Page 22 of Factory Thief

Iglance in the rearview mirror and see the truck which pursued us while I slept. Blinking away at the bleary haze clogging my vision, I watch as the truck swerves around the café furniture we left upended in our wake.

I can’t make out many details, but I think there’s at least two people in the extended cab. Who are they? Can’t be the Factory—can it? Whoever they are, I don’t suspect they belong to a branch of law enforcement.

Standard Highway Patrol vehicles in California are the Dodge Charger and Range Rover. This truck behind us is a Dodge Ram and lacks not only the official markings, but the telltale radio antennae.

If it’s not the Factory, and not the police, then is it the Xtera corporation?

“We need to get back on the highway,” I say. “Now.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They’re going to try and stop us—maybe worse. If we’re in a residential area, someone else might get hurt.”

Jack’s conscience won’t let him argue.

“Besides that, we might be able to outrun them. Highway 101 has a lot of inclines. Their greater mass will slow them down.”

I just wonder how they got on our tail. I made sure to dispose of my burner phone. Of course, the strip club I stole the car from probably had security cameras. It’s not good for business when the customers get their vehicles broken into.

Plus, I’d left the hot truck there in the motel parking lot. Clumsy, careless. It would have been easy to connect the ditched truck and the missing car from the strip club lot. Smooth move, Victoria. Real smooth. Andrew would be laughing his ass off at me if he only knew.

We pull up onto the highway, and, for a moment, I think the people following us are going to play it coy. The car takes a long, bending curve around the side of a knobby bluff, and the truck disappears from sight.

“You know, maybe they aren’t following us after all,” I say.

“Are you sure?”

“Not completely, but if I were them, I’d be making my move right now. No traffic around, narrow road with no shoulder—”

The truck flashes around the bend, engine gunning loud enough to be heard over the rushing wind. A man leans out of the passenger side window, aiming a gun.

“Step on it!” The gun jumps and coughs in his hand. Seemingly at the same time, our rear windshield sprouts a new hole. I stare up in horror at the bullet wedged in the tan headliner near my sun visor.

More shots follow. Jack panics. The car swerves all over the road.

“Be careful, Jack.”

“I’m trying, but this car is badly out of alignment.”

He smashes the pedal to the floor, and we rocket ahead of the truck. My celebration is short lived, however, because the truck soon looms large behind us again. Shots ring out and the rear windshield becomes a spider web of jagged cracks, impossible to see out of.

The sideview mirror explodes, causing me to yelp. I look at it dangling there by the cables meant to control mirror direction and realize just how grim our situation is. These men aren’t out to capture us. They’re out for blood.

“How did they even find us?” Jack shouts above the wind rushing in the empty rear windscreen.

“This P.O.S. has GPS tracking,” I grumble. “I’m an idiot. I should have ripped it out and left it in the strip club parking lot.”

The gunfire ceases. I glance over my shoulder and see the man leaning back into the truck. He buckles his safety belt. I feel a surge of dread, knowing what comes next.

“He’s going to try and ram us,” I shout.

The truck’s engine revs, growling like an angry beast. I cringe as it looms larger. The first nudge is almost gentle. Jack and I barely feel it. The second is much harder. The third sends the back end of the car fishtailing all over the road.

Jack, eyes are wide as dinner plates, frantically spins the wheel this way and that. At one point, we do a complete three sixty and wind up facing our attackers on the way around. There are two more men in the back of that extended cab.

If they manage to force us off the road, they’ll cut us down like lambs at the slaughter.

Somehow, through luck and wild counter driving, Jack gets us facing the right direction and we stop the crazy slide. The truck surges up for another ramming attack, but the highway suddenly rears up into a steep incline.

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