scanned for targets, unsure if anyone was up at ground level with eyes on him.
* * *
• • •
A minute later he was back on the little pit bike, racing through the woods at a breakneck pace. He was aware that the men behind him were in possession of two vehicles that could run him down in seconds, and the last thing he was going to do was buzz out onto the highway on top of this two-wheel toy.
He needed a car, and he knew where to get one.
As he’d flown over the area most of an hour earlier, he’d spied a golf course with a parking lot adjacent. It was just on the eastern side of the forest, so he took his bike all the way to the wood line, then ran from there onto the property.
He climbed a fence, dropped down into the parking lot, then crouched between cars while he watched a lone valet near the entrance to the clubhouse. An older man with a set of clubs on his shoulder stepped up to the valet and handed him a ticket, and then the young man grabbed a key out of a box next to him and began running off into the lot.
Court had spent dozens of hours watching valets in his career, and as was usually the case, this young man had not bothered to lock the key box.
Court stowed his pistol under his jacket, rose, and walked confidently up to the valet stand despite his filthy clothes, soaking backpack, and soiled face. He nodded politely at the man standing there. Without a word he reached into the key box. He settled on a set of Audi keys, hoping to snag something that was both fast and low-profile in his surroundings.
Walking through the lot he pressed the key fob, and a beep to his right directed him to a 2005 Audi A4 sedan. It wasn’t particularly fast, certainly not like the two cars he saw back at the hospital, but he didn’t think he’d have much trouble blending in with a fifteen-year-old four-door.
A minute after that he was on the A17, heading west. While he drove he opened his backpack and checked his gear.
He realized quickly that a large hole had been cut in his bag from the knife attack, big enough for the two spare pistol magazines to fall out somewhere, likely in the tunnel. Checking the mag in the pistol, he found he had only six more 9-millimeter rounds, plus the one in the chamber. The Ruger .22 was still in the backpack, but he was down to his last five rounds with no spare mags for this weapon, either.
“Shit!” he shouted to the empty car, then glanced up at his rearview to check his six.
“Shit!” He shouted it this time because the gray Charger he’d seen at the hospital was in the center of his rearview mirror, growing by the second. He’d been concentrating so much on his gear in his lap and the road ahead that he’d failed to notice the vehicle closing the distance with incredible ease. The Mercedes followed behind the Charger, and from the speed of both vehicles he was now assured they were both, indeed, V8 models.
As he stomped on his gas pedal, he saw armed men rising out of both sides of the Charger’s backseat, and they each pointed a weapon at Court’s Audi.
CHAPTER 14
Court ducked down and looked ahead now. The traffic in front of him was light, but there was enough in both lanes to where he knew he couldn’t devote all his attention to the approaching cars behind him.
He heard the crack of gunfire now, and his head turtled down even more.
This A4 was the 3.1-liter V6, the top-of-the-line engine in the series for the year it was built, and it produced 255 horsepower. This wasn’t bad for a fifteen-year-old luxury sedan, but it was nothing like the Mercedes and the Dodge behind him, which he assumed to both have in excess of 400 horsepower.
Court brought his car up to one hundred miles an hour, but more snaps zinging by his driver-side window told him the men after him weren’t backing off.
He swerved left and right, willing the old Audi to go faster, and knew it was just a matter of moments before he would be overtaken.
His rear window cracked as a handgun round pierced it and buried itself into the dashboard over the radio on Court’s left.