We entered the city limits.
EL RENO, OKLAHOMA
FASTBREAK EXPRESS GAS STATION
25 MILES PAST OLD CITY HALL, OKLAHOMA CITY
1319 HOURS EST
“Cowbell Ground, we are orbiting north of you, standing by.”
“Maher, I don’t know how you got this car here.”
“To be honest,” Maher called out from the passenger seat, “me neither. Now which one of the Garmins are you using to calculate our ETA?”
“Ten hours ago you didn’t want to talk projections.” I stood beside the car, my eyes darting between my Casio and the pump’s display. “Now that we might make it—”
“I know, I know.” He fiddled with the 2730, which I’d kept on latitude/longitude display for the updates required by PolizeiAir—and J.F.’s calculation of our closure with the storm. “Ooops, guess it’s not—wait, a minute ago this thing said our overall average was 93.6 mph, but now it’s falling.”
“Maher, a little ways back, before the traffic, it was above 95.”
“What’s that, timewise?”
I didn’t want to tell him, then or now, because I’d been so amazed that I almost wanted him to keep going. My BlackBerry rang from within the pile of half-full Vitamin Waters, empty Red Bulls, and poorly sealed bags of jerky reeking even by the windy pump. Maher picked it up. His jaw dropped.
“J.F. says here…we’re looking at under 30 hours, at least we were.”
“And you said it’s over. It’s a miracle nobody called 911 about the blue BMW.”
I spotted Cory running back from the station store. My Casio beeped. The pump clicked. I remembered to take the receipt this time.
“Make me proud,” said Maher as I pulled out.
“Notify Cowbell Air we are back in action.”
“Already did. I just saw them overhead.”
I gently accelerated up the ramp toward I-40.
The scanner lit up:
OK DPS MISC B: “—Alan just called, he wants you to be advised that there’s an R2 flying north of town…just wanted to let you know he’s flying pretty low.”
“Maher! They’ve got to be talking about our boys!”
“Should we warn them?”
“Hang on—” I tried to merge left onto the interstate, but two large trucks and a minivan passed without opening a gap. I dropped into third and made my first aggressive acceleratory move of the run, passing the minivan on its right, then veering left in front of it, then left again in front of a semi whose horn immediately signaled the driver’s displeasure.
“Whoa, Alex. You can so not talk to me about bad moves after that one.”
“I’m sorry. At least I wasn’t speeding.”
“You better be soon. Don’t be sorry. Sometimes you just have to do it.”
“Cowbell Ground, that was a nice one. Ramp one mile ahead is…clear.”
“Let’s see what you got, Mr. Roy.”
“Maher, after what you did, I think it’s best if I don’t pull any more—”
OK HP DSPTCH B: “I have a report of a blue BMW speeding, weaving in and out of traffic and driving recklessly, be advised, unable to get tags.”
Terrified by what I believed was my lack of raw driving skill, I had hidden behind technology and models since beginning my journey years earlier.
But Maher, the first master of the opposing camp to tackle this particular task in twenty-three years, had wiped my illusions away. I slowed for forward radar warnings until their origin could be identified. He used gut instinct to filter out false alarms. I slowed for scanner reports. He turned the volume down. I wanted to ask truckers for permission to pass. He didn’t want to alert them in advance. My plan set a pace that could weather one catastrophe—and still succeed, maybe. Maher had no plan other than relentless attack, but his best-case scenario far outclassed mine. I knew we needed each other, but it was clear I had lot more to learn from him than he did from me.
Or so I thought, until the scanner report about a blue BMW, and everything I feared about his approach came true.
“They’re talking about us,” said Maher, Steiners to his face.
We both scanned the road ahead, then our respective mirrors. Traffic was thickening, and slowing. Oklahoma was flat. There was nowhere to hide unless we got out. We passed the exit at Marker 119. The vast fields north of I-44 offered no cover. A high-speed run toward one of the distant farmhouses would be visible from the interstate. The road gently banked left, then continued straight for several miles. Both predator and prey had long sight lines. We were naked.
