The Driver (37 page)

“Alex,” said Maher, fatigue now in his voice, “how far from Oklahoma City to the pier?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because we're gonna hit Oklahoma City in a bit.”

“About 1,400 miles.”

“What about these tolls coming up? Are these the tolls where you broke down?”

“Cowbell Ground, this is The Weis, you guys consider just making a run for it?”

“Alex?” said Maher. “Alex? I need you.”

“Cowbell Ground, this is Nueve, you really should consider rolling through.”

I pulled out my wallet. Maher slowed and veered toward an empty lane. I handed him $3.50 and held my breath. If there was even one undercover waiting, if the M5 failed—

My eyes fell upon the lower Garmin, the 2650, the copilot's primary. Our overall average was 93.7 mph. It had to be wrong. I checked the upper Garmin, the 2730, my backup. Our running projection was now 30:30.

We were almost halfway. Approximately 1,500 miles remained. Despite Maher's extraordinarily provocative driving, we hadn't been stopped. His second stage was almost over, after which he had one. I had two. We had an enormous time credit—a precious treasure soon to be mine to expend as necessary. I'd have 900 miles on which to exercise
my
judgment, the final 300 known to me virtually by heart. Then Maher would see.

Maher pulled out of the toll. “Looks like the car's going to make it.”

So could we, if only for the storm.

“Cowbell Ground, Code Orange, Cop in the median. Take it easy for next mile.”

“Alex, what's wrong? You're quiet.”

“Sorry, Dave. Just thinking about that storm.”

“We see you slow, Cowbell Ground, no need to copy.”

“What storm?”

“J.F. says there's a storm in New Mexico.”

“Wait…how bad is it?”

“It's still 450 miles away. Too soon to tell.”

“Dude, it's over. We're not going to break it.”

I couldn't believe his logic. We'd
already
made history. Nine and I had achieved—from New York to the first breakdown at the Will Rogers Toll Plaza—an overall average of 89.4 mph, or 31:56. Impressive, but insufficient for a legitimate claim on the record, even had we finished. Maher and I had averaged 93.7 mph over the same distance.

“You guys are all clear, Cowbell Ground, put the hammer down!”

“Dave. I think you're wrong. I'll call J.F. for closer tracking of it.”

He glanced at his Garmin, then mine. “Do you really trust these things?”

“Totally.”

“Alex, if we're in the high 93, then…”

“Yes, the midthirties. We can still make it.”

“Are you sure?”

I couldn't imagine Maher slowing down under
any
circumstances. Except in the face of futility. He had to keep believing it.

“
Yes
, Maher, just don't push here. Too dangerous. Let's not blow it.”

“Alex, the only danger is in
not
pushing it.”

“We're going to make it. We're doing well.”

“That's what I'm afraid of. Doing well.”

The pier was 1,500 miles away. Texas was only 312. I raised the Steiners.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER
8, 2006
INTERSTATE
44
(WESTBOUND)
APPROACHING BRISTOW, OKLAHOMA
MIDDAY

“The irony, Mr. Maher, would be if we get stopped right after I took over, and
I
got charged for all the crap
you
pulled.”

“Won't be long now.”

“Cowbell Ground, I'm going 125 knots and you are outrunning me.”

“Alex, if it makes you feel any better, I'll be ready to turn over the reins when this tank is empty.”

“Sweet Jesus,”
said a voice on the CB
, “these boys are trying to break the sound barrier!”

“Not the sound barrier!” Maher laughed.

“Cowbell Ground, you've got heavy traffic coming up, stand by.”

Maher saw one last opportunity to accelerate and advance within the thickening rows of trucks slowing just ahead, and took it. I cringed.

“Nice move, Cowbell Ground. Keep it up.”

I shook my head. “So
that's
how you make friends?”

“Paul liked it.”

“Of course The Weis liked it. He wishes he was in the car. By the way, we just passed where the cop stopped to help the last time.”

“Now,
that
is ironic.”

“Almost as ironic as how few gaps in the concrete median there are for them to turn around, and how fast the first cop we'd seen in 20 miles turned around and found us. FYI, we're coming up on the second and last toll in the state, pretty soon.”

 

I spotted the booths rapidly approaching in the distance. I pulled out $3.50 and held it right by the shift knob for easy access.

“Cowbell Ground, you are all clear after the tolls.”

“Alex! What's that?” The car shuddered, Maher's foot visibly on the brake pedal as we slowed into the clearest of the toll lanes.

“What is it?” I yelled as we stopped beside the toll collector. “How does the car feel?”

“I repeat, all clear after the tolls.”

I turned down the volume so as not to attract the collector's attention. Maher handed over the money and slowly pulled out.

“Brakes,” he said nervously, “but only under slight braking.”

“We're about halfway, you're the car guy.” My heart pounded. “Will something break loose and kill us?”

