Chapter 8 - The Narrow Pass
The first bullet did not sound like a gunshot inside the insulated cabin of the Cadillac.
It sounded like a sharp, metallic hammer blow against the rear bumper—a dull CLANG followed instantly by the whistling screech of lead ricocheting off reinforced steel plate.
"Get down!" the lead guard bellowed, his body twisting around as he drew a heavy, blued revolver from his shoulder holster. "Target lock on the rear flank! Driver, hit the gas!"
The driver slammed his boot onto the accelerator. The Series 62 engine screamed in protest, pushing the three-ton luxury car to sixty miles per hour on a narrow, unpaved shelf of dry clay that dropped two hundred feet straight down into the rocky bed of the Rio Seco on the left.
Behind them, the three utility trucks roared in pursuit, their heavy diesel engines belching black smoke into the canyon air.
A second burst of automatic fire erupted from the lead truck. Bullets stitched a line across the rear trunk of the Cadillac, shattering the left taillight assembly and spider-webbing the thick safety glass of the rear window into a dense, opaque sheet of white frost.
Mateo lay flat on his side across the rear leather bench, his silk tie pressed into the floor carpet, his heart hammering against his ribs with a sickening, chaotic rhythm.
Phobos. The ancient terror of his childhood—the fear of the dark alley, the fear of the man with the wooden club, the fear of dying in the dirt—returned with a violent, crippling force that made him vomit a thin stream of bile onto the fine wool carpet of his car.
All his wealth, all his guards, all his political connections were useless here on the ledge of the Rio Seco. The bullet didn't care about his Cayman accounts; the lead didn't recognize his signature on the municipal contracts.
"Bridge ahead is blocked!" the driver screamed, his knuckles white as he fought the heavy steering wheel against the skidding tires.
Fifty yards ahead, at the narrowest point of the canyon road where an old timber bridge crossed the ravine, a heavy logging truck had been turned sideways across the road, its broad wooden bed completely sealing the pass.
Four men stepped out from behind the timber truck, raising long-barreled bolt-action rifles to their shoulders.
"Brake!" Mateo shrieked from the floorboard, his voice breaking into a high-pitched, pathetic squeal. "Brake the car!"
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"If I brake, they surround us!" the driver shouted back, his face slick with cold sweat. "Hold on!"
The driver didn't hit the brakes. He yanked the heavy wheel to the right, aiming the massive chrome front grille of the Cadillac directly toward the thin wooden guardrail that separated the dirt road from the two-hundred-foot drop into the canyon below.