“Well,” Maher said nervously, “looks like we’re stuck.”
Racing is chess, the players evenly matched in forces, but not necessarily in experience. I had the experiential advantage, but nothing else. Trapped in the devil’s endgame, our M5 was but a king attempting to cross the board—comprising just this one small stretch of Oklahoma—against one or more queens.
This was my domain.
DEEDEET. V1 radar warning.
The first queen. Directly ahead. Four miles or less. The next exit was approximately 3.75 miles.
DEEDEET. A second queen. Behind us. Four miles or less. The next exit was now approximately 3.5 miles.
Traffic prohibited the latter from catching up. The escape option remained open. Exit at Marker 115, hope our pursuer was too far behind to spot us, and run north for the first farmhouse. Await Cowbell Air’s notification of all clear, resume our westbound course, and hope for the best.
But what of the queen ahead?
If a police car awaited us in the wide-open median before Marker 115, we needed to (1) move to the right lane, align ourselves with one of the semis to our left, adjust our speed to block the officer’s sight line to the most infamous NY-plated BMW in Oklahoma, and proceed to the Texas border, or (2) in the absence of a semi, move to the right lane, listen to the scanner, and make a snap decision over whether exiting the interstate might constitute probable cause.
There were no further permutations to consider without more information.
We were already in the right lane. I was poised to commit.
“Maher! Police car behind us! Black-and-white! Ten car lengths!?”
His eyes flicked to the right mirror. “Copy. He’s not moving up.”
There was nothing else to say until we reached Marker 115, two and a half miles away.
One column. One row. One choice. Cars and trucks. Front and rear. At or below the speed limit. We were trapped, but only for the next two minutes.
“Code Red! Cowbell Ground, Code Red! Police car ahead! One mile!”
Median or oncoming, they didn’t specify. We couldn’t transmit, and I couldn’t ask Maher to type or call back. There was no time. All eyes ahead. As if it would make a difference, we instinctively leaned forward. I scanned the gaps between passing cars, ten o’clock to eleven, Maher eleven to one.
If the cruiser lay in the grassy median’s depression, police training dictated a position set in defilade, parked just off the westbound lanes, on the reverse slope, concealing the lower half of the cruiser, retaining clear sight lines of oncoming traffic, engine running, radar gun on standby.
We had a better chance of escaping an eastbound cruiser, the lone officer having to spot us across the widening median, in the gaps between the westbound left-lane traffic behind which we were hidden. If he spotted us, the median’s width would add 15 to 30 seconds to his U-turn—and inevitable pursuit.
Marker 115. Less than two minutes.
“Don’t see him,” said Maher.
“Where is this guy…there! Eastbound!” My head tracked left at increasing speed until we passed him in the opposite direction, my eyes searching for brake lights and the telltale cloud of dirt signifying his crossing the median. “He’s braking! Making the turn!”
Marker 115. One and a half miles.
My eyes darted to the left mirror. Dirt in the air, center median. Late-model American four-door, in profile. Moving acro
ss the grass.
“Crossing the median! Maher, we have to get to the next exit and hide.”
The police car stopped on the westbound’s left shoulder, perpendicular to the interstate, waiting for a gap in traffic behind us.
“Alex, man, I don’t know if you’re going to have a lot of room to hide out here.”
Marker 115. One mile.
Our second pursuer pulled in somewhere behind us, and disappeared.
“It’s only hearsay unless they catch you doing it, so don’t speed and don’t weave. You haven’t broken any laws in Oklahoma in at least six months. He’ll follow you—”
“Should we get off? Right now?”
Exit ramp. Marker 115. Visible in the distance.
Forty-five seconds.
“I’d keep going.” Maher’s eyes switched back and forth from the right mirror to the road ahead. “I’d just go.”
Chess. Two queens. Behind us.
Thirty seconds.
King. Mobility. Limited.
