Without remorse - Tom Clancy [51]
'I know that car - it's -'
Kelly's voice was calm. 'Okay, I'll get us out of here. You're right, it's time to leave.' He increased speed, maneuvering left to get past the Roadrunner. He thought to tell Pam to get down, but that really wasn't necessary. In less than a minute he'd be gone, and - damn!
It was one of the gentry customers, someone in a black Karmann-Ghia convertible who'd just made his transaction, and, eager to have this area behind him, shot left from beyond the Roadrunner only to stop suddenly for yet another car doing much the same thing. Kelly stood on his brakes to avoid a collision, didn't want that to happen right now, did he? But the timing worked out badly, and he stopped almost right next to the Roadrunner, whose driver picked that moment to get out. Instead of going forward, he opted to walk around the back of the car, and in the course of turning, his eyes ended up not three feet from Pam's cringing face. Kelly was looking that way also, knowing that the man was a potential danger, and he saw the look in the man's eyes. He recognized Pam.
'Okay, I see it,' his voice announced with an eerie calm, his combat voice. He turned the wheel farther to the left and stepped on the gas, bypassing the little sports car and its invisible driver. Kelly reached the corner a few seconds later, and after the briefest pause to check traffic, executed a hard left turn to evacuate the area.
'He saw me!' Her voice hovered on the edge of a scream.
'It's okay, Pam,' Kelly replied, watching the road and his mirror. 'We are leaving the area. You're with me and you're safe.'
Idiot, his instincts swore at the rest of his consciousness. You'd better hope they don't follow. That car has triple your horsepower and -
'Okay.' Bright, low-slung headlights made the same turn Kelly'd executed twenty seconds earlier. He saw them wiggle left and right. The car was accelerating hard and fishtailing on the wet asphalt. Double headlights. It wasn't the Karmann-Ghia.
You are now in danger, his instincts told him calmly. We don't know how much yet, but it's time to wake up.
Roger that.
Kelly put both hands on the wheel. The gun could wait. He started evaluating the situation, and not much of it was good. His Scout was not made for this sort of thing. It wasn't a sports car, wasn't a muscle car. He had four puny cylinders under the hood. The Plymouth Roadrunner had eight, each one of them bigger than what Kelly was now calling on. Even worse, the Roadrunner was made for low-end acceleration and cornering, while the Scout had been designed for plodding across unpaved ground at a hot fifteen miles per hour. This was not good.
Kelly's eyes divided their time equally between the windshield and the rearview mirror. There wasn't much of a gap, and the Roadrunner was closing it rapidly.
Assets, his brain started cataloging. The car isn't completely useless, she's a rugged little bitch. You have big, mean bumpers, and that high ground-clearance means you can ram effectively. So what about the coachwork? That Plymouth might be a status symbol for jerks, but this little baby can be – is – a weapon, and you know how to use weapons. The cobwebs fell completely from his mind.
'Pam,' Kelly said as quietly as he could manage, 'you want to get down on the floor, honey?'
'Are they -' She started to turn, the fear still manifest in her voice, but Kelly's right hand pushed her down towards the floor.
'Looks like they're following us, yes. Now, you let me handle this, okay?' The last unengaged part of his consciousness was proud of Kelly's calm and confidence. Yes, there was danger, but Kelly knew about danger, knew a hell of a lot more than the people in the Roadrunner. If they wanted a lesson in what danger really was, they'd come to the right fucking place.
Kelly's hands tingled on the wheel as he eased left, then braked and turned hard right.