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Though I had some skills to fall back on, I felt my main edge at the time to be my car. It was fast and agile, and I was well practiced at pushing it to its limits. I knew it about as well as anyone could know a machine. Heck, there'd been some instances where I literally lived in the car!
I was a curious mix of humble and ego-maniacal in those days, and felt that regular jobs somehow weren't good enough for me. Partly this came from already having had some experience being my own boss, getting some college under my belt, and possessing somewhat more technical skills and knowledge of the world than the average joe my age.
I became restless in late 1972 at college, and decided to drop out for a while. This move basically removed me from my high school legacy friends who stayed, while for better or worse leading me to frequent entirely different circles.
Shadowfast had been more or less complete for only a year or so, and I still liked showing him off. One day I was parked roadside watching an annual hot rod parade in the regional tourist trap, when Shadowfast got me noticed. Noticed by folks who many would say were part of the 'wrong crowd'. And I guess in hindsight I agree with that opinion. But being a young American male who possessed my own super-car likely helped nudge me into taking some risks beyond the pale.
Turned out my first job with the 'wrong crowd' was basically to serve as a distraction for certain law enforcement folks while my employer made a smuggling run of some sort.
During this period I had to take Shadowfast out of casual circulation, using it only for the actual work, and stashing it in various hideaways the rest of the time. A fake license tag was essential for the job. I also worked up a few methods of disguise for various contingencies with the car, such as once whitewashing it for a color scheme I could easily change at any car wash (or with a hose). I had some quick release fake body parts I concocted to change its look, that I could discard as needed. Performing much of my own bodywork, spending time in the pits at race tracks and the garages building the cars, frequent salvaging of junk yard parts, plus my design experimentation with Shadow itself early in his transformation all contributed to my resources in such street camouflage. Possessing a bit of artistic ability my whole life came in handy during this time too, enabling me to pretty quickly throw a whole new temporary paint or stripe scheme on the vehicle when necessary-- though these jobs would readily show their crudeness in close examinations.
Needless to say, no conventional 'nice' paint job on an auto would survive such treatment as the above intact. But I'd abandoned shiny paint long before this anyway. Partly for reasons of practicality: I was still changing Shadow body-wise on a regular basis. I also had to periodically make repairs after particularly damaging runs. Though there's ways to suitably enamel paint only one section of a car at once, it's not recommended for lots of reasons. At least this was the case around 1972-1973. So maintaining a shiny paint skin was pretty much out of the question for my lifestyle. In addition to this I liked the 'stealth' aspect of flat black at night. So buy a can of flat black paint at the auto store, touch up Shadow. That was the procedure.
Some time before this I'd also bought a second car for those periods Shadowfast had to be hidden or extensively repaired: an anti-Shadowfast throwaway. An old delapidated Volkswagen bug, 1958 model year I think.
The bug was as different from Shadow as you could get with four wheels and a motor. It was even painted flat white in contrast to Shadow's flat black! (No, I didn't paint the bug: it was like that when I bought it)
The bug was slow as the hills and a toddler could have gave it a rough time in the power department, as it boasted less than 40 horsepower I believe when new. But this motor also had maybe a half million miles on it, and two of its spark plug wires would continually go AWOL-- effectively making it a two cylinder much of the time. Usually just as you began to climb a hill. The bug's brakes couldn't be kept working for long either, as for some reason grease seals in the rear hubs just fell to pieces no matter what you did. Luckily the bug was so slow and weak driver and passenger could stop the car by opening a door and dragging a foot on the road; me and Steve did it more than once in city traffic and logging roads in the woods.
This bug was so ancient it had no fuel gauge, but rather something more like a dipstick built into the fuel tank cap. You basically drove the car until it ran out of gas, then flipped a lever under the dash to access a small gas reserve, at which time you were supposed to head for a refueling station.
Funny thing about worn out internal combustion motors, no matter how slow: they'll offer far less drag on a coasting vehicle than a newer, tighter engine will. There was once I got the bug up to ninety miles an hour on a long downhill interstate run in fourth gear, keeping the pedal to the floor the whole way. Coming back though, this time up the same hill and even using optimal gearing, the bug would be lucky to hit twenty mph. Yeah, anywhere we had to go up an incline for very far at all I might could have moved faster on foot.
But the bug served its purpose well for quite a while.
One amusing thing I discovered along the way was that law enforcement could ignore an old VW bug doing ninety mph on the interstate (a trooper actually passed me that time I spoke of before), but would often take just the appearance of Shadowfast as a personal insult when they saw him-- even parked and engine switched off. And if they got close enough to detect the roll cage inside...they sometimes lost it altogether. Especially the deeper into the southern USA you drove it.
I had other adventures in Shadowfast before that told here. Shadowfast and I had some treks which spanned half the USA. But the reaction of local police officers to a Shadowfast doing nothing more than sitting peaceably parked or barely rolling down a city street at 20 mph was the same: they absolutely despised the car's aggressive looks. After the demise of Shadowfast I would still pursue certain wilder-than-average directions with my various vehicles. But I never again allowed my machines to attract such attention from the authorities. Or anyone else, for that matter. It simply isn't smart.
I'm not going to describe here what ground vehicles I eventually replaced Shadowfast with. Suffice it to say they too had some special features: but I bet you'd never have looked at them twice on the road. Those babies could blend in. Shadowfast could fade into the night alright, but he stood out like a sore thumb in the daytime. After all, he was something of a monster.
Anyway, I kept this gig for a while-- running interference for the smugglers, I mean. It was sort of like the old liquor runs of the fifties I guess in some respects. In my youth I loved the idea of such rebellious acts.
Though early on I did make some mistakes that almost ended everything, I still managed to squeak through somehow. And so was rapidly pushed into a course towards further refinement of my tactics and equipment.
I learned to scope out an area as much as possible ahead of time before a run-- and where feasible even hire a ride-along who knew the backroads. These ride-alongs usually consisted of young thrill-seeking men who had also lived in the local parts their entire lives, and so could practically navigate the byways blindfolded. In this way I'd usually have a good reference in local short cuts, hidey holes, and the preferred spots and methods of local law enforcement in setting traps.
