Chapter 1: The Biker
There it was, again. That faint scent, like an overheating circuit accompanied by a slightly acrid taste, but there was no time to dwell on it. Increasingly annoyed by the revving motorcycle trailering him, Martin sped up, even though he was already driving faster than the speed limit.
He spotted the biker around dusk about fifty miles back when passing through Grand Junction, a small town along Colorado’s Western Slope - at first in his aft camera, then at a traffic light. He had pulled alongside Martin’s Mustang, raised his visor and glared through the open window. His unprovoked, squinty glower had perplexed Martin, but halfway through town, the rider leaned into an alley and sped away, his screaming engine echoing like a chainsaw in the shadows.
Now, racing along Highway 50, which meanders through a curvilinear mountain range and across Grand Mesa’s fifty-mile-wide flat top, Martin’s attention was split between the road ahead and the zigzagging headlight of the two-wheeler in his rear-view display. From their brush in town, he recalled the man of muscular build with a short, tattooed neck that quickly disappeared under the dark visor of his black skid-lid. He appeared to be over six feet, maybe 250-pounds, with a bulky upper-body - a rough estimate since the rider was stooped over his bike. The toes of his boots pointed down from raised racing-pegs and when he was on the move he crouched with his head just above the bike’s low-profile fairing. Martin could tell the crotch-rocket was a high-powered racer of sorts by the precision pitch of its engine, and it was clear the biker intended to inflict harm.
Suddenly, the rider throttled the bike and swerved wide into the opposing lane. Martin instinctively matched his acceleration as they flew by a well-lit billboard. Under the display’s lighting, he glimpsed “Ducati Monster” lettered across the motorcycle’s fire-engine-red exhaust cover. As they approached the next curve, the biker down-shifted and tucked the high-performance bike behind the car. He was not gesturing wildly like a hothead perpetrating violent road rage against a stranger, but was instead determinedly focused on the chase. Martin reckoned from the rider’s lack of animation that he was an assassin.
They negotiated the curve at high speed with the car’s tires screeching before the road straightened along a ridge - that’s when the Ducati pulled alongside the Shelby GT350/R. Martin’s eyes darted from road to motorcycle and in the glow of the bike’s instruments he saw that his pursuer was steering with one hand and pulling something from his black, leather-jacket pocket.
He knew the car was no match for the agile Ducati in the treacherous mountain terrain, but on the straight stretch the powerful Mustang inched ahead, putting the motorcycle in a blind spot. This caused the rider to stuff the object back in a pocket, however, the reprieve was short lived as another deadly curve loomed. Martin tapped his brakes and down-shifted for the turn at the last possible second, but was nevertheless conveniently framed for the shooter by the passenger window. He leaned into the steering wheel a split second before glimpsing muzzle flashes and hearing twin pops. Fragments of tempered glass pelted his face and neck as bullets whizzed behind his head and the mountain air whistled through breached windows. He managed to needle through the curve as the sound of screaming engines and screeching tires ricocheted off mountainsides.
Once again, Martin’s two-wheeled predator was briefly forced to use two hands to maneuver the curvy road, but after skillfully negotiating the turn, the Ducati closed in on the Mustang and its rider once again eased the gun from his jacket.
Martin countered by tapping his brakes and whipping the high-performance car side to side, upping the biker’s pucker-factor and denying him a clean shot. However, as another curve rushed toward them, he figured a bullet would find its mark if he played defense any longer.
Locking the brakes, he forced the car into a calculated broadside skid that left his pursuer no good options. Out of control, the Ducati crashed into a guardrail and exploded, somersaulting its doomed passenger into the night. The smell of hot rubber permeated Martin’s nostrils and blue smoke swirled in the cockpit as the Shelby came to a stop straddling double-yellow lines. He quickly shifted into reverse and backed until he was parallel to the guardrail then peered through the shattered passenger window into the eerie darkness. A moment later, after a burst of flames lit a patch of road far below, Martin gunned the Mustang east along Highway 50, short squeals from hot tires announcing each shift of gears.
