Hour Game by David Baldacci
to keep the top down. However, Michelle tugged her wrap more tightly around her shoulders.
“I can put up the top if you want,” said King, noting her movement.
“No, the breeze feels wonderful and the air smells so good.”
“Spring in rural Virginia, can’t beat it.”
“I feel like we made some progress tonight.”
“At least we took the time to talk out different angles. That’s always helpful.”
She glanced at him with a suspicious look. “As usual you’re saying less than you know.”
He pretended to be offended by her remark; however, his smile betrayed this effort. “I’m not conceding I know anything. But I do suspect some things that I might not have mentioned.”
“Such as, partner?”
“Such as I’ve spent a wonderful evening over two fabulous bottles of wine with an attractive young woman, and all I’ve talked about is murder and mayhem.”
“You’re stalling. And mentioning the wine before mentioning me says a lot.”
“Well, I’ve known those bottles of wine longer than I’ve known you.”
“Thanks a lot, but you’re still stalling.”
The SUV hit them from behind so hard that if they hadn’t been wearing their seat belts, they both would have gone headfirst through the windshield.
“What the hell!” yelled out King as he looked in his rearview mirror. “Where did they come from?” The words were barely out of his mouth before they were rammed again. King fought the wheel, trying to keep the two-door Lexus coupe on the windy road.
Michelle kicked off her heels and pushed her bare feet against the floorboard to steady herself. Reaching into her bag, she slid out her gun, chambered a round and punched off the safety pretty much all in one smooth motion.
“Can you see the driver?” asked King.
“Not with the damn headlights shining in my face. But it has to be the killer.”
King pulled out his cell phone. “This time we’re going to nail the bastard.”
“Look out, here he comes again,” yelled Michelle.
The next impact by the far heavier vehicle almost lifted the rear of the Lexus off the road. King’s cell phone was knocked out of his hand, banged against the windshield and then went rocketing backward. It clanged off the hood of the SUV, hit the street and broke apart.
King tangled with the wheel again and managed to regain control as the two vehicles uncoupled. King’s car was outweighed by at least a ton. Still the Lexus coupe was far more nimble than the beast attacking them, and it had three hundred horses under the hood. Calling on all of them when they hit a straightaway, King punched the gas and the Lexus leaped forward, leaving the other vehicle far behind.
Michelle undid her safety belt.
“What the hell are you doing?” cried King.
“You can’t outrun him on these windy roads, and I can’t get a decent shot off with my belt on. Just keep ahead of him.”
“Wait a minute, call 911 first.”
“I can’t. I didn’t bring my cell phone. My purse was too small for it and my gun.”
King looked at her incredulously. “You didn’t bring your phone but you brought your gun?”
“I think I have my priorities right,” she said sharply. “What can I do with a phone: call him to death?”
She turned around in her seat, leaned over it and placed her elbow on the headrest of the rear seat. “Keep ahead of him,” she repeated.
“Well, damn it, you keep from getting killed,” he shot back.
The truck came powering up again for another collision of metal on metal, but before it could make contact, King shot across to the other side of the road, whipped back and rat-tat-tatted on the gravel shoulder before regaining the hard surface. He downshifted and nailed the hairpin turn at fifty, tires screaming. He suddenly felt the right wheels losing touch with the asphalt, and he lurched his two hundred pounds to that side, grabbing hold of Michelle’s right hip and pushing her sideways against the passenger door.
“I’m not being fresh. I just need the ballast. Stay there for a sec.”
He dropped his speed a couple of mphs and exhaled a sigh of relief as the rubber attached itself once more to terra firma.
They hit another straightaway that King knew would run for a quarter of a mile before a series of serpentine curves would confront them. He smashed down on the gas so hard he was sure his loafers would be hitting the pavement in another quarter inch. As he ripped right through triple digits on the speedometer, the trees flashed by at such dizzying speed he would’ve started puking had he bothered to look.
Behind him the driver of the truck wound it up to well over a hundred on the quarter-mile stretch, keeping well within striking distance. King hit 130 and looked for another gear to grab, but the Lexus didn’t have any more to give. All he could think about was, How many air bags does the damn car have? He hoped it was at least a dozen; it looked like they would need every one because the series of curves was flying at them. If he slowed down, they were dead; if he kept this speed, they’d be equally dead.
Michelle eyed the headlights bearing down on them and then slid her gaze up to the driver’s silhouette. She inched forward, finally resting her right elbow on the top part of the car’s trunk, and took aim with both hands on her pistol.
They hit the curvy area, and King braked hard to sixty when the signs said twenty, but the traffic engineers had undoubtedly not taken into account murderous SUVs in their calculations of highway safety. This allowed the truck to make up significant ground. “He’s coming up,” warned King. “I can’t go any faster without us flipping.”
“Just hold it steady. If he doesn’t back off, I’m going to take out his front tire.”
