Edge

called calmly.
    But I didn’t slow; I kept speeding backward, my sweating hands clutching the wheel so hard my wrists were cramping. “Garcia, call Fredericks. Let him know.”
    “Yessir.”
    He alerted Freddy of the situation, then disconnected and took up a defensive position again, basically sprawled over Joanne. Maree was huddled in the corner, sobbing.
    “Hold on, watch your weapons.” I hit the next speed bump at close to 50 miles per hour, still in reverse. We bounced into the inn’s courtyard and I continued on, toward the back, with a fast glance into the lobby, where the panicked clerk was on the phone.
    “Where?” I shouted. “Loving, where is he?”
    “No sign!” Ahmad called.
    The gears were screaming now and the floorboard seemed to be hot. Reverse was not made for these speeds.
    “Coming to the end of the drive,” I called. “Big bump! Fingers off triggers and hold on.”
    Without slowing we careened over the curb through the narrow gap we’d just taken on foot ten minutes earlier in our three teams, to get to the rear parking lot. I destroyed a low row of bushes and then bounded onto a concrete patio that jutted into the parking lot, sending the colorful lawn furniture sprawling over the asphalt. Glass from the tables shattered loudly. I skidded the vehicle to the left and braked to a stop, gasping for breath. My shoulders ached.
    Running parallel to the motel on the other side of the parking lot was a six-foot stockade fence. To the left was a brick wall about four feet high. To the right was the driveway we’d just exited by and beyond that a small thicket of trees.
    “No, no, no,” Maree was wailing. “We’re trapped. What’re we going to do? Oh, Jesus.”
    “You’ll be okay,” Joanne said to her sister.
    “I’m so fucking scared.”
    “Stay on the alley, the driveway and the trees,” I said to Ahmad, nodding to what we’d just backed through and the small forest beyond.
    “Garcia, the brick wall.”
    “Yessir. I’m on it!”
    “Shadow in the alley,” Ahmad said. “Somebody’s coming. In a car, looks like.”
    “Now!” Ryan called. “Ram him! He’ll be coming through there any second. He thinks you’re still going. Hit the gas!”
    I ignored him.
    Ahmad had opened his window further and was aiming his weapon toward the alley.
    “What are you going to do?” The urgent question came not from Ryan, as I might have thought, but from his wife.
    I didn’t answer her either.
    Ahmad said, “Shadow’s getting closer.”
    I glanced that way. A car was slowly following our route along the path we’d just torn along. Cautious.
    “It’s him,” Ryan said. “The lights’re out. Ram him! Ram him!”
    “Garcia, the brick wall. Stay with it.”
    “Yessir.”
    “Forget the fucking wall. He’s coming up the path between the buildings!” Ryan blurted. “You can see it!”
    “No, he’s not,” I said. “Loving’s forced somebody to drive their car up here slowly. Just like in Fairfax. He and the partner split up to flank us from the trees and from the brick wall. Ahmad, take out the tire of the car that comes through the gap. The driver’ll get spooked and stop. Then watch the driveway and those trees beyond it. Garcia, the wall.”
    They acknowledged the orders.
    The feint car hood edged slowly into view from the alley.
    Ahmad shot out the tire and immediately lifted his weapon’s muzzle, staring past the vehicle. “Can’t see clearly but think there’s somebody in the woods. Solo.”
    “Brick wall,” Garcia called. “It’s Loving’s car. They’re flanking us.”
    “Covering fire,” I shouted. “Both directions. Mind innocents.”
    Both men fired, driving Loving back. The partner too vanished under cover in the woods.
    “They’re going to try again,” Maree said, still crying. “We’re trapped here!”
    Now they knew we were ready for them. I dropped the transmission into four-wheel low gear and turned directly toward the stockade fence.
    “What’re you doing?” Maree gasped. “No! We’ll get stuck!”
    I nosed the Yukon against the wood and, a slight nudge, the panel of fencing broke free. I drove over it and into the farm field on the other side.
    I ordered, “Target the gap in the fence. Butdon’t fire unless you’re sure it’s them. There’ll be spectators now.” I was heading slowly down the hill toward a line of trees.
    Surprisingly it was Joanne Kessler who caught on. “You had that escape route planned. You cut mostly