First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [61]
They continued to move south on the parkway. "So you left."
Armitage nodded. "Whatever ties I'd felt with the irrational, faith-based world were severed. I found myself drawn instead to physics, quantum mechanics, organic chemistry—not as a scientist, per se, but as a means of understanding the world. I discovered that all these disciplines are empirical absolutes. They can be defined. Even better, they can be quantified. They're not subject to interpretation.
"Look, organized religions poison everything. They keep people superstitious, ignorant, and intolerant of anyone who's not like them. They also falsely bestow power on people who have no business being in power."
"Speaking of which," Jack said, "hold on."
He had been keeping to just under the speed limit, but with the off-ramp just over a hundred yards away, he floored the gas pedal. The car jumped forward. Jack hauled the wheel over, entering the center lane to an angry blare of horns. He slowed abruptly to allow a truck to get in front of him, then wedged the car into the right lane, onto the off-ramp at a frightening rate of speed.
Behind them, he could hear the shriek of rubber being flayed off the BMW's tires, the scream of horns, squeals of brakes being jammed on.
Armitage twisted around as far as his seat belt would allow. "You didn't lose them," he said.
"When I want to lose them," Jack said, "I will."
He prepared to turn off Dolley Madison Parkway almost immediately, making a left onto Kirby Road, but up ahead he saw one of those wheeled temporary signs with a grid of tiny lights blinking a message. The problem was, he couldn't read it. The array of lights swarmed like a hive of bees. He was coming up on it fast, there was no time to find his set point, to command his dyslexic brain to read what it refused to read, so he made the left off the parkway.
"What the hell are you doing?" Armitage shouted, bracing his hands against the dashboard.
Jack could see what he meant. The access to Kirby Road was blocked off. They sliced through a pair of wooden barricades, hit a potholed roadbed partially stripped to the bone. Workmen scattered, shouting and gesticulating wildly. The car dipped into a pothole, then bounced upward, coming down hard on its shocks.
The wheel vibrated under Jack's hands. "What did the sign say?"
"What d'you mean?" Armitage was bewildered. "You could read it as well as I could."
"Just tell me what it said!" Jack shouted.
"It said Kirby Road was under construction for the next half mile."
There was no help for it now. "Hang on," Jack said grimly.
They jounced over the rutted roadbed, Jack swinging the car back and forth in order to avoid the deepest holes. The bone-jarring half mile seemed to take forever; then the car reared up onto smooth tarmac. Jack could see the gray BMW negotiating the road behind them.
Swiveling back around, Armitage said, "Why is someone following us?"
"Damn good question."
Jack flicked open his phone, dialed his ATF office, which was not five minutes away. "It's McClure; get me Bennett," he said as soon as someone answered. Chief Rodney Bennett came on the line right away.
"How's it hanging, Jack?"
"I'll know in a couple of minutes, Chief. I've got a high-powered tail on me. Late-model gray BMW Five Series. Three minutes from now I'll be on Claiborne Drive. I need a stop 'n' shop."
"I'm all over it," Bennett growled.
"Right. Later." He folded away his phone.
"Open the glove box," he said to Armitage. "Take out a pad and pen."
Armitage did as he was told.
Precisely three minutes later, Jack took a left onto Claiborne Drive. This was a high-rent district with large, gracious homes, spacious front lawns, expensive landscaping.
Jack, one eye on the rearview mirror, saw the gray BMW corner after them, its distinctive front end just entering Claiborne.
"Why are you slowing down?" Armitage was truly alarmed now. "They'll be on top of us before—!"
"Shut up and take down the BMW's tag number," Jack snapped.
"Got it," Armitage said, scribbling hurriedly.