Puller sat there glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time to check the man’s movements. Then he gazed around to see if others were back there. There were many cars parked along the street. It could be any one of them. And then he saw a flash of light in a black Mercedes three cars back and on the other side of the road.
A camera flash. Someone had just snapped a photo of him and his truck.
He slipped his phone out and thumbed in a coded text to his brother. It was short but packed with information. He needed John Puller’s help. And he needed it now.
He looked across the street to the restaurant.
Aust was no longer at the table, but Reynolds was still there. She was on her phone. She nodded several times, spoke into the phone, and then put it away. She swept a hand through her hair and in doing so glanced outside. The tactic was done well, and if Puller hadn’t discovered that he was being watched, he would probably have associated nothing unusual with it.
But as she looked out the window, her gaze had flickered across him. Just a flicker, but it was enough. How they could have gotten on to him was inexplicable. Even his own brother had not recognized him.
The headlamps of the big Mercedes burst to life as the engine was started.
Puller glanced in the rearview again and saw the man who’d been watching him climb into a coal-black SUV. It too started up.
Puller looked ahead of him. There was a stoplight at the next intersection. At this late hour traffic was light, which was both good and bad for him. His hand slipped to his ignition key right as his phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen.
His brother had texted him back.
Like the cavalry, John Puller was on his way. But it might not be in time. However, Robert had an idea. His fingers flew over his phone. He was sending a downloaded program together with some additional data to his brother, all linked together. He hoped it worked. Otherwise, he was dead.
Finished with that, Robert Puller counted to three, watching the light up ahead, and then turned the ignition key. The truck started up. He shifted into gear.
The Mercedes shot out of its parking spot, but he gunned the truck engine and laid down some tread, beating the German-made car to the open lane. He raced ahead, glancing to his right as he did.
Reynolds was still in her seat and staring dead at him as he sped by.
And then she was gone as the truck blew through the intersection. The light turned red, just as he had planned. Only the Mercedes made it through, simply because it didn’t stop. The SUV was blocked by traffic coming from both the left and right. But the driver used his vehicle like a battering ram and broke through the obstruction.
Now the chase was on.
CHAPTER
59
JOHN PULLER KEPT his regular phone in his right front pocket and his burn phone in the left pocket. He was sitting at Knox’s bedside when the burn phone started to vibrate.
He slid it out and looked at the message. It was short enough that he decoded it quickly. He was on his feet before he had finished reading it.
Knox looked up at him.
“What is it?”
“Gotta go.” He was at the door.
“Puller?”
“You can have my fries.”
Then he was gone.
Knox stared after him for a few seconds and then pulled off the line running to her arm, leapt out of bed, rushed to the closet, grabbed the bag with her bloody clothes in it, and started to get dressed as the monitor alarm began to wail.
Puller was on a dead run to his car. He jumped in, started the engine, and slammed the Malibu into drive. He fishtailed going out of the hospital parking lot and hit the surface road.
His brother had given him his last position, but it would still take a miracle to find him. And by then it could well be too late. No, that wasn’t an option. He hadn’t been there for Knox. But he was going to be there for his brother.
His phone buzzed again. He held it up in front of him as he drove. He gaped at the screen. There was a map on there with a dot. A moving dot. Somehow his brother had sent him a real-time tracking link through the burn phone. He quickly saw where the dot was located, hit a right and then a left, accelerated up the entrance ramp to the interstate, and gunned it. He flew past traffic, heading due east. He raced over the Roosevelt Bridge and into D.C.
He had three choices of direction coming up. As he sped along he eyed the map. Bobby was heading west, which meant he was coming Puller’s way. But he was also heading north, which meant he was also moving away. Puller looked ahead. There was a cop car in the far left lane and Puller was blowing way past the speed limit. Road work was backing up traffic in the center heading onto Constitution Avenue. Puller veered all the way to the right, getting waves of honks from other cars, and fought his way to the exit lane leading to Independence Avenue.
He blew through the next several intersections as his eye continued to follow the dot. Then an idea occurred to him. He thumbed in a two-word text.
Go south.
A few seconds later he saw the dot turn. He watched its progress as he raced through intersection after intersection, running lights and blasting past cars with inches to spare. If a cop took up the chase, so much the better. But he didn’t see a single patrol car.
He made a quick calculation and next thumbed in East.
The dot turned yet again. Puller matched the turn, but went right to his brother’s left.
He knew what was coming next.
The windows of the SUV slid down. Gun muzzles appeared at the openings.
He already had his M11 out. He hit the window switch for the passenger side. As it came down he fired directly at the driver’s window. The window glass didn’t break.
Polycarbonate. Great.
Unfortunately, his windows were not bulletproof.