Tim lurched over to the door, pushing it open. With all her strength, Carla pushed him out.

Tim fell out slowly, pinched between the door and door pillar, eventually hitting the road with his face and chest. Somehow, one of his feet or trouser legs had caught at the base of the seat, dragging him along the road.

Tim was not quite dead when he hit the road, so the agony of skin and bone being scraped off on the tarmac registered somewhere in his brain, for a second or two.

The snagged foot suddenly became un-snagged when Tim’s outstretched arms were pinned under the back wheel, to the road. He was ripped out and dragged under the car.

Carla was nearly thrown out herself when the rear wheel bucked over the corpse. Seconds later, she slid behind the steering wheel and at last, took full control of the car.

The police car was now alongside Carla, on the inside of the roundabout forcing her onto the verge. Dabbing the brakes, she dropped behind the police and skidded outwards to the curb. The police thought Carla was going to take the approaching exit off the roundabout because the Fiat was drifting that way, so they took it ahead of her. The skid had scrubbed off most of the Fiat’s speed even though the verge was slippery. She continued on to the next exit.

The police driver was quick to realize his mistake, and with considerable skill, he spun his car around to follow Carla. His misjudgement was all she needed to escape. She had the edge, with a nippy car and her will to survive at all costs.

Roadblocks were being set up, of course, but Carla was well prepared. She believed that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

Carla headed away from town, back the way Tim had come, until she reached the turn off to the emergency escape route. The direction Tim should have taken. With the police car in close pursuit, she calmly negotiated the narrow road cut out of the rocky hillside, up towards the forest. The powerful car was now gaining on her and getting too close for comfort.

Her heart sank as the engine cut out briefly, then picked up again. Low on fuel she guessed, and the gauge confirmed it; the fuel pipe, or tank must be leaking! The long, steady climb with few bends to swill the meagre contents past the pickup pipe in the tank, had caused the glitch. Zigzagging the car sloshed fuel around the tank, maintaining a flow to the engine. The police car was now only 20 metres behind, and gaining, fast!

“You’re too close,” muttered Carla to herself as she snatched up a radio controller, stuck with Velcro to the dashboard. She switched it on as she passed under a rocky outcrop, and pressed a button, triggering a nitroglycerine charge, embedded in the rock. The force blasted her car sideways in a shower of rock fragments, but she quickly regained control and accelerated away. The blast caught the police car full on, smashing it sideways into the parapet. Blasted with fist-sized chunks of rock on one side, and grinding away in showers of sparks on the other, the police car stalled.

A large landslide fell onto the road right behind them, blocking it off. Totally stunned by the attack, it took several moments for the driver to recover and restart the engine. He floored the accelerator and with the engine screaming, dropped the clutch. Bucking and screeching against the parapet, the police car broke free and was in hot pursuit again.

Carla grinned cheekily to herself as she glanced in her rear view mirror, at the havoc she caused.

“Bang goes you’re no claim bonus Cop,” she muttered.

Still gripping the controller, she rounded a bend and pressed it again. Another explosion, and more rock spread over the road in a landslide; she was almost home free.

Carla’s engine spluttered and died; wiggling the steering frantically, brought it back to life.

“Just take me a few hundred metres more. Please! Please!” She begged. “Don’t let me down now, please!”

The car surged forward and she backed right off the accelerator, maximizing every precious drop of fuel, left in the tank.

A narrow track suddenly came into view on the left, and she spun the wheel, drove up it a few metres, and stopped. Just ahead was a particularly dirty, dark green 4X4 vehicle, substantially hidden by the undergrowth.

At a glance, she could see no one was in it or nearby.

Leaping out of the Fiat with a different set of car keys, snatched from the glove compartment, she ran to the dark green Cherokee, beeping it unlocked as she ran. Before opening the door, she glanced at the dashboard, to see if any warning lights were flashing. No lights glowed, so she got in and started the engine. Thankfully, it roared into life.

Dragging the bags of drugs and money from the Fiat to the Cherokee, she tossed them onto the back seat and slammed the door shut. Dashing back to the Fiat, she flicked a switch under the dashboard, and a loud buzzer sounded.