Their pursuer came within fifty feet and then twenty. He had to see that she had him dead in her sights, Michelle thought, and yet he wasn’t giving an inch of ground. Then the SUV took an incredible leap forward as the driver gunned it.
King had seen this and mimicked the man’s efforts. The Lexus shot forward, the truck right on their ass. King arched his body and stamped both feet on the gas as though that would give them the turbocharge they so desperately needed.
What he hadn’t counted on was a family of deer choosing that moment to amble across the road.
“Look out!” screamed King. He whipped the wheel to the left and then to the right. They went off the road and pinballed alongside a stretch of guardrail as the Bambis scattered. King felt the guardrail imprint its signature on his once beautiful convertible rivet by screeching rivet. He regained the road and looked back. The driver of the truck had smashed on his brakes to avoid the deer, but the SUV had never left the road, and it was barreling down on them once more.
King didn’t have time to get back up to cruising speed, and anyway, the engine’s peculiar whine made him wonder if the guardrail had done more than simply cosmetic damage. What was certain was that the speedometer had dropped to under ninety and was staying there.
“Brace yourself,” cried out Michelle. “Here comes the son of a bitch.” She fired her gun twice right as the truck ate into the rear of the Lexus, ripping a hole in the car and taking what little was left of the molded bumper and flinging it into the woods. Michelle was thrust forward from the collision toward the rear of the car. As King saw her legs flying past him, he reached out with his free hand and clamped down on her ankle, looping his arm around her limb and holding on for dear life. They hit another straightaway, and he somehow coaxed more speed from the car, leaving the truck behind again.
“Shit!” yelled Michelle.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I got off a couple shots, but I lost my gun. Damn it, I’ve had that SIG for five years.”
“Will you forget the gun; this guy’s trying to kill us.”
“Well, if I had my gun, I could kill him before he kills us. I don’t know if I hit anything. He slammed into us right as I fired.” She yelled out, “Wait
“What?”
“There it is. My gun landed on the lip of the rear spoiler. It’s wedged there.”
“No way—don’t you even think about it, lady.”
“Just hold on to my leg. I can almost reach it.”
“Damn it, Michelle, you’re going to give me a heart attack, and I’m about to have one as it is.”
So focused was King on her that he didn’t see the SUV speed up and come alongside until the last instant.
“Hold on,” he screamed as he instantly downshifted, leaping over gears in a way that probably voided every manufacturer’s warranty Lexus offered. He could almost hear the car screaming at him to Just stop it! and he expected to see his transmission vomited all over the road. He plunged to twenty clicks on the speedometer, both feet on the brakes now, then came to a thudding stop, wheels smoking, as the g’s raced down his torso and washed off his toes. Michelle had a death grip around the rear headrest, her bare feet braced against the back of his seat.
King’s body was misfiring in so many ways he figured cardiac arrest was the least he could expect. He slammed the car into reverse, jammed down on the accelerator, firewalled what was left of his engine, and rocketed backward.
The SUV had stopped so hard that its tires seemed ablaze, such was the volume of smoke pouring from them. The driver cut a swift 180 and was coming at them full tilt, the SUV’s grille resembling bared teeth looking to devour them. It was gaining with every revolution of the wheel.
Michelle stopped inching toward her gun and eyed her partner, who was looking backward as he drove. “You can’t drive faster backward than he can forward, Sean.”
“Thanks for telling me.” His knuckles were turning purple from his grip on the wheel. “Hold on to everything you can. On the count of five I’m cutting a J.”
“You must be nuts.”
“Yes, I must be.”
By cutting a J he meant that from a fast reverse driving position he was going to whip the car into a 180-degree turn, probably on two wheels, slam it into drive, fire the turbos and rocket off in the opposite direction. All that in one neat motion, preferably without killing them both.
Sweat broke over King’s brow as he prayed that all his Secret Service training would come back to him so many years later. He clamped on the door with his free hand for leverage, braced his left foot against the floorboard as a fulcrum point, gauged the exact right moment and whipped the wheel hard, letting go of it completely and then clamping down on it. It worked to perfection. He leapfrogged over the first two forward gears, gunned it and shot ahead. However, five seconds later the SUV was chasing them and gaining.
Smoke was now coming out of the Lexus’s hood, and every single gauge King was staring at was foretelling their doom. Their speed dropped to sixty, then fifty. It was over.
“Sean, here he comes!” screamed Michelle.
“There’s not a damn thing I can do about it,” he shouted back, hopelessness evolving to rage in the course of a single breath.
The SUV roared past, pulled back and took its two and one half tons and broadsided them. King kept one hand on the wheel and clamped the other on Michelle’s ankle as she struggled to get the gun. His fingers dug in so tightly on her skin that he knew he was drawing blood. His arm and shoulder were being torqued almost beyond limit.
“Are you okay?” he called out, gritting his teeth against the pain as he could feel her full weight pulling against his tendons.
“I am now, I’ve got the gun.”
“Well, good, because the bastard’s coming again. Hold on!”
