Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [107]
MR. LOVEJOY KNEW this road like the back of his hand. The Crimea had been his theater of operations for five years now. Not that he’d ever gotten used to it. The food still lay like a leaden ball in his stomach, his skin always itched from some fungus or other, and he hadn’t slept in the same bed for more than three straight nights. The saving grace was the women, who were young, tall, blond, and plentiful. They loved foreigners, particularly Americans, who they hoped to rope into marriage in order to get them out of the hellhole into which they had been born. Once you knew that about them you could entice anything out of them. Mr. Lovejoy was looking forward to this evening’s festivities, which he’d already set in motion, anticipating a quick resolution to this commission.
The road had risen up as it reached the cliff face. Already he could see the aquamarine sparkle of the Black Sea as the road began its long sweep around the coastline. Checking his odometer he saw there was less than a kilometer to the apex of the curve where the commission would be, as he put it, realized. It was time and, pressing down on the accelerator, he moved the Toyota into position.
The great sweep of the Black Sea, now darkly bruised by lowhanging clouds on the horizon, was rapidly opening up as he approached the apex. The Zil had already entered the first part of it. Swinging out into the oncoming traffic lane, he put on a sudden burst of speed. A moment more and he’d slam his off-side front fender into the left rear quarter of the Zil, launching it into a death spiral that, by his calculations, would send it over the cliff during its second rotation.
“MORE SPEED!” Jack shouted from the backseat.
“Hang on!” Annika called back to him.
As he saw the Toyota pull out into the left-hand lane, he added, “Jesus, he wants to send us over the cliff.”
“This damn auto.” Annika’s hands gripped the wheel as firmly as possible, but it had begun to vibrate alarmingly as the Zil started to shimmy. “If I go any faster we’ll go over the damn cliff without his help.”
“Here he comes!” Jack said. “Alli, curl yourself into a ball and stay that way.”
He rolled down the window and began firing at the oncoming Toyota, but their own car was behaving badly, shaking as if at any moment it would fly apart from the excessive stress it was under. Jack was thrown back and forth, making it impossible to get off a clean shot.
“Annika, for God’s sake, put on more speed!”
She did as he asked, and for a moment it appeared as if the maneuver would work. They began to pull ahead of the Toyota, but then something lurched, forcing Annika to flutter the brake to stop them from flying off the road into thin air.
In that moment, the Toyota hit them and they slewed badly, beginning their spin. Jack, thrown against the open window, caught a glimpse of the Toyota before they spun around in a circle.
Annika threw the Zil into neutral and turned off the ignition. The car continued to spin, coming perilously close to the edge before she was able to regain a semblance of control. Not that it mattered, Jack thought, because the Toyota would hit them again, the driver finishing what he had started. But as he caught a second glimpse behind them, something slammed so violently into the Toyota it rose into the air. An instant later, it exploded, hurtling down the cliff face, and the choking smell of burning gasoline engulfed them.
By this time, Annika had brought the Zil to a shuddering stop on the right verge of the road.
“Alli,” Jack said, scrambling across the backseat, “are you all right?”
She came slowly out of her defensive position and, slightly dazed, nodded. It was then that Jack saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and, turning, watched a figure walking down off the high embankment on the landward side of the road. In one hand he carried an M72 LAW, an antitank weapon, the lightweight successor to the World War II bazooka, but