“Because you were already running on empty,” he told her, fingers flashing on his own phone as he drove, texted, and talked. Thorne took multitasking to another level. Somehow he even managed to keep an eye on the rearview mirror. Isis was too numb to worry about barely missed bumpers and madly honking horns as he slalomed the Jeep through heavy traffic.
She automatically turned to look back as well. The blue car was weaving and dodging through traffic, and now only three car lengths behind them.
“Don’t beat up on yourself. The situation was averted, and the professor is as safe at Stark’s place as he would be in Fort Knox.” He stuck the phone in his pocket, picked up the gun on the seat beside him, and tightened his fingers on the wheel.
“Brace yourself; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” He floored the engine and the Jeep leapt forward like a racehorse from the starting gate.
THORNE FIGURED THAT EVERY damned one of the twenty million people living in Cairo was driving on the main road toward the city. He briefly checked the rearview and saw his tail intact. Returning his attention to the congested highway, he cursed. Every sodding one of them was in his way.
“For Christ’s sake.” A dark-haired man cruising at about seventy with a car full of unseat-belted children swerved in front of him. No blinker. Thorne eased into the next lane, avoiding the man’s fender by an inch. His military training allowed him to keep a cool head. High speeds and heavy traffic, combined with the sheer ineptitude of the majority of drivers, upped the ante of the harrowing chase.
He heard Isis’s quick, shallow breaths. At least she was breathing—and it was his job to keep it that way.
Locals refused to wear down their car batteries by using headlights against the settling dusky skies. Thorne flipped his on, gaining an immediate advantage. He could see who he was about to hit. People wove through the three lanes as if there were no rules. Vehicles competed with street dogs, animals, carts, and pedestrians. Everyone ignored traffic lights as if they weren’t there. People on foot played chicken to cross the road. He who was bigger, or had his nose out front, had the right of way.
Thorne laid his hand on the horn and kept it there. There were no rules.
Drivers here broke the law of physics, since it seemed they wanted to occupy the same space at the same time. Thorne crossed three lanes of traffic at right angles and got nothing more than a few honking horns for his trouble. He narrowly missed a donkey cart piled high with cauliflowers, only to clip the edge of the bumper in front of him. The driver yelled obscenities out his open window.
A glance in the rearview mirror showed the blue Mercedes hard on his heels. Isis braced her white-knuckled hands on the dashboard, her feet applying invisible brakes on the passenger floorboard. “Breathe before you hyperventilate. We have no time to haul your ass back to the hospital. In. Out through your nose. Good girl. Now get out the map.”
Isis dragged in a shuddering breath, then popped the glove compartment. “For someone who doesn’t have a clue where he is,” she said, straightening her smudged glasses with a huff, “you seem to have the city memorized.”
“I don’t.” The setting sun in his eyes made the mad race that much more dangerous. “Tell m—” A bullet hit the rear window, shattering it. The safety glass didn’t break, but the mass of small opaque bits of glass became impossible to see through.
“Fuck. Get down!” She didn’t move fast enough. Life or death. Thorne used his gun hand to press down on the crown of her head until she was below the protective seat back.
Horns blared as the Mercedes slammed into the rear bumper of the Jeep with a teeth-jarring jolt and the crunch of metal. Theirs. The Jeep was of reinforced steel and built like a tank, and while Doug Heustis had assured him the windows were bulletproof, Thorne wasn’t prepared to stop and test the validity of the Mossad operative’s claim.
Another bullet slammed into the window frame inches from his head. Opening the window to shoot back was a stupid move, so Thorne pressed down on the accelerator, giving the engine the last bit of juice. “Isis! Give me directions to—fuck, anywhere!”
He twisted the steering wheel hard left, slamming the front wheel into the