Alan Dean Foster (26 page)

That's when Francisco reacted to something he saw beyond the barrel of the gun. "Green light, Matthew." Sykes was fighting to steady the heavy weapon and didn't respond. "Green light!"

Finally Sykes glanced ahead, in time to see a row of 187

waiting cars leaving the intersection in front of them. None of which would have mattered if they hadn't been in the wrong lane.

"Shit!" Sykes locked up the brakes and fought the wheel, slewing the slugmobile sideways in front of the braking oncoming traffic. Kipling veered around one slow truck ambling through the intersection and accelerated westward.

There was no time to check maps. The side street directly ahead was the only course left open that didn't involve retreat. Sykes floored the gas and rocketed into the double alley. Garbage cans went flying, banging like ball bearings in a pinball machine off walls and pavement. Sacks of heavy-gauge plastic tore under the slugmobile's impact and showered the windshield with debris. Sykes cursed, turned the wipers on High, and kept going.

The slugmobile emerged into the next main street and wheeled to the west.

At the first avenue, Sykes ripped back out into traffic.

"Anything?" he asked hopefully.

Francisco stared hard, straight ahead. "Nothing, Matt."

"Goddamnit! They must've turned up Washington." He started searching for a place to turn right.

"No, wait! There they are, two blocks ahead of us in front of that bus."

"Nice try, you bastards." Sykes leaned back in his seat. Moments later he was able to pull in close behind the fleeing police unit.

It immediately ascended an overpass. Two cars pulled in right behind it, cutting Sykes off. Pounding on the wheel in frustration, the detective sped along beneath the overpass until he saw the next onramp approaching.

Francisco saw it too. "Matthew, please don't do anything foolish. I have a wife and young child."

"Yeah. Cute, too." Sykes floored the pedal, sent the slugmobile racing up the onramp. Francisco shut his eyes as well as his mouth.

The car went flying over the edge, just missing the curve that led onto the freeway, and slammed back to the pave-188

ment only a few yards behind the police cruiser's bumper. Sykes apologized absently to his partner, who had been bounced off the slugmobile's roof, and concentrated on hanging tough.

The police unit hung a sharp right, cutting through a parking lot with the slugmobile in close pursuit. Following Harcourt's directions, Kipling turned right into the Second Street tunnel, clipping a sedan in passing.

The driver of the oncoming car hit his brakes and sent his vehicle into a wild skid. Traffic piled up behind him.

Sykes screeched to a halt behind the congestion and leaned out his window, trying to make himself heard over the babble of angry horns and drivers.

"Forget it, move it! Move your goddamn cars!"

No one was paying any attention to him. Dazed drivers were climbing out of their vehicles, checking themselves for cuts and bruises, inspecting their cars while trying to decide which of their equally bewildered fellow drivers to exchange insurance numbers with. A swearing Sykes slid back behind the wheel and sent the slugmobile forward until he made contact with the rear bumper of the first car in front of him. The slugmobile's engine raced and the temperature gauge rose alarmingly as Sykes began to push the stalled coupe out of the way.

A young man saw what was going on, abandoned the woman he'd been arguing with, and rushed toward the slugmobile, waving both arms madly.

"Hey, man, that's real chrome! What the hell you think you're doing?"

"Sorry." Sykes spared him the briefest possible smile. "Police business."

He rolled up his window and continued to push, ignoring the gesticulating driver who paced the slugmobile, pounding on the glass as he strove to get Sykes's attention.

He made room before the slugmobile's radiator blew, scraped paint and chrome as he accelerated up the tunnel.

Kipling took the police cruiser up the first freeway onramp. Harcourt had been gazing out the back window. Now he settled back into his seat.

189

"There now. That wasn't so difficult." He worked the dash controls that switched off the siren and lights. "No need for these any longer."

"I was beginning to worry," Kipling confessed.

"No need to. You do the driving and I will do the worrying for both of us. " Harcourt reached into the back seat, picked up the suitcase, and put it on his lap. He indicated the speedometer. "They really had no chance of catching us. Even though this is an official vehicle, there is no need to draw attention to us. Reduce your velocity to the speed limit." Kipling nodded and promptly slowed down to sixty.

