The Striker Portfolio q-3

by Adam Hall

  Maltz confirms that the nervous system can't tell the difference between a real and an imagined experience. If this weren't true they could never produce a burn-mark on the back of the leg with an ice-cube by convincing the subject that it's a red-hot poker and they do it every day at St George's as a change from making tea.

  The trick isn't fool-proof because so many other factors are in play: your personality patterns, state of mind, so forth. It only works with some people some of the time.

  It didn't work with me when I took the N.S.U. away from the Esso station. My 'shore' was a telephone call to Ferris somewhere along the autobahn because if I ever made that call it would mean I'd ditched the bastards first. The one factor against my using the scheme was the situation,itself: you've got time to spare in a steady crawl-stroke but with the RO-80 pitching it up through the gears and the arithmetic to work out it didn't give the imagination a one-track focus: imagination was needed to help size up the mechanics of the thing and that was why technical considerations kept merging in my mind with the telephone call to Ferris.

  I let it go. The nervous system was going to have to do it the hard way instead of just homing in on a Ferris-sensitive target by preconditioned reflex. It was going to have to do what it was bloody well told to do, I could feel — actually feel in my stomach and on my hands and the back of my neck — what the imagination was doing, or that part of it that I didn't need for mechanics. It was being frightened. And in an odd way.

  I was less afraid of the chance of imminent death or hideous injury than of abstract things: blackness, heaviness — the surrealistic identities of the people behind me in the night. I was being hunted not by two men in a motor-car but by the dark-coming hounds of hell. Perhaps it was because they had looked so inhuman sitting there correctly on their seats, faceless in funeral clothes, nameless but for a number-plate. To put it more finely, this was not quite fear. It was dread.

  They should have picked him up, sat him against the wall or something, not left him sprawled out staring at the bits of broken china. It had been indecent.

  Their headlights came on suddenly in the mirror and I knew what was happening because I'd worked out the formula: the formula for survival. The basic data for the N.S.U. RO-80 included weight and speed figures: 1210 kilograms with a dry tank, 180 kilometres per hour. The gears were automatic and the front wheels did the driving. The time-lag was about the same with the automatic as with a manual shift and so it didn't make any difference. The superior traction of front-wheel drive wasn't likely to affect things even on the fast curves north of the mountains because there would have to be a curve that had to be driven round if the N.S.U.'s cornering advantages were to be brought into play.

  The Mercedes 300 weighed 1560 kilos and the top speed was 190 k.p.h. Gear control was optional and I didn't know which this one had. The rear wheels did the driving.

  First findings: all factors being equal the Mercedes could overhaul me by 10 k.p.h. and give ms a 350-kilo nudge into the tree-trunks when it was ready.

  Unknown data: the precise weight of the two men and the amount of fuel they had on board. There was nothing to be done about this. Give a man eighty kilos with shoes and overcoat: they had an extra 430. Assume their tank was close on full: it took them past 450. But it would need a slide-rule to decide the balance: how much their extra weight was going to cost them in acceleration and maximum speed, how much it was going to help them nudge me off the road.

  I'd done what I could at the Esso station, telling the man to shut off at twenty-five litres. That amount would get me to Hanover if necessary and left the N.S.U. lighter.

  Workable findings: assume the best figures — both men were heavy and their tank was full and it would cost them 10 k.p.h. in maximum speed. Add 1 k.p.h. In one hour there would be a kilometre's distance between us and with that kind of margin I could peel off at whatever loop-road I liked: Braunschweig Hildesheim, Hanover itself. And they wouldn't see me go. Assume, the worst figures — both men were average weight and they had a quarter tankful and they had the edge on me in terms of maximum speed. The extra weight of one man would bring down the speed fractionally but not the full 10, k.p.h.

  Conclusion: the Mercedes had to be faster than the N.S.U. by 1 k.p.h. if they were going to stay with me and send me into the trees. I believed on the figures alone that it was 1 k.p.h. faster and that they could do that.

  There was only the one area in which I could hope to work, hope to avoid a mathematical certainty. The N.S.U. had a rotary engine and was lighter by 350 kilos and that gave me the edge on them in acceleration. I was already establishing a lead: that was why they'd just put their headlights on. They were worried. Their idea would be to stay with me almost bumper-to-bumper with their lights out so that I couldn't see enough in the mirror to judge how close they were, couldn't see which side they were creeping up on to shape for the final nudge.

  The N.S.U.'s superior acceleration and the Mercedes' higher top speed would vary the distance between us as we went north. It would be like a Chriscraft towing a water-skier on a long piece of elastic: the N.S.U. would draw ahead and then the tension would be taken up and the Mercedes would close the gap until it hit.

  The only outside factor that could come into play was the presence of other cars making north. But we were both going to take it right up to the ceiling and there wasn't likely to be anyone driving in the 180–190 region at night.

  The lights were good on the N.S.U. and the vision-field was flat, wide and clear of reflector-fault. The speed was moving through 135 when I took a look and the dipped lamps of the Mercedes were rising slowly to the top of the mirror as the gap widened. Then they switched to full beam and caught me across the eyes and I tilted the glass and drew into the middle area to wait for reaccommodation.

