The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler (top 10 best books of all time .TXT) 📗

Jorge resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. He had stiffened, though, and his eyes had gotten larger and rounder, as fear began to affect him physically. His breathing went a little shallow and rapid. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to lure them into a trap,” Bell said, swinging the nimble roadster across a plaza and down a street lined with three-story buildings.

The Model T gained two car lengths. Bell knew that there was a problem with his plan. The Ford had a four-cylinder engine and was capable of close to fifty miles per hour. It would be slower because of the weight of the driver and passengers yet would still have a speed advantage over his two-cylinder Renault.

The car jounced over the cobbled streets, and Bell felt the tonneau cover overhead the back passengers’ compartment luffing like a sail in the wind and slowing the car down even further. “Pop out the roof’s support frame on your side.”

“What?”

“We need to ditch the soft top. Pull the locking pin and yank up on the support strut.”

Bell did the same on his side, fumbling over his shoulder to yank out the varnished wooden hoop that stiffened the leather cover. When it popped free, the top remained inflated by air rushing into the cockpit, but once Bell popped a few of the grommets holding it to the windshield, the leather cover pulled free and collapsed into the tiny rumble seat behind them.

They gained an extra mile or two per hour. Not that it mattered much. The Model T quickly passed the vehicle remaining between them and accelerated into the Renault’s bumper. Had they hit at an angle, the bigger sedan would have spun the French roadster, but they hit flat against its rear. Both men lurched upon impact.

Bell swung the car through a ninety-degree corner, the wooden-spoked wheels straining at the lateral load. Bell’s face reflected concern. He had seen such violent maneuvers snap spindles and crumple wheels on much better maintained cars.

This new road was little more than an alley, so the Tin Lizzie was stuck behind Bell. They took the opportunity to use the Ford like a battering ram. Three times they struck the little Renault, and would have hit a fourth time had the third impact not wrenched their bumper askew and accordioned their hood a little.

The alley opened into another plaza, one with a fountain at its center topped by a statue of some past person of importance. Bell didn’t have time to care. He mashed the accelerator and squeezed the horn’s bulb like a Highlander going into battle blowing his bagpipes. Pigeons and people scattered. He threaded the car through a stream of traffic crossing the plaza on a diagonal road. The Ford stayed on his bumper as it rocketed through a gap of horrified drivers amid an off-key symphony of car honking and shouted oaths.

With virtually no effort, the Model T swung around the Renault and pulled up alongside. The driver watched the road while his passenger leered at their quarry. It was the guy in back, wearing simple peasant clothes but with a bandanna tied over his nose and mouth, who pulled a sawed-off shotgun into view. The mouths of the twin barrels looked as big around as silver dollars. He seemed confused, for the smallest fraction of a second, that the roadster’s driver was on the opposite side of the car.

That hesitation was all Bell needed. He braked hard, waited to bleed off enough speed to slide behind the Ford, even as the shotgun roared and a storefront window disintegrated into a million glass chips.

The Ford’s driver hadn’t expected Bell’s maneuver, and by the time he started slowing, Bell was around again on the other side and racing past. That was his one advantage. The much-lighter Renault could out-accelerate and out-brake the heavy sedan.

“We can’t play cat and mouse with them,” he said, turning down yet another street. The Ford lost a good twenty seconds as it lumbered back up to speed.

“We’re only a few blocks from a police station,” Jorge told him. His hands were so tightly clenched, his knuckles were white.

“That’s not how this is going to end,” Bell said as he worked the car around the worst of the puddles on this new street. The houses were little more than run-down shacks crammed in so tightly they held one another upright. Women doing chores on the stoops watched them race by with indolent eyes. Stick-thin children pointed.

Bell then said, “At the next cross street, I’m going to make a hard left turn. I need you to get out.”

“What?”

“We’re going too slow with you in the car, and I can’t risk them blasting away at us with that shotgun. Don’t worry, I’ll be going slowly enough. Just open the door and hit the ground jogging.”

“But my leg . . .” Jorge protested.

“. . . is functional enough for this. The alternative is a double load of buckshot to the head.” Bell lined up on the next corner, stealing a glance behind. The Ford was almost on their bumper.

At the last second, he downshifted with a grinding of gears and hit the brakes hard. The spoked wheels warped slightly as the car skidded across the muddy street in a power drift its designers had never imagined it could handle. Bell hit the gas, even as the car was still fishtailing through the corner, and managed to reach across a terrified Jorge Nuñez and throw open the passenger’s door.

“Go.”

The Ford shot past the intersection, its rear slewing dangerously from side to side as the driver overcompensated for his mistake.

Jorge leapt from the Renault, his short legs pumping for all they were worth. To his credit, he stayed upright until he tripped over some broken cobblestones and fell, sprawling into a mud puddle deep enough to safely absorb his momentum.

Bell put him out of mind, noting the car picked up speed now that it was carrying only one man. The Ford