Sykes was picking his way through the freeway traffic like Andretti at Indianapolis, weaving around cars and pickups until his partner sat up straight and let out a shout.

"There! Straight ahead of us, in the slow lane!"

"Don't worry," Sykes told him. "I got 'em."

He eased off the accelerator. Francisco eycd him quizzically but said nothing, which was just as well because his partner wasn't in the mood to explain. The van on their fight made an excellent blind. It was traveling slightly faster than the cruiser. Sykes watched the van, the traffic ahead and behind, the freeway itself. Calculating.

Offramp coming up soon. He'd have to time it just right because he knew Harcourt wouldn't give him a second chance. Sykes had begun to respect the Newcomer as much as he'd come to hate him.

Now! The slugmobile fell behind the van, changing lanes quickly. Sykes found himself parallel to the police unit. Kipling drove unconcernedly, convinced they'd lost their pursuers miles back in the Second Street tunnel. By the time he glanced to his left the slugmobile was turning hard right to slam into the cruiser's flank. Kipling struggled to correct, only to discover the maneuver had forced him onto the offramp immediately ahead.

Door to door, the two vehicles went squealing and slewing to the right.

Kipling thumped the pedal and broke out in front with Sykes clinging determinedly to his back bumper. Both cars roared off the ramp and up onto the Vincent Thomas Bridge that crossed Long Beach Harbor.

190

Traffic was blessedly light. At eighty miles an hour Sykes had no time for sightsecing, but Francisco couldn't keep himself from gazing out the window and down at the inky bay they were traversing. Not all his thoughts were on their quarry. Humans built sturdy bridges, but they had been known to collapse. Then there was the matter of side barriers, which looked high and sturdy, but at the speed they were going ...

He was immensely relieved when both cars thundered off the far end of the bridge and skidded out onto Henry Ford Boulevard.

The two-lane straightaway ran parallel to the sea. Sykes pushed the slugmobile to its limits as he pulled out one more time alongside the police unit. His car still hadn't recovered from bulldozing a path through the pileup back in the tunnel and the temp gauge continued to flirt with the red zone. Sykes knew he could hang on for as long as it was going to take. He wasn't as confident about his vehicle. The engine sounded lousy, but at ninety miles per he kept slamming into the side of the fleeing police cruiser.

Kipling finally got the idea, realized he could push as well as take. He raked over the front of the slugmobile, turning its nose slightly. Metal screamed. Sykes found himself speeding along the dangerous dirt shoulder and was forced to drop back. Rolling himself wouldn't catch their quarry.

Kipling grinned into the rearview mirror as he pulled far out in front, turned back to the road barely in time to see the barrier ahead coming up fast in the cruiser's headlights. Harcourt was bellowing at him as he slammed on the brakes.

A chain-link fence marked the end of the road. Kipling had halted maybe a couple of yards in front of the barrier. On the other side of the fence, pavement led to ocean and an abandoned drawbridge. Except for the bridge, all was dark water. He found himself sweating. If he hadn't turned in time, hadn't stopped before crashing through ...

"Turn it around, turn us around!" Harcourt was yelling at 191

him. Startled, he spun the wheel and headed back the way they'd come.

To find the slugmobile heading straight for them. At the last possible instant, ignorant as he was of Newcomer attitudes toward suicide, Sykes yanked the wheel over and sent the car sliding sideways. The passenger side rammed into the police unit, the nose of the black-and-white smashing into the rear door of the slugmobile. Locked in a twisted metallic embrace, both cars did a pair of screeching pirouettes before coming to a stop. Fire erupted beneath the hood of the cruiser.

Though he'd braced himself for the impact, Sykes was still stunned.

Disoriented but aware, the first thing he saw when he looked up was the unconscious Francisco. The Newcomer was bleeding from a gash across his forehead. Sykes leaned over. The head wound was messy but not serious.

There was more blood than damage.

Then he noticed the blaze flaring merrily beneath the hood of the other vehicle. Its front end was locked into the slugmobile's rear seat and trunk. Near the gas tank.

Sykes wrestled with his seat harness until he freed himself, then stumbled outside and around the front of the car. Dragging the door on the passenger side open, he grabbed two handfuls of Francisco and hauled him out of the ruined vehicle.

