Page 73

Sam let his foot off the gas, slowing for a curve. The blue Mercedes gained on them. When it tried to pull alongside their car, Sam veered to the center, refusing to give it room, as he accelerated out of the curve. “Get ready,” he said. “A straight stretch ahead.” He sped up.
Remi leaned out the window, her hair whipping at her face as she took aim. He pressed the gas, trying to keep the distance steady, not seeing the pothole until it was too late. Remi fired just as he hit it.
“A little warning!” Remi called out, her shot missing.
“Sorry!” He gripped the wheel, steering into another curve, coming out of the turn, realizing too late the one disadvantage of being this far out in the country: poor road maintenance. Their wheels shuddered across the uneven pavement, jarring Sam and Remi with each bounce. They neared a narrow bridge up ahead, and, just beyond it, a sharp turn. “Maybe wait till we get out of this stretch,” he shouted.
“Where’s the challenge in that?” Remi’s smile grew even more determined when Sam approached the bridge. She took aim as the Mercedes gained on them, its reflection filling her side mirror.
Crack! Crack!
The blue Mercedes veered suddenly from the road, spinning in a cloud of dust and debris, slamming into the bridge’s parapet. It tilted up on two wheels, seemed to hover for a second, then bounced down the side of the hill.
“Nicely done, Mrs. Fargo.”
“Thank you.”
Sam pulled over to the side of the road. He and Remi looked out the window and down the hill at the crumpled car sitting at an odd angle at the bottom of the ravine.
“You think he survived?” Remi asked.
“If he was wearing his seat belt.” Sure enough, they saw movement, as the driver tried opening the door.
She gave a tired sigh. “As many times as they tried to kill us? It’s hardly fair I only got to take out his tire.”
He pulled out, then continued down the road. “Dead bodies with bullets tend to bring the police out in droves. I’d rather not spend hours sitting in an interrogation room, having to explain why we’re carrying guns in a country that doesn’t allow it.”
“Good point.”
He checked the rearview mirror, catching the reflection of the sun on the roof of a sleek black car about a mile back. “Looks like Bruno finally found us. We better get out of here before he catches up.”
45
Remi kept an eye on the rearview mirror, watching, as the black Mercedes followed at a safe distance. Sam had used every trick taught to him during his time at DARPA and still hadn’t lost their tail, frustrating them both. At one point, Remi opened the sunroof to check the sky. “Okay, we know it’s not a helicopter.”
“Are you sure our phones are turned off?”
“Positive.” Even so, she opened her purse to double-check the cells and the satellite phone. “They’re sitting like bricks in my Hermès bag.”
“You never know. Bricks might come in handy.”
“Well, we know it’s not the phones.”
“Like I said, they had to have placed a tracking device on our car when we were at the airport.”
Remi tapped her finger against the trigger guard of the semiauto resting on her thigh. “It worked once . . .”
“Let’s not push our luck.”
“You sure know how to ruin a girl’s fun,” she said, keeping her focus on the side mirror.
Sam checked the navigation screen on the car’s dash. “Right now, our best option is to find a place to park and buy enough time to find the device.”
He drove to the city center, the roads turning more congested as they approached. Horns blared at the taxi drivers veering in and out of lanes, treating the rules of the road more like guidelines, in their hurry to get to their destinations so they could pick up their next fares. The rest of the cars moved at a snail’s pace.
At least that gave Remi time to find a location she liked while keeping track of Bruno’s Mercedes, stuck solidly three cars behind them.
“Find anything?” Sam asked, doing his best to put yet another car length between them.