Black Wind

by Clive Cussler

  Dirk could tell her compassion was genuine. Sarah had a warm heart that seemed to resonate through her. If not employed by the rDC she would probably be off running a dog shelter or helping a wildlife rescue, with or without a paycheck. With her gazing at Dirk ith tender eyes, he was glad she was here with him now.

  A waiter appeared to spoil their intimacy, but brought a gourmet meal to the table. Dirk enjoyed a mesquite-grilled king salmon filet, while Sarah dined on Alaskan weathervane scallops she deemed so tender they melted in her mouth. After sharing a fresh raspberry cheesecake for dessert, they took a short stroll hand in hand along the water's edge. Dirk kept an eye out for the two men in the Cadillac, whom he finally observed parked a few blocks away in Burton.

  "It's gorgeous here, but I guess we should be getting back," Sarah said with disappointment. "We should have the blood test results on your sick crewmen by now, and Hal probably has your bomb canister analysis completed."

  As they approached the car, she turned and hugged Dirk.

  "Thanks for a lovely lunch," she whispered.

  ""Kidnapping beautiful women in the afternoon is a specialty of mine," he smiled, then took her in his arms and gave her a long passionate kiss. She responded by wrapping her arms around him, squeezing the back of his waist tightly.

  Easing the car out of the parking lot, Dirk meandered slowly down the one-lane thoroughfare of Burton. He glared as he drove by the Cadillac parked in a side alley, the two men waiting for them to pass. As he watched in the rearview mirror, he was somewhat surprised to see the black sedan turn and follow immediately behind him. There was no more pretense of an invisible tail, Dirk thought, which was not a good sign.

  The Cadillac followed behind until they reached the intersection of the Vashon Highway. As he stopped to turn, Dirk glanced again in his mirror. He could see the passenger with the goatee reaching down at "is feet and pulling something out of the leather case.

  A sick feeling hit him in his stomach and, without an instant's hesitation, he mashed down on the accelerator. With tires squealing, the Chrysler whipped onto the highway and sped north.

  "Dirk, what are you doing?" Sarah asked with a bewildered look as she was pushed back into the seat.

  In an instant, the Cadillac screeched onto the highway behind them, sending a spray of gravel flying through the air. This time, the Cadillac was not intent on following behind the old Chrysler but nosed into the vacant oncoming traffic lane in order to pull alongside.

  "Get down on the floor!" Dirk yelled at Sarah as he watched the': black car approach in his side mirror. Confused but comprehendin| the tone in his voice, Sarah slipped down into the cavernous footwej of the Chrysler and rolled into a ball. Dirk eased off the accelerater and looked to his left as the Cadillac pulled rapidly alongside. The passenger window was rolled down and the young tough grinned sardonically at Dirk. Then he raised an Ingram Mac-10 submachine gun from his lap and leveled it at Dirk's head.

  The gunman may have been younger but Dirk's reflexes were faster. By the time the killer's finger pulled the trigger, Dirk was already standing on the brakes. A short burst of fire ricocheted harmlessly across the hood of the Chrysler as it suddenly fell back of the speeding Cadillac in a cloud of burned rubber. The Chrysler's narrow tires screeched in protest as the wheels locked up for a moment before Dirk eased off the brakes. He paused a second, waiting for the Cadillac to react, then saw what he was waiting for. As the brake lights of the Cadillac lit up, he punched the push-button automatic transmission into second gear and stomped the accelerator to the floorboard.

  A flood of raw gas charged down the throats of the Chrysler's twin four-barrel carburetors, spraying a gush of combustible fuel to the hungry 392-cubic-inch hemi motor. Packing over 380 horsepower, the Chrysler 300-D was the fastest and most powerful production car in the country in 1958. Showing no signs of its age, the big Chrysler got up and roared off down the road like a charging rhinoceros.

  The would-be assassins were caught off guard by the suddenly accelerating Chrysler and swore at each other as the big green car shot by like an arrow. The gunman made an attempt to fire another burst but was too late with his aim, emptying the clip of the burp gun uselessly into the woods. With no oncoming traffic, Dirk cut to the left lane after passing the Cadillac, making it more difficult for the passenger-side gunman to aim his weapon.

  "What's happening? Why are they shooting at us?" Sarah cried from the floor.

