Huong wanted his machine gun, but it was in the backseat. Reaching for it would force him to drop the rifle for a few precious seconds. But he needed the field of fire the weapon offered; the carbine was just not giving him—in the conditions—the targeting power he needed.

He dropped the assault rifle then reached in back for his FN P90.

*   *   *

Dewey watched as his slug hit the Porsche’s windshield, shattering it. The Chinese agent swerved, then recovered. He’d almost taken him down.

The AMG’s engine made a sputtering noise. Dewey heard a high-pitched revving coming from it, though he felt no drop-off in performance. Smoke from the hood was growing thicker, coming up from holes in the hood and in through the dashboard.

He glanced left. The Chinese agent clutched a different weapon in his right hand. A shiver of fear shot involuntarily up Dewey’s spine. It was a firearm he himself had used, a nasty little submachine gun called a P90. Short, lethal, with a closed-bolt system for better aim than a typical submachine gun, the P90 was capable of emptying one of its fifty-round mags of slugs in less than four seconds.

Dewey watched as the Chinese agent lifted the submachine gun and trained it out the window. For a brief moment, Dewey stared right down the muzzle of the weapon. He floored the AMG, ducking just as the submachine gun—less than a lane away—erupted in full auto hail.

*   *   *

Huong waited until he had the Porsche at the same speed as the Mercedes, then ripped the trigger back. The P90 exploded, spraying slugs at the white sedan. He felt the blowback from the submachine gun, kicking against his hard biceps, but he held it stable and kept firing. He swung the weapon toward the midsection of the sedan, then washed the muzzle forward, spraying slugs as the two cars raced at nearly 175 miles an hour. The line of slugs tore up the body of the car, toward Andreas. Slugs pelted metal, then shattered the glass just behind the American. It was about to happen. The line of bullets would soon be at Andreas.

Suddenly, the American accelerated, bursting ahead, hitting a speed Huong didn’t think the German car possessed. Huong’s aim was thrown off, but he managed to rip the last of the magazine’s slugs into the American’s back tire.

*   *   *

Dewey listened as slugs pocked the side of the car, moving in a line deliberately from the middle of the Mercedes toward him. He heard bullets striking the door, coming at him, getting closer with each shot. He sensed the forward momentum of the muzzle as the agent swung the submachine gun up the car.

Still, Dewey waited, letting the line of slugs get closer, knowing it might be his last opportunity to escape.

He listened as slugs ripped into the window just behind him, shattering the glass of the back window. Dewey glanced left again, and again saw the muzzle, sparking red and silver, the sound of auto hail mixing with the staccato echo of bullets shredding the car behind him.

He slammed the pedal to the floor, pushing the badly smoking AMG for whatever it had left.

For a brief, precious second, he listened as the line of bullets was interrupted. The agent kept firing, but his aim had been thrown off, and the slugs flew wide, behind the AMG. Dewey swerved right, trying to get distance. Then Dewey heard a bullet hit the back of the car, then the back tire. A low explosion ripped the air. Dewey quickly lost control of the vehicle.

The back of the AMG bounced left, heaving violently, pulling against his weight as if the car had been grabbed by a gust of hurricane wind. Dewey heard the tires screeching wildly beneath him, then watched as the highway in front of him was torn abruptly sideways, into a breathtaking blur, and he knew he was flipping over at more than 150 miles an hour. He tried to brace himself, but even that was impossible, so fierce was the tornado that now controlled the car.

Dewey looked left just as the car was thrown sideways and over. The black of the road shot at him, and he knew he would hit. He pulled his left arm inside the car just as the side of the Mercedes smashed brutally into the tar, his arm barely avoiding being crushed by the full weight of the now-tumbling sedan. His face went flying uncontrollably forward, into the steering wheel, his nose smashing hard against the wheel, and blood spurting out from both nostrils. And still he knew it was only just beginning.

The momentum of the rolling car was ferocious, aided by the tremendous speed he’d had the AMG racing at. It took all of Dewey’s strength to reach forward, against the fierce torque, trying to grab something to brace himself, anything—the steering wheel, the nylon of the seat belt—while at the same time he shut his eyes and heard screaming, which after a moment he realized was his own.

The car kept tumbling forward, in a blurring eddy of steel and pavement. The car bounced from its side to the roof, crushing it down toward Dewey’s head, then kept rolling, flipping completely upright, then rolling more, pushed by a violent momentum, until finally the destroyed car landed upside down for a second time, crushing the roof, pushing against Dewey’s head.

As the destroyed car came to rest, upside down, it went into a slow spin. Dewey finally opened his eyes. He was strung upside down, tethered by the seat belt, dangling. He could see nothing but the spinning of the highway outside the ruined car, a dizzying scene cloaked in red, as blood gushed from his nose down into his eyes. He was close to passing out, and he fought to stay conscious. He felt for the seat-belt release, but couldn’t reach it, as the sound of gunfire abruptly rang out anew, somewhere nearby.

*   *   *

Huong watched as the back tire of the Mercedes exploded. The back of the Mercedes lurched left. Its tires made a terrible squealing. The sedan was thrown out of control. It flipped over onto its side, rolling over, then landed on its roof, then seemed to almost bounce up, carried by the momentum of the car’s original speed. It landed on its wheels and kept rolling, bouncing yet again, up into the air. It landed upside down again, on its roof, coming to a loud, jarring crash on the freeway.

Huong slammed on the brakes. The Porsche shuddered wildly, tires screaming a high-pitched cry as the 911 spun out. When he finally stopped, Huong grabbed a fresh mag from the passenger seat. He grabbed the door handle and leapt from the car. Weapon in hand, he began a furious sprint toward the flipped-over Mercedes, which was still spinning in place, smoke chimneying up into the warm sky.

He ripped the spent mag from the P90 and hurled it to the tar as, on the run, he slammed the new mag into the submachine gun. Huong was downrange of the wrecked Mercedes, forty feet away, running as fast as his feet would take him.

Huong heard gunfire. To the left, he saw another man—it was Chiu—clutching an M4 and moving at the overturned Mercedes from behind. The wrecked sedan was still spinning slowly counterclockwise as the two agents converged from both directions. As he came up to the Mercedes, Huong felt almost high; adrenaline flamed in his veins, and his heart felt like it was in his throat.

All of a sudden, he became aware of the loud roar of a motorcycle, then the telltale staccato of a submachine gun—someone else’s submachine gun—firing on full auto.

*   *   *

Dowling was less than a hundred feet behind the silver Taurus when the white Mercedes suddenly bounced into the air and spiraled into a violent, unsightly crash. The Taurus skidded to a halt behind the overturned wreck. Smoke shot from the Mercedes’s engine as the door to the silver sedan opened and a man emerged, running.

Dowling kept the bike tearing down the highway at full speed, barely slowing, then reached behind him and pulled out his MP5 without taking his eyes off the chaotic scene ahead. He was upon the silver sedan now, just yards away, as a tall Chinese agent looked toward him, then swept a carbine through the air at him, firing.