Driven (33 page)

W
ith a heavily revving engine, Sabatino accelerated hard, trying to get out of trouble. She had just enough torque to pull away.

Straker turned round and saw the huge intimidating front of the Range Rover looming above them. He tried to look up at the faces in the Range Rover behind, but the windows were smoked and reflecting the sun’s bright glare. He couldn’t see inside.

This was insane. How far were these people prepared to go?

Straker heard and felt the Morgan’s 3.7 litre engine continue to roar in earnest as Sabatino tried to get away.

They pounded along the straight section of road – the favourable power-to-weight of the Morgan starting to kick in. The road rose up a hill. Even with considerable performance disadvantage, though, the Range Rover was still powering along, just as hard – disconcertingly even seeming to match the pace of the Morgan. How was that even possible?

Sabatino gunned the engine and headed towards the crest in the road. She looked in her rear-view mirror. The Range Rover was still there, and not far behind. She realized any unnecessary slowing down on their part would have the Range Rover right back up their arses in no time.

‘That’s one powerful tank,’ she shouted, as the wind started rushing over the top of the Morgan.

The road began to rise again, in a gentle left-hander – now the neat ribbon of grey tarmac had solid white lines painted down either side of the tarmac, along the kerbs. Two hundred yards ahead was a sharper turn, round to the left. Sabatino continued to increase their speed. They were keenly aware of the persistence and speed of the Range Rover behind them.

Straker looked across the open-top sports car at Sabatino.
Amazingly, her expression of concern – manifest during lunch, and after he’d spotted the Range Rover in Brailes – had completely gone. Her face was radiant. He could see her eyes flashing as she flicked them around her environment – to the front – to the rear through the mirror – down at the dashboard – back on to the road ahead.

‘Better hold on,’ she said as she drifted the car over to the right – fully across into the oncoming lane. Sabatino downshifted with another fluid, heavily revved double declutch. Still on the wrong side of the road, she held her position until Straker thought it impossible to recover. Then, with a flick of the wheel, she threw the Morgan across the road to the left, straight at the grass verge on the inside apex of the bend, kissing it with their front left.

Rather than look at the death-defying angle of attack, Straker looked across at the speedometer. He couldn’t believe it. They were doing over ninety miles an hour through the corners on this bendy country road. The wind was now roaring over the top of the Morgan.

The car, though, was handling beautifully. It took the full force of the turn, slicing through the corner, despite the significant G-force.

Because of the twists in the road, Straker’s view back through the passenger-door mirror was swinging here and there. Only at the last minute, just before their lurch through the next right-hander, did he catch a fleeting glimpse of the menacing bull bars on the front of the chasing Range Rover, rounding the bend behind them. Despite its size and weight, the 4×4 was following an amazingly similar line to the much lighter, nimbler sports car. The Range Rover might have been listing more obviously on its softer suspension, but it wasn’t letting up. At all.

Sabatino drifted the Morgan fully over to the left of the road. Then, looking up and over the hedge to the right, she saw there was nothing coming the other way. Double declutching down, she dropped a gear, and, at the last minute, almost at the point where Straker thought the car was going to go tangential to the road – and off down a track – swung the car over to the right, cutting across the
oncoming lane and clipping the grass verge at the apex – this time on the opposite side of the road.

Sabatino looked behind – and saw something ominous. Not only was the Range Rover still large in their mirrors, it even seemed to be gaining on them.

Sabatino kept accelerating

The B4035 wafted left and right between its high hedges on either side, the sun dappling through the leaves onto different parts of the road. In the warm summer air – and the smells from the surrounding countryside – this should have been an idyllic, even spiritual drive. Catching a glimpse out to the right – through breaks in the hedge – Straker saw the rolling Oxfordshire landscape as it stretched off towards the Cotswolds away in the distance. What had been a roar over the open-top car soon turned into a thundering gale. The car was really travelling now. Straker had to take another look at the speedometer: it was showing one hundred and ten miles an hour. At that pace – on a road normally driven at a third of this speed – the Morgan was giving off every sensation of speed imaginable.