  "Some relatives of our old pals in Alaska, I'm betting," Dirk yelled over the roar of the engine as he upshifted into third gear. "Been following us for some time now."

  "Can we escape?" Sarah asked with fear in her voice.

  "We can hold our own on the straight aways but they'll gain on us in the curves. If we can get close to the ferry landing and more people, they should back off," he replied, hoping his words would hold true.

  The Chrysler had opened a wide gap between the two cars, but the Cadillac was inching closer. A narrow bend in the road forced Dirk to ease off the gas slightly in order to keep the 4,500-pound colossus on the road, allowing the lighter and more nimble Cadillac to gain precious feet. The gunman, angry and undisciplined, began emptying a second clip in a rage, shooting wildly at the car. Most of the bullets zinged harmlessly into the Chrysler's trunk, creating a sieve like montage of small round holes. Dirk hunched low in the driver's seat and weaved the car randomly back and forth across the road to avoid presenting a stable target.

  "How much farther?" Sarah asked, still hugging the carpeted floor.

  "Just a couple of more miles. We'll make it," Dirk replied, throwing a confident wink toward her.

  But internally, Dirk cursed himself. He cursed that he had placed her in such a position of danger and had not called for help earlier he knew he was being followed. And he cursed that he was unarmed, having no weapon at his disposal to fight back with other than a nearly fifty-year-old car.

  Like a vulture stalking its prey, the black Cadillac mimicked every move of the Chrysler, trying desperately to close the gap between the two speeding vehicles. As the cars entered a long straight stretch of the Vashon Highway, Dirk looked down and saw the speedometer needle tickling 125 miles per hour. A blue pickup truck approached from the opposite direction and Dirk eased into the right lane, holding the accelerator firmly to the floor. The Cadillac's driver, unduly intent on overtaking the Chrysler, didn't notice the rapidly approaching truck at first and swerved harshly to the right at the last second, braking reflexively in the slight panic. The move allowed the Chrysler to gain a few more precious feet of pavement and elicited a stream of profanities from the frustrated gunman.

  But Dirk's temporary dominance was about to expire. The Vashon Highway began a series of curves and bends at the northern end of the island before it dropped down to the ferry terminal and the racing advantage turned from speed to road handling. Coming hard off the long straightaway, Dirk braked hard into a sweeping left curve, fighting vigorously to keep the big convertible on the road. The more agile Cadillac easily made up lost ground and was soon within a few yards of Dirk's bumper. Once more, he heard the sputter of machine-gun fire and ducked his head down low. A burst of fire shattered into the windshield in front of him, turning the glass into a maze of pockmarked cracks and holes. One round came in low and Dirk could feel it nearly graze his cheek as it whizzed by before smashing into the dashboard.

  "I already shaved once today, you bastards," he grumbled, his anger overcoming any feelings of fear. As he flung the Chrysler into the next turn, the old-fashioned bias-ply tires screeched loudly, leaving a smoking black trail along the roadway. The gunman, having already exhausted two clips, began firing more cautiously to conserve his remaining ammunition. Waiting until the Chrysler entered a right turn, then peppered the car with quick, point-blank bursts. Foolishly electing not to shoot out the tires, he maintained his aim on the car's cockpit.

  Inside, Dirk and Sarah were showered with a continuous deluge of broken glass, plastic, and
metal shards as streams of bullets ripped into the interior. Dirk did his best to guide the car down the center of the road, glancing repeatedly at his side mirrors to ensure the Cadillac didn't accelerate alongside for a better kill shot. Several times he veered the Chrysler sharply to one side, nearly smashing the front end of the Cadillac before its driver backed down and maintained a five-foot buffer off his tail.

  Dirk felt like a boxer in the ring, ducking and weaving his head and body up, down, and side to side in order to see the road while avoiding a rain of lead. He cringed while sliding the car through a right turn he watched a ribbon of holes appear in a neat line down the hood. The burst punctured the radiator, sending a white plume of steam hissing out the grille and hood. Time was short now, he realized. Without coolant, the engine would overheat and seize up. He and Sarah would then be easy pickings.

