Target of One's Own

by M. L. Buchman

  When even the route timer treated them differently, Luke couldn’t stop the laugh.

  “Fine for you,” Zoe snarled as she accelerated off the start. “You’re not the one with the bullseye painted on your racing suit.”

  “We actually are Spec Ops, Zoe, not just some intel group. If Hathyaron comes at us, he’s in for a very rude surprise. Besides, I got us a little extra help.” He glanced aloft, but it wasn’t time yet.

  “And what’s to stop him from using a sniper rifle or a missile on us?”

  “He hasn’t survived this long by being stupid. He knows that if he does that, we’ll have him as point of origin. Sofia has Raven down to thirty thousand feet. Hathyaron probably already knows it’s there, but he absolutely can’t miss it now. Not with his training.”

  Zoe grumbled, but seemed to relax into the drive. Which was a good thing, the course designers had created a particularly challenging penultimate stage.

  The narrow track behaved as if it had stomach cramps. One moment twisted up, the next it unraveled completely only to snarl up in a new direction. It plunged into a dry arroyo and slalomed along a channel barely wider than the car. Worse, it crossed and re-crossed other classification’s tracks. One moment they were racing among cars and motorcycles, then the next they’d merged with the truck course. Then, in the blindest, dustiest areas—where it would be natural to follow one of the big racing trucks through an intersection—their courses would suddenly diverge again, enticing the drivers to choose the wrong route.

  The navigation was a nightmare. Motorcycles—who had to read their own Road Book on a small scrolling display at the center of their handlebars—frequently strayed off-course and had to double back to pick up the track. Soon the motos, quads, and cars were hopelessly intermixed.

  Then, when the track had been closed in on both sides by thick masses of brush like an English hedgerow, the Road Book had the symbol HP with a slash through it—off-piste forbidden. They had to stay on the track now or suffer severe time penalties.

  “No HP,” he called out.

  “Guessing this won’t be good,” Zoe slammed through the gears. The course was so challenging that she was shifting at twice the rate she’d done on any other stage. There wasn’t a moment where being in a particular gear was at all useful in the next moment.

  They were in a twisting green tunnel several meters taller than the Citroën and never more than twice as wide.

  “S-curve ahead,” he called out.

  A tight right-hander was immediately followed by a sharper left-hander.

  Then the car nosed down hard and a brown cloud billowed out forward of the car.

  “Fesh fesh!” They cried out in unison. Luke slammed the internal vent closed, but already there was a whirl of brown in the cockpit despite the filters.

  Fesh fesh was a dirt so fine that it acted like water, splashing out in every direction. It also acted like dust, hanging in the air and creating blinding brownouts. Finally, it acted like actual dirt. Tires sinking down through its watery quality could easily high-center a car on its dirt-like quality.

  There was only one answer: power, and lots of it. Of course that only stirred it all the more. Fesh fesh clogged air filters, blocked vision, and coated everything like glue. Windshield wipers could help a little, as long as no water was used. Any water instantly turned the fine dirt into an impenetrable mudpack.

  To make matters even worse, it was almost impossible to see other vehicles that hadn’t made it through the mess and were stuck in the trap. Not colliding with a downed motorcycle or a stuck car was a major road hazard.

  In half-second gaps in the brown swirl, they both tried to assess what lay ahead of them.

  Then the Citroën’s nose would plow into the next dip, Zoe would pound on the accelerator, and another brownout cloud was thrown aloft.

  Races had been won and lost in fesh fesh. It was only a miracle that no one had ever died in the stuff.

  They were still in it deep when the Citroën jerked hard.

  “What did we hit?” Zoe cried out.

  Nothing that Luke had seen. Instinct had him glancing back to see if they’d run over someone, though they’d already be invisible in the dust cloud. What he saw in the rear window was the massive grill of one of the racing trucks. In fact it was all he could see out the rear window, with the truck’s logo dead center like a stainless steel branding iron ready to stomp on them.

  “Who do we know who drives a MAN SE?”

