Panic!

It had been reborn the instant the angry, whistling pellet slashed through the rear window and imbedded itself in the dashboard, narrowly missing the girl. He had twisted in the seat and then the tire had blown and Jana had cried out, a keening sound that was a knife blade prodding the belly of the panic, enraging it, spiraling it out of control. The world spun and tilted crazily, and he felt himself thrown forward, felt sharp pain above his right eye as his head struck the windshield, felt blood flowing down to further distort the spinning montage outside the vehicle. Impact, grinding of metal, impact, the girl crying out again, impact, impact, and through it all the bright, hot panic clawing at the cells of his brain. He was not dazed, he was not confused. He knew what had happened, or the fear within him knew it; the equation was so very simple. They had found him: the killers had known about him all along and they had been looking for him and they had found him; he had no idea how, the how was not important, only the why was important and he knew the why.

Even before the car stopped moving, he was preparing flight.

And when it did stop, and the surrealistic movement became once again a motionless desert landscape, his hand was on the door handle, shoving it down, leaning his weight against it. Metal protested, binding, and he kicked at the door savagely, run, run, sweat commingling with the blood to half-blind him, and the girl was moaning words now, saying “My God, oh my God!” He looked at her—even with the panic he looked at her and she was the color of old snow, eyes glazed, still clinging to the wheel, repeating over and over, “My God, oh my God!”

Lennox kicked again at the door, and it gave finally and opened wide with a rending sound, run! and he was half out now, one foot on the ground, and his head jerked around, eyes searching through the dim red haze for the road, locating it. They were there, just as he had known they would be. Sunlight gleaming off metal extensions of their hands. Coming for him. Bringing death.

Run!

He levered his body up, supporting himself on the sprung door, and behind him the girl was still saying “Oh my God!” Suddenly, acutely, Lennox was fully aware of her. He looked at her, sitting rigidly in momentary shock, staring at nothing. Run, run, but something held him back, the girl held him back as if by some subconscious telepathy. He couldn’t leave her here, they would kill her, and even with the panic screaming there inside him, he couldn’t allow it to happen. He was responsible for her, he had gotten her into this, she was innocent. He had to take her with him. There was no inner debate, no real decision, it was simply a thing he was compelled to do.

Lennox reached back inside, and he had developed awesome strength. He locked his fingers on her arm and pulled her out of the seat, out from under the wheel, out of the car. She cried out in pain as a sharp edge of metal gashed her leg, and then he had her on her feet and he was staggering away from the car, half-dragging her behind, feeling her resist in spite of her shock and refusing to yield, dimly hearing her moan something at him but listening only to the shrill, clear voice of the panic now.

Into the rocks, near-falling, gasping, and a long way off a dull cracking sound, and another, and he knew they were shooting without really knowing it—keep moving, dodging, hang onto the girl, get away, get away, escape, fear shriveling his groin, fear gagging his throat, fear clamped onto his brain like a parasitic slug. And through the numbing wash of terror, a disjointed and yet intense feeling that it had always been this way for him, that his entire life had been one headlong flight; but like a wild thing in a wheel, he had never really escaped anything and never really would—and like that same wild thing, he would die running blind and running scared without ever having stopped running for even a little while ...

Fourteen

Di Parma raised his arm and fired a third shot from the reloaded .38, but Lennox and the girl had vanished into the jagged mosaic of rocks. Vollyer yelled at him, “Save your ammunition! Think, Livio, think!”

He was a few steps ahead and to one side of Di Parma as they passed the damaged Triumph and plunged into the rocks. In his right hand was the other belly gun; the Remington was tucked into the waistband of his trousers now. It was only a two-shot, and the rest of the ammunition he had brought for it was in the case under the Buick’s front seat.

Pinnacles and arches and knobs jutted up from the sandy earth on all sides of them, and there were sharp-thorned cacti and thick growths of mesquite. They fanned out, probing the terrain with slitted eyes, but there were a thousand hiding places here, a thousand barriers to camouflage flight. They saw nothing. There were small sounds—shoes scraping stone, a muffled cry—but when they pursued they found nothing.