  As they approached the northern tip of the island, he tried a last gambit. Approaching a narrow left turn ahead, Dirk eased into the center of the road and slowed slightly to pull the Cadillac in close. Then, with both feet on the pedal, he stomped on the brakes as hard as he could. Through the screaming tires and cloud of burned rubber, the Cadillac kissed the back of the Chrysler hard before its driver slammed on the brakes. But his gamble to decimate the front end of the Cadillac failed. The Chrysler's ancient drum brakes were no match for the Cadillac's four-wheel disc, anti lock braking system, and the newer car nearly came to a stop while the big Chrysler was still skidding down the road. The Cadillac's driver realized the ploy and kept a healthy separation distance now. Dirk let off the brakes and jammed on the

  accelerator, hoping to keep making ground. There was little left he could do now.

  The two cars had reached the top of the last rise on the northern section of the island. From there, the road gradually snaked downhill toward the water's edge, passing a few lanes of shops and houses before terminating at the ferry landing. Dirk noticed a small stream of cars beginning to dot the highway from the opposite direction, recent emigrants from a ferry stop, he surmised.

  Despite the additional traffic on the road, the machine gun firing from behind continued. The assassins had crossed the line and were bent on killing Dirk and Sarah regardless of who got in their way. Dirk gave Sarah a quick glance and forced a grin. Her soft eyes showed a mixture of both fear and trust. Trust that he would somehow find a way to save them. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, more determined than ever to shield her from harm.

  But there were only seconds to act. The old Chrysler, which now resembled the remains of a B-2 bomber target, was clearly on its last legs. Smoke billowed from under the hood, accompanied by a throbbing melody of knocks and groans from the nearly spent motor. Sparks flew from beneath the frame, where a broken exhaust pipe scraped the pavement with a torturous grind. Even the tires had generated flat spots from the hard braking and thumped out of round. The temperature gauge, Dirk noted, had been firmly pegged in the red for several minutes now.

  Above the roar, he could hear the blast of a ferry horn just ahead as they wound closer to the water. From behind, the squeal of the Cadillac's tires and the peppering sound of machine-gun fire rattled in his ears. The big Chrysler suddenly lurched as the hemi engine began to mortally overheat. Dirk's eyes raced over the landscape, searching for a sheriff's car, a bank that might employ an armed guard, any sort of help he might solicit as a last means of defense. But all he saw were quaint little bayside homes with small flower gardens.

  Then, looking down the hill toward the approaching ferry terminal)

  he had a thought. Highly improbable, he figured, but at this point they had nothing to lose.

  Sarah looked up and noticed a look of confident resolve suddenly appear on his face.

  "What is it, Dirk?" she yelled above the din.

  "Sarah, my dear," he replied assuredly, "I think our ship has come in."

  Larry Hatala watched as the final car in line, a pea green 1968 Volkswagen microbus, chugged up the ramp and onto the ferry. A thirty-year veteran of the Washington State Department of Transportation, the grizzled Vashon Island terminal attendant shook his head and smiled at the driver of the old hippie car, a bearded man in bandana and granny glasses. Once the VW was safely aboard the ferry, Hatala lowered a wooden orange-and-white signal arm that halted any pending traffic at the end of the pier. His work complete until the next boat arrived in thirty minutes, Hatala removed a weathered baseball cap and wiped his forehead with a sleeve, then threw a cheerful wave of the cap to a fellow employee on the departing ferry. A young man in a gray jumpsuit finished yanking a guardrail across the stern of the ferry, then returned Hatala's wave with a mock military salute. As the pilot let loose a deep blast from the air horn, Hatala untied a safety docking line and tossed the loose end across to the ferry, where his coworker neatly coiled it for the next stop.

  The blast from the ferry horn had barely ceased echoing across the peer when Hatala's ears detected an unusual sound. It was the wail of tires screeching violently on asphalt. Peering up the road, he could detect only a periodic flash through the trees of two cars roaring down The hill. The whine of revving engines and squealing tires grew closer, punctuated by a popping sound Hatala recognized from his Navy days as gunfire. Finally, the cars broke free of the trees as they neared the terminal, and Hatala stared in astonishment.