  Zoe swerved around a motorcycle that Luke didn’t see until it went by mere inches from his side window. The woman apparently had built-in radar.

  “MAN SE? About a third of the field, why?”

  “Guy’s an asshole. He smacked us.”

  “You’re kidding, right? The trucks are the only ones high enough to see clearly in this crap.” She cut sharply right to avoid a mired car and bounced off the green wall of thick growth on Luke’s side.

  Another slam shook them.

  “Well, at least I won’t be getting stuck in this. If I do, he’ll just shove me back into motion.”

  “Or run over the top of us.”

  “You’re right,” Zoe tried accelerating to the very limits of even semi-safe visibility. Then he clobbered them again.

  “I guess we’re not going fast enough for him.”

  “Well I’m getting sick of this. I can’t risk a look in the back mirror. Tell me the moment before he’s going to hit us again.”

  Luke twisted in the seat enough to see him. Nothing but brown cloud.

  Then the window-filling black radiator emerged from the latest wall of fesh fesh.

  “Ten meters.”

  “Five and coming hard.”

  “Hang on!”

  Luke turned, braced himself against the seat, and grabbed the handles.

  Along the fesh fesh route, officials were stationed in any of the wide spots to try and keep everyone safe.

  Zoe steered way wide of the track and was on the verge of ramming one of the official trucks. She twisted them sideways at the last second, almost brushing steel down her entire length as she plunged back into the fesh fesh, throwing up the biggest cloud yet.

  The MAN SE truck—whose driver must have only been focused on following them—wasn’t nearly as maneuverable and it plowed into the official’s parked Hilux Toyota pickup before slamming to a halt. Then the brownout closed in behind them. No way to see who it was.

  “Do you think—” Zoe left the question open as she managed a jump out of a patch of fesh fesh.

  “That Hathyaron drives a MAN SE truck? Yeah, I do.” Then Luke had to chuckle even though it twisted in his throat.

  “What?”

  “Picture a MAN logo. What color is it?”

  “Silver,” Zoe gasped. “Oh, poor Bernie.” He’d seen his death coming as the silver MAN logo on Hathyaron’s front grill.

  Their next landing plunged them back into another patch that exploded outward in billowing clouds.

  35

  It was another hundred kilometers before a MAN SE truck came near them again. They were out of the track country and hopefully clear of any more fesh fesh holes. If he never ate fesh fesh dust again in his life, it would be too soon.

  Behind them, the Peruvian Andes drew a looming wall that extended along the entire eastern horizon. Someday he was going to have to come back to this country when he could move slowly enough to admire it.

  They were deep in dune country. These weren’t the monster dunes like the last time they’d hit them in Chili, but they weren’t in nice linear rows either. Their directions could best be described as confused—like a confused sea that had no directional wave pattern after a hurricane. It was as if they’d been built by contrary and battling winds, duking it out on a colossal scale with fifty- and hundred-meter-high dunes. With no clear direction, it was anyone’s guess how best to cross through this topography.

  Apparently Zoe’s guess was to run perpendicular to the dunes: racing up
one face, jumping the crest, then flying down the other side. The MAN SE appeared as if by magic, racing along the valley between the dunes at right angles to their own track.

  “Goddamn it,” Zoe swore vehemently. “It’s Goldfarb out of the Netherlands. I wouldn’t have guessed him in a hundred years.”

  Luke agreed, except he’d met enough men who presented one face, then tried to stab you in the back while wearing another, that he didn’t trust anyone. The SEAL operator who’d been fucking Marva in Luke’s bed had been one of Luke’s most eager and friendly companions in the bars.

  “Take the bastard out.”

  “He’s ten tons, we’re less than three. Any suggestions?”

  “If you can’t figure it out, just get me close enough and I’ll shoot the bastard.”

  “With what?”

  Luke simply growled at her, even if she was right. All racers were subject to surprise inspections for illegal navigation equipment. They would freak if they found lethal weaponry aboard. Still, his palm itched for something more dangerous than his working knife.