Along the way I acquired quite a few maps of various sorts, as well as a wealth of new extreme driving experiences and broad multiple route knowledge of certain locales.
The longer I was in this job the better I got at it. But finally things got too hot for my employer and the fast times in my native mountains came to an end.
So when my employer told me he had a friend desiring my services in a somewhat different vein-- paying even better money-- I jumped at the chance.
This second job would turn out to be more challenging than the first. But it sure didn't seem like that in the beginning.
Early on I was disappointed to find that I'd merely be part of a regular vehicle convoy usually traveling the same route over and over again, back and forth, between two southern US metropolitan areas which shall remain nameless for legal reasons. The intervening distance was under 300 miles one-way.
My new employer was the head of security for some V.I.P. or a handful of V.I.P.s (I still don't know the total number of different big wigs who rode in our convoy over its duration), who had to shuttle back and forth between the two burgs for some reason, and couldn't or wouldn't use short hop aircraft.
The V.I.P. always traveled in a limo, with several other vehicles accompanying it in a convoy. All the other vehicles were of different types, and all had basically the same job: run interference between the limo and any possible attackers, follow orders which came from the limo during the trip, and serve as a last resort 'lifeboat' for the V.I.P. if needed, should the limo be disabled or compromised.
Yeah, on the face of it the job sounded like it might be exciting. But the reality was many many trips as boring as any normal commuter could expect on the route. Fortunately once in a while me and other convoy drivers would get to practice play road wars during times no V.I.P. was traveling. The security head would call these practice sessions at random, or when there'd been a recent change in convoy members or vehicles. We all had to know what to expect from one another, and be up to speed on a repertoire of manuevers the team would apply to various contingencies. The biggest fun though came from practice sessions where we were forced to improvise due to unexpected moves on the attackers'/kidnappers' part. Everyone screwed up at one time or another in the improvisation episodes, including me. But heck, there was no way we could be perfect.
After a while even the play sessions got too repetitive. Plus, I was making excellent money and had banked a big pile of it by that point. The money pile made me antsy, as I always preferred free time to work time-- like lots of other folks I guess. Having lots of cash stashed away almost always resulted in me quitting whatever I was doing, sooner or later. I mean, I'd try to stay as long as I could possibly stand it, as I knew such opportunities could be rare: but eventually I'd go mad if I didn't split.
So here I was seriously thinking of telling my immediate boss I was quitting after this run, when it happened. The thing all of us on the convoy had been hired and trained for. A serious, big-time attack or kidnapping attempt on the V.I.P.
I did get a tiny bit of warning that something unusual was about to take place though. Maybe even a supernatural warning: I don't know. I don't really believe in the supernatural-- but sometimes stuff happens that's darn hard to explain in a coldly scientific or logical manner.
You see, this really old and rare automobile suddenly appeared out of nowhere and passed me by. I hadn't seen it coming in the mirrors-- which was a pretty unusual thing for me in Shadow, as I constantly scanned the maybe five or so different rear-facing mirrors I had on the car. There'd been many times such scanning had saved me from all sorts of things.
In a split-second the old piece of iron was out of sight ahead, too. But I'd recognized it. And the sight prompted goosebumps to rise on my arms.
I'd seen the car just twice before in my life. The last time was a year or more earlier. It was a hardtop, sporting a glossy black paint job and ostentatious tail fins, and was a bit longer than Shadow himself. If you could have seen inside it, you would have witnessed a work-of-art interior, with a dashboard that looked like it belonged aboard a flying saucer rather than a mid-century auto.
I knew what the dash looked like because of the very first time I'd seen a car like that: sitting discarded in the strangest and most exotic junkyard I ever visited.
It was like a place straight out of the Twilight Zone. It seemed to harbor a collection of high end and possibly prototype cars from the US big three and others on its grounds. Vehicles the likes of which I'd never personally seen before-- or even suspected existed.
None of the vehicles were in running shape, and they were all in various states of dis-repair and damage as you'd expect. But for some reason these cars seemed imbued with a magical essence or aura. At least for me and my best friend Steve, as we gawked at them.
At the time I even fantasized about buying one of the hulks and trying to customize it into a super car. This was of course before I'd committed myself to the extensive customization work on Shadowfast.
One particular car there caught my fancy enough to become permanently etched in my memories. Its dashboard looked like it belonged in a jet fighter or rocket-- or spaceship, maybe. The car's general lines and look were unique too. Except for their resemblance to the Batmobile from 1960s comic books. I noticed a few other details too which would become deeply entrenched in my recollections thereafter.
My original junkyard fantasy was beyond my means at the time, and I knew it. Still, Steve and I had roamed that junkyard admiring its dead vehicles from another era until nightfall forced us to leave. I never forgot that place or its cars, due to their high strangeness. Hectic lives kept me and Steve from either of us visiting the place again until much, much later. By then the junkyard and its fabulous contents were gone, replaced by a far more mundane neighborhood of suburban homes. No trace remained.
But long before my eventual return to the defunct junkyard's location, I'd seen that unusual stand out of an older car a second time. It was late at night on a winding highway, in an area often frequented by young racers like myself. There was a quarter-mile straight-away not far from the curves I was following at that moment. The road was empty: I was merely cruising in a combination of meditation and search for excitement, as I was often prone to doing in those days. Shadowfast wasn't yet anywhere near his ultimate road warrior specifications, but still he was relatively fast and nimble, and I loved matching him up to others on the road.
The highway offered an elongated S-shape before me, level for a ways, then snaking up and over a low hill. The road was clear ahead and behind. I was alone. There was typically little traffic and few entrance and exit roads branching off this particular highway, nor stop signs or red lights, so it was actually a fairly safe place for high speed racers, comparatively speaking. Even the cops never seemed to patrol here.
I was alone and cruising, deep in thought about lord-knows-what, when suddenly I had company, seemingly out of nowhere.
