54
DIRK AND SUMMER LEFT PERLMUTTER’S HOUSE satiated with good food and wine and piqued by the Barbarigo’s strange fate. The dinner had been a welcome respite from their worries about their father, which returned the minute they said their good-byes.
We best get back and see if Rudi and Hiram have had any luck with the port authorities,” Dirk said.
I’ve been thinking we should reexamine the possibility that the Adelaide traveled west.”
As they walked to the street, they heard a car door shut, and Dirk noticed two men sitting in a white van a few spaces behind the Packard. Dirk fired up the Packard with the first press of the starter and flipped on the headlamps. While the Woodlites looked great by daylight, their nighttime performance didn’t match the rest of the car. Easing away from the curb, he drove slowly down the street, watching in the rearview mirror as the van’s lights flicked on when they reached the end of the street.
Dirk turned right and mashed down the accelerator, speeding down a tree-lined street. A few seconds later, the van screeched around the same corner.
Summer noticed Dirk’s focus on the mirror and glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t want to sound paranoid,” she said, “but that same van may have been parked in the NUMA lot when we left the building.”
One better,” Dirk said. “I think it was also parked next to Dad’s hangar this morning.” He meandered through the wealthy Georgetown neighborhood, turning down O Street and heading west. The van followed his every move, staying a dozen lengths behind.
Who would be following us?” Summer asked. “Someone related to the people in Madagascar?”
I can’t imagine. It might be someone interested in Dad. Maybe we should just ask them?”
He slowed the car as they approached a cross street. Just beyond was a pillared and gated pedestrian entrance to Georgetown University. Portable barricades were normally in place to prevent vehicles from entering the gateway, but they had been removed for a delivery truck exiting the campus. As the truck pulled clear, Dirk hit the gas and skirted around it through the open gate.
A security guard gaped as the antique Packard zipped by. A few seconds later, he had to jump back as the white van barreled through in pursuit. Dirk followed the road across the grounds a short distance to a circular drive. A statue of the university’s founder, John Carroll, sat at its center, facing the entrance gate. Footlights illumined the statue in a yellow haze, lending a lifelike aura to the long-dead bishop.
Dirk wheeled the Packard around the back of the statue and slowed, double-clutching and dropping into first gear. He watched for the lights of the van as it hurried onto campus and turned onto the circular drive. Dirk turned off the Packard’s Woodlites and gunned the engine. The old car leaped forward as he turned the wheel hard, shifting into second while keeping the accelerator pinned to the floorboard.
While the van was slowing, the roadster shot around the circle. Rather than exit back toward the gate, Dirk held the wheel tight, curving around the loop. The van’s taillights appeared in front of them, and Dirk had to brake to avoid rear-ending it. Summer reached over and turned the Woodlites back on, signaling to the pursuers that the game was up.
The van’s driver hesitated, unsure what had happened until he recognized the pale yellow beams of the Packard behind him. Not prepared for a confrontation, he stomped on the gas. The van’s tires chirped as it shot forward, turning off the circular drive. He took the first road he could, a straight lane that ran behind a stately structure called Healy Hall and into the center of campus.
Go after him,” Summer said. “I didn’t get his plate number.”
Dirk shoved the Packard into gear and took off. A fast car in its day, the Packard was powered by a straight-eight engine that boasted 150 horsepower. The van might have left the old car behind on an open highway but not in the tight confines of the college campus.
The van sped past the large stone building. Only a few students were about, and those in the street quickly cleared way for the speeding van. The lane abruptly turned left into a side building complex, but it was blocked by a campus policeman in a patrol car who had stopped to chat with a student.
Unable to turn, the van’s driver continued straight, bounding up and onto a concrete walkway that bisected a grass courtyard. A girl on a bicycle screamed as she narrowly missed getting flattened. The Packard followed a few yards behind, inciting an eruption of flashing lights from the patrol car.
I think we’re out of danger and into trouble,” Summer said, noting the lights behind.
Dirk tightened his grip on the wheel as the roadster bounded over the uneven surface. He followed the van along the walkway until it dropped off a curb into the parking lot of a student dormitory. Just ahead, two freshmen were smuggling a beer keg into the building when the van charged at them. The students dove for safety as the van sped by, just clipping the keg.
The aluminum keg skittered across the parking lot and bounced off a retaining wall. A short distance behind, Dirk braked hard but couldn’t avoid the keg. The front bumper caught it first, gouging a hole in the aluminum before the right fender knocked the keg aside. The shaken beer exploded in a foamy fountain that doused the side of the car—and Summer inside.
Dad’s not going to like that,” Dirk said.
She wiped the suds from her face. “You’re right, he won’t. It’s light beer.”
