The collision slammed both of them back against their seats, momentarily stunning them.
Then Jamison went into action. She floored the gas, and the SUV leapt forward.
“Can you see anything?” she called out.
Decker turned around and looked at the headlights a few feet behind them. “Yeah, and here they come again.”
They were bucked forward once more with a second collision. Jamison was having to struggle mightily just to keep the truck on the road.
She said, “They have more horsepower than we do. I’ve got the pedal to the floor.”
“Well, let’s see if we can do something about that.”
Decker undid his seat harness, climbed over the seats, and settled in the cargo area at the back. “Pop the window,” he called out as he slid his Glock from its belt holster.
Jamison did so and Decker edged the glass further up.
He used the back of the cargo door as his fulcrum, aimed, and fired five shots into the driver’s side of the windshield.
The vehicle immediately started to veer erratically to the left and right.
“Think I hit the driver,” he yelled out. As he said this he ducked down. “Look out, Alex!”
Their SUV was strafed with machine-gun fire.
She bent low, cut the wheel hard to the left, and shot onto the wrong side of the road.
“Decker, Decker, you okay? Decker.”
She glanced frantically in the rearview mirror. “Amos!”
His head poked up into view. “Okay, that was a little closer than I would have liked.”
Their SUV started wobbling badly and Jamison said, “They hit our tires. I can’t hold this speed.”
Decker looked to the right. “Road coming up. Take it.”
Jamison left rubber on the road as she drilled a ninety-degree turn onto another ribbon of asphalt heading south. She eased up on the gas because the SUV was fishtailing so badly. “They must have shredded our rear tires. Feels like we’re riding on the rims.”
“Just keep going.”
He watched as the shot-up vehicle, now revealed as a Hummer, made the turn. And then he watched with a sickening feeling as another Hummer pulled in right behind the first one.
They had reinforcements and machine guns. This would not be a long or fair fight.
He looked toward the front of their SUV and saw what looked to be an abandoned farmhouse with broken corral fencing and a hay barn with rotted doors swinging off.
“Head for that barn,” he told Jamison.
The SUV shot through the opening and she slammed on the brakes, bringing them to a stop right before they crashed into the opposite wall. They scrambled out of the SUV and took up position behind their vehicle.
Decker has already tried to call 911 for help, but there were no bars on his phone. Even if he had, it would probably take hours for even a single cop to show up out here.
Jamison had her gun pointed at the open doors. She glanced at Decker. “What now?”
He was eyeing the interior of the barn, and then his gaze went up. “High ground is the best.”
They hustled to an old wooden ladder and clambered up to the hayloft, which was half full of thoroughly rotted straw.