It passed me in a flash, almost silently. There seemed to be little more than the rustling of its tires on the road as it lept past. The glare of my headlights illuminated the interloper just for an instant, and I couldn't believe what I thought I saw.
It was that Batmobile-like car from among the junkers Steve and I had examined in that weird yard! Or the same model anyway. My judgment seemed confirmed by the tail fins as it passed.
 Above a front three-quarter view of a gorgeous 1961 Chrysler 300 G such as I believe stunned me in the seventies with its speed and handling prowess. |
 The tail end view of the near real life Batmobile you could buy off a show room floor in 1961. To see more about my true life recollections of this car and its junkyard brethren CLICK HERE. |
I didn't see anything of the driver in the encounter. And now the antique was rapidly dwindling in the distance. I was surprised at how fast it must have been going. Then my racing nature kicked in, and I thought to myself 'Aha! The race is on!'
I goosed it and Shadowfast leaped forward. But the tail lights continued to grow smaller, as if I hadn't accelerated at all. So I pushed the pedal deeper.
I knew the current curves well. They were relatively gentle. Even in this pre-modified version of Shadowfast I could likely have taken them at ninety without real danger of sliding off the road.
But I figured the story would be different for a rickety geezer-mobile on its last legs suspension-wise, and burdened with a weight equivalent to maybe two modern autos.
The bigger problem was that both the old car and I would run out of suitable racing road soon. For not far past this hill was the quarter mile straight-away used for dragging-- dragging in the direction opposite that I was pointed in now, as a little ways beyond the straight in the current direction the paved highway suddenly turned into an unkempt mass of asphalt patches studded with potholes, some quite severe. High speed runs into that would cause pretty much any vehicle to crash. And still further on the road became even worse, with a sudden right turn going over a hefty bump of a railroad crossing, after which you'd hit a deeply rutted gravel road. Yech!
So I had to catch the car immediately or lose my chance.
I practically flew over the crest of the hill, only to find the tail lights to have converged into a single red dot in the distance, so far ahead as to be astonishing. The guy had to be doing maybe a hundred-thirty or hundred-forty miles an hour to accomplish that, I thought.
I may have floored it here: I'm not sure-- memory fails me. But nothing I did seemed to change anything. The red dot vanished in the distance, and hard as I tried I never saw another sign of the mysterious car that night. I did a drastic deceleration just before hitting the end of smooth pavement, and more casually motored through the route I knew so well, expecting to find the car I'd been chasing sitting in a mangled, smoking heap somewhere. As I'd seen so many others due to races-gone-wrong, or plain stupidity or drunkenness on the part of drivers.
But I proceeded for miles with no sign of wreckage. It was like the car had just disappeared, or flew off into the sky. I was certain it couldn't have survived striking this condition of road at the speed it seemed moving last I saw it.
This strange incident would stick in my mind for years to come. I'd watched for another sighting of the car for months afterward, hoping to discover who the driver was and what sort of monster motor and suspension they had stuffed into the thing. But it never showed. I told others about the episode, but those familiar with both Shadowfast and that particular stretch of road were convinced I made it all up.
Now, long after I'd given up on ever seeing it again, suddenly the same inexplicable car seemed to flash by me on the interstate, in much the same way it had before. One second it was there, and the next it was gone. And once again, I hadn't caught even the tiniest glimpse of the driver. This time it happened in broad daylight. With other interstate traffic combining with the auto's own speed to quickly hide it again. Hundreds of miles from the spot it'd gone flying past me before. My first instinct was to pursue it: both Shadowfast and I were now much more capable than in our earlier meeting with this speed demon, and this was a mystery I'd been wanting to unravel for a long time. But I was on the job, and couldn't just abandon it on a lark. No matter how tantalyzing it might be. My life had instilled a powerful work ethic in me. Despite being on the very brink of tendering my resignation, I hadn't yet done so, and we were smack in the middle of a run. I simply could not abandon my post without warning here. Even if it was just the same old milk run we'd done a couple dozen times before.
But oh, how I wanted to break ranks and pursue that car!
But fate had something else in mind for me.
Again, all this was happening in broad daylight. All of a sudden something badly rattled my car. I thought at first I was running over something in the road, as I often joked with friends that Shadow's suspension was so stiff it'd rattle your teeth to mash a cockroach with its tire. My second thought was my transmission or rear end gears were violently disintegrating.
But then my rear and passenger side windows exploded, several long cracks appeared like magic in my windshield, and a loud rapping cacophony of sound and sensations in the car made me realize the truth: I was being raked by machine gun fire, from behind and the sides.
A split second check of my wide-angle interior and door mounted rear view mirrors guided my next violent manuevers to spoil the unknown gunmens' aim.
I'd been given a bullet-proof vest to wear on these runs like all the other convoy drivers. But few of us ever did so. Realizing that foregoing the vest wasn't entirely risk-free-- plus having faced the possibility of gunfire before-- I'd opted instead to cut and place relatively substantial metal plates that matched the outline and contours of the backsides of my two seats, even before this job. I put a few thinner plates elsewhere too, where Shadowfast's normal metal work seemed particularly flimsy and likely to be shot at in a worst-case scenario. And figured that on especially risky missions I'd wear the vest as well, with the whole combination making me doubly safe.
Of course, I ended up never wearing the vest wherever I could get away with it. Which was pretty much every single run.
I also had no helmet. Something several of my driver associates said they'd definitely wear if they were driving a virtual race car like mine on these runs. But I hated helmets. Too constricting of sight and sound for me. Hot and heavy too, like the vests.
Thuds behind my seat told me the metal plates I'd installed there and a few other places on the interior as a precaution had likely saved my life. But I was suddenly missing the vest and never acquired helmet.
I swerved repeatedly in a pattern which dodged bullets while also alarming the regular traffic stream and clearing out some space on the road. Aha! The shooters' vehicles were now all apparent by their continued efforts to pursue and kill me, and/or get past me. Plus, the civilians were falling back or even pulling over.
Though I was pretty busy, I managed to yell warnings to the rest of the convoy about what was happening over the radio. Unfortunately, I couldn't reply to any queries or orders posed in response.
