Read Online Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons - Free Book Online

pace. But he was. The Mercedes was only twenty car lengths ahead now. It had slowed to about eighty-five—but the driver must have just glanced in his mirror and glimpsed either the NSX or the police flashers or both, because suddenly the gray Mercedes shifted lanes and accelerated up the next long stretch of hilly interstate, passing cars on the left and right, using all five lanes, hunting for open spots and then surging ahead.
    Dar followed lane to lane. He knew that the normal Mercedes E 340s were electronically governed to keep their top speed down to 130 mph, but this window-tinted, spoilered, fat-tired, modified son of a bitch was now doing at least 155 as it dodged through the thickening traffic.
    Goddammit, thought Dar. He had the long two-hundred-millimeter lens on now and the Nikon in his left hand as he whipped past traffic on his left and right. But the Mercedes was still a quarter of a mile ahead, too far for a clear shot at the license tag. And Dar had no idea how he could hold the camera steady enough to read the plate even if he got closer.
    He didn’t care. He dropped the Nikon back in his lap, gripped the perfectly sized steering wheel with both hands, and swerved from the far right lane to the far left to stay behind the Mercedes. His speedometer read 170 and he was above the red line. Dar desperately did not want to blow this Acura engine: it was a handcrafted work of art, assembled by one man at the Japanese factory. Somewhere on that mostly aluminum engine block was the man’s name engraved in Japanese symbols. In an age of superchargers, turbochargers, and every other prosthetic breathing aid, this was a normally aspirated V-6 that derived speed from perfection. It would be a desecration to blow such an engine. Nonetheless, Dar kept the perforated pedal to the metal—or in this case, to the luxurious black rubber mat that ran up the firewall above the luxurious black carpeting—and let the tach creep further into the red. The little six-cylinder screamed and the gap began to close.
    What if they just slow down and shoot me again? asked the still sane part of Darwin’s mind. He had no weapons in the car. He had no weapons at home. He hated handguns. What if I slow down and the cops shoot me? riposted the adrenaline-driven part of Dar’s brain. Might as well catch these fuckers first.
    The Mercedes shifted from the far left lane to the far right lane, cutting off two vehicles as it did so. One of them—a Ford Windstar van—braked too quickly and spun four times before coming to a halt with its nose pointed back the way it had come. Dar noticed the pallor on the man’s and woman’s faces in the front seats as he passed them at 168 miles per hour.
    This is how it’ll end, you asshole, shouted the sane part of Dar through the adrenaline-filled Dar’s thick skull. In the movies these car chases are always excitement and close calls. In real life, it’s a dead family—innocent people killed—and you’re not even a cop. You don’t even have the right to do this.
    The driving Dar theoretically agreed with the sane Dar—he glanced at his mirror and saw the flashing lights as the CHP Mustang almost showed clear air under the wheels as it came over the rise less than a mile behind him—but the part of him that was driving was angrier than he had been for many, many years. And the Mercedes was only a hundred yards ahead now, back in the far left lane again with little traffic around it. Dar held his foot to the floor and leveraged the Nikon onto the slivered sill of the NSX door, keeping the long lens inside so the wind wouldn’t catch it and pull the expensive camera out of his hand. This is going to be tricky, he thought, deciding that he should shoot through the windshield with both hands on top of the wheel to prop and steady the Nikon, helping to steer with his left knee, just snapping away at full auto and hoping that one of