Pedro walking up the street. I cross over to the other side—the side where Pedro's scooter is parked—and slow my pace accordingly. Let them get to the car first. I keep my eyes on the crowded market, looking for some sign of people moving with purpose.
I spot one guy shoving his way through the crowd, his attention fixed on Mere and Pedro. “One following,” I tell Phoebe. I think I see a shadow behind this guy and realize I'm probably telling her something she already knows.
“Two returning to one,” Phoebe tells me. The other two of this trio have already split off and are hustling back to the car.
I'm tempted to let Phoebe take the remaining, but when I see him start talking into a cell phone, I realize what he's doing. He's going to identify the car that Mere is driving, and the first car is going to follow her. He'll be picked up by the second car, and then they'll double-team the tail.
That makes it easy.
* * *
I call Mere when the second Mercedes has picked up the spotter. “They're coming,” I tell her. “Follow the route.”
“Okay,” she replies. She says something to Pedro about her laptop, and I assume she's asking him to show her the route. Hopefully, those two can sort out a system for calling out directions, though I suspect Mere can remember the route. We planned it to be simple and straight: leave La Serena and get on the Pan-American Highway.
Phoebe's arms are wrapped around my waist and her chin is pressed against my back. The tiny engine of the scooter whines beneath me. It's not happy about the weight, but it's keeping up. We won't be able to keep up once the cars reach the highway, but we shouldn't need to.
The planned route takes us out of the heavily residential area and into a stretch of light industrial before we reach the highway. The road widens, developing four lanes, and Mere takes her time. She drives just under the speed limit enough to frustrate the guys in the Mercedes following her. One of the two cars gets into the left hand lane.
Half a kilometer up ahead, there's a light and a cross street that runs into a stretch of long warehousing.
“Miss this light,” I tell Mere. “Pretend you're going to turn right.”
Mere plays it well. She starts to slow down earlier and even though the light is green, she comes to a complete stop at the intersection. The second Mercedes can't figure out what she's doing, and squirts on through the intersection as the light turns yellow. I can imagine the commentary coming from the men in the car. The second Mercedes is three cars back from Mere, and he's pulled close to the center line so that the driver can try to figure out what the hell Mere is doing.
Both lanes fill up as traffic queues for the light.
I open the throttle on the scooter and swerve out to straddle the center line. Phoebe lets go of my waist, and I feel her weight shift as she leans back. I let go of the throttle as we come up on the line of cars, and the high pitched whine of the scooter's engine drops with an exhausted sigh. I squeeze the brakes lightly with one hand as I reach my other hand into my poncho.
As we line up with the Mercedes, I squeeze the brake all the way. The pistol in Phoebe's hand starts popping. The driver's side window shatters, and I reach into my poncho for a grenade. Letting go of the handlebars of the scooter for a second, I yank the pin and lob the live grenade through the shattered window. I return my hands to the handlebar, twist the throttle, and the scooter shoots forward.
We nearly get clipped by a blue van as we streak through the intersection. Behind us, the grenade goes off, blowing out the remaining windows of the Mercedes. A second later, there is another explosion as the gas tank goes up. I eke out as much speed as I can get from the scooter. Phoebe lays her left forearm across my shoulder and I hunch forward, clearing her light of sight. She presses up against me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the gun in her right hand.
Up ahead, the brake lights on the first Mercedes flare. Someone has spotted the explosion behind us.
We're farther away than I would take the