I'd been in my usual place in the parade, bringing up the rear. I hoped I'd successfully minimized any shooters getting ahead of me. But other cars frequently passed the convoy under normal circumstances; so there was no telling. The convoy usually traveled in a pretty spread out formation. The lead car might often be miles ahead of the last car. Partly this made it harder for attackers to figure out which cars were part of the convoy and which weren't, plus gave the convoy a longer view of what was going on both ahead and behind, via radio contact.
But in this case they seemed to know I was a member of the procession.
It'd been only a minute or so since the shooting started. Trapped by the width of the road and my job to prevent the attackers from getting ahead of me, I was fast running out of options for avoiding their fire. Shadowfast was getting shot up pretty bad; I'd soon be out of action no matter what happened.
I went for broke, suddenly ignoring the gunfire and simply swerving back and forth to sweep the entire width of the road, even as I flipped on one electrical toggle switch and pushed forward on two mechanical cable levers which were situated on either side of my floor console. I shoved first one then the other in rapid succession to their stops.
My super-bright strobes hidden in my backup light housings began flashing, immediately followed by dozens of small tire blowing metal spike clusters bouncing all over the road behind me. First one, then a second long metal crash bar clanged into my wake too. I'd just dropped every active anti-pursuit measure I had in that instant.
The strobe lights worked. Not as good as they would have at night, when they would've blinded the bastards; but good enough. The strobes forced my pursuers to blink and turn their heads in defense from the unexpectedly bright lights, even if only for a moment. And in that moment they struck my tire poppers and crash bars, sending two attacker vehicles completely out of control and off the road. The gunfire ceased.
The tire popping stars made of long sturdy nails sharp on both ends, bent ninety degrees and welded together, should be obvious to everyone in design and functionality. But the crash bars may not be. Each crash bar was a three-eighths of an inch thick steel rod about four feet in length, with both ends bent in such a way that the bar dropped at speed had to bounce all over the place wreaking havoc on the underside and suspension of almost any civilian type vehicle-- and they'd do even worse to wheels if they caught them. These babies were fully capable of blowing tires, cutting both brake hydraulic lines and mechanical cables, damaging transmissions, oil pans, suspensions, etc., etc.
I'd designed the crash bars myself, and even managed to test them a few times before my first ever real world use. But not often, as they were dangerous and did lots of costly damage to vehicles. So the vast majority of early tests had been nothing more than having some one pull the cable release while Shadowfast sat in my driveway, with me squatting behind to observe the deployment.
Later on of course the bar design had proved invaluable in various highway altercations. The worst thing about them was having to fabricate replacements for them after every use. Agh!
As I seemed to have a breather after that, and Shadowfast was still mobile, I switched off my strobes and radioed in to the limo to both give and receive updates.
After my warnings the limo had sped up and radioed for emergency aid from local police forces, just in case. The whole convoy was now instructed to proceed to a certain pre-set rendezvous immediately; I was instructed to maintain my rear holding action as long as I could.
It was difficult to communicate with the limo as my two shattered windows and current speed were making for quite a rushing wind and noisy buffeting in the car. Thank goodness the windshield was still there! Cracked, but there!
I wondered briefly how much it'd cost to install bullet-proof windows in Shadowfast all way around.
The combination of my rear guard action plus the convoy having sped up and left me behind meant there was quite some distance between me and them now. But I was sure I could catch up quickly.
I didn't get the chance. Over the radio I heard a disaster unfolding ahead. The convoy had streamed right into a moving ambush which cut them to pieces. Apparently several innocuous looking vehicles suddenly sprouted guns and began spraying the cars.
I knew the limo was bullet-proof, but the rest of the convoy only partially so, like me.
The two lead bodyguard vehicles seem to have been taken out. There were supposed to be another couple of vehicles with us, but I couldn't tell from the radio traffic if they were still around or not. Somehow the way beyond was also suddenly blocked around that time. For the limo did an emergency 180 degree turn, ran across the median, and began heading back in my direction on the opposite side of the interstate, radioing me to join them as they came through and be ready to act as a lifeboat.
This was bad. It meant they were afraid the armored limo was going to be taken out or stopped, and perhaps only a smaller high speed, more manuverable car might get the V.I.P. out of harm's way.
Though Shadowfast and I had been picked partly for that very job, I dreaded the possibility. My car was already badly damaged and I didn't know how much further it'd go-- although all my gauges looked OK. Except for the gas gauge, I realized. A jagged hole now existed in the fiberglass dash where the gauge had been. Took out by a bullet, I supposed.
Well, my speedometer and odometer still worked. From experience I knew how far I could go on a full tank of gas-- well, at normal cruising speed anyway-- and we'd filled up before the trip, as was the norm. If my tank wasn't leaking I still had a couple hundred miles minimum left in me-- even running at full blast I was sure-- before we'd begin tapping our reserve fuel supply at the half-a-tank mark.
I was in the habit of always filling my tank to the top and tracking my mileage from every gas stop. Because during Shadowfast's many months of transformation I'd for a while had to drive him with much of the dashboard missing-- including the gas gauge. Plus for a while I'd kept track of gas mileage merely to document the car's gas efficiency and what-- if any-- changes various add-ons achieved. Tracking mileage was also a good way to monitor your engine's tune up and other maintenance needs. At least for drivers like me seeking maximum performance out of their machines. So I was well primed to operate without a fuel gauge.
I'd even considered installing an extra fuel tank like some trucks carried so I'd have an emergency supply like my old VW did. But after studying up on the option I'd passed on it, for lots of reasons. Among them, the hazard of carrying extra gas in a non-standard tank; the extra weight affecting performance; the cost of getting a true race car type fuel storage unit; Shadow's really decent gas mileage (24 miles per gallon in normal cruise. Really!). Etc., etc.
I still had some equipment sitting in the passenger seat and floorboard. I'd have to move it for the V.I.P.-- if they ever actually got in the car. I comforted myself with the fact we'd never even come close to that happening before.
