Brashnikov felt the Tokarev pistol's cold butt under the cushions. He hated weapons, but Batenin had insisted he carry one when he was not in the suit. He
158
hoped he would not have to kill the man. Rair Brashnikov considered himself a thief, not a murderer.
"Are you militsiya?" Brashnikov asked loudly. "Are you cop? Show me badge. I want proof."
Then he got a good look at the running man's face. The dead flat eyes over high cheekbones. It was the one who had chased him from LCF-Fox. The one who had the old Asian with him. How was this possible?
"Are you gonna stop or do I have to get rough?" the man growled.
That was enough for Rair Brashnikov. He dared not stop the car. There would not be enough time to don the helmet and battery. The man's threat obviously meant that he was armed. Otherwise, how could he stop a speeding Cadillac?
The Tokarev came up in Rair's hand, crossing his chest.
"Please," Brashnikov said. "Go away. I do not wish to shoot you dead."
"Naughty, naughty," the man said, grabbing for the half-open window. "Handguns are illegal in this state."
Brashnikov steeled himself and pulled the trigger.
The Tokarev did not fire. But it went off. It went off Brashnikov's trigger finger as if pulled by a magnet. It left a long streak of blood along Brashnikov's finger where the trigger guard had scraped the skin.
Sucking on his stinging finger, Brashnikov tried to keep the wheel steady with his free hand. The road was beginning to twist and turn. Brashnikov cast frightened glances at the still-running man.
He was busily taking the Tokarev to pieces. The ammo clip came out and was thrown away. Then the slide was yanked back in obviously strong fingers, because it fell away. The long barrel was then unscrewed like a light bulb. Finally the running man broke the handle and firing mechanism into fragments, and he dry-washed his hands clean of the metal filings
159
that were all that was left of the well-engineered Russian pistol.
All the while, he kept up the childish police-siren sound.
"Last chance to pull over," he warned.
Brashnikov rolled up the window and floored the gas pedal. He left the man behind when the engine started redlining.
But only for a moment. Because, incredibly, the running man in black began overhauling the Cadillac again, which was now skating up to the ninety-mile-an-hour mark.
The man in black was a red-lit phantom in the rearview mirror. Brashnikov nervously watched him come on. His running motions were hypnotic. It didn't look as if he was really running. The coordinated actions of his arms and legs were slow, floating motions. There was a distinct rhythm to his running. Then, abruptly, he shifted left and drew up alongside the spinning right-rear tire.
Craning to see, Brashnikov saw him pause in mid-step as if to kick out.
Brashnikov sent the Cadillac swerving. The man swerved with it, as if anticipating the car's every nervous move.
That lunatic is trying to kick my tire, Brashnikov thought wildly. For some reason the absurdity of it was lost on him. He hugged the shoulder of the highway, fearing what would happen next.
Rair heard the explosive sound of a blowout and then he was wrestling with the steering wheel as the hard rim of the wheel dug into the flattened rubber. It was incredible. The tire was flat. The Cadillac started to weave and lose speed.
While Rair Brashnikov fought the wheel, his mind racing, a car roared in from the right. It was a small European job, and it sideswiped him viciously, send-
T60
ing the Cadillac veering raggedly. Brashnikov turned around to see who was driving.
It was the red-haired woman. The one who had tried to knock him down with a helicopter back in North Dakota.
"Pull over," she was shouting. "Pull over, dammit, or I'll run you off the road." She flashed a photo-ID card, which was laughable. Did she think a KGB agent would be impressed by such a thing?
Then the running man with the toes of steel appeared on his right. He was shouting too. Not at him, but at the woman.
"Hey, cut it out," he told her.
"Get out of the way, you fink," she shot back. "I'm going to run this sucker off the road."
"Are you crazy?" the man yelled back. "His car is bigger than yours. You'll be killed. Let me handle this."
Telephone poles flashed by on either side of them. The road was narrowing and the wobbling Cadillac dominated it. The man hugged the Cadillac's right while the woman's tiny car wove in and out on the left.
"Don't tell me my job!" the redhead was insisting. "And get out of the way. How can I run him off the road with you there? How are you doing that, anyway? I'm pushing fifty."
"If I tell you, will you get lost?" the man asked.
"No," the redhead said flatly.
"Then forget it."
Rair Brashnikov could not accept the evidence of his ears anymore. They were fighting like children. Did Americans not take their national security seriously?
But Brashnikov's wonder vanished when he realized that he had his own skin to think of. Seeing the road ahead veer into a sharp turn, he saw a way to rid himself of both pursuers.
161
As the two vehicles and one running man hit the curve at fifty-three miles an hour, Brashnikov turned sharply to crowd the redhead's car. She met his challenge, crowding him back. But the Cadillac's flat tire made Brashnikov's machine more difficult to push. It didn't give, and when he realized this, he muscled the wheel sharply to the left.
Robin Green knew she wouldn't make the corner. She realized it too late. She hadn't been watching the road. She saw the telephone pole too late. It was framed in her windshield before her brain caught up with what her eyes were seeing and signaled "telephone pole in road." By then the windshield was already a splinterwork of cracks and the hood of the car was buckling like tinfoil and she could feel the seat pushing her forward and the wheel slamming into her chest.
The last thing she felt was her breasts. They felt like water balloons about to burst from impact.
Remo saw Robin Green's car pile into the telephone pole. It hit with so much force, it pushed the pole several feet beyond its pesthole. A tangle of transmission lines slapped the buckled hood.
Remo forgot about the Cadillac and ran to the mangled wreck. Flames began licking up from under the hood like red fingers. The smell of roasting wood filled the air. As Remo thought of Robin trapped behind the wheel, the smell was a sickening premonition. He got to the driver's side. Robin was just there, her head slumped over the warped steering wheel. Her eyes were closed. There was a streak of blood across her forehead.
Remo grabbed the door handle. It was one of those reach-under-and-pull-up types. Remo pulled straight out. The handle came away like an oversize staple.
"Damn," Remo muttered. He looked for another