The Detroit Diesel engine shrieked in reverse gear.
Marcus “Mac” Cole stomped his heavy work boot flat to the floorboard. The big turbocharger whined like a jet turbine spooling up on a frozen runway.
Forty thousand pounds of steel hurled backward down the concrete ramp.
“Speed!” Mac shouted, his eyes glued to the sixteen-inch convex mirror. “Mei, call my speed!”
Lin Mei gripped the aluminum edge of her desk with both hands. Her eyes flicked from the dashboard speedometer needle to her digital stopwatch.
“Twenty-two miles an hour!” Lin Mei called out. “Twenty-six! Twenty-nine! You’re approaching thirty-two miles an hour in reverse, Mac!”
“She’s got more in her!” Mac growled. “What’s my lag factor?”
“One point five seconds in the convex glass!” Lin Mei answered, tapping her slide-rule. “At thirty-two miles an hour, you are traveling forty-seven feet per second! The image in the overhead glass is seventy feet behind our actual physical position!”