I did my own 180 degree turn, stomping the emergency brake pedal with my left foot, then sweeping the steering wheel around so within seconds I was facing back the way I'd come. I then yanked the under-dash brake release with my left hand and made my way across the median too, to the lanes running back the way we'd come.
Though it remained hard to tell in my mirrors what was going on behind me for another couple minutes, I soon could discern the limo coming up fast, its emergency lights flashing. I was only running around fifty mph now, waiting for the limo, but I'd gradually accelerate as it caught up, and take my position. Great! It looked like our other two convoy vehicles had survived too! Uh oh. Nope. Something was wrong. The two good guy cars were acting like bad guys-- shooting at the limo!
The creeps were turn coats! I confirmed this with the limo driver over the radio. This made me angry.
Hey! One of the Benedict Arnolds made the mistake of coming up alongside the limo and Dennis Askew (the limo driver) swerved over, struck him, and knocked the bugger clean off the road! Yay! One more down!
Note: Never challenge the dominance of a bigger, heavier vehicle on the road; they can easily win every time.
Uh oh. We were about to get mixed up with civilian traffic again. I took a cue from the limo and turned my emergency blinkers on to warn folks ahead. I also switched on my headlights and driving lights for added attention-grabbing.
Then I remembered the siren. I'd originally installed it as part of an anti-theft system, but never got around to the rest of the things required such as little push-buttons to be pressed by the doors when closed, and the wiring that had to run through the car to connect them all. I'd ended up just hooking up a direct switch to the device for things like clearing the way ahead of a super high speed run, or alerting civilians to get the heck out of the way of a running road skirmish.
Sheesh, but that siren was loud! No matter how many times I used that thing, my memory never did justice to its true ear-splitting volume. But the worse the better, right now.
Still, it would have been nice to have intact windows with which to dull the awful squealing. The sound intensity almost hurt.
What the hell? I was being shot at again!
I frantically looked around to find the source.
Son of a bitch. Motorcycles! Two of them. They'd apparently run past the limo up to me, hoping perhaps to turn Shadowfast into a burning wreck of an obstacle for the limo, and take out its last ally at the same time. I looked back at the limo-- yeah, I still had some room.
I stomped on the brakes, causing Shadowfast to begin screeching to a halt as in a panic stop. Unfortunately I didn't dare swerve to either side much as I might have lost control. Sure, I might have taken out one or both motorcyclists too along the way, but the limo needed me to stick around longer than that.
My abrupt action threw a scare into the motorcycle riders, who had to stop shooting to frantically maneuver around me.
I only continued braking until the motorcyclists were passing me on either side, then I let go the brake and kicked in the four barrel and passing gear. Though Shadowfast was fast, my own response time wasn't quite as good as my friend Steve's. So it was going to take me a little longer to catch back up to the cycles than I wanted. Too much of a delay would allow them to turn the tables on me again, and I couldn't have that.
So I steeled myself and flipped the nitro switch on the dash. I hoped a bullet hadn't disabled it. Even though I was doing over ninety by then, Shadowfast's back wheels briefly burned a little rubber-- I both heard and smelled it. I was thrown back into my seat by the rocket-like acceleration.
Having a tank of laughing gas in your car was really the ultimate hot rod luxury in the seventies-- if you didn't kill yourself with it.
I was pretty damn good at handling Shadowfast's normal power. Almost a virtuoso in fact. But Shadowfast on nitro-- well, that was a whole different animal. I didn't much care for flipping the switch anywhere but on a ruler straight, dry and smooth road, where I could see seventy or eighty car lengths ahead at minimum and had a wide open and clear path. Those were the only conditions I felt more likely than not I'd be able to control the beast. I'd already had way too many close calls with my nitro use for what little time it'd actually been a part of Shadow's armament.
No way I could have afforded the nitro fit before these kinds of jobs. I'd considered a turbo-charger or super-charger instead, but there were all kinds of reasons nitro was better for my particular circumstances.
I really had to concentrate now. I'd have only one chance to get the cycles with the nitro. And the slightest mistake could kill me and create that burning obstacle for the limo the motorcyclists had wanted in the first place.
I could only hope the cyclists were neither too close together or too far apart when the moment came. And that one would be significantly ahead of the other. My plan was to try swerving only the slightest bit as necessary to knock first one and then the other off the highway.
If they were side by side I'd have to pick just one for destruction, else my second swerve would have to be too far and make me careen out of control myself at this extreme acceleration. If they were too far apart, pretty much the same story.
If they were too close together I might run over them both, which would likely be much worse for me than running over one of my own crash bars-- especially at this speed.
If I had to try to swerve to avoid them both, that too would probably kill me. Yikes! I began to realize I hadn't quite thought this plan through...
I was almost on top of the cyclists. They were only now recovering from their emergency manuever around my sudden braking, and about to turn their guns back on me if I were in range...they were too far spaced apart for my plan. Worst of all, they were practically side-by-side. I wouldn't even be able to sideswipe a single one of them this way! But at least I might pass between them without mishap, and maybe scare them off the road.
But it was not to be. One of them-- the one on the right-- turned his head and unexpectedly saw me right on their ass, and panicked-- or something. He seemingly involuntarily swerved in towards the other just as I was passing between them at super-speed. I knew I might be about to die if he went under the car.
There was no time for anything else.
I put everything I had into guiding Shadowfast exactly in-between the two cyclists as accurately as I possibly could. I drew upon every hour, every minute, every speed, every drop of experience I'd ever had with the car. If either cyclist went under me, I was done for. I no longer cared about trying to rid myself of the cyclists. I just wanted to survive.
It was a miracle! Somehow I squeezed between the cyclists without pulling one or both under me! Vast relief washed over me. I looked at my speedometer, and it was well past the 120 miles per hour mark-- the fastest on the gauge. I guess maybe we were running around 130 or 140-- I just don't know since the speedo didn't register further than 120. I flipped off the nitro and felt an immediate deceleration. The speedometer needle didn't seem to appreciably change position though.
