Electric Barracuda (18 page)

Because of these factors, it’s the road of choice when people want to burrow deep off the map.

It’s always been outlaw country.

In a 1976 article, a
National Geographic
reporter went down the road and wrote about someone going berserk and shooting randomly at whoever went by. Today only a handful of the state’s most private people live out there.

You don’t want your car to break down. Especially at night.

It’s called the Loop Road.

Al Capone knew it well.

East of Tampa

Serge looked out the passenger window in the backseat. “Slow down.”

The taxi driver let off the gas.

Serge watched an upscale apartment complex going by. “Keep going.”

The driver glanced in the mirror. “You don’t remember where you live?”

“Looking for a friend.”

The cab continued through Hillsborough County in predawn blackness.

“Slow down.” Serge appraised another building. “Speed up.”

The driver shook his head. “You sure you have enough money? This is a long drive from the casino boat.”

“I’m good for it.” He flashed a hundred.

The driver smiled. “Where to?”

Three apartments later. Crestwood Villas. “Stop!”

Serge tipped large; the cab sped off.

“What are we doing here?” asked Coleman, hitching his backpack.

“I like this parking lot.” Serge kept an eye on the taxi’s taillights until they disappeared. Then he set his own backpack on the ground and unzipped a pocket.

Coleman followed his buddy along a line of cars. Some of the sportier new ones had blinking red alarm-system lights. Serge found an older model that didn’t. He checked the windshield. “Nope.”

More walking.

“What are you looking for?” asked Coleman.

“I hate to pay tolls.”

“Huh?”

“Wait and see.” Serge stopped again and leaned over another windshield. “Perfect.” He slid a flat metal strip down the driver’s window and into the door.

Less than a minute later, a beige Impala drove away without headlights.

“Where are we going now?” asked Coleman.

“Hope you like trains.”

Just Before Sunrise

Three detectives ate eggs.

Mahoney had picked the off-brand pancake house. Reminded him of Mickey’s Diner in Hoboken. He looked out the window at a full parking lot. Sedans, Beemer, Eldorado, T-Bird, panel van, syndicated-show motor coach. The cast of drivers sat patiently, no intention of eggs, staring back.

Lowe got off his cell. “Nothing again.”

“Keep working down the list,” said White.

Lowe looked at the phone book folded open between their plates. He drew a line through a name and called the next. “Didn’t know there were so many cab companies that handled the casino ship dock.”

White was on his own call—“Are you sure?”—writing quickly in a notepad. “Thanks.”

“What is it?” asked Lowe.

“Just caught a break.” White held up the notepad. “Driver positively IDs them. Logbook shows the drop at Crestwood Villas.”

Mahoney pulled a matchstick from his teeth. “Wise to the spread. Twenty minutes if we beat feet.”

White flipped the notebook closed, took a last quick slug of black coffee and threw a pair of tens on the table.

Nineteen minutes later, a Crown Vic reached the eastern side of the county.

Lowe thumbed though the official manual on rappelling from helicopters. “How are we going to handle this?”

“Not by the book,” said Mahoney. “When Serge goes down, it won’t be like they teach it at the academy.”

White glanced in the rearview at the motorcade riding his bumper. “Don’t they sleep?”

The Vic took a left into an apartment complex. Lowe leaned forward—two county cruisers already at the brick building. “How’d the sheriff find out so fast?”

Uniformed deputies took witness statements.

White opened his badge. “Who’s in charge here?”

“I am,” said a corporal.

“Any sign of Serge?”

“Who?”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

The corporal shook his head. “Stolen vehicle report.” He looked toward an empty parking slot. “Guy got up to go to work, no Impala.”

“Need the full description and tag,” said White. “Fast.”

“What’s going on?”

“No time . . .”

Agent White jumped back in the Crown Vic, typing on the laptop mounted between the front seats.

“So Serge got away in a stolen car?” said Lowe.

“Shhh!” He accessed the Department of Motor Vehicles database. The Impala came up. A few more security-code keystrokes. A page with live streaming data appeared. “Yes!” The detective threw the sedan in gear. “Our luck has definitely changed.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Lowe.

“Car had a SunPass unit on the windshield—transponder that automatically pays tolls.” Dawn began to break as they sped out of the parking lot. “DOT shows a hit shortly after the cabdriver dropped them off. Toll plaza just south of here.”

C
oleman lay across vinyl, smiling with eyes closed. Another happy, recurring dream. He had a multi-day ticket at a beer theme park. The smile broadened as he hit the bottom of the log flume and suds splashed over him.

Serge shook his shoulder. “Rise and shine!”

“Wha—?” Coleman sat up in the backseat of an Impala with a riot of uncombed hair.

“It’s morning.” Serge clapped his hands sharply. “Need to flee again. Ain’t this great?”

Coleman looked out the windows. “Is someone about to catch us?”

“No, fleeing’s just fun.” He chugged a thermos of coffee.

Coleman looked at his wrist and remembered he didn’t own a watch. “How much sleep did I get?”

“Maybe an hour.” Serge killed the rest of his coffee.

“An hour!” Coleman put his head back down and covered it with his backpack.

“Fugitives aren’t allowed to sleep, except for cat naps with one eye open.”

“Never?”

“Who knows? Life on the run is all about changing time patterns, and tomorrow’s fugitive might have to crash and burn till nightfall.”