  They continued converging at right angles. They were definitely going to get within shouting distance.

  “I can’t think of anything to do except outdrive him and run away again.”

  Luke didn’t know either, but then he saw the truck more clearly and relaxed.

  “What?” Zoe must have noticed the change in him as easily as he noticed every single change in her. Again, encouraging.

  “It’s not him. His front end isn’t all bunged up from ramming us.”

  Goldfarb waved as he raced past not far in front of them.

  Luke only barely resisted giving him the finger in response. He was convinced that someone was indeed after Zoe now, and that was unforgivable even if it was part of the plan. Luke wanted a piece of whoever it was and he wanted it now. At the moment he hated Goldfarb simply because he wasn’t Hathyaron.

  36

  The dunes continued to be mayhem. Zoe was passed by motorcycles going the other way, who would then circle and head back and race by her, assuming she knew what she was doing and they were wrong. It was a marginal bet at best.

  She did feel sorry for them. The dunes between Nazca and the finish line at Lima were far too close to sea level. This was no high-altitude course. The sun was blazing hot, cooking the sands to sun surface temperatures. Every time they turned so that the sun shone in the windshield, it felt as if their air conditioner had broken. The guys on the bikes must feel like burnt toast.

  Zoe really wished she hadn’t thought of that analogy. The image of Bernie’s face came back to her.

  “Where is that bastard?” she finally snarled out. She wanted a piece of him. A big one.

  “We’ll get him,” Luke said with all the stupid calm of his I’m-just-a-patiently-waiting-SEAL-super-warrior thing.

  Fat chance, how could they find Hathyaron when she didn’t even have a clue where they themselves were? The Road Book had uncharacteristically provided a compass heading and nothing else on a thirty-kilometer run…too bad they couldn’t drive in a straight line across this terrain. Going a kilometer southwest to skirt an uncrossable dune, then two klicks due north to find a pass over the next, when her true heading was supposed to be northwest…

  She was just thankful that Luke was navigator. He gave each direction change with such easy confidence that she couldn’t decide if he was making it all up or if SEALs had built-in little magnets in their heads—just like fish that used the earth’s magnetic field to navigate. Maybe Navy SEALs had to be half-human and half-dolphin to be let in.

  Though there’d been nothing fishy about his lovemaking. He’d been magnificent and she’d missed it every night. When he’d shattered her father’s world, she’d been so furious. And as she sat by Dad’s bedside holding his hand alone through that long, long night, the thing she’d wished the most was that Luke was beside her, holding her hand.

  Her life was an utter mess.

  She wasn’t a field operative.

  She wasn’t a rally driver.

  And she was no longer Luke’s lover.

  Who the hell was Zoe DeMille?

  The Soldier of Style. That much at least she knew for certain. Except what had Luke said? You aren’t that fluff ball, Tweety Bird Soldier of Style. You’re so much more than that.

  Zoe took a moment to glance at Luke while he was staring off into the distance doing his aligning with the Earth’s magnetic field thing. He clearly didn’t think much of The Soldier of Style. She’d spent so many hours over the years perfecting that persona that she didn’t know who else Zoe DeMille might be.

  Luke saw her as the opposite of how she saw herself: a woman capable of being a field operative, a rally driver whom he’d cheered on at every turn (not once in the two weeks had he pulled the I’m-the-guy-so-I-should-drive card), and…

  She didn’t know what else was in that so much more that he’d called her. Probably because she was no longer on speaking terms with him outside the bounds of the race. Shutting out the best lover—the best man—to ever enter her life because he’d done what, told the truth?

  Not exactly your best move, girl.

  Well, she’d never been one to let sleeping dogs lie. “Luke, I—”

  That’s when she almost died.

  She’d been clawing along a dune’s slip face, looking for the right spot to turn upslope, when a vast shadow blocked out the sun. If not for that shadow, she would have died.