I desperately wanted to stop, pull over, and make sure I was still alive. But I couldn't. I expected the cyclists to come up from behind me shooting again at any moment. I wasn't sure how far ahead of them my nitro boost had gotten me, but knew motorcycles can accelerate pretty snappily themselves.
I wagged my head looking back in all my various mirrors, but couldn't spot the cyclists at all. Had they dropped back to harass the limo? No, it didn't seem so.
They'd plain disappeared. But I hadn't run over them. Hmm. Maybe I'd scared them both off the road after all! Yay!
Much, much later I'd learn I'd done more than scare them. Shadowfast had unusual front fender flares. I'd made them myself from wide strips of galvanized steel, welded into the fenders where I'd cut out the original small flares to accommodate bigger tires. The new flares had jutted straight out from the car a bit less than three inches on either side. I'd used fiberglass and bondo to smooth the seam between new flare and old fender, but I'd left the outer edges the same as they were after being freshly cut from their mother sheet metal. Oh sure, they weren't jagged. And they weren't as sharp as a knife. But they were pretty keenly edged. Especially at high speed. When I finally got the chance to see the fenders after this adventure was done, I noticed they both showed blood stains about a quarter to a half inch deep. I'd sliced legs on both cyclists and forced them off the road. Even more amazing was how equal the blood stains were in depth; all my past experience with Shadowfast had served me exceedingly well that day.
After a bit of winding down my speedometer needle finally was wavering in the vicinity of 120 again. So maybe even with the nitro boost we hadn't surpassed after all the awful speed forced upon us by Briggs in Texas that time.
It looked like I might have one more shot of nitro left if I needed it. But I couldn't imagine getting another opportunity like that last one.
I'd unfortunately begun this trip with a less than full onboard nitro supply, due to various factors beyond my control. I hoped the shortage wouldn't cause me any major problems.
Though I couldn't enjoy it at the time, I noticed a small comical aspect to the road drama around this point. Namely, up ahead civilians were noticing an entirely flat black Shadowfast with no visible wheels (hidden by the full air dam) bearing down on them like a bat out of hell, rushing at them faster than anything they'd ever seen before, lights flashing, siren wailing. And some of them may have witnessed my dispatch of the cyclists. Those who saw me coming either sped up themselves to breakneck speeds in an attempt to escape, or else screeched to a near stop and pulled completely off the road ASAP.
It was obvious when members of either group first spied my approach: their auto would be leisurely proceeding straight down the highway, when suddenly an alarmed wiggle would occur in their car's steering. I'd seen that wiggle of acknowledgment to my presence before, usually in less extreme circumstances. In those previous instances the drivers would quickly re-compose themselves and change lanes to give me passage. But this time the reactions were so violent I was concerned some folks would hurt themselves with their responses. But what else could I do? Gunfire was in the air, and a barreling limo and unknown number of assault vehicles behind me. The innocents had to be scared off and away wherever possible.
My employer's exercises of course trained us all to exploit any civilian vehicles which might get caught up in something like this. Told us that the life of any V.I.P. we might be safeguarding was worth far more than any bystanders who might get caught up in the fray. But I-- and I'm sure at least a few others among the good guy drivers-- had known that no way would we use innocent lives to shield any V.I.P. if we could avoid it. To me, pretty much everyone was of equal value-- unless of course you were talking about people purposely trying to harm others for no discernable reason. Like our present attackers.
The limo and its pursuers were coming up on me fast now. I continued to slow to help the limo get nearer. Heck, I was down to 115 now. I figured the gang behind me must all be doing around 130 at least. The limo may have been maxed out.
Oh shit. Turned out I wasn't the only thing scaring traffic off the road ahead. As the civilian autos frantically cleared off the highway I saw vehicles side-by-side beyond them, driving the wrong way on the interstate.
Straight towards us.
These were apparently cars associated with our attackers. Four of them. One for each regular lane, and one for each emergency lane running alongside the highway. The only way not to ram one head-on was to run off into the median or alongside the interstate, into the rough.
As the road now seemed clear of civilians (although many cars were sprawled off either side of the two lane interstate highway, with some trying to get still further away, and others simply abandoning their stuck vehicles to flee on foot), I switched off my head-busting siren and all my lights. I figured I might need the extra juice, plus it'd be harder to lose pursuit with my lights on.
Ramming one of these suckers with Shadowfast would be suicide. And not necessarily help the V.I.P. we were protecting. Letting them run us off the road would at best slow us way down to where their firepower could stop us for good, and at worst wreck us, stopping us immediately. And permanently.
I knew the relative weight and construction of the limo versus the regular civilian-type vehicles ahead of us meant the limo could punch through OK, if the driver was willing to chance it. But a front end collision would likely put the limo's drivetrain out of commission, and so be another showstopper. Not to mention what a frontal might do to limo driver and passenger.
There was only one option I could see. Luckily, Dennis in the limo was an expert stunt driver in his spare time. I'd been to a couple of his shows. I'd also been to demolition derbies. I hoped Dennis had the expertise we needed here. I radioed him with my plan.
Dennis saw merit in my idea and we began execution almost the very second he let up on his mike button.
I'd slowed some from the pace of before, but now began accelerating a bit again, even as Dennis swept past me in the big car. Unfortunately the one attacker was still behind him, but I was going to try to act as a buffer between it and Dennis now. For Dennis had something much more important to do. I began making what preparations I could for the enemy pick up truck behind me.
Dennis sent the limo into a high speed 180 degree turn, much as I'd done before. But he wasn't doing this to reverse his direction of travel. No, he was simply reversing which end of his car was leading the way forward. He made the transition from drive to reverse gear smoothly during the 180, and quickly was proceeding backwards down the interstate at a frightening speed-- albeit considerably slower than before-- the difference between the rear gear ratio and that of the highest forward gear was likely winding the hell out of the limo motor. But hopefully the engine wouldn't have to endure this more than a minute or two. Good old American V-8s of that era could take almost anything for a couple minutes.
