Velocity (Karen Vail #3)(112)

Robby watched Quintero’s shuffling gait as he moved closer. Less than fifty feet away. “Get us out of here, man. Now—he’s got no way to follow us. Turn around and drive right into the roadblock—”

“Willie doesn’t trust anyone, Robby. He took the keys with him. But I got us a plan.” Diego covered his mouth, turned, and looked toward the minimart. “He’s got a bad prostate, so he has to pee a lot. Next time he pulls over, I’m gonna make a call. You got someone we can trust?”

“Hell yeah. Someone I trust with my life.”

“Next stop. I’ll call.” Diego turned back to Robby. “I need your answer. In or out? Give the word, hermano, and we’ll be on our way.”

Robby’s eyes scanned the car’s interior, came to rest on the dark gray grease-stained carpet. He had no choice. He had to confront the matter at hand. And that was finding a way to escape. If that meant agreeing to Diego’s demand to repent and turn himself in, so be it. But was Diego right? Was that the right thing to do?

Diego craned his neck around and then swung back. “He’s coming. Well?”

“I ask the Lord’s forgiveness for having sinned.” Despite the protein bar, the only thing he had eaten in days, he still felt weak. The stress of his confession did not help. He let his torso lie back on the seat. “I ask forgiveness for taking the life of Gerardo Soto.”

“Very good. But make no mistake, hermano. If we get away, and you do not confess—if you do not tell them what you did—I will.”

Robby nodded slowly. “Okay.”

The door flung open and Quintero got in the car. He threw a glance at Robby, then faced Diego. “How is he?”

Diego locked eyes with Robby. “I think he’s doing much better now.” He swung around in his seat. “Let’s get going. We’re behind schedule.”





77


Mann did an admirable job of keeping the DEA’s Chevrolet SUV lined up with the Land Rover, but they were falling dangerously far behind. The road was rough and their vehicle had bottomed out several times. Their heads were slamming into the roof and their shoulders into the doors, despite their seat restraints.

Without night vision equipment to allow him to see in the dark, DeSantos was beginning to think they were going to lose their target into the darkness of a rural, hilly countryside. Then his phone rang. Vail.

“We’re approaching your position,” she said. “I see you, in a cloud of dust, about a thousand yards ahead.”

“Do you see the asshole we’re chasing? We’re losing visual.”

With her headset off, Vail had to strain to hear him. “He’s about three-quarters of a mile ahead of you.”

“You see him?”

“Affirmative,” Vail said. “I’m wearing a set of NVGs.”

DeSantos looked skyward—and a lurch smashed his forehead against the windshield trim of the roof. He winced, picked up the phone that had dropped in his lap, then said, “I love you, Karen. Go get that sucker. Take him down, hard.”

“Will do,” Vail said. “Follow us in.”



TURINO, ALSO WEARING night vision goggles, banked the Huey and brought them a few hundred yards above the Land Rover.

“You see what I see?” Vail asked.

“That huge body of water up ahead?”

“I don’t think he can see where he’s going,” Vail said. “No headlights, running dark. Unless he knows this rough terrain intimately—”

“We should force him straight into the lake, end this chase sooner rather than later.” Turino jutted his head forward, concentrating on the landscape.

“Can you do that?”

“I’ve landed a Huey at night in a Bolivian jungle. Ended up clipping the rotor tips because the clearing wasn’t very clear at all. Thick foliage all around us. But if I can do that, I can do this.”

“Yeah,” Vail said, “I was thinking the same thing.” Not really. I know nothing about landing in jungles and clipped rotor tips. Gotta admit, though, it sounded damn good.

“I’m going to drop us down low, take us in alongside him. If you see anything ahead we don’t want to hit—trees, wires, poles, whatever—speak up. Anything like that’d seriously fuck us up.”

Vail leaned forward and peered out the window, concentrating on the approaching terrain. “How long till he reaches that lake?”

“Approximately half a mile. He’s moving about sixty. He’ll hit it in about thirty seconds.”

“So the plan is to steer him into the water.”

“Unless you come up with something better, yeah, that’s the plan.”

Twenty-five seconds later, the Land Rover braked hard in a dramatic up-churn of dirt, then veered sharply right, executing the maneuver they had anticipated.

Turino dropped lower and lined up the chopper along the right side of the Land Rover, keeping a few dozen yards above the vehicle. He leaned forward and brought his face closer to the windshield. “Just thought of something. Hang on, I think I can pull this off.”

Hang on? You think?

Turino glanced over his left shoulder at the vehicle below. He clenched his jaw, then dropped hard and fast. He tightened his grip on the control stick and moved the Huey just ahead of the Land Rover.