Coleman pulled an airline miniature of vodka from his backpack. “How long till tomorrow?”

“One day.”

“Will you keep track for me?”

Serge wiggled a screwdriver.

“What are you doing now?”

“Buying us some time.”

“And we’re not being chased?”

“No, but the next time we are, this will put us a few minutes ahead.”

Chapter Fourteen

Below Tampa

A
Crown Vic raced south through Hillsborough County. Agent White’s attention divided between the road and the laptop.

“Damn!”

“What is it?” asked Lowe.

“Another SunPass hit back at the same toll plaza. He double-backed north on us.”

The sedan made a skidding U-turn across the highway through an “authorized vehicles only” break in the median. Half the convoy followed; the rest clogged behind a semi that jackknifed and had to make a nine-point turn to get through a tight break in the guardrails.

Forty-five minutes later, the toll plaza came into view. The laptop screen in the Crown Vic updated. “What the hell?”

“Another SunPass hit?”

“He’s heading south again.” Agent White’s head jerked around. “You see an Impala?”

“Nope.”

Another U-turn across the median.

Another forty-five minutes.

White punched the dashboard. “Mother—”

Lowe leaned toward the laptop. “He’s going north again.”

White cut the steering wheel . . .

Ten miles south, Serge and Coleman stood on the side of the road by an Exxon. Waving.

A cab pulled up.

They got in. The driver turned around. “Your call said Clark Road?”

“Correcto-mundo,” said Serge.

“You got it.”

The taxi pulled away from the dusty shoulder.

A
Crown Vic sat next to the toll plaza office, just beyond the overpass with the booths.

The manager sat inside at a video monitor. “Want to see it again?”

“If you don’t mind,” said White, checking his notebook against the SunPass time records of the Impala, almost exactly forty-five minutes apart.

The manager rolled back the plaza’s surveillance tape, and fast-forwarded again, stopping at each clock stamp that matched White’s computer records. Each time, no Impala in any lane.

The manager swiveled around in his chair. “Don’t know what to tell you.”

White pocketed his notebook. “That’s odd.”

They went outside so White could inspect the plaza layout. “And there’s no way anyone can get around the booths and pass through out of camera range?”

“Not a chance.” He gestured up at the monitors. “See? Full view of everything.”

White scratched his head. He walked to the overpass railing next to the last booth. “How on earth could Serge have—”

He looked down. Then smacked his forehead.

“Are you all right?” asked the manager.

White pointed. “What’s that down there?”

The manager looked over the side at a graded route of gravel, stones and steel cutting thirty degrees under the plaza. He looked back up at the detective. “Train tracks?”

“I know. I mean, what line? Who uses it?”

“A lot of people—CSX, Amtrak, phosphate, the museum.”

“Museum?”

“Gulf Coast Railroad out of Parrish. They operate old train trips for tourists and history buffs.”

“How far?”

“Maybe twenty miles up the road.”

“No, I mean how long is the tourist trip the train takes?”

“Through two counties,” said the manager. “I rode it once, pretty cool. Round-trip’s an hour and a half.”

“Or forty-five minutes each way?”

The manager looked south down the tracks. “Speaking of which . . .”

A train whistle blew. White saw a restored army diesel round the bend. He ran to his car.

Another deep blast of the horn.

The agent watched his laptop as vintage passenger cars rumbled beneath. The SunPass screen registered a dollar toll. He grabbed his police radio. “. . . That’s right, railroad frequency. I need a train stopped . . .”

A
checkered cab wound through southern Manatee County.

“Why’d we ride that train back there anyway?” asked Coleman. “Didn’t take us very far.”

“But far enough,” said Serge. “Remember my fugitive rule of constantly changing transportation modes? Plus I’ve always wanted to take that train.”

“It was pretty cool,” said Coleman.

“The coolest.” Serge opened a wilderness map. “Forty-four-seat Union Pacific coach built in 1950, not to mention the 1929 Texas and Pacific caboose, number 12070. And there was a bonus reason to ride the train.”

“I’m kind of turned around from all the travel,” said Coleman. “I have no idea where we are.”

“That’s normal in a chase movie. Here’s the Sarasota line.”

“What’s in Sarasota?” asked Coleman.

“Myakka.”

Meanwhile, thirty miles north. “Found it,” said Lowe, climbing down from the coach car. He held out a SunPass unit with torn duct tape. “Stuck on the outside just above a window.”

Agent White stood next to the tracks with the engineer. “Where does this train end?”

Chapter Fifteen

Sarasota County

T
he checkered cab continued south. Shopping centers and manicured sprawl. It took the last Sarasota exit.

“Coffee!” said Serge. They hit a 7-Eleven and turned inland. Modern life gave way to cattle country. Egrets pecked cows’ backs; blue herons worked the standing water on the sides of Highway 72.

A few miles farther west:

“Pull over there.” Serge drained his Styrofoam cup. “Just drop us by the road.”

The taxi stopped on one of the highway’s few paved turnoffs.

Coleman read a wooden entrance sign. “Myakka River State Park?”

“Fifty-eight square miles of undisturbed Florida majesty,” said Serge.
Click, click, click.
“Sloughs, marshes, palm hammocks, and a rockin’ treetop suspension footbridge through the canopy.”

A ranger parked a pickup just outside the main guard shack.