  The autobahn ran dead straight in this section and the moon's glow defined it as far as the horizon. There was nothing to do yet except let the engine take her up to the maximum and hold her there. The one trick I could hope to pull off must be kept for emergencies and there weren't any emergencies for the moment The first thing to do was test out the figures I'd been working on: if they were both heavy men and their tank was nearly full then I was going to consolidate the lead I already had on them and peel off as soon as I was out of sight. Then I would put a call through to Ferris while the engine cooled down.

  Half a minute later the N.S.U. reached her maximum. The pointer just went up to the 180 k.p.h. mark and stayed there. With this engine there were no valves so there was no indication of bounce; it was purely a matter of starvation: the combustion-chambers were being swept at the speed above which the mixture didn't have time to go in.

  The steering was still dead positive and when I moved the wheel a degree she came back correctly without any yawing. I couldn't test for brake-fade because I wanted to know if the 300 could close the gap. The cockpit was full of light but I couldn't tell if it were getting brighter: the reference was too vague.

  The dread had passed. Perhaps it had been automatically set up by the organism in its own defence. The situation was dangerous and could be mortal but the necessity of working out the mechanics hadn't allowed the onset of normal fear: and a situation becomes more dangerous if there is no fear present to alert the nerves and prepare the body. Blood should be drawn to the internal organs, draining, from the digestive and secretory glands and skin by contraction of the arterioles so that the heart, brain and muscles can be fed. Breathing should quicken so that the muscles can be given an oxygen reserve. The eyes should dilate, admitting more light.

  The human body is no fool but these days it's a little old-fashioned: the defence mechanism set up to dodge the swing of a dinosaur's tail is less effective when life or death depends on the position of a needle on 4 speedometer. But I may well have been, by some small degree, better prepared for action now that the fit of dread was over. It had been the most the organism could do.

  Within the next kilometre the first results came in:.the lig
ht was stronger inside the cockpit and when I tilted the mirror the back-glare was painful. They were closing the gap.

  It wasn't going to be so easy, ringing Ferris.

  We passed a truck and I felt the slight air-buffeting as the slipstreams merged and just for an instant I took my foot off but it was already too late: I couldn't slow hard enough to take up a position in front of the truck and use it as a shield. The Mercedes would slot into the gap and the truck itself would become part of the pattern and I didn't want that because they wouldn't have any scruples. Even a twenty-ton twelve-wheeler could be sent off the road if the driver was baulked and I didn't know how hard the Mercedes was going to try when it came to the in-fighting. They had to make it look like an accident and an overturned truck wouldn't detract from appearances.

  The inside of the N.S.U. went dark. They'd been overhauling me progressively at 5 or 6 k.p.h. and when I'd taken my foot off for an instant it had closed the gap and brought them right up and they'd cut their lights. The mirror showed a vague dark shape with the glint of chrome in the moonlight. Above the wind-rush I could hear their engine. The needle was steady on 180 and I drew to the crown so that I would have room to manoeuvre when they started.

  There was the temptation to hit the brakes and make contact just to surprise them but at this speed it could be immediately lethal. We were covering a hundred yards in two seconds and if the huge weight of the Mercedes didn't make a direct strike on the fore-aft axis of the N.S.U. it would send it off-centre and no amount of steering would bring it back.

  Perhaps they were expecting me to do something like that. They didn't mind how it happened, whether it was the result of action on their part or retaliation on mine: providing I jumped the crash-barrier in a series of barrel-rolls and finished up ablaze in the trees down there it wouldn't matter to them how it was done.

  It looked very wide in the mirror, very black, a dark wave surging behind me. I was waiting for the nudge and I had to guess which side they'd go for. So long as it wasn't dead central it would work well enough: the smallest impact to one side would send me out of control.

  Sweat began again but this was normal: I was in a trap and couldn't get out, couldn't go faster or slower or steer my way clear. A curve came and the crash-barrier uprights sent a flickering echo against the windows and then they made their first strike and the shock went through the body-shell into my seat and as soon as the line was corrected I felt for the safety-belt and clipped it home and.,set the driving-door to locked.

  Far ahead in the moonlight a blob showed on the ash-white strip of the road and I hit the horns and kept them blaring because he was too near the crown and I couldn't slow: the next strike or the one after that would throw the whole thing wild and I didn't want to take anyone with me.

  It was an Opel Rekord and he pulled over to let me through and then flicked his lights in protest. They made a feeble semaphore in the mirror with the reflection glancing off the mass of black cellulose behind me. Then they tried again and the sweat broke out because the N.S.U. was into a series of oblique lunges before I could correct. The headlamp beams swept the road with the slow regularity of windscreen-wipers and a shrill came from the tyres as traction tried to damp out centrifugal force. Something pattered on the body and hit the left side of the screen with the sound of sudden hail: the nearside front wheel was running off the edge of the concrete and fragments of gravel were shooting up clear of the wing, curving and falling into the slipstream.

