Page 39 of The 9th Man

“You’ll see.”

The fence loomed through the front windshield. He aimed the hood at what he guessed was the softest part of the span then glanced at the speedometer.

Eighty kilometers per hour.

Should be enough.

Please be enough.

He knew that fences were all different and seldom did they react to a collision as Hollywood portrayed, lying flat the instant a bumper touched them. More often they bulged outward, if only for a split second, before turning into a tangle of steel netting and sheered-off aluminum poles that whipped about like javelins.

They left the road and hit the fence at the midpoint between a pair of poles. For one breathless instant the fence held, bulged, then snapped. The Peugeot’s airbags exploded, driving Luke’s head backward. Something slammed against the roof, then raked down the car’s side with a screech. He heard a metallic chattering sound and knew part of the fence had snagged on the Peugeot’s undercarriage. He returned his hands to the wheel, steering blindly.

“You okay?”

Her arm appeared before his face. She plunged the knife into the airbag and ripped sideways, then again. With awhooshthe bag deflated. He shoved the material aside and blinked his eyes clear in time to jerk the wheel. The Peugeot glanced off a tree, slewed sideways, hit another tree broadside, then slid down a short slope.

The car lurched to a stop.

Its wheels spun, sending up a rooster tail of leaves and dirt. He lowered his window and leaned out. A section of fencing had snarled around the tree trunk. Luke shifted into reverse, then accelerated.

The fencing held.

“Sit tight,” he said.

He slammed the gearshift into park, climbed out, and scrambled up the slope until he could see over the crest. Persik’s men, now numbering four, were gathered about the gap in the fence. Mangled metal had rebounded and formed a barrier that had prevented them from driving through. One of them had a phone pressed to his ear. Probably requesting guidance. The others were clearing the obstacles. He slid back down the hill, then lay on his back and shimmied beneath the Peugeot, groping about until he found where a strand of fencing was hooked to the gas tank bracket. He freed it and returned to the driver’s seat.

“Are they still there?” asked Jillian.

He nodded. “They’ll be through shortly.”

He shifted the Peugeot into drive and began easing them farther down the slope using taps on the brake and the accelerator to navigate through the ever-thickening trees. The afternoon sun was dimmed by the leafy canopy.

A jangling filled the air.

From his pocket.

Baldy’s phone. He handed her the unit. “Put him on speaker.”

“You have nowhere to go,” Persik said. “Come back and our deal still stands.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire. You said no mercy.”

He was ad-libbing, since he had no intention of going back. But the longer he kept Persik talking the more distance he could place between them, which in turn translated into a larger search area.

“We’d want more conditions to guarantee our safety,” he said. “You may not like them.”

“Try me.”

He paused. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll call you back.”

Jillian ended the call.

“Pull the battery.”

“For a moment there I thought you were really making a deal.”

“Not unless we want to die today.”