As he was struggling with his partner's bulk he saw Harcourt squeezing himself through the police cruiser's broken windshield. Bruised, bleeding, and no longer confident, the Newcomer entrepreneur reached back inside to extract the priceless suitcase. He jumped to the pavement and started running.

Sykes forced himself to keep dragging Francisco until he was certain he'd removed his partner to a safe distance. Then he drew the Casull and put his legs in gear as he headed off in pursuit of Harcourt. With each stride he could feel himself loosening up, felt the pain of the collision fading from his muscles.

How fast could a Newcomer run? They were big but not particularly quick, but how did they hold up over the long

192

haul? Maybe he should have paid more attention to the Newcomer section of the sports pages.

He reminded himself that this race wouldn't go to the swiftest. Don't sprint, he told himself. Keep it steady, keep it even, and he'd have Harcourt under the gun in a few minutes.

The Newcomer wasn't far ahead. Harcourt was older than Kipling and he looked tired. Once he stumbled and Sykes found himself grinning. They were big, but they had their own weaknesses.

Harcourt reached the chain-link fence at the end of the road, heaved the suitcase over the top, and started climbing. The drawbridge loomed ahead.

He wasn't climbing too well, either. The crash had obviously affected him.

Sykes lumbered past the burning police cruiser. A glance in its direction showed Kipling still behind the wheel, his head slumped forward on the dented plastic. The detective was ten yards beyond when both gas tanks went, one after the other. Hoods, door panels, engine parts, and glass went flying in every direction. So did Kipling.

Sykes felt something hot and hard strike his back. He didn't slow down to check it out or even to feel if his coat might be on fire. It was a chilly evening. A small blaze would be welcome.

As for Kipling, Sykes was warmed by the knowledge that he'd been able to spare the taxpayer one more court cost. But Kipling was nothing; a loose screw, a cog in the wheel. The wheel himself was up ahead, fighting to clear the top of a ten-foot-tall fence.

Harcourt fell to the pavement on the other side, struggled to his feet, and recovered the suitcase. He stumbled toward the dark silhouette of the drawbridge. With great satisfaction the detective observed that the Newcomer was now limping.

Reaching the fence, he paused briefly to aim the Casull with both hands, blowing the lock to scrap. A single kick opened the gate.

The bridge's roadbed hung frozen in the open position, a massive dark slab of steel and asphalt stabbing the night sky. Harcourt ran through alternating pools of moonlight

190

and shadow as he approached the towering structure. Black seawater drifted past him. He ignored it as he concentrated on the way ahead, the only path remaining open to him. Once, his foot slipped and he almost went over the edge. He was panting hard now.

Sykes pounded along close behind, trying to regulate his breathing the way he'd learned on the street. If the other guy doesn't have a car waiting or a ready hole to bolt into, you take your time and wear him down. Don't kill yourself trying to catch up to him. Wait until he collapses from exhaustion. Then you pick him up and read him his rights.

A pity Miranda had been extended to cover Newcomers. The Casull weighed heavily in his fist.

Harcourt finally ran out of protective shadows near the beginning of the bridge. He turned a slow circle, his gaze intent on his surroundings, but there was nowhere else to run. The leap from the crest of the drawbridge to the other side was too much for any Newcomer, even had he been able to negotiate the steep climb to the top. There was ocean on both sides, and the. relentless human detective hardly a few strides behind. He might conceal himself for a minute or two and then make a dash back to the main roadway, but his leg was hurting and the human appeared intact.

Though it was too late, he now realized how badly he'd underestimated the seemingly ignorant, foul-mouthed, poorly educated cop. Not that he wasn't ignorant, foul-mouthed, and poorly educated, but he knew his job. Harcourt realized he would have no chance to flee back to the road. The man would hunt him down, checking each hiding place until he had Harcourt cornered.

If by some miracle he managed to elude the detective momentarily, there was still the matter of the enormous handgun the man was carrying. Even with a limp he might outrun the tired human, but he could not outrun a steel slug.

It was intolerable.

A great calm came over him. When there is nothing else left, you do the last thing. Flipping the double latches on the suitcase, he slowly opened it to reveal the precious contents. Tube after gleaming glass tube, each brimming with blue