Panic!

The sandstone arch was smooth and gently sloped on its backside, and Vollyer climbed it hastily, face bright red from the exertion. When he reached the top, he stretched out prone and stared along the road at the growing dust cloud.

Di Parma dropped down beside him. “It’s just another kid in a jeep.”

“Maybe.”

“Who else would it be?”

“Does that matter? We don’t want to be seen out here.”

“Why the gun, Harry?”

“Just in case.”

“We’re taking a hell of a lot of chances.”

“At this point, that’s the name of the game.”

“Harry, this is no goddamn game!”

Vollyer turned his head slowly and looked at Di Parma. “Shut up, Livio,” he said softly.

Di Parma could not see Vollyer’s eyes behind the smoky lens of the sunglasses, but the set of his mouth was hard and white. Harry was wound up tight, that was for sure. He’d never seen him wound up this tight before. His own guts were roped into a knot, because even if he didn’t like to admit it to himself, he was afraid of Vollyer. He had heard stories about what Harry was like when he was strung out, and they weren’t stories you liked to hear about your partner. If he got Harry down on him, he was begging for trouble he might not be able to handle. The thing for him to do was to go along with Vollyer, whether he liked it or not—to trust him as he had in the past. Harry would snap out of it pretty soon; you didn’t stay on top in this kind of business for twenty-five years by making the wrong moves. But this whole assignment had turned into a bummer, and there was no telling what would happen next when the luck was running sour. He had to get out of this, for Jean’s sake; she could never know what he really did for a living, never. She thought he was a salesman for farm tools. He hated lying to her, but it was the only way, she would never have understood—

Vollyer caught his arm. “Sports car,” he said.

Di Parma looked along the road, and the machine was nearing them rapidly. It was a sleek yellow Triumph with New York plates; the dust cloud billowed out behind it like a gigantic dun-colored parachute attached by invisible wires. Di Parma squinted against the glare of the sun, and he could see two people inside, a woman driving and the passenger a man sitting hunched forward on the seat.

The Triumph drew parallel to them, and Vollyer and Di Parma were far enough away and at enough of an angle to be able to look through the open window on the passenger side. They saw the dust-streaked, sunburned face of the man, saw it clearly, and it was the same face smiling out from the portrait photograph in Vollyer’s pocket—it was him, Lennox, the witness. Di Parma, staring, was incredulous. Harry had been right, he had been backing a winner after all. Jesus, the guy had come straight across the desert and hit this road ...

Vollyer reacted instantly at the moment of recognition. He pulled off his sunglasses and gained his knees, turning slightly, planting his left foot at an angle out from his body to brace himself. He extended his left arm, crooked horizontally, and rested the long barrel of the Remington on his forearm, squinting through the Bushnell scope. The Triumph was pulling away, fifty yards beyond them, and Di Parma sucked in his breath, watching Vollyer, thinking: Squeeze off, squeeze off, Harry, for Christ’s sake!

Vollyer waited a moment longer. And fired.

Again.

Rolling echoes of sound fragmented the brittle late-afternoon stillness. Di Parma saw a hole appear in the dusty plastic of the Triumph’s rear window, saw the spurt of air and dust as the left rear tire blew. The little car began to yaw suddenly, its rear end snapping around, and Di Parma thought for an instant that it was going to roll. But it remained upright, plunging off the road on their side, hurtling through thick clumps of creosote bush, skidding sideways as the girl fought the wheel and the locked brakes, tilting, rear end folding in on itself as it slammed into a chunk of granite, caroming off, a second tire blowing now, driver’s door scraping another boulder, front end fishtailing again to point at still another outcropping, meeting it with a glancing blow and finally coming to a shuddering halt better than a hundred yards off the road.

Vollyer was already halfway down the slope, not looking back. Di Parma scrambled after him, and there was elation soaring through him. We’re all right! he thought. We’re going to come out of it just fine, Jean baby, I’ll be home in the morning...

Thirteen

Inside Lennox, the panic was a living, screaming entity.