milesperhour and she needed all her concentration to keep the heavy Cadillac on the road at that speed with only the stump of the steering wheel to control it. She raised her foot from the accelerator but immediately the banker brought the Flyer right up behind her and Henty, fearing he would nudge the Cadillac again and kill her, was forced to resume speed.
Henty was in too much trouble to be amused by the signs telling her she was leaving Utah and that the speed limit was cancelled. Next there were signs to tell her that she was entering Nevada, and that she was no longer doing anything illegal by driving so fast.
Grimly Henty clung to what was left of the steering wheel and prayed there would be no curves in the road...
CHAPTER 57
Ely and Ruth are two not-too-large towns straddling the crossroads made by US-50, US-93 and Nevada State Highway 6. Most of the time, the people of the two towns are mildly contemptuous of each other and highly competitive in everything from business to sport and religion. But for ten million dollars gravy money, they could and would co-operate. So, when Hal Ryan, who owned a bar and poolroom in Ely, heard from his brother-in-law, who was with the highway patrol in Utah, that the Runner had been spotted by a Watcheye in Delta a little more than an hour ago, Ryan thought it was the luck of the Irish: the woman couldn’t be heading anywhere else. There was a Ruth building contractor called Little John Polanski (he was six-six) already standing at the bar, arranging a golf tournament — and Ryan knew exactly how to stop the Runner dead in her tracks.
“Dead in her tracks,” he told Polanski. “And I mean dead.”
“Sure, she’ll be crushed or roasted,” Polanski agreed. “But what about my—”
“What harm can come to it?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Out of the ten million, we’ll buy you a new one first, before we share, okay?”
“Yeah, right! Let’s get moving!”
CHAPTER 58
Henty had a plan. The thing was, she would only get
But it was her only chance. Sooner or later she would have an accident in that crippled Cadillac. She breathed steadily, evenly, while she thought her plan through once more, then another time, then still again, making quite sure each of the few simple steps was crystal clear in her mind so that she could act without wasting time on thinking, by reflex alone. When she was certain—
The banker saw Henty drop her eyes from the mirror to the route finder. It was just the split-second break he was waiting for and, before she could raise her eyes again, he dropped the Zuffhausen Flyer into a lower gear and accelerated right behind her, swinging out, caressing the Cadillac with the Flyer’s rubber strip so gently the paint was hardly broken. But it was enough to send the unwieldy luxury cruiser into another spin at over 100 milesperhour. As he passed the out-of-contol Cadillac, he could see the woman fighting with what was left of her steering wheel to straighten the big soft car.
He bootlegged the Flyer around and floored it to speed back to the Cadillac and pull her out of it before she could drive off again. He wanted her alive: she had done his self-image too much damage to be allowed a quick, easy death.
“You’re gonna die slowly!” he screamed at her to disorient her further, as he jumped from the still-moving Flyer.
Henty watched him out of the corner of her eye. She had brought the Cadillac up on the wrong side of the road, So that he had to run around her car to get to the driver’s door. She noticed how he feinted to run around the front and then actually ran around the back, just in case she was faking and intended running him over.
As he reached for the door handle, Henty flung herself into action, kicking herself across the seat, opening the passenger door, flinging herself into the gap—
He held one of her ankles.
Henty kicked out and heard him gasp. She didn’t stop to congratulate herself, she just rolled out of the Cadillac and rolled upright and ran for the Flyer. The banker was only the width of the Cadillac’s seat behind her, so Henty ran like all the devils from Hell were after her. She jumped through the open door of the Flyer and without waiting to close the door, kicked the clutch, moved the stick shift and let go of the clutch while stomping on the accelerator. The tail of the overpowered monster whiplashed out, the door slammed shut, and the car caught the organ banker just as he reached for the door and flung him bodily about twenty feet away onto the soft verge of the road. He wasn’t winded and suffered no broken bones but by the time he stood up, Henty was snaking down the road in his Flyer. He ran to the Cadillac to give chase. “Stupid woman left the keys for me,” he said, shaking his head, as he set off in pursuit.