The Saab staggered. Jerked free of the sparking, sandpapering fury on its left flank. There was time for a flash glimpse of the transporter coming up and he hauled hard left across Mike’s rear, across the centre lane and out of the automated vehicle’s path. Another blaring of machine rage and the transporter thundered past on his right cutting off vision of the BMW and what it was doing. Chris gritted curses and let them both go. Junction eight. His speed bled down to an unsteady ninety. Adrenalin reaction sloshed in his guts.

He caught a distant glimpse of the BMW disappearing down the incline towards the underpass.

It didn’t take much imagination to work out what was coming. He had about a minute, he reckoned. After that— After that, somewhere down in the gloom of the tunnel, Mike Bryant would have executed his one-hundred-and-eighty degree crash-stop turn, would be barrelling back up the road towards him for the head-to-head chicken.

That old number. The Mike Bryant profile - fearless, headlong, savage. Conservative to the end.

Chris built speed. Cranked his nerves back up to drive tension. He passed the transporter again. Head buzzing with calculation.

Two outcomes for this. The head-to-head kills the duel, one way or another. Saab or BMW out of the game, turned too hard, too late and tumbled, into the path of the long-suffering transporter maybe, or maybe both cars, clipped against each other, tossed effortlessly apart with kinetic energy raging off at all angles, looking to shed itself in impact and flame. Or—

Or we both make it, and you’re south, up and into the Gullet, no way to fight but slow down and let him ram you off into space like Hewitt did to Page, or try for the turn, a hundred and eighty screaming degrees on a vaulted highway only two lanes across.

He thought of this. He thought it out. Three-stage play, the crash barrier, the head-to-head, the end game in the Gullet. And he knows you can’t make that turn. The BMW bloomed in the road ahead. Up out of the tunnel ramp. Very fast.

He had time for a glance at the speedo, saw a hundred and something insane, doubled it in his head for Bryant’s share of the speed, saw the BMW’s armoured snout coming at him, rock steady and directly ahead—

He’s harder and faster than you— —and yelled, and hauled hard right.

The BMW flinched fragments of a second later. Flashed past. Was gone.

Chris floored the accelerator and the Saab dived for the tunnel. Again, he had a minute at best. Not the time he needed, he’d have to make some more. The tunnel flew past in the hollow roar of the Saab’s echoed passing. Up, out of the gloom and into sudden, watery sunlight. The Gullet flung itself down at him like a massive asphalt loading ramp. He rose to meet it, took the first curve at the very edges of his driving ability.

Felt his heart stumble as the Saab palpably gathered enough sideways momentum to skid. He dared not brake, there wasn’t time. He needed the straight at speed. He unhinged the angle of the turn a miserly couple of degrees, slewed back across the double lane, fishtailing, muttering imprecations to the car. The Saab came back to him. He picked up the long rise-and-fall of the straight and ran for the next curve.

Almost to the end of the gut-tickling swoop, almost on the curve, he choked off his speed and threw the Saab into a shrieking, gibbering handbrake turn.

For one very long moment, he thought he’d fucked up. Thought he’d lose a tyre and then the car and plunge with it through the crash barrier into the zones below. The car slithered, tripped drunkenly across a badly mended pothole, screamed protest and tyre smoke he could suddenly smell—

And stopped.

Not the hundred and eighty. Just a ninety-degree sprawl across both lanes, blocking the Gullet like a bone in the throat.

Back along the straight, the BMW came over the rise.

He grabbed the shotgun from the passenger side footwell, threw open the driver side door and tumbled out of the car. Found his feet, found the BMW and cranked the action of the tactical pump.

Curiously, now that the situation was drawn, everything seemed very quiet. The Saab had stalled out in the turn, and the BMW’s engine noise seemed almost inaudible past the distant ocean roar of his own pulse in his ears. The wind came and tugged at his hair, but gently. The sprawl of cordoned zone housing below seemed to be holding its breath.

He let Bryant come on for another second, then put the first shot into the driver-side half of the windscreen.

The familiar boom - he’d done a solid hour down in the armoury firing ranges, a final tuning of his earlier unexpected love affair with the long gun.

The BMW’s windscreen cratered and crazed. He saw the splinter lines.

No discharge of projectile weaponry from a moving vehicle. The parchment-dry conclusion of the legal board of inquiry after the Nakamura playoff. No substantial destruction to be inflicted with a projectile weapon. Provided these directives are adhered to—

Bryant’s windscreen was armoured glass. Even with the state-of-the-art vehicle shredder load the armourer had shown him, care of Heckler and Koch - the roadblock ammunition of choice for all your urban enforcement needs - even with that, at this range there’d be no substantial destruction.

He pumped the action, fired again. The spider-webbed screen resplintered, almost to opaque.

It was pushing the envelope, pushing it the way Jones and Nakamura had done, pushing it the way Notley liked.

The BMW came on. Behind the ruined screen, Bryant had to be almost blind. Chris pumped in another round, ran sideways to get the angle. Went after the leading tyre.

The shotgun kicked. The tyre blew into shreds.

No substantial—

The BMW slewed violently across the road, brakes shrieking protest, scorching rubber into the road and the wind.

Precedent, Chris. That’s what counts.

In the elite, you don’t get punished for breaking the rules. Not if it works.

The BMW careered past him, ploughed through the crash barrier and plunged over. It took less than a pair of seconds. Chris had time for one glimpse through the side window, Mike still fighting the wheel for control, then the big car was gone, and there was only the ragged gap in the barrier to mark its passing.

Breath held.

A flat, oddly undramatic metallic crump from below. Then nothing.

Done. Won. Finished.

Emptied out.

Nothing.

It coursed through him like current, that nothing. Emptiness, building to ecstasy. He threw back his head and screamed at the sky. It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t get it all out. He screamed until his throat felt ripped and his lungs locked up on empty. Until he gagged, finally, to a halt.

It wasn’t enough.

Echoes rippled out across the cityscape below, chasing each other off towards the cluster of glass and steel towers on the skyline.

Overhead, even the clouds seemed to hurry away from the sound.

Behind them, the sky was a flawless, vacant blue. Against all the odds, it was going to be a beautiful day.