Page 56

Sam shouted at the soldiers, “Move, move!” and gestured with the rifle. The men sidestepped away, leaving Sam a clear shot at the truck’s radiator. He raised his rifle and took aim.
The fifth man, until now hidden in the second truck’s cab, suddenly stuck his torso out the driver’s window. Sam saw the silhouette of his rifle coming around toward him.
“Stop!”
The man kept twisting his body, the rifle coming around.
Sam adjusted his aim and fired two shots through the windshield. The soldiers scattered, diving into the underbrush bordering the road. Sam heard a crack. Something thudded into the tailgate beside him. He ducked down, lurched sideways around the opposite bumper, turned again, and snapped off a trio of shots into what he hoped was the truck’s radiator or engine block. He turned, raced to the truck’s passenger’s door, jerked it open, and climbed in.
“We’ve worn out our welcome,” he said.
Remi put the truck in gear and mashed the accelerator.
They hadn’t gotten a hundred yards before realizing Sam’s gunshots had either missed their mark or had been insufficient. In the side mirrors, he and Remi saw the truck’s headlights pop on. The four soldiers scrambled from cover and hopped aboard, two in the cab, the other two in the bed. The truck surged forward.
Remi called, “Narrow bridge ahead!”
Sam looked. Though still a couple hundred yards away, the bridge in question looked not just narrow but barely wider than their truck’s girth. “Speed, Remi,” he warned.
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“I meant, slow down.”
“Joking. Hold on!”
The truck hit a rut in the road and slewed sideways, lurched upward, then slammed back down. The bridge loomed in the windshield. Fifty yards to go.
“Oh, of course,” Remi said, annoyed. “It had to be one of these.”
Though wider and more heavily buttressed, the bridge was simply a larger version of the one they’d crossed on foot earlier that day.
The truck lurched again. Sam and Remi were bounced from their seats, heads hitting the cab’s roof. Remi grunted, wrestling with the steering wheel.
The bridgehead was almost upon them. At the last second, Remi slammed on the brakes. The brakes squealed, and the truck skidded to a stop. A cloud of dust enveloped them.
Sam heard the clank-clank of gears and looked over to see his wife shifting the transmission into reverse. “Remi, what’s on your mind?” he asked.
“A little reverse chicken,” she said with a grim smile.
“Risky.”
“As opposed to everything else we’ve done tonight?”
“Touché,” Sam conceded.
Remi slammed down on the accelerator. With a groaning whir from the engine, the truck started backing up, slowly at first but rapidly gaining speed. Sam glanced in the side mirror. Through the dust cloud created by Remi’s hasty stop, all he could see of the second truck was headlights. He leaned out the window and fired a three-round burst, then a second. The truck slewed sideways, out of Sam’s view.
Eyes fixed on her own mirror, Remi said, “They’re stopping. They see us. They’re backing up.”
Over the roar of the engine they heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire. They ducked down. With her head below the dashboard, Remi leaned sideways for a better view of her mirror. The pursuing truck was in full reverse mode now, but the combination of Remi’s collision-course ploy and Sam’s gunfire had clearly rattled the driver. The truck careened from one side to the other, the tires bumping over the berm alongside the road.
“Brace for impact!” Remi shouted.
Sam leaned back in his seat and jammed his feet against the dashboard. A moment later the truck jolted to a stop. Remi glanced at her mirror. “They’re off the road.”
“Let’s not stick around,” Sam prompted.
“Right.”