Lightning

The police cruiser's windows imploded, and the officer was dead in an instant. He had to be dead, for he had not seen the attack coming and surely had taken several rounds in the head and upper body. The patrol car swung toward the Toyota and brushed it before Klietmann could get out of the way, then veered toward the shoulder of the road.

Klietmann braked, falling back from the out-of-control cruiser.

The four-lane highway was elevated about ten feet above the desert floor, and the patrol car shot past the unguarded brink of the shoulder. It was airborne for a few seconds, then came down so hard that some of its tires no doubt blew out on impact. Two doors popped open, including that on the driver's side.

As Klietmann moved into the right lane and drove slowly by the wreckage, von Manstein said, "I can see him in there, slumped over the wheel. He's no more trouble to us."

Oncoming drivers had witnessed the patrol car's spectacular flight. They pulled to the verge on their side of route 111. When Klietmann glanced in his rearview mirror, he saw people getting out of those vehicles, good Samaritans hurrying across the highway to the CHP officer's rescue. If some of them realized why the cruiser had crashed, they had decided not to pursue Klietmann and bring him to justice. Which was wise.

He accelerated again, glanced at the odometer, and said, "Three miles from here, that cop would've arrested the woman and boy. So be on the lookout for a black Buick. Three miles."

Standing in the bright desert sun on the patch of barren shale near the Buick, Laura watched Stefan slip the strap of the Uzi over his right shoulder. The carbine hung freely and did not interfere with the backpack full of books.

"But now I wonder if I should take it," he said. "If the nerve gas works as well as it ought to, I probably won't even need the pistol, let alone a submachine gun."

"Take it," Laura said grimly.

He nodded. "You're right. Who knows."

"Too bad you don't have a couple of grenades too," Chris said. "Grenades would be good."

"Let's hope it doesn't get that nasty back there," Stefan said.

He switched off the pistol's safeties and held it ready in his right hand. Gripping the canister of Vexxon by its heavy-duty, fire-extinguisher-type handle, he picked it up with his left hand and tested its weight to see how his injured shoulder would react.

"Hurts a little," he said. "Pulls at the wound. But it's not bad, and I'll be able to control it."

They had cut the wire on the canister's trigger, which allowed the manual venting of the Vexxon. He curled his finger through that release loop.

When he finished his work in 1944, he would make a final jaunt to their time again, 1989, and the plan was for him to arrive only five minutes after he departed. Now he said, "I'll see you very soon. You'll hardly know I'm gone."

Suddenly Laura was afraid that he would never return. She put a hand to his face and kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck, Stefan."

It was not a kiss that a lover might have given, nor was there even a promise of passion; it was just the affectionate kiss of a friend, the kiss of a woman who owed eternal gratitude but who did not owe her heart. She saw an awareness of that in his eyes. At the core, in spite of flashes of humor, he was a melancholy man, and she wished that she could make him happy. She regretted that she could not at least pretend to feel more for him; yet she knew he would see through any such pretense.

"I want you to come back," she said. "I really do. Very much."

"That's enough." He looked at Chris and said, "Take care of your mother while I'm gone."

"I'll try," Chris said. "But she's pretty good at taking care of herself.''

Laura pulled her son to her side.

Stefan lifted the thirty-pound Vexxon cylinder higher, squeezed the release loop.

As the gas vented under high pressure with a sound like a dozen snakes hissing at once, Laura was seized by a brief panic, certain that the capsules they had taken would not protect them from the nerve toxin, that they would drop to the ground, twitching in the grip of muscle spasms and convulsions, where they would die in thirty seconds. Vexxon was colorless but not odorless or tasteless: even in the open air, where it dispersed quickly, she detected a sweet odor of apricots and a tart, nauseating taste that seemed half lemon juice and half spoiled milk. But in spite of what she could smell and taste, she felt no adverse effects.

Holding the pistol across his body, Stefan reached beneath his shirt with a free finger of his gun hand and pressed the button on the homing belt three times.

Von Manstein was the first to spot the black car standing in that expanse of white sand and pale rock, a few hundred yards east of the highway. He called it to their attention.