I do the same, and head out on the main road, letting dispatch know that both agencies are giving chase.
"Dispatch." My eyes stay locked on the two vehicles as I accelerate, watching them weave and push against each other on the road like they have no concept of what's around the next bend or who else might be on it. "I'm in pursuit of two vehicles, currently traveling at approximately ninety miles per hour on Route 9 heading toward Laurel Springs city limits. I have a Laurel Springs Fish and Wildlife unit in pursuit behind me."
"Copy that, Caleb. Can you get us a description?"
"Two sedans. One dark blue, one silver. Both Florida plates." I'm close enough now to get the numbers and I read them off, keeping my voice even the way you learn to do when you've been in this long enough to know that panic doesn't make the car go faster or the situation go safer. "Run those for me."
There's a pause on the other end, and in the rearview I can see Levi and Dakota's lights flashing. They’re keeping pace, staying back a responsible distance, and I’m proud of the way my son is driving.
"Caleb, both vehicles are coming back as reported stolen out of Pensacola. Stolen approximately thirty-six hours ago."
Thirty-six hours puts them well north of the Florida line, and there are only a handful of reasons someone in a stolen car takes a route through small-town Alabama instead of the interstate. "Dispatch, I've got a strong feeling we're looking at a narcotics situation. These vehicles didn't come this route by accident."
"Understood. You want us to notify the narcotics unit?"
"Yes, and get someone on standby at the city line." I watch the blue car cut hard around a slower-moving truck ahead of us, the silver one right behind it, and both of them running side by side now, which means they're taking up the full road and anything coming the other direction isn't going to have anywhere to go. "They are currently blocking both lanes. I need to know what's ahead of me on this road."
I glance in the mirror again. Levi and Dakota are still there, and seeing my son's lights in the rearview sends a cold chill down my spine that I push away, because I don't have room for it right now. He's trained for this the same as I am, and worrying about him in the middle of a pursuit will get both of us hurt. I know that. Knowing it and feeling it are different things, and I've been balancing that difference since the day he graduated the academy.
"Dispatch, if these cars hit the city limits at this speed we've got a serious problem. There's a school zone two miles inside the city limits and I don't know what time dismissal is today. I know they were leaving early one day this week."
"Caleb, we’re on the phone with the school now, looking to hold dismissal if we need to."
"Good." My hands are steady on the wheel and I keep my foot down, because the moment I let distance build up between us and those cars I lose the ability to communicate their location accurately, and right now accuracy is the difference between us catching them and getting away. "How far out are Nick and Ryan?"
"Both Officers Kepler are approximately two miles ahead of your current position setting up spike strips. They're asking for confirmation on placement."
"Tell them the blue car is in front, the silver is drafting it. The blue car is more aggressive, I'd put money on the driver being the one calling the shots." I watch them take a curve too fast and the silver car fishtails hard before correcting, and my stomach tightens. "Tell Nick and Ryan to set up just past the Highway 29 intersection. There's enough straight there for them to see the strips and for me to get clear."
"Copy that."
I take a second to breathe, because this might be the last time I can before whatever this is, ends. Twenty years of law enforcement gives you a sense for these things that you can't teach in a classroom, a kind of low-level reading of situations that you just know may not end well.
I look in the mirror again.
Levi and Dakota are right there.
There's a look on my son's face that I can see even at this distance and this speed, focused in the way he gets when he's locked in, and Dakota's in the passenger seat with his radio in his hand. I think about what Ruby said on Saturday when she came home from breakfast, about Molly, and how she had something to tell me, about the dinner on Wednesday. About the look on her face when she said there were some things she wanted us all to talk about as a family.
I filed that away at the time without much thought, because Ruby has a way of warning me about things without causing me to panic, and I've learned over twenty years of marriage that she usually knows what she's doing. But there’s something about Dakota's face in my rearview right now, and I think I'm starting to understand why he and Levi shared that look when I pulled up.
I'll deal with that on Wednesday. Right now I've got two stolen cars between me and the city limits and a school dismissal window that makes my blood pressure do things it shouldn't.
"Dispatch, ETA to the Highway 29 intersection?"
"Approximately forty-five seconds at your current speed, Caleb."
"Tell Nick and Ryan to be ready." I can see the intersection ahead, the tree line breaking where the roads cross, and I can see the faint flash of emergency lights off to the right where they've positioned. "Tell them…"
I don't finish the sentence, because we hit the S-curve before the intersection and the blue car goes into it way too fast, and I watch it happen in fucking slow motion. Hoping like hell I can do something to stop it before it happens. The blue sedan loses the back end on entry, overcorrects, and instead of spinning out onto the shoulder it goes sideways across both lanes. The silver car behind it has nowhere to go and clips the rear quarter panel, and both of them are suddenly in a roll of metal and smoke across the road.
I have maybe a second to make a decision.
If I hit the brakes, I stop fast, but Levi and Dakota are behind me and they are moving at the same speed I am and the reaction time required to avoid rear-ending me does not exist at ninety miles an hour on a two-lane road.
I don't hit the brakes.
I yank the wheel right and take the ditch.