  The big green Chrysler looked like a galloping dragon, complete with fire-breathing smoke and steam belching out of its grille. A black-haired man, hunched low in the seat, deftly kept the smoking behemoth on the road at speeds clearly too high for its means. Thirty feet behind, a sleek black Cadillac sedan followed in hot pursuit, a young Asian man dangling out the passenger window wildly firing an automatic weapon that did more damage to the trees bordering the road than to his intended target. To Hatala's complete horror, the green convertible spun into the ferry landing entrance and headed onto the pier.

  By all rights, the old Chrysler should have up and died long before. A withering rain of fire had plastered the car in lead, cutting through wires, hoses, and belts, in addition to pasting the body and interior with myriad holes. Burning oil mixed with radiator fluid spewed from the red-hot motor that was nearly drained of fluids. But with an apparent heart of its own, the old Chrysler was not quite ready to give up, offering one last gasp of power.

  "Dirk, where are we now?" Sarah asked, unable to see from her spot on the floor. A rackety sound of tires on wood told her they were no longer traveling on the highway.

  "We have a boat to catch," Dirk grimaced. "Hang on tight."

  He could see a man waving his arms wildly at the end of the pier, some fifty yards ahead. Beyond the pier's edge, he could detect a churning in the water from the ferry's propellers as the boat began to pull away from the dock. It was going to be close.

  Behind him, the Cadillac lost ground briefly, having nearly missed the turn when Dirk whipped onto the pier. The driver was doggedly" determined to stay on Dirk's tail and accelerated hard, oblivious to the shortening pier and departure of the ferry. The gunman, too, was engrossed with the chase, intent on putting a bullet into the obstinate driver who had somehow avoided his previous blasts.

  Dirk also kept his foot down hard on the accelerator, but for a different reason. He held his breath, hoping the Chrysler would hold together for just a few more seconds. Though the end of the pier was now just a few yards away, it seemed to take an eternity to reach it. Meanwhile, the ferry continued to inch farther into the sound.

  A pair of boys bound for a fishing excursion at the end of the pier ran scrambling behind a piling as the two cars tore by, their poles sacrificed to the speeding machines when they jumped for cover. To Dirk's surprise, the man at the end of the pier stopped waving and raised the orange-and-white traffic barrier, apparently realizing the futility of trying to stop the barreling mass of Detroit iron that was charging his way. As he roared by, Dirk nodded thanks at Hatala and threw him a jaunty wave. Hatala simply stared back, dumbfounded.

 
; The Chrysler's hefty V-8 engine was now knocking like a pounding sledgehammer, but the old beast hung on and gave Dirk every last ounce of energy it could muster. The big convertible stormed up the ramp at the end of the pier and burst into the air like a cannon shot. Dirk gripped the steering wheel hard and braced for the impact as he watched a forty-foot ribbon of blue water pass beneath the car. Screams filled the air as shocked passengers on the rear of the ferry scrambled to avoid the path of the green monstrosity hurtling through space toward them. The momentum of the car and the angle of the ramp sent the Chrysler sailing through the air in an almost picture-perfect arc before gravity took hold and pulled the nose of the car down fast. But they had cleared the open water and would plunge down onto the ferry.

  Just a few feet inboard on the open stern, the Chrysler's front wheels slammed down onto the deck, the tires immediately bursting from the force with a bang. A split second later, the rear wheels dropped down, smashing through a low railing just inches from the stern edge. A section of the handrail kicked up into a wheel well, where it became wedged as the full weight of the car crashed down. It proved to be a lifesaver. Rather than skidding wildly into the rows of cars parked on the auto deck, the wedged railing dug into the wooden deck like an anchor. The massive old car bounded twice, then skidded slowly to a stop just twenty feet from where it struck the deck, lightly smacking the pea green Volkswagen bus.

  The black Cadillac did not fare as well. Just a few seconds behind, its driver saw too late that the ferry had left the dock. Too panicked to try to stop, the driver kept his foot down on the accelerator and soared off the pier in tandem with the Chrysler. Only by now, the ferry had moved beyond its path.

  With the gunman screaming a bloodcurdling cry, the Cadillac soared gracefully into the sky before nosing hard into the stern of the ferryboat with a thunderous crash. The front bumper kissed the painted letters of the ferryboat's name, Issaquah, just above the waterline before the entire car crumpled like an accordion. A large spray of water flew up as the mangled wreckage of the car plopped into the water and sank to forty feet, carrying its crushed occupants to a watery grave.