Fifteen seconds.
Queen. Mobility. Infinite.
The column was suicide, but that one row—
OK HP MOB C: “—blue BMW on up ahead of me—”
“Maher, that’s it.”
OK HP MOB E: “—confirm dark blue BMW…tinted windows looks like it has some antennas on it.”
I gently veered right onto the exit ramp. It gently banked right, then left, then ended with a stop sign. We sat at what appeared the highest point in miles, vast green fields extending out 360 degrees. Local Route 270 was completely devoid of traffic. I turned right and accelerated firmly yet—without other cars for reference—innocently up to the local speed limit, which I presumed to be 55. A cluster of farm buildings lay just ahead on the left, a few hundred feet north of the interstate.
Too obvious, and too close, should one or both of our pursuers exit at 115 and actually pursue. If either pursuer made the turn, we would see them within 60 seconds. I would neither run nor lie. I had absolute and total respect for the law. I would plead guilty…to conspicuous (and uncomfortably forced) public urination, which was what I had planned upon arrival at the nearest suitable hiding position for the M5, behind the tall bushes conveniently located at the southeast corner of the intersection of East 1020 Road and Route 270, precisely one-half mile north of the interstate. This was the first-available, last-feasible, and therefore the final bastion of my hopes and dreams—and our run.
“We’re stopping right…here! Maher, if anyone comes, tell them I had to piss.”
I opened my door, hoping the residents of the farm across the street wouldn’t call 911 over an act they’d consider natural if committed by one of the many animals nearby—or currently flying overhead, as the M5’s roof clearly showed.
The scanner lit up.
OK HP MOB C: “—confirm, they’re ahead of me.”
“Alex! He thinks we’re still going!”
Unless the first queen had gotten off.
I ran the ten steps to Route 270, ready to peer the half mile toward the exit ramp, give the all clear, and tout my superhuman tactical genius—
Then I spotted the black-and-white car approaching. It was the first car we’d spotted to our rear, before the second made the U-turn.
He was no more than 30 seconds away.
“Here he comes!” I yelled, running back to the car.
“What?” Dave yelled back. “Should we power everything down??!?”
“No! Don’t—” Cory blurted, the first direct order she’d issued since camera prep in the CCC, but it was too late for her to protect the myriad electronics requiring uninterrupted power, for I had already hit the M5’s master power kill switch.
“Alex!”
“Cory! They’ll be here any second!”
She scrambled among her equipment, activating the backup power for what would be an entertaining but unfortunate discussion I’d rather she didn’t record. I ran around the car, faced the bushes, and assumed a faux urination stance.
I heard the car approaching, mere seconds away.
“Maher!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Standby for the Storm Chasers!”
Storm Chasers. It was wrong. It was the Omigod of Wrong. It wasn’t a good idea, it was a great idea. Charles Graeber had the answer. He’d written a Wired story about the world’s most advanced storm-chaser car, and suggested that other than the lack of an anti-tornado body kit, the M5’s ECM voluminous gear made it closely resemble an actual storm chaser. Better yet, most storm chasers were courageous hobbyists, volunteering to do a public service in loose cooperation with various state and federal agencies, not one of which was related to law enforcement. They wore a variety of colorful and heavily branded, official-looking jackets and hats, spoke in terminology impenetrable to anyone lacking a degree in meteorology, were highly respected by residents of the oft-stricken states in Tornado Alley (which included Oklahoma), and, Graeber assured us, any officer who pulled over a speeding car with out-of-state plates, four antennas, and a bumper sticker saying Storm Chaser—especially in Oklahoma—would have one question:
“Where’s the storm at?”
Where one found storm chasers, one found storms, and Oklahomans—especially law-enforcement officials—needed to know when and where fellow Oklahomans might need help. Knowing whether one’s family and home were safe was an added bonus of meeting any storm chaser, especially one in a hurry.
