“Fuck! They’re onto us!”
Jordan glanced into the rearview mirror. Blinded by four sets of collimated high beams, she slammed a fist onto the steering wheel, cursing as she slid around a corner at neck breaking speed.
“Punch it, goddammit!” Knox was furious at herself for being talked into another hare-brained escapade. “FUCK ME!” she screamed while glaring at Jordan. “When am I going to get it through my thick skull to NOT listen to you!? You’re gonna get us both killed! FUCK!”
Jordan didn’t need to hear the angry rebuke as she flipped the safety off on the toggle switch that would inject a burst of nitrous oxide into the intake manifold effectively converting the Jeep’s power plant into a rocket motor.
“Traffic ahead! Thank fucking god.” Knox’s relief at turning into a busy street was short-lived. The SUV remained on their tail, not allowing Jordan leeway to maneuver past slower traffic.
“Bastards,” Jordan snapped as she punched the accelerator down and shot ahead.
“Just focus on the road. Stay out of their reach.” Knox opened the small duffel bag at her feet and checked that the two automatic machine guns were fully loaded.
Jordan concentrated on moving left and right, searching for a side road where she could quickly turn into and gain some advantage.
The back window suddenly exploded in a concussive shockwave as the staccato pop of incoming rounds hit their mark. They instinctively ducked as glass granulates showered the interior.
“Fucking bastards!” Jordan snapped as she yanked on the steering wheel and cut into a side street.
“Floor it, Jordan! They’re coming!”
She smashed her foot onto the accelerator. The car lurched forward with screeching tires. All to no avail as the blinding headlights grew larger in the back window.
“You asshole!” Jordan winced as the onrush of xenon high beams pierced and wrapped the car in a halo of white light in the narrow alley. She hammered her foot again into the accelerator and sighed in relief when she turned into traffic.
“Keep it steady, Jordan. When I tell you, swerve hard right to give me a target. It’s time these bastards get a taste of their own medicine.” Knox twisted in the seat as she opened the window… waiting with her weapons gripped lightly in her hands.
“NOW!”
Jordan yanked the steering wheel to the right, exposing the shooter sitting in the passenger seat. Knox pushed out of the passenger side up to her waist, rolled onto her left side and brought her weapons to bear. With two fully loaded MAC 10’s pressed abreast between her gloved hands, she aimed low and squeezed the triggers simultaneously. The hot gases from the automatic guns roared out of the short barrels like a blow torch as a double fusillade of rounds ripped from left to right across the hood. The SUV bucked and sank as multiple rounds stitched upwards, tearing through metal and glass.
“Get some, motherfuckers!” Knox cheered as she watched the mortally wounded SUV careen head-on into a parked car.
“Get us the fuck out of here!” Knox shouted as she jammed two fresh magazines into the automatics.
The car shot forward, pinning her against the door as they powered through a hard left turn.
“Hold fast!” Jordan jerked the steering wheel hard to the right and accelerated as she felt the left side of the car lift off the roadbed.
“Ballast!” In a blur, Knox dove headfirst into the rear left seat. Another sharp quarter turn into the steering wheel at the apex of the turning arc and the car began to right itself. The big bore V8 screamed as Jordan slammed hard back onto the accelerator rocketing them forward. Visions of another time momentarily flooded her mind...
It all happened in slow-motion. The driver of the forward Humvee had become distracted. Instead of asking the private sitting shotgun next to him to grab the Zippo lighter that was jumping up and down on the dashboard, he reached for it himself. As he leaned across, his weight shifted just enough to the right to pull his left hand gripping the steering wheel to follow. The subtle movement caused the vehicle to steer to the right out of the tracks of the convoy. Before the driver realized his mistake, the right steer of the mechanized Humvee made contact with a pressure plate sitting atop an autonomously initiated artillery shell buried in the roadbed.
“Yeah, baby! That’s more like it,” Knox’s shout as the second SUV disappeared in the distance.
Whmumf!
Following twenty-five feet behind in a Stryker, Jordan watched as the Humvee with its five occupants was lifted up and pitch-poled backwards in a halo of blinding white light. Then came the concussive blast. She reflexively winced and with a forearm thrown up, turned her face sideways as the windshield exploded to send a spray of glass beads at the speed of sound into the right side of her face. The sickening sound of body parts pummeling her armored vehicle, rained down in a shower of bloody viscera. By a stroke of luck, she had cheated the hangman’s noose again.
Jordan?
Jordan?
“Jordan! Where the fuck are you? HEY!”
“I’m here... I’m here. Just shaking off a... I’m okay.”
She knew San Francisco like the back of her hand, having lived and walked these streets her entire life. She’d miscalculated at that house, allowed her guard to slip for a second and in doing so, put not only herself but also Knox in danger.