He looked over to see the black SUV swerve toward him about the same time he felt Michelle’s limb twist around in his hand.
“What are you do—” He didn’t have time to finish his sentence. The SUV clipped the rear end of the Lexus, and the car did what King had feared all along. It started to fishtail, and then it went into a 360, totally out of control.
“Hold on!” he called out hoarsely as seemingly every ounce of belly bile started to march upward to incinerate his throat. As a Secret Service agent King had trained relentlessly to master the maneuvers of vehicles in the most hazardous conditions imaginable. Warmed up by the J-turn, he just let instinct take over. Instead of fighting the movements of the car, he went with them, turning the wheel toward the spin instead of against it and beating back the natural impulse to crush his brakes. The thing he was most fearful of was the car rolling. If it did, Michelle was dead and he probably would be too or at best a quad. King didn’t know how many revolutions the car took, but the low-built, bottom-heavy 3,800-pound Lexus held the road despite jettisoning a good deal of its tire rubber and a bunch of its metal guts.
The car finally came to a stop facing in the direction of where they’d been heading; the black SUV was just up ahead and moving away from them fast, apparently having decided to give up the fight. Michelle’s gun fired, and the rear tires of the SUV disintegrated as the ordnance ripped into them. The vehicle started to whip around, went into a 360 and then did what the Lexus had steadfastly refused to: it rolled. Three shuddering flips, and it came to rest on its shattered roof along the right shoulder of the road far ahead of them, a trail of metal, glass and rubber left in its turbulent wake.
King sped forward, as much as he could in his wrecked car, while Michelle slid down in the seat next to him.
“Sean?”
“What?”
“You can let go of my leg.”
“What? Oh, right.” He released his death grip.
“I know; I was scared too.” She gave his hand a comforting squeeze as they looked at each other and drew long, thankful breaths.
“That was some damn fine driving, Agent King,” she said gratefully.
“And I sincerely hope it’s the last time I ever have to do it.”
They pulled next to the wreck and got out. They advanced toward the car; Michelle had her pistol ready. King managed to wrench the driver’s door open.
The man lunged toward them.
Michelle was ready to fire, but then her finger relaxed against the trigger.
The driver was upside down and bound by his seat belt. When King had opened the car door, he had plunged through the opening.
The head was so bloody and mangled King didn’t bother checking for a pulse.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“I can’t tell; it’s so damn dark out here. Wait a minute.” He ran over and pulled the Lexus up so that its headlights were pointed right at the dead man.
They looked at the body now outlined in bright light.
It was Roger Canney.
CHAPTER
77
AT TEN O’CLOCK IN THE
morning the Deavers’ double-wide trailer was empty. The kids were back in school, and Lulu was at work. Priscilla Oxley had driven off to a mom-and-pop store for cigarettes and some more tonic to wash down her cherished vodka. Meanwhile a truck was parked behind a stand of trees that bordered the paved road leading to the gravel one the trailer was situated on. The man inside the truck had watched as Priscilla sped by in her LTD, a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other as she steered with her dimpled knees.
The man immediately got out and made his way through the woods until he was on the edge of the clearing by the trailer. Luther, the old dog, moseyed out from the rear shed, cocked its head in the man’s direction as it caught his smell, gave a tired bark and then retreated back to the shed. A minute later the man was inside the trailer after picking the simple front-door lock and made his way swiftly to the small bedroom-office that was located at one end.
Junior Deaver had never been much of a businessman and was a worse recordkeeper, but fortunately, his wife was very strong in both those areas. Junior’s construction company files were organized and easily accessible. Keeping one ear attuned for anyone coming, the man went through the files, which were conveniently arranged in chronological order. When he finished, he noted that he’d comp
He folded the list and put it away in his pocket and replaced all the files to their proper place. Then he left the way he’d come. As he returned to his truck, Priscilla Oxley drove past on her way back to the trailer with her tobacco and tonic. A lucky woman, he thought. Five minutes earlier and she would have been dead.
He drove off, his precious list in his pocket. He thought about the burglary that had been unjustly blamed on Junior Deaver. He tried to recall every detail he’d heard of the crime. There was something there he was definitely missing. In the same vein he went over and over again the circumstances of Bobby’s death. Who was unaccounted for who might want the bastard dead? There were several possible suspects but no one he truly believed could have killed the old man. It would have taken nerve and knowledge, attributes he possessed in abundance and that he respected in others. He hoped for the day to be able to tell the impostor of his admiration, right before he slit his throat.
Perhaps he should have made Sally talk before he killed her. Yet what could she really have known? She was with Junior, she’d said. They’d had sex. She was a stupid woman who preferred spending her days with four-legged beasts and her nights with two-legged ones. She deserved the quick death she’d gotten. What’s one less Sally Wainwright on the planet anyway? he asked himself.
He’d killed six people so far, one of them in error, a mistake he’d made retribution for at least in his way. It wasn’t like he could pull out the rosary for this; no confessional could possibly contain his sins.