I had the answers, not because we were carrying Storm Chaser–labeled hats, T-shirts, notepads, pens, and one throw pillow (for Cory’s comfort, of course), or because the four Garmins were labeled Skywarn 1, Skywarn 2, Skywarn Backup, and Groundspeed Backup, or even because I’d given myself a one-hour online crash course in storm speak. I would actually be able to help an officer as would the world’s best storm chaser, because J.F. had printed out, spiral-bound, and given us a beautiful color-laser booklet of sixteen-hour-old weather data, which now sat in my door pocket.
I prayed the officer didn’t ask to see it, because although there were storms on it, none of them were in Oklahoma. The good news was that, if asked, I could say with all sincerity that we were chasing a storm, just barely hinted at as of our departure from New York the prior night.
The bad news was that it was in New Mexico.
If he asked why, I could always say we were good guessers.
Black-and-white. Car. Beyond the bushes.
Two seconds.
One.
A white VW Beetle, its doors, fenders, hood, and trunk painted black. “Alex?” Maher exclaimed. “Wha—” The Beetle continued north on 270. I knew the orange-and-black oval logo on its doors, all too well.
“Goddammit!” I yelled, and sprinted back around the car. “Power up! All systems! CB and scanners to max!”
“Alex, what the hell was that?!”
“Buy a PC, break it, call the Geek Squad!”
“What a dirty trick.” Maher shook his head. “Fake police cars, man…it should be illegal.”
I pointlessly burned three miles of gas in the half mile back to the interstate, then merged back into heavy traffic.
“Maher, estimated timeloss?”
“One or two minutes? It sucks. Now we’re definitely not going to make it.”
“I would have said four. And you’re wrong. Staying on would have done us in.”
“You’re right.”
“Don’t tell me our average. I don’t want to know.”
“Me neither.”
“Cory,” I said, “I’m sorry about the power.”
“Cowbell Ground, Cowbell Ground, nice one back there. Scouting ahead.”
“It’s okay…I got most of it.”
I flashed her a proud grin in the mirror. “I can’t wait to see that on the big screen. Let’s hope that was all of it. That other cop was the real deal, and now he’s just ahead of us.”
“Well,” said Maher, “there’s nowhere to go anyway.”
“Cowbe
ll Ground! Code Red! Cops in the median! About…”
My head snapped up. The Steiners were already against Maher’s eyes. The median, having narrowed again, was clear as far as the overpass one-half mile ahead.
Twenty seconds away.
“—a half mile past the overpass! Repeat—”
Ten seconds to the overpass. Thirty seconds from the cops’ location. I pressed the driver’s Garmin map key. The next exit was six miles.
Five seconds to the overpass—and exposure.
We were in the right lane. Behind one truck. In front of another.
Now we really were trapped.
I could see the median widen beyond the overpass, the grass gently sloping up toward a copse of trees splitting the east-and westbound lanes. My eyes flickered as we emerged from the overpass’s shadow.
“Cowbell Ground! Two in the middle looking at you! Half a mile!”
Although I didn’t yet see them, it was clear that good deeds were repaid in unforeseen ways, because at that exact instant a tractor trailer slowly began to pass on our left. I matched speeds, keeping the truck in the Cross-Country Racer’s Ideal Police Line-of-Sight Blocking Position.
The cops had to be positioned before the trees.
Fifteen seconds away.
Had to be. All I had to do was stay alongside the truck.
Ten seconds.
The distance to the truck in our lane began to close. I’d have to brake, any second.
“Maher! Look left! Under the truck!”
There they were, two police cars idling on the slope, their bumpers and headlights barely visible in the three-foot-tall gap between the interstate and the bottom of the trailer covering our escape. Maher grabbed the spare camcorder, leaned left, and thrust it past my chest.
Then they were gone, and so were we.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
OK HP DSPTCH: “—confirm he lost his subject…now with Ford Aerostar van.”
“Dude, at first I disagreed with you about getting off the freeway, but that was a great move. We’d have been toast.”
The Driver Page 34
