The Project 05 - The Tesla Secret

weeks ago."
    She started up, drove out of the lot.
    "Where are you staying?" he asked.
    "The Mayflower Renaissance. I stay there when I'm in Washington and leave the car there when I'm out of town."
    "That's not far from my place. Where do you live when you're not in D.C.?"
    "San Francisco. I've got a loft in North Beach."
    They pulled onto the Interstate. The interior was quiet except for the whisper of the air conditioner. Carter relaxed into the leather.
    They were doing a little over seventy. Selena glanced in the rear view mirror and switched lanes. A BMW 740 with blacked out windows passed her and cut sharply in front.
    "Jerk," she muttered under her breath. In the side mirror Nick saw a black Suburban pull in behind, riding their tail. His ear began itching.
    They entered a construction zone . The right lane of the highway was bordered by heavy cement barriers laid end to end. Orange signs warned of doubled fines and men at work.
    The Suburban rammed into them and drove the Mercedes into the cement. The car rebounded from the barrier in a shower of sparks and fishtailed back onto the roadway. In front, the BMW blocked them. Selena fought for control. The Suburban came alongside on the left and broadsided her back into the barrier.
    The front right fender and hood buckled . Something flew over the roof. Sparks streamed by Nick's window. The Mercedes slid along the cement in a din of screeching steel.
    D rivers swerved around them, horns blaring.
    Carter pulled out his .45. Selena's eyes narrowed.
    "Hang on," she said.
    She hit the brakes and the big discs on the Mercedes grabbed the wheels. Carter wasn't ready. The seat belt stopped his head inches from the dash. The Suburban surged past on the left, scraping strips from the car, taking the mirror with it. Selena shifted down. She floored the accelerator and the five hundred horses came to life. She cut across panicked traffic into the outer lane.
    They shot past the SUV and the BMW. The car filled with the smooth growl of the engine and the sound of pavement under the tires.
    The speedometer climbed past ninety. Selena wove in and out of the traffic and clipped a red Honda. It skewed across the highway and flipped over onto the grass median. In the side mirror, Carter saw a gray sedan slam into an old pickup filled with furniture. Chests and chairs spilled across the roadway.
    A quarter mile ahead a blinking yellow arrow on the back of a truck and a string of orange and white barrels funneled three lanes into two. They were about to run out of room. The cement streamed by on the right, a blurring, silent ripple of gray outside his window.
    Shit, he thought. He calmed himself, lowered his heart rate, getting ready for whatever was coming. The gun rested on his thigh. He was out of control, but the car was so comfortable. Carter glanced at Selena. She gripped the wheel, her face set, absorbed in the traffic and the road. The speedometer hung at a hundred.
    A long, wide gap in the cement barrier opened along the right onto an excavated parking area with neat rows of equipment and stacks of supplies. Selena slowed, shifted down, stood on the emergency brake and wrenched the wheel over. The rear end slid smoking to the left in a howl of burning rubber. In one fluid motion she released the brake and whipped the wheel back to center. The Mercedes shot through the gap and went airborne over the edge of the road and down hard onto gravel.
    The front tires blew out. The car corkscrewed and slewed sideways and sprayed gravel and dirt in a wide arc. They fishtailed across the lot. The car slammed to a jarring halt against a pile of rebar and steel. Steam erupted under the buckled hood.
    The BMW and Suburban caught up and stopped on the highway. Two men jumped from the car, guns in their hands. Two more piled out of the Suburban.
    Carter pushed Selena down into her seat and fired twice at the windshield. The shots deafened him inside the car. The glass spider-webbed. He fired again. A large piece of the windshield blew out. He fired at the first man out of the BMW and missed. He fired again and the man spun backwards, arms splayed wide.
    Carter shot the second man in the chest, then turned toward the others. He ducked. The two from the Suburban opened up with their pistols. The car windows disappeared in a shower of flying glass. Bullets thumped into the sides of the car.
    Something clipped his ear. Selena was bent low behind the wheel with her hands covering her ears. He