The Mercedes was accelerating before Kelly got his door closed. Gisela pulled a hard left turn, spinning the little vehicle in about its own length. The 280 SL had not been a dragster even when new, but its engine was in a sharp state of tune and snarled happily as the driver revved it through the powerband. Centrifugal force made the door in Kelly’s hand a weight worthy of his strength as he drew it closed.
“Thomas Kelly!” the radio voice called over the roar of gunfire and exhaust. Shots raked the building in a cloud of pulverized concrete, lighted internally by spluttering arcs from the figure who stood in the midst of the bullets until he disappeared instead of falling.
As the coupe straightened in the aisle, heading in the direction opposite to the way it had been parked, Gisela’s foot blipped the throttle so that the automatic clutch would let her upshift. There was a red and white glare from a second Audi, backing at speed across the head of the aisle to block them. The medley of tail and backup lights was as uncompromising as the muzzle flashes from the other German sedan.
The shriek of the Mercedes’ brakes was louder than the angry whine of the Audi’s gearbox being overrevved in reverse gear. The coupe’s blunt nose slewed thirty degrees to the left as that front disk gripped minutely before its companion. Kelly’s left hand was furiously searching the door panel for a way to roll down the window. Gisela had not switched on her lights, and the parking lot fixtures overhead did nothing to illuminate the car’s interior to eyes dazzled by muzzle flashes and the electric coruscance which bullets had drawn from the three figures.
He poised the revolver in his hand, bumping the coupe’s low roof with it as he readied to smash out the side window with the gun butt. Instead, Gisela flung his unbraced body against her as she downshifted again and cut the wheel right.
Inertia had carried the heavy sedan from its blocking position against the drag of its own brakes. As it lunged back against its springs when the tires got a firm grip, Gisela punched the coupe between the Audi and the rear bumper of the nearest parked car.
The sedan’s bright headlights reflected explosively from the metallic side of the Mercedes squirming past it, accelerating. The Mercedes was too solidly built for competitive racing, but the little engine had enough torque to shoot them through a gap which neither Kelly nor the Audi’s driver thought was present.
“Not yours?” Kelly shouted over the exhaust note reflected from the sides of parked cars. Lights scissored across the sky behind them as both sedans maneuvered in the parking lot.
“I don’t know whose,” Gisela shouted back, shifting into third up the short ramp to Mete Street. The headlights of a car parked illegally on the street flashed on. “What are you doing?” Her gearshift hand batted down at Kelly.
The car on Mete Street was a third Audi.
“You drive,” said Kelly as he worked the gun from the woman’s coat pocket. “I’ll worry about the rest.”
Gisela’s hand touched the control standard on the left side of the steering column, throwing her headlights on and bright. That might have spooked the passenger in the third sedan into putting his burst of shots into the dirt and driveway curb instead of through the Mercedes’ windshield. Alternatively, he might have been trying merely to disable the coupe by shooting out the left-side tires. Either way, the muzzle blasts and the ringing crash of a ricochet into one of the Mercedes’ rocker panels confirmed a decision Kelly had more or less made already. The guy who shot at them had just clarified the rules.
Gisela had flinched as the bullet hit the car, but her hands were rock-steady now at the ten and two o’clock positions on the steering wheel. She crossed them right and straightened expertly to give the coupe room at the head of the drive if this Audi too attempted to drive across their path. The Mercedes lurched, brushing but not rebounding from the right-hand radius of the curb cut. Then they were in Mete Street, using the full considerable width of the pavement to hang a left turn while continuing to accelerate. There was more firing distantly behind them, but nothing passed close to the 280 SL.