“I say no. Maybe warped discs? We can make it.”

“We have brand-new discs, rotors, and pads. You have braking power?”

He braked again. The car shuddered. Again. “I think we'll make it,” he said.

“I concur. Now hand me the toll receipt for the evidence bag.”

“Here. I don't know how much more irony I can take,” said Maher, accelerating through 100, “breaking down at the second toll would have been…man, whew.”

“How about
this
one? Looks like we're refueling just west of Oklahoma City,
right
past my final breakdown in April.”

“Oh, great—”

“Hey, westbounders!”
said the CB.
“You got a bear coming up in the hammer lane!”

“Bear?” said Maher. “Where? Not behind us. How come the plane didn't tell us?”

I raised the Steiners and frantically scanned the horizon. “I dunno.”

“Here he comes,”
said another trucker,
“westbound at the 179
.”

“Alex! Didn't we just pass the 179?!”

I put down the Steiners. “Yeah. They're talking about us.”

“Damn, don't know if I've ever seen a BMW with that many antennas on it!”

Maher frowned. “Is that a good thing?”

“Was there some other car you would have preferred we take? Your Porsche?”

“Uh, no.”

“Cowbell Ground, Cowbell Air, you're looking real fast from up here. Let's keep this up as far as we can, will warn on Oklahoma City approach.”

Our most entertaining conversation since New York came to a dead stop.

 

Both my Garmins concurred. We were just over 50 miles from Governor Henry's office. Then we were 40. Then 30.

“Maher, I don't care if you have to coast this car past the city. Just do it.”

Fifteen miles.

The I-44/I-35 interchange—northeast corner of the city's ring road and de facto border—was in sight. Although my speed-trap research indicated a northern route around the city (via the John Kilpatrick Turnpike) would have been safer, fuel economy and time dictated we take I-44—shorter and vastly more dangerous

Directly through the city's heart.

“Cowbell Ground, we are peeling off, will reintercept on far side, good luck.”

“Cowbell Ground, Nueve calling. In case you go to the big house, recommend teriyaki fast-chew strategy…very stinky…ward off new friends on the inside.”

I was too focused to think of a comeback. The Steiners hadn't left my eyes for 10 minutes. My shoulders were on fire. “Maher—”

“What?!” he snapped. I was strangely glad to see him so tense. It meant I wasn't alone. It meant he was aware his 10 hours of Herculean driving would be for naught if we were stopped beyond the approaching interchange.

We entered the city limits.

EL RENO, OKLAHOMA
FASTBREAK EXPRESS GAS STATION
25
MILES PAST OLD CITY HALL, OKLAHOMA CITY
1319
HOURS EST

“Cowbell Ground, we are orbiting north of you, standing by.”

“Maher, I don't know how you got this car here.”

“To be honest,” Maher called out from the passenger seat, “me neither. Now which one of the Garmins are you using to calculate our ETA?”

“Ten hours ago you didn't want to talk projections.” I stood beside the car, my eyes darting between my Casio and the pump's display. “Now that we
might
make it—”

“I know, I know.” He fiddled with the 2730, which I'd kept on latitude/longitude display for the updates required by PolizeiAir—
and
J.F.'s calculation of our closure with the storm. “Ooops, guess it's not—wait, a minute ago this thing said our overall average was 93.6 mph, but now it's falling.”

“Maher, a little ways back, before the traffic, it was above 95.”

“What's that, timewise?”

I didn't want to tell him, then or now, because I'd been so amazed that I almost wanted him to keep going. My BlackBerry rang from within the pile of half-full Vitamin Waters, empty Red Bulls, and poorly sealed bags of jerky reeking even by the windy pump. Maher picked it up. His jaw dropped.

“J.F. says here…we're looking at under 30 hours, at least we were.”

“And you said it's over. It's a miracle nobody called 911 about the blue BMW.”

I spotted Cory running back from the station store. My Casio beeped. The pump clicked. I remembered to take the receipt this time.

“Make me proud,” said Maher as I pulled out.

“Notify Cowbell Air we are back in action.”

“Already did. I just saw them overhead.”

I gently accelerated up the ramp toward I-40.

The scanner lit up:

OK DPS MISC B
: “—Alan just called, he wants you to be advised that there's an R2 flying north of town…just wanted to let you know he's flying pretty low.”

“Maher! They've
got
to be talking about our boys!”

“Should we warn them?”

“Hang on—” I tried to merge left onto the interstate, but two large trucks and a minivan passed without opening a gap. I dropped into third and made my first aggressive acceleratory move of the run, passing the minivan on its right, then veering left in front of it, then left again in front of a semi whose horn immediately signaled the driver's displeasure.

“Whoa, Alex. You can
so
not talk to me about bad moves after
that
one.”

“I'm sorry. At least I wasn't speeding.”

“You better be soon. Don't be sorry. Sometimes you just have to do it.”

