Read Online 24 Declassified: Head Shot (2009) by David Jacobs - Free Book Online
Authors: David Jacobs
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Denver was a mile above sea level and the Red Notch area was higher than that. He wasn’t acclimated to the elevation. The experts said that flatlanders should take it easy for their first day or two in the heights to avoid altitude sickness. It wasn’t a matter of conditioning, a trained athlete from the lowlands was as likely as an overweight, lazy layabout to suffer ill effects from initial exposure to the rarefied air of the mountains.
Jack’s head felt like a railroad spike was being hammered into the center of his skull between the twin cerebral hemispheres. Then he remembered Neal with the top of his head shot off. Jack decided he was damned lucky to have a head to suffer headaches with. He’d tough it out, let the adrenaline rush of the hunt help power him through it.
The curves started to smooth out, flattening into a long straightaway. Jack floored the gas pedal. The pickup shook from the engine vibration, but it was manageable. The engine roar almost but not quite drowned out the transmissions of the frantic dispatcher at Central as he kept firing off demands for an update on the situation.
The situation was that Jack was closing in on the sedan. It was only a couple of hundred yards or so ahead, and the gap was steadily decreasing. Whatever the sedan had under the hood, it lacked the muscle of the pickup truck, and that lack was inexorably telling.
The sky was lightening. A trestle bridge spanning the river came into view on the right. A gap opened opposite it on the left, where Mount Nagaii ended. It was a crossroad that cut Nagaii Drive at right angles. A handful of buildings stood at the junction.
The bridge was a railroad bridge, inaccessible to vehicular traffic. Railroad tracks stretched from the west end of the bridge, crossing Nagaii Drive and continuing into the gap between Mount Nagaii and a mountain to the north of it.
The tracks that crossed the road at right angles were sunken, the twin rails inset in slotted grooves in the asphalt. There were no cross ties. A black-and white-striped bar and a set of signal lights marked the crossing. No train was using the line so the signal lights were dark and the barrier gate was raised to permit free passage.
A small town was clustered around the crossing. Town? It wasn’t even a village. A hamlet, maybe. There were a gas station, a diner, a strip lined with a couple of convenience stores, a post office, and a handful of houses.
The sedan blew through the crossing with no slackening of speed. The pickup truck did the same, flashing over the sunken railroad tracks with nothing but a slight change in pitch in the whirring drone of the racing wheels on the roadway to mark their presence.
Jack glimpsed in the corner of his eye a tiny café fronting the east side of the road. A police car stood parked beside its north wall, facing the road at right angles. Its lights were dark, but he could make out what looked like two figures in the front seat.
He passed them doing about eighty, eighty-five miles per hour. He’d been going faster but had slowed down a hair just to be on the safe side when crossing the railroad tracks. They proved to be no obstacle, so once he’d cleared them he pushed the pickup back up to ninety.
There was a pause while the occupants of the police car woke up or got over their stupefaction at seeing a high-speed chase zip right by them. Then the police car swung out of the lot into the northbound lane, turned on its headlights, switched on the emergency flashers of its rooftop light rack, and took off after the sedan and the pickup truck.
Jack glanced in his rear-view mirror, seeing the police car’s light rack flickering bright blue and white. They looked bright and happy, like party lights. They were a long way off. The sedan was much closer, the gap between it and the pickup truck closing up.
Telephone poles lining the roadside went by in a blur. Road signs whipped by so fast there was no time to read them.
The road started
Jack’s head felt like a railroad spike was being hammered into the center of his skull between the twin cerebral hemispheres. Then he remembered Neal with the top of his head shot off. Jack decided he was damned lucky to have a head to suffer headaches with. He’d tough it out, let the adrenaline rush of the hunt help power him through it.
The curves started to smooth out, flattening into a long straightaway. Jack floored the gas pedal. The pickup shook from the engine vibration, but it was manageable. The engine roar almost but not quite drowned out the transmissions of the frantic dispatcher at Central as he kept firing off demands for an update on the situation.
The situation was that Jack was closing in on the sedan. It was only a couple of hundred yards or so ahead, and the gap was steadily decreasing. Whatever the sedan had under the hood, it lacked the muscle of the pickup truck, and that lack was inexorably telling.
The sky was lightening. A trestle bridge spanning the river came into view on the right. A gap opened opposite it on the left, where Mount Nagaii ended. It was a crossroad that cut Nagaii Drive at right angles. A handful of buildings stood at the junction.
The bridge was a railroad bridge, inaccessible to vehicular traffic. Railroad tracks stretched from the west end of the bridge, crossing Nagaii Drive and continuing into the gap between Mount Nagaii and a mountain to the north of it.
The tracks that crossed the road at right angles were sunken, the twin rails inset in slotted grooves in the asphalt. There were no cross ties. A black-and white-striped bar and a set of signal lights marked the crossing. No train was using the line so the signal lights were dark and the barrier gate was raised to permit free passage.
A small town was clustered around the crossing. Town? It wasn’t even a village. A hamlet, maybe. There were a gas station, a diner, a strip lined with a couple of convenience stores, a post office, and a handful of houses.
The sedan blew through the crossing with no slackening of speed. The pickup truck did the same, flashing over the sunken railroad tracks with nothing but a slight change in pitch in the whirring drone of the racing wheels on the roadway to mark their presence.
Jack glimpsed in the corner of his eye a tiny café fronting the east side of the road. A police car stood parked beside its north wall, facing the road at right angles. Its lights were dark, but he could make out what looked like two figures in the front seat.
He passed them doing about eighty, eighty-five miles per hour. He’d been going faster but had slowed down a hair just to be on the safe side when crossing the railroad tracks. They proved to be no obstacle, so once he’d cleared them he pushed the pickup back up to ninety.
There was a pause while the occupants of the police car woke up or got over their stupefaction at seeing a high-speed chase zip right by them. Then the police car swung out of the lot into the northbound lane, turned on its headlights, switched on the emergency flashers of its rooftop light rack, and took off after the sedan and the pickup truck.
Jack glanced in his rear-view mirror, seeing the police car’s light rack flickering bright blue and white. They looked bright and happy, like party lights. They were a long way off. The sedan was much closer, the gap between it and the pickup truck closing up.
Telephone poles lining the roadside went by in a blur. Road signs whipped by so fast there was no time to read them.
The road started
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