  Instinct had her yanking the wheel to turn downslope and stamping on the accelerator. With an ear-deafening roar, the Citroën leaped ahead. Maybe it was a sand avalanche. Or a—

  Just as she pulled clear of the shadow, she glanced upward—and stared into the undercarriage of a massive racing truck. The long drive shafts to the front and rear axles seem to spin in slow motion. Each tread of the huge tires was going to be imprinted upon her mind’s eye forever.

  Then it thudded down into the sand close behind her like an elephant with dreams of being a pouncing lion. It had just jumped over the dune and nearly landed on top of her.

  It was an accident. Just bad luck that had nearly killed her—or rather it was good luck that she’d survived.

  Now running downslope, she could see the truck slam into the dune’s flank once more after bouncing up from its landing, then come zooming toward her.

  A MAN SE.

  With a badly mangled front bumper. Maybe he’d hit a rock or maybe…

  Zoe veered north.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  The truck turned hard on her tail.

  “Does the view behind us look familiar?” Zoe could hear the thinness of her voice. She wasn’t the sort cut out for near-death experiences.

  Luke twisted to look back between the seats. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his smile and it looked truly evil.

  “Who’s number 507?”

  She glanced back herself. All she could see was the dented metal of the bumper, the bent front grill with its shining silver MAN emblem, and a small white rectangle bearing the truck’s Dakar Rally entry number—507.

  Zoe sighed. “What is it with you and women?”

  “What do you mean? Oh.” At least Luke wasn’t slow.

  “Maybe she’s trying to kill you for turning her down. Maybe I’m not the target at all.”

  “Or maybe she wants you out of the way so that she can have her way with me.” Luke was actually teasing her and she couldn’t help smiling at him.

  Tammy Hall, with her long naturally blonde hair (that Zoe hated her a little for) and her killer body (which Zoe hated her a lot for), was definitely on the warpath. Not so much with being the sweet lady from Texas.

  Zoe made an attempt to cut north, but Tammy sliced up onto the dune’s face to block her. Zoe didn’t necessarily want to get away, but she didn’t want to get sandwiched somewhere either.

  “Any bright ideas?”

  “Yep!” was Luke’s cheery reply. “Just keep us alive
for the next five minutes or so.”

  “That’s not helpful.” And not terribly likely. Tammy was a masterful driver, currently running Number Two in the truck classification. If Zoe could get up on the dune’s slip face, she’d have some advantage because she was more agile. But Tammy knew that and kept closing the door with her truck’s tremendous power. Zoe should be able to outrun the truck, but Tammy must have some sort of illegal system hidden in her engine. She was accelerating like she was using nitrous oxide—a totally illegal option. To go along with whatever illegal tracking equipment had let her find them.

  “Try,” was Luke’s only suggestion.

  “You know, if you were any kind of a decent SEAL, you’d pull out an MP7 or a howitzer or something right now.”

  “Didn’t think the inspectors would appreciate finding a submachine gun aboard. And howitzers are Army shit. I’m hoping for something a little more subtle.”

  With nature’s vicious sense of perfect timing, Zoe plowed into soft sand. Not fesh fesh, but soft enough that Tammy had just gained a major advantage with her big fifty-inch wheels.

  Tammy managed to clip the Citroën’s rear corner and they spun wildly—almost tumbling had they caught an unseen hummock.

  The recovery was whip-snap vicious. Why was there never a race official around when you needed one? That’s when she realized they must be well off their original vector. Some routing that Luke understood and she didn’t had taken them away from most of the field.

  Was it a strategic racing move or did he know that Tammy couldn’t resist hunting her down given the opportunity? Had the woman also installed illegal tracking equipment in her truck?

  “Are you trying to get me killed?”

  “Nope,” was the extent of Luke’s infuriatingly cheery reply.

  Zoe shot over the top of a dune. It was a bad choice, leading to a harsh landing, but it bought her a few moments before Tammy’s truck lurched over the crest as well. Annoyingly, she didn’t roll, flip, or even get stuck for a moment. Instead the resilient suspension had popped the big truck out of the deep sand in a single bound and put Tammy back on Zoe’s tail.