  Most of the control was re-established but I still needed the whole width of the road before I could get the steering back to straight-path conditions and even when I'd managed it there'd be no useful future because they'd only line up another strike as soon as I was steady so I pulled the only trick in the bag, the one I'd saved for emergencies.

  The odds were one in three.

  Along this stretch the road was three cars wide. The strip in the middle of the two lanes was rough grass with flood-water gullies each side. At the moment I was doing the expected: trying to kill out the oblique lunges and bring her straight again. The dark shape was still in the mirror but less distinct: possibly they were holding back in case one of my tyres burst under the strain of the yawing action. They wanted me off the road: they didn't want me to start breaking up in front of them. Their great weight, moving at great speed, could ram an obstacle effectively but if the N.S.U. were wheels-up or sliding on its side the deceleration-figures could force them against the screen.

  If I had been running straight I could have deliberately set up this swinging action but that would be unexpected and they would have been warned. There wouldn't be another chance like this — with the N.S.U. swinging expectedly from one side to the Other — unless they made a new strike and again failed with it I didn't want to rely on that because they were getting their hand in now and the coup de grace wouldn't be long in coming.

  The whole operation depended on the mirror and on timing.

  It was more difficult to do than I had thought. The little animal brain inside the back of my skull was snivelling about the risk. It would have liked the odds to be better than one in three.

  Through the rhythmic series of swings the mirror went dark, light, dark, light as the N.S.U. crossed and recrossed the bows of the Mercedes and during the third or fourth light period I hit the brakes and felt the pull on the safety-harness as the speed came down and the tyres set up a long howling and I watched the mirror although there was no point in watching it because if it ever went dark again there'd be nothing else to do.

  But it was all right. The 300 had been so close that it ripped metal off the side of the N.S.U. as its black shape came sliding past but the swing was already under control when the brakes had begun dragging and there was no more than a slight rolling on the springs. There was also one guaranteed factor in play: despite larger discs and tyres the Mercedes didn't have the stopping-power of the N.S.U. because of the difference in mass and this was so cheerful to think about that I threw in an added risk and cut the Lights and hoped that the near-blackout would worry them more than it worried me: the balance of life or death could depend in the final analysis on liver and carrots.

  The howling noise went on and I freed the discs a couple of times to break down the friction as the needle swung through the nineties and below. Their lights came on and I saw the big silhouette still drawing away although it was under the brakes by now and slowing. Rubber-smoke began curling past my windscreen in little clouds and then I stopped thinking about the 300 and concentrated on what had to be done next. The side-lamps had been left burning so that the facia was lit and I could read the speed because after five kilometres at 180 k.p.h. my normal visual judgement would be affected and true speed through the lower register would seem slower than it was and I didn't want to roll her when I turned.

  There was a strong smell of rubber and asbestos by now but the braking effect had damped out the last of the swings and we were on a perfectly straight course a metre from the grass centre strip and when the needle dipped below 30 k.p.h. I released the brakes and made a three-quarter-lock turn across the soft ground and into the faint light flooding from a car that was coming south on this track. I was already accelerating through the sixties and tucked well in but the driver had been worried to see me broadside on across the road even in the distance and he went by fast with a lot of noise from the horn because in any case it was strictly verboten to drive across the centre strip like that.

  By the time the N.S.U. was over the ton and still climbing I began trying to assess the chances but the basic data was so vague that I gave it up. It would mean having-to work out how long it would take the Mercedes to slow up and how long it would take it to make the turn and close the gap again behind me on the north-south track. There had never been any question of foxing them: they would have got the rough idea the moment I braked, and the man who wasn't driving would have hung himself over the seat to see what I was doing. It was a question of using the only two advantages the
N.S.U. had over the Mercedes on a straight run — acceleration and braking — and hoping to find some sort of peel-off point on this side before they closed up again.

  I gave them something like three minutes.

  There wasn't anywhere to turn off within that period and the obvious thing to go for was the loop-section where I'd taken on fuel. They would be big in the mirror before I could reach it but they might not succeed in knocking me off in tune. The idea had only one advantage: there weren't any alternatives. The N.S.U. would be faster along winding roads but there would be other traffic and there was the risk of smashing up an innocent family because the big 300 was in business now and no one was safe. The only hope was to stay on the autobahn and use the elbow-room.

  Light began filling the N.S.U.

  They had been quick.

  There wouldn't be another chance of pulling the same trick again if I let them come right up on me so if there were anything to do it had to be done now and I thought of something and did it and the tyres shrilled again as the brakes came on at full grip. I judged the gap to be still big enough to make the operation worth trying.

  The speed was down to 30 k.p.h. when I turned on to the grass centre strip and felt the rear end break away and corrected it and brought her back in the opposite direction with my undipped heads catching the Mercedes full across the screen. I could see them clearly, their hands going up to shield their eyes, the big car veering a degree in the glare and the brakes hissing on. Then it came at me.