Free The Prophet (Ryan Archer #2) by William Casey Moreton

when he slipped back inside the house. He showered, toweled off, and then slipped back under the covers and attacked Smith from behind. Morning sex was always vigorous. When they were done, he dressed in jeans and a T-shirt from a dresser drawer Smith had loaned him and gave her a kiss on his way out. She was still smiling when she heard the door shut.
    Archer had spotted the Mercedes during his run. It was parked along the sweeping curve in the road up the hill from Smith’s house. It was a hundred yards away, off in the gravel on the shoulder where the weeds began. Archer had expected to see it. Someone was obviously very interested in keeping an eye on him.
    Archer backed into the road and turned uphill toward the curve. He leaned forward and dropped the glove box open, reaching for his Beretta. He rested the gun between his thighs and accelerated hard. His headlights fell across the weeds as ribbons of fog floated across the narrow asphalt lane. He spotted the Mercedes again. It hadn’t moved. It was coming up on his left.
    At the last second, as he came up parallel to the luxury sedan, he jerked the wheel counterclockwise and hit the brakes. The beefy tires screeched across loose gravel and the Land Cruiser shuddered to a stop. He had blocked the car from being able to exit. Archer was up and out the door with the gun raised in a split second. The headlights flicked on as the German engine roared to life, then the performance tires spun, throwing gravel as the car fishtailed in reverse looking for a way out. Archer couldn’t see inside because of the dark tint.
    Then a window buzzed down and he saw a man with a gun. There was a muzzle flash and a bang as Archer ducked away. He returned fire, charging at the car on foot. He got an arm in and pushed away the man’s gun and punched him in the face with the Beretta. The Mercedes accelerated with Archer’s arms still inside. He ran alongside in an attempt to keep up. The guy inside pushed a hand into Archer’s face, going for the eyes. Archer fired a round and put a bullet in the dash, then he felt himself falling and hit the asphalt hard as the back tire missed his legs by a fraction of an inch.
    As he rolled to a stop in the middle of the road, he glanced up and saw the car accelerating away down the hill. He ran to his truck and spun out in the gravel. The Mercedes was already nearly out of sight, but he spotted the brake lights as they slowed for a turn up ahead.  
    Archer hugged the turns as tightly as possible, but the old Land Cruiser wasn’t built for the kind of speed or agility that the Mercedes was. His only advantage was his knowledge of the hills. He detoured through an empty lot between houses and the truck bounced up through a ditch, the suspension on the machine nearly sending him out of his seat. The maneuver saved him about fifteen seconds of drive time. That wasn’t enough.  
    He punched the accelerator and turned hard into the next turn. The front tires went wide and he nearly took out a young couple pushing a stroller. He heard screams but hadn’t felt any kind of contact so kept plowing forward. He was losing ground on the Mercedes.
    He had seen two men in the car. Who were they? He didn’t recognize them from anywhere. They definitely weren’t cops, and he didn’t believe they were FBI. The first shot he fired had made contact with the car but didn’t do any damage, so it had certainly undergone some significant aftermarket enhancements. Both men had been well built, with dark features, and armed.
    Why? Why the interest in Archer?
    He processed the likely scenarios through his brain while navigating the narrow switchbacks leading out of the hills. The most likely conclusion was that it obviously had to be connected to Tatum Cloud. But how?
    The road straightened out and he trailed them by a couple hundred feet. He leaned out and fired a round at one of the rear tires but missed. The bullet threw sparks off the rear fender.
    “Damn it!”