Two cars came at them from the other direction, preventing Sabatino using the wrong side of the road to set up for the next corner. Those cars whooshed past.

The corner ahead had an overhang of branches, concealing its apex as the road fell away to the left behind its leaves. Revving hard, Sabatino double declutched – gaining a lower gear without slowing the car’s speed over the ground – and, using the torque from the higher revs, accelerated down into the slope.

One hundred and twenty miles an hour. Along a
B road
.

Straker was growing increasingly uneasy. This was astonishingly fast.

They were soon in a dip – the road could be seen rising ahead and above them, up the other side of the narrow valley.

Bottoming out in this compression, Straker was pushed down heavily into the seat with significant centripetal force. His ribs screamed as the force took hold; he gritted his teeth to stifle the pain.

Up and out from the dip, the road rose up for a hundred yards before looking to swing right-handed, round and over a crest. A junction was visible off to the left – to Epwell – on the outside of the bend, which they should have been taking to go back to the factory in Shenington. But they were going far too fast to make that now.

Sabatino was lining up for this next apex at high speed. A car suddenly appeared – side-on – up ahead of them. And pulled straight out from that side road. It didn’t stop to look – it pulled straight out from the junction – onto the main road – heading in their direction. Another big 4×4.

Straker instinctively pulled upwards on the shoulder strap of his seat belt, tightening the strap across his waist, forcing him further down into his seat. They were closing in incredibly fast on the back of that car, which clearly hadn’t seen them.

It turned out to be another Range Rover.

The Morgan’s momentum was bowling them on. Sabatino sliced through the right-hand corner. The Range Rover hadn’t picked up much speed yet – meaning they were still closing in fast on the back of it.

Sabatino further swerved to the right – to overtake it immediately – looking to make an urgent avoiding sweep past the slower-moving vehicle.

She checked the road ahead. It was clear – no oncoming traffic.

The Morgan darted out decisively from behind this Range Rover, crossing the white line down the middle of the road

They were now pulling out into the oncoming – overtaking – lane. They were set to pass easily, maintaining their speed. When, with absolutely no warning, the Range Rover in front of them shot violently to the right – straight across the Morgan’s path.

Sabatino, in nothing more than a reflex, swerved fiercely enough to the right, and jammed on the brakes, somehow preventing the Range Rover from smashing into them.

Instinctively, Sabatino had avoided a collision. But the bulking rear end of the Range Rover was now slap-bang in their way.

‘Fuck!’ screamed Sabatino at the top of her voice, wrestling the car back onto the proper side of the road, and changing down again. Then, the Range Rover, itself, swerved back over onto the correct side.

‘What the fuck’s going on here?’

Straker looked forwards and then backwards in his passenger-door mirror. ‘Holy shit. This is a tag team,’ he yelled. ‘It’s another of the scumbags.’

Looking backwards, he saw the first Range Rover rounding the corner and closing in fast behind them. ‘The other one’s coming right up behind us,’ Straker yelled. ‘We’re about to be in a Range Rover sandwich.’

‘Holy crap,’ Sabatino shouted. ‘This isn’t good.’

Straker looked ahead, trying to see beyond the back of the now-slowing car in front of them. ‘What about that turn – up ahead on the right,’ he shouted. ‘Can you cut down there?’

Sabatino clocked the turning, and then swore. ‘There’s something coming the other way.’

Sure enough, a second or two later, an oncoming car whooshed past – hemming them in – denying them the chance to peel off down that side road.

The Range Rover behind was taking advantage of their containment.

Sabatino looked in the mirror and yelled: ‘Holy Mother of God – brace yourself,’ when there was another deafening crunch. The Range Rover slammed into them again from the rear. Sabatino fought the wheel, double declutched, and tried to accelerate away, but there was nowhere to go. The second Range Rover was still completely blocking their way in front.

She made another attempt to overtake it.

Exactly as before, the Range Rover in front swung violently – straight across their path – blocking them in.

Sabatino was forced to tuck back into her side of the road again.