The van and the Packard accelerated through the parking lot, pushed faster by the pursuing patrol car. The van skidded out of the parking lot and onto a cross street. Unable to decide which way to turn, the driver went straight, bouncing onto a sloping gravel road that stretched ahead. The road dipped down a small hill and turned onto the university’s football field. In the middle of a practice, the men’s lacrosse team was forced to scatter as the van bounded across the artificial turf.
Seeing the old Packard and the police in pursuit, several players fired lacrosse balls at the van, ringing its side with dents. A few took aim at the Packard until they were disarmed by a wave and smile from the beer-drenched Summer.
The van opened a sizable gap on the Packard as it sped off the opposite side of the field and passed through an open gate. The driver turned left on the facing street, following a sign that directed them toward the university’s exit on Canal Road. “C’mon, we can lose them,” the van’s passenger said.
Fifty yards behind, Dirk heard a similar appeal from Summer. “Don’t lose them, I still haven’t gotten the full plate number.”
Dirk turned onto the road in pursuit, but had to slow for a trio of coeds crossing the street to a tennis court. Behind him, the campus police had nearly caught up.
The road curved past another residence hall before descending a landscaped hill out of campus. Dirk saw the van accelerate sharply down the hill and he tried to keep pace. At the bottom of the hill, a stoplight marked the intersection with Canal Road, a busy thoroughfare that fed into suburban Maryland.
The light was green, and Dirk feared it would change before he drew close. Then it flashed to yellow, and he knew the van would have to stop.
Only it didn’t.
With the van’s passenger urging him on, the driver floored the gas when the light turned yellow. The van was still fifty feet from the intersection when the light turned red. Remarkably, the stopped cross traffic hesitated, perhaps detecting the bouncing rays of the van’s headlights as it roared down the hill.
Charging into the intersection at better than seventy miles an hour, the van crossed the near lanes of traffic and attempted to turn left into the far lanes. But its speed was far too great, and the panicked driver slammed on the brakes, sending the van into a skid. It slid across the asphalt until its right front tire kissed the curb. The tire burst, but the van kept moving, hopping the curb and plowing into a low retaining wall, the front fender buckling as the rear wheels bounded into and over the curb. The combined forces flipped the van onto its side atop the retaining wall. It slid a few feet, then tumbled over the wall, splashing roof first into the road’s namesake, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, flowing just beyond.
Dirk skidded the Packard to a halt before the stoplight and raced across the street, with Summer running a step behind. They reached the retaining wall and peered over. The canal had swallowed most of the van, leaving only a portion of its still-spinning tires protruding. A dull glow brightened the murky water at one end, where the van’s headlights had yet to short out.
Dirk slipped off his jacket and kicked off his shoes. “I’ll try and get them out,” he said. “See if you can get the campus police to help.”
He jumped into the canal and swam to the van, diving along the passenger door. The glowing headlights turned the water’s visibility from zero to next to nothing, and he had to find the open window frame by touch. The frame height was barely a foot high, telling him the roof had collapsed at impact. It didn’t bode well for the occupants.
Reaching inside the open window, he felt a lifeless body strapped in the seat. Groping blindly, he found the buckle release and freed the seat belt. The body dropped loosely, and he pulled on the victim’s shoulders, dragging him through the narrow window.
Dirk shot to the surface, gasping for air, as he pulled the head and torso free of the water. A bright flashlight beam, aimed by the campus policeman, shined on the victim, and Dirk knew he had wasted his time. The passenger’s head tilted at a grotesque angle, his neck broken.
Dirk pulled the body to the bank and called up to the policeman. “Give me your light.”
He passed Dirk the light as he reached out to help pull the body ashore. Dirk swam to the van’s other side and dove once more. With the flashlight, he could now see the driver was also dead, his torso pinned between the crushed roof and the steering wheel. Unlike his partner, he hadn’t been wearing a seat belt.
Though running short of breath, Dirk shined the light past the driver and into the rear compartment. A row of electronic processing devices was mounted on a shelf. Sitting nearby was a large acrylic parabolic dish used for eavesdropping.
Pushing off from the door, he swam to the back of the van and checked its license plate before popping to the surface. He stroked to the bank, where Summer helped him up the incline.
No luck with the other one?”
No, he’s dead, too.”
I’ve got paramedics on the way,” the policeman said. His inexperience with fatalities was betrayed by a pale face. He regained his composure but spoke with a forced tone of authority. “Who are those people? And why were you chasing them?”
I don’t know who they are, but they stole something from us.”
They get your money? Or was it jewelry or electronics?”
No,” Dirk replied, looking at the dead man. “It was our words.”