The end-reversing manuever was a routine one for Dennis, from his shows. But could he keep control of the big car backwards at such speeds for the distance we required? I'd seen only a couple people in my life accomplish the latter feat. One had been Steve, and the other some unknown expert stunt driver in a theatrical film. My own experience in such driving was limited to distances of only blocks, and speeds of well under half what we were doing now. With much shorter cars than a limo.
Our maneuver came too soon before meeting for our attackers to change their plan in any meaningful way. Heck, I'm not even sure they realized the strategic value of our actions. For you see, if you're going to play smashup with autos, it's best to use your rear end against your enemy's front end. For smashed front ends would put most cars of 20th century American design out of commission one way or another, not to mention the potential effect on the driver. But smashed up rear ends were almost completely contrarian stories. Demolition derby drivers always rammed people with the butt end of their cars where possible, and protected their fronts.
Of course, the usual speeds in demolition derbies were considerably lower than those here. But Dennis's mass advantage over the smaller cars would help mitigate the crash for him a little-- we hoped. Plus it seemed that he'd have a little more protection from impact forces from his seating position: his seat and head rest would do more good backwards than frontwards in such an impact. But Dennis had to make sure his head was already firmly against his head rest when the collision came. Ideally his neck and torso wouldn't be in any sort of twist either-- but I doubted he'd be able to accomplish that. After all, he was driving backwards at high speed.
Yeah, the V.I.P. was in the back of the limo. But the limo wasn't one of those you just drove off the lot. In its own way it'd been modified more heavily than Shadowfast, being rendered bullet-proof and more robust in all manner of ways for events like these. So long as the V.I.P. followed Dennis's orders and stayed strapped in, he was likely in little more danger than Dennis himself.
There was also the little matter of how the attackers seemed more bent on assassination than kidnapping. If I'd been the V.I.P. I'd have preferred taking my chances with Dennis and me rather than the attackers-- at least so far as I could.
Of course, Dennis and I were really hoping somebody on the opposing team would chicken out and provide us an opening to slip through. So no collision would really be necessary.
Dennis and I were both country boys: growing up we'd witnessed imbeciles playing chicken for virtually no reason at all in various manners-- including with cars. We knew it for the high risk gamble it was. But if ever there was a time such a risk was called for, it was now.
If Dennis didn't lose control simply trying to drive straight backwards at speed, the main trick was going to be first pressuring one particular enemy car with his aim-- so there'd be no question for his chosen chicken partner who was going to bear the brunt of impact. Beyond that Dennis's challenge would be to strike only the one car rather than more-- if he had to hit one at all. We couldn't afford for the limo to get tangled up here.
Even though I knew what we were trying to do, I still winced when it was about to happen. And so did the targeted attack driver too, apparently. Our plan worked! At least sort of. For at the last minute our target bogey broke ranks by slamming on his brakes and swerving to the side, leaving a hole in the line up for Dennis to pass through.
But the bad guy had waited too long to make his getaway, and Dennis had no choice but to hit him off-center as he punched through the oncoming vehicle armada. The stricken attacker spun like a top off the road, and Dennis expertly used the spin the collision gave the limo to do another 180 degree turn on-the-run, and face forward once again. Yay!
Apparently Dennis hadn't been hurt too badly in the altercation. And I really admired how he'd instantly planned his turn strategy once he realized how the collision was going to go. I seriously doubted I could have done as well with Shadowfast. But heck, Dennis had lots more training and experience than I in that sort of thing!
This put the other head-on attackers into disarray, which helped me swerve to and fro between them to get into position behind Dennis.
The original pursuit pickup of the limo stayed on my tail. The spectacle of the imminent and passing collision had distracted them from shooting at me so far. But anger at our success emboldened the truck and it ran up beside me before I could react to it-- having to stay behind the limo crimped my options somewhat. Dennis was still struggling to regain velocity with his behemoth of an automobile. Sure it possessed a mighty big block engine-- maybe hot rodded a bit to boot. But even with that it takes a moment or so to significantly change the momentum of tons and tons of metal.
Shadowfast without the nitro maybe had ten or twenty percent less horsepower than the limo-- but we weren't dragging along nearly as much dead weight to slow us down. And with the bullet holes and missing windows we were even lighter than usual! But I guessed the new aerodynamic drag canceled out any benefit there.
I had a snub-nose 38 special revolver and a short-barreled 12 gauge pump shotgun in the car, but neither was really handy or-- to my way of thinking anyway-- very useful for a lone driver like myself to use in a chase like this one. I'd bought the guns quite some time back and regularly did some target practice with them as part of my lifestyle. But I wasn't nearly comfortable enough with either to use them in the present circumstance. Just the recoil alone on both guns was a bitch, even in normal firing positions. And there'd be no normal shooting options available to me in the next moment or two.
I did however keep a hunting vest draped backwards over my passenger seat, its pockets filled with various interesting items which helped minimize its flapping about in the wind. Those I thought I might need in a hurry I kept in the closest, most easily accessed pockets. When I'd taken up my present position behind Dennis in prep for the collision, I'd pulled out a single shot flare gun complete with several attached rounds (a cheap type used for distress signalling on boats), broke it open and loaded it. I'd also rolled down my driver's side window. This was unnecessary for the passenger side, as it'd already been shot out. So I was ready for firing out either side or the rear window (for it was gone too, mostly).
Thankfully the plastic gun and its rounds hadn't been damaged by the gunfire.
I no longer had any crash bars or tire punchers to use on pursuers, and figured all our enemies were wary of my strobes now. And the strobes weren't all that effective in broad daylight anyway. They also had to know I had some protection from their bullets fired from behind, since they hadn't stopped me before. So that might lead them to change tactics and either just try shooting my tires out or coming up beside me or getting in front of me, and shooting me from there.
Once again I pondered the value of a helmet and bullet-proof vest.
I figured whatever they did they'd try it at point-blank range if at all possible. Which meant some of the goodies I had in the car might help me.
