"That concludes the entertainment part of the program," muttered Pitt. "No more chicken-hearted maneuvers."

"Oh, God, you were right!" Julia shouted in his ear. "They are out to kill us."

"I'm going to make a straight run so you can return their fire."

"Not in traffic, not on these streets," she retorted. "I couldn't live with myself if I hit an innocent child."

Her reply was a frenzied sideways motion as the car rocketed across Third Street. Instead of turning with the traffic, Pitt cut across the pavement and sent the Duesenberg leaping over the curb onto the grass of the Capitol Mall. The big 750-by-17-inch tires took the raised concrete as casually as a minor speed bump. Sod was ripped out of the ground by the spinning rear wheels and sprayed out and under the rear fenders like shrapnel.

Julia did what any sane woman would do under the same circumstances. She screamed and then cried out, "You can't drive down the middle of the Mall!"

"I damned well can and will so long as we live to tell about it!" Pitt shot back.

His seemingly crazy and totally unexpected maneuver had the desired results. The driver of the lead van tenaciously chased the Duesenberg over the curb onto the grassy Mall, and Wew all four tires in the attempt. They struck the concrete barrier with such force that they exploded in a rapid series of loud pops. The much smaller, more modern tires on the vans could not jump over the curb with the ease of the Duesenberg's big doughnuts.

The second van's driver elected for discretion, checked his speed in time, braked and slowly drove over the curb without damaging his tires. The men in the first van—there were two —frantically abandoned their vehicle and flung themselves through the open side door of the second one. Then they all stubbornly took up the chase again, pursuing the Duesenberg across the middle of the Mall to the astonishment of hundreds of onlookers who were heading for home after an open-air Marine Corps band conceit at the Navy Memorial. The shocked expression on their faces ranged from frozen incomprehension to stunned astonishment at seeing the huge car with the artistically flowing lines tearing across the Mall between the National Ak & Space Museum and the National Gallery of Art. Groups of people strolling or jogging along the Mall's paths were suddenly galvanized into chasing the speeding vehicles on foot, certain they were about to witness an accident.

The Duesenberg was still accelerating with Pitt's foot flat on the gas pedal. The long car flared as it tore across Seventh Street, skidding around passing cars, Pitt righting the wheel with grim tenacity. The mammoth car was incredibly responsive. The faster the speed, the more solid the feeling of stability. All he had to do was point the car where he wanted to go, and she went. He breathed a brief sigh of relief at seeing no cross-traffic on Fourteenth Street, the next thoroughfare across the Mall. The sidemount mirror and the rearview mirror on the windshield had both been blown to pieces by the earlier burst of gunfire, and he could not spare a brief glance to see if the pursuing van was closing within accurate firing range again.