Chapter 35
“He’s turning,” Paul called out, still watching the van through the drone’s lens. “He’s taking the switchback road.”
Norway was filled with switchback roads that zigzagged up and down the steep hills. The stunning terrain required them.
“Why would he do that?” Paul wondered aloud. “Those cars will handle the turns better than the van.”
“It might be smart,” Joe offered. “They’ll have to brake every time they get to a hairpin.
It’ll look like one of those Formula One races on a narrow track, where it’s impossible to pass and everyone drives in single file.
It might even give him a chance to knock one of them off the road and send it tumbling down the mountain. At least that’s what I would try.”
“They could do the same,” Paul pointed out.
“They want to know where the plane is,” Kurt shouted. “Can’t get that from a dead man. Which should keep Gamay relatively safe.”
Joe veered left to enter the mountain road and geared down to keep the speed up, while watching the parade up ahead.
As the cars slowed for the first turn, they bunched up, just as Joe had suggested.
All three hugged the mountainside, staying far away from the unguarded drop-off.
As the van hit the straightaway, it sped off, putting some distance between itself and the Chinese cars.
They raced after it once they got out of the curve, but twenty seconds on the accelerator was rapidly followed by more brake lights and the next tight turn.
For a moment, the van was actually winning. By sticking together, the Chinese cars were getting in each other’s way, making the turns slower and more ponderous. By the third turn they’d begun to lose substantial ground.
Joe wheeled the Big Orange Rig into the first hairpin, cutting the corner and dropping the inside tires off the road. They dug into the softer terrain, grinding through the snow and frost and pulling the rig through the turn more tightly than if he’d stayed on the asphalt.
While Joe grinned at the tactic, Kurt and Paul were bouncing around in the back and trying to hold on. Neither one asked Joe to slow down.
The second turn was just as rough. And the third included a slight skid that took them toward the edge before Joe countered it. But the near-reckless driving was having the desired effect. With each hairpin they were closing the gap. By the fourth turn they were in striking range of the rear car.
“What’s the plan?” Paul asked. He’d lost the glasses by this point and had given up on seeing the world through the eye of the drone.
“Energy transfer,” Joe said, “from us to them. Force equals mass times acceleration.”
“Come again?” Paul asked.
“Big car hits small car, small car goes flying.”
“Works for me.”
The four vehicles had climbed nearly a thousand feet by now. The fjord and the harbor town glittered down below. The idea of something flying was not too far-fetched.
The next turn arrived, but it was a jag to the left and then back to the right, more of a chicane than a hairpin. At this point, the Chinese cars separated, with one speeding ahead and the second one lagging behind to deal with the pursuer.
Joe tried to ram the trailing car as they thundered down the straightaway. It was too quick. Its driver swerved, gunned the engine, and sped away once more.
Another chicane-type jag came at them. The Chinese car handled it well. Joe barreled right through the middle, going off-road and blasting through a snowbank back onto the road on the far side.
The Chinese car remained ahead of them, but only just. A man popped up through the sunroof and opened fire with an automatic weapon of some kind. Flashes could be seen. Bullets peppered the rig.
Joe swerved from side to side, hoping to make them a difficult target.
Then he went on the offensive. The Big Orange Rig had more than just headlights.
It had spotlights, floodlights, and two racks of overhead lights up on the roof bright enough to illuminate an entire field.
Joe found the switches and flipped all of them on simultaneously.
The Chinese gunman raised a hand against a two-thousand-watt glare. Squinting and firing blind, he pulled the trigger again. These shots went wide and low, kicking up dirt and slush, but little else.
The man held on as the car whipped around the next turn. For a second it was broadside to the NUMA vehicle. The man took advantage of a brief respite from the blinding light and fired at the big, orange target.
Slugs plunking the sheet metal made a dull tin-like sound. No one was injured, but a light on the dashboard said they were losing air from a tire. Joe pressed a button, and a self-sealing gel was released inside the tire. It would foam up and fill the gap, but the pressure was still down.
“Took a hit to the right front,” Joe said.
“How bad?” Kurt asked.
“The puncture should be sealed, but we’ve lost some air and we’re going to lose some speed. Can’t go full out in the turns with a damaged side wall. So much for the energy-transfer plan.”
“We have to keep going,” Paul said.
“We will,” Kurt replied. “But we should take it slower.”
“How much slower?” Joe asked.
Kurt didn’t hesitate. “Let’s just say it would be nice to travel in parallel formation with them for a moment.”
Joe looked back. Kurt was opening the observation cupola at the back end of the rig.
As the hatch flipped open, a blast of frigid air poured in, and the grinding sound of the tires doubled in intensity.
With another quick glance, Joe noticed something in Kurt’s hands as he climbed up the ladder that would allow him to look out over the top of the rig.
“I think I know what you have in mind,” Joe said.
Joe took the next turn more carefully, dropping back farther.
It required some guesswork because they didn’t know the exact layout of the road, but Joe made the next turn exactly a half lap behind the Chinese car.
They were now traveling in the same direction at the same time, with the Chinese slightly ahead and a hundred feet above them.
Bracing himself against the fiberglass shell of the cupola, Kurt raised the bazooka-like tube he’d pulled from the storage crate.
A lethal-looking, diamond-shaped arrowhead stuck out the front.
The rocket-propelled spear was designed to be fired into ice from a distance, trailing two hundred yards of lightweight line out behind it.
By Kurt’s estimation the distance to the Chinese car was half that.
Adjusting for flight time he aimed a few degrees ahead of the car and calmly squeezed the handle.
A six-foot length of flame shot out the back end of the tube.
The diamond-shaped arrowhead accelerated outward toward the target.
Kurt had detached most of the rope, leaving only a short length to act like the feathers on a dart.
The rocket tracked perfectly, the fire and smoke of its path merging with the Chinese car near the end of the next straightaway.
At three hundred miles an hour, it plunged into the sheet metal just ahead of the passenger door, splitting the engine block, rupturing a fuel line, and causing a small explosion.
The car was pushed left with the impact.
It went into a skid, sliding off the road onto the icy shoulder and then over the side of the hill.
It tumbled more than fell; the hill was steep but not a cliff.
By chance it ended up on what was left of its wheels and continued rolling downward until it smashed into a boulder and came to a complete stop.
“Great shot,” Paul called out. “How many more of those do we have?”
“Unfortunately, that was the only one,” Kurt said, dropping back inside the rig and closing the cupola. “It’s back to plan A. If Joe can catch them.”
Joe pushed the rig as hard as he could, but as the road grew steeper, the weight of the rig became more and more burdensome. There was little they could do as the lights of the van, and the Chinese pursuer, slowly left them behind.