Seconds later, there was another almighty crunch from behind
– as they suffered another ramming. This time, after the jolt of the impact, there came a sound of crunching – then straining, tearing – metal. Straker’s spare wheel had been caught in the bull bars. As the Range Rover disengaged, the tyre and the boot of the Morgan were brutally ripped away. Straker, despite the pain in his ribs, swung round, just in time to see the damage being wrought to his beautiful new car. Seconds later, the spare tyre and boot fell from the bars at the front of the Range Rover, and disappeared underneath it – its bulk only juddering slightly as it drove over and crushed the wheel and boot panel beneath its fat tyres.

‘Fucking hell,’ said Sabatino over the noise and the wind. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’

Straker looked across at her. He was staggered. Despite the urgency in her voice, her face was calm – albeit completely in the moment. Her eyes flicked between the road in front and the view in her mirror behind.

‘How are we going to do that?’

The three vehicles, line astern – Range Rover, Morgan, Range Rover – rounded the next right-hander.

The road ahead meandered gently left and right for the next half a mile or so. Sabatino looked behind, and winced as the Range Rover behind accelerated at them once again, clearly looking to slam them in the rear.

Suddenly Sabatino shouted: ‘Hold the fuck on!’

Straker didn’t know what she had in mind, but automatically found himself pulling upwards on that seat belt strap once more.

He heard Sabatino rev the engine, change down, and accelerate – heading straight for the back of the Range Rover in front. Straker braced himself against the door, the transmission tunnel – anything he could find.

Without warning, Sabatino jerked the steering wheel over the right – as if to overtake. The Morgan darted out into the oncoming lane.

Up ahead, at the end of the long left-hander, Straker suddenly
saw the looming front of a lorry – coming the other way – heading straight at them.

‘Holy
fuck!
’ he shouted.

They and the lorry were less than two hundred yards apart, with a staggeringly high closing speed.

The inevitable was going to happen.

How could it not?

A head-on smash.

The startled lorry driver clearly thought the same – as he frantically blared his horn and flashed his lights.

‘What the
fuck
are you
doing
?’ screamed Straker.

Sabatino, still accelerating, tried to build up speed.

They were drawing alongside the front Range Rover, now to their left, but were only about a quarter of the way up its length. The lorry was still coming the other way – straight at the Morgan.

And closing in fast.

But at least, this time, the front Range Rover
wasn’t
pulling out to block them. It certainly wasn’t going to try and head off the sports car with that lorry bearing down.

‘
F U C K!!
’ shouted Straker, bracing himself, despite his pain, against everything on the inside of the car. He couldn’t believe it – what
was
she doing? They were never going to get past. The “window” was closing – the lorry was closing in far too quickly.

The Morgan clearly wasn’t going to get past the Range Rover in time.

Then – without warning – Sabatino heaved the steering wheel. Again to the right. Straker was flung over to the left, against the passenger door, as she drove the hurtling Morgan off the road altogether – pulling up onto the grass verge – on the opposite side of the road.

Travelling at such speed over the grassy surface, the sports car started bouncing and bucking violently over the bumps. Sabatino rapidly worked the wheel this way and that, fighting to keep the fast-moving car straight on the uneven and much slippier ground.

‘Hope we don’t hit a culvert or a ditch,’ she shouted with a laugh in her voice. ‘We might really take off.’

Straker couldn’t believe it.

They were travelling at over sixty miles an hour – along a grassy verge – on the wrong side of the road.

He was suddenly distracted – almost flinched – as, to his immediate left, the lorry, its horn still blaring, shot by – with a pronounced Doppler effect – right between them and the Range Rover.

Straker looked back across the road.

The Morgan, he suddenly realized, had got ahead of the Range Rover. More importantly, and spectacularly, the Range Rover, out of sheer self-preservation, had stayed – resolutely – on its own side of the road.

Sabatino swung the wheel to the left, dropped the Morgan back on to the tarmac, pumped power through the V6 – the revs of the engine screaming – before changing up and heading back over to the correct side of the road.