I lucked out. In two ways. First, the truck did come up along-side me, and even on the driver's rather than passenger side of my car (they weren't very bright, were they?). Second, despite my intense fear of getting shot threatening to make me waste my one and only loaded round prematurely, I somehow managed to keep my cool and hold it until the right moment. Indeed, I kept the flare gun out of sight of the attackers until near the climax of our encounter.
The truck jumped up beside me, a killer idiot in the cab's passenger side grinning hugely and pointing some sort of short barreled gun at me. A shot gun I think it was. There were also a couple guys huddled in the bed, presumably because of all the high speed high jinks of the past few minutes. Hey! I thought to myself-- wouldn't it be great if they were scared because one of their number had already fallen out of the bed somewhere behind us?
Something clicked in my head and I realized not a single man in the truck looked familiar to me. Plus there'd been no extra guys in the back when the convoy began its run. Had our attackers somehow taken the real truck out of action and replaced it with one which looked identical at some point? Well, I didn't have time to think about that now.
I tried to maneuver the car enough to avoid giving the idiot a clean shot at me or my tires. So for a moment or two the truck driver and I engaged in a maneuvering duel of sorts. As the truck was bigger and heavier than me, I couldn't threaten him with sideswipes-- the truck driver could easily win such conflicts. Plus, damaging my fenders could slash my tires and strand me on the side of the road, leaving me a sitting duck.
I did not want to get trapped in a roadside firefight, using my pistol and shotgun for defense and Shadowfast for cover. I'd had too many nightmares about such a scenario. In my dreams my guns always jammed or I ran out of ammo and could do nothing but watch my enemies shoot me to death.
The prologue swiftly came to an end as the truck made another swerving pass, bringing its shooter even with me. I firmed my grip on my flare gun, accelerated Shadowfast to get me a little ahead of the truck to account for wind deflection, and swerved as close to the truck as I dared-- the very opposite of what I'd been doing before now.
The way ahead was clear for the next few seconds, so I put all my attention on the shooter's window, trying not to let my fear of the gun aimed at my face force my eyes shut. I was scared the shooter would pull his trigger the instant he saw my flare gun, and so withheld its display until the last possible moment.
When I did bring the gun up though, the shooter seemed to hesitate for a split-second, due to not recognizing what it was. It did after all look much like a toy, being bright orange for the most part, and with an almost ridiculously large-- even cartoonish looking-- muzzle. The gun looked something like a toy for shooting marshmellows at children's birthday parties.
I fired the flare directly into the shooter's window, which was slightly behind, higher, and to the left of my location, but perhaps only some three feet or less in direct distance away, as my swerve and theirs converged. After I squeezed the trigger I immediately floored it and began to swerve away a bit before I'd even returned my gaze towards the road ahead. I felt and heard an explosive crumpling of metal around then, but as I didn't feel personal injury and Shadowfast's driving seemed unaffected, things seemed pretty good, considering.
I'd just shot an incredibly hot fireball of magnesium into the truck cab. Its effect was quite dramatic-- but not entirely free of cost for me.
Events had come together to spoil the enemy shooter's aim pretty nicely, but he was still awfully close, shooting downwards (which is usually advantageous to a gunman), and using a shotgun-- which as we all know properly loaded doesn't need precise aiming to still hit a target of significant size.
But here the close distance helped me somewhat, by not allowing the lead shot the distance it required for proper expansion. I also believe the shooter didn't have the proper ammo for the job-- which can be important in shotguns. And an even shorter barrel would have helped him too.
The considerable windspeed probably didn't hurt my chances either.
Later I'd learn my left rear fender just above the tire had taken the brunt of the gun blast. And surprisingly well, I might add. Bare, somewhat crumpled metal showed in the wound afterwards, with a comparatively small ragged edged hole near the center: but that was all. At least from the idiot's potshot at me. It seems the shot was slowed by the various layers of sheet metal involved so that after punching through Shadow's skin much of the shot bounced off the inner wheel well, through my skimpy interior wood paneling, and up and out my open rear window. Sure, some of the shot went through the wheel well metal too, and maybe even hit the tire: but its velocity seemed spent by then, for I got no puncture.
Of course it didn't hurt that Shadow's butt end was pretty light too. So light I usually ran the rear tires at only around 10 to 15 pounds per square inch. Though I never tried it, the stiff-walled sort of tires I used there may have been able to support Shadow with almost no air in them at all. So Shadow may not have been as vulnerable to a rear flat tire as many would expect.
It was a different story with the front tires: they had an engine to carry. But they also had lots of extra metal around them than normal, due to the wrap-around air dam and large fender flares, all made of steel.
The rear fender spot struck by the fire had also been repaired only maybe a month before by my brother, to fix damage from an entirely separate ramming incident. From my own inspections of his work I'd noted the fender was likely slightly stronger and more bullet resistant than its factory-standard version, due to how my brother had addressed the matter. At the time I'd thought maybe he'd made the fender a little heavier than it had to be as one result. But now I was glad of it-- for his extra metal may well have been what prevented my rear tire from being shot to pieces!
Just around the time I thought I might get away from the truck scot-free, all hell broke loose: for the fireball was melting the truck interior and people along with it. The truck abruptly slammed into my driver's side rear quarter panel and rear wheel, causing me to skid across the highway. Something, I'm not sure what, struck my head and left a gash which bled quite a bit for its small size. I didn't realize I was hurt this way until a bit later when I felt something wet on my face, and was having trouble clearing the sight in my left eye.
I turned my front wheels into the skid and got control with Shadow's tail briefly wagging to catch up, but almost lost it again when a check of my surroundings showed the truck about to hit me a second time, forcing me to hit the gas anew-- braking would have been riskier as the truck was coming up from behind.
My last view of the truck wasn't nearly the fireball I expected, but instead of it apparently still being driven (if haphazardly) to an emergency stop, although with the passenger door hanging open and the cab full of smoke and trailing angry looking dark clouds behind it back the way we'd come. I could see the rumpled form of what I assumed to be one of the truck crew on the pavement far behind me. Of the others I saw no sign.
To see more about the real life Shadowfast super car (including specs and links to early design concepts), CLICK HERE.
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