“Cowbell Ground, that was a nice one. Ramp one mile ahead is…clear.”

“Let's see what you got, Mr. Roy.”

“Maher, after what you did, I think it's best if I don't pull any more—”

OK HP DSPTCH B:
“I have a report of a blue BMW speeding, weaving in and out of traffic and driving recklessly, be advised, unable to get tags.”

 

Terrified by what I believed was my lack of raw driving skill, I had hidden behind technology and models since beginning my journey years earlier.

But Maher, the first master of the opposing camp to tackle this particular task in twenty-three years, had wiped my illusions away. I slowed for forward radar warnings until their origin could be identified. He used gut instinct to filter out false alarms. I slowed for scanner reports. He turned the volume down. I wanted to ask truckers for permission to pass. He didn't want to alert them in advance. My plan set a pace that could weather one catastrophe—and still succeed, maybe. Maher had no plan other than relentless attack, but his best-case scenario far outclassed mine. I knew we needed each other, but it was clear I had lot more to learn from him than he did from me.

Or so I thought, until the scanner report about a blue BMW, and everything I feared about his approach came true.

 

“They're talking about us,” said Maher, Steiners to his face.

We both scanned the road ahead, then our respective mirrors. Traffic was thickening, and slowing. Oklahoma was flat. There was nowhere to hide unless we got out. We passed the exit at Marker 119. The vast fields north of I-44 offered no cover. A high-speed run toward one of the distant farmhouses would be visible from the interstate. The road gently banked left, then continued straight for several miles. Both predator and prey had long sight lines. We were naked.

“Well,” Maher said nervously, “looks like we're stuck.”

Racing
is
chess, the players evenly matched in forces, but not necessarily in experience.
I
had the experiential advantage, but nothing else. Trapped in the devil's endgame, our M5 was but a king attempting to cross the board—comprising just this one small stretch of Oklahoma—against one or more queens.

This was my domain.

DEEDEET.
V1 radar warning.

The first queen. Directly ahead. Four miles or less. The next exit was approximately 3.75 miles.

DEEDEET
. A second queen. Behind us. Four miles or less. The next exit was now approximately 3.5 miles.

Traffic prohibited the latter from catching up. The escape option remained open. Exit at Marker 115, hope our pursuer was too far behind to spot us, and run north for the first farmhouse. Await Cowbell Air's notification of all clear, resume our westbound course, and hope for the best.

But what of the queen ahead?

If a police car awaited us in the wide-open median
before
Marker 115, we needed to (1) move to the right lane, align ourselves with one of the semis to our left, adjust our speed to block the officer's sight line to the most infamous NY-plated BMW in Oklahoma, and proceed to the Texas border, or (2) in the absence of a semi, move to the right lane, listen to the scanner, and make a snap decision over whether exiting the interstate might constitute probable cause.

There were no further permutations to consider without more information.

We were already in the right lane. I was poised to commit.

“Maher! Police car behind us! Black-and-white! Ten car lengths!?”

His eyes flicked to the right mirror. “Copy. He's not moving up.”

There was nothing else to say until we reached Marker 115, two and a half miles away.

One column. One row. One choice. Cars and trucks. Front and rear. At or below the speed limit. We were trapped, but only for the next two minutes.

“Code Red! Cowbell Ground, Code Red! Police car ahead! One mile!”

Median or oncoming, they didn't specify. We couldn't transmit, and I couldn't ask Maher to type or call back. There was no time. All eyes ahead. As if it would make a difference, we instinctively leaned forward. I scanned the gaps between passing cars, ten o'clock to eleven, Maher eleven to one.

If the cruiser lay in the grassy median's depression, police training dictated a position set
in defilade,
parked just off the westbound lanes, on the reverse slope, concealing the lower half of the cruiser, retaining clear sight lines of oncoming traffic, engine running, radar gun on standby.

We had a better chance of escaping an eastbound cruiser, the lone officer having to spot us across the widening median,
in
the gaps between the westbound left-lane traffic behind which we were hidden. If he spotted us, the median's width would add 15 to 30 seconds to his U-turn—and inevitable pursuit.

Marker 115. Less than two minutes.

“Don't see him,” said Maher.

“Where
is
this guy…there! Eastbound!” My head tracked left at increasing speed until we passed him in the opposite direction, my eyes searching for brake lights and the telltale cloud of dirt signifying his crossing the median. “He's braking! Making the turn!”

Marker 115. One and a half miles.

My eyes darted to the left mirror. Dirt in the air, center median. Late-model American four-door, in profile. Moving across the grass.

“Crossing the median! Maher, we
have
to get to the next exit and hide.”

The police car stopped on the westbound's left shoulder, perpendicular to the interstate, waiting for a gap in traffic behind us.

“Alex, man, I don't know if you're going to have a lot of room to hide out here.”