Part 26 (1/2)

”McKittrick, I need to know about Beth.”

”But you had to interfere. You had to prove how smart you are.”

”Where is she?”

”You wanted all the credit.”

”Why did she run away with you? What have you done with her?”

”Nothing compared to what I'm going to do. And what those men do to you-I hope they make it last a long time.”

”McKittrick!”

”Now who's so d.a.m.ned smart?”

Decker heard a click, dead air, a dial tone. Slowly, in despair, he lowered the telephone.

The gunman kept grinning. ”Before I gave you the phone, your old buddy said to tell you, 'Arrivederci, Roma.' ” He laughed and raised his pistol. ”Where was I? Fifteen seconds? Ten? Oh, to h.e.l.l with it.”

But as the gunman's finger tightened on the trigger, Hal managed sufficient strength to make his move. Despite his wound, he kicked his foot up, deflecting the weapon. The m.u.f.fled report of the pistol sent a bullet bursting through the van's roof.

Decker threw the telephone as hard as he could, striking the gunman between the eyes. At the same time, he lunged for the pistol, knocking the husky man off balance, jolting against the two men who flanked him. In the confinement of the van, bodies slammed against bodies.

”What's going on back there?” The driver looked over his shoulder toward the commotion. The van swerved.

Bodies lurched against one another. Decker kicked one of the gunmen in the groin while he struggled for the husky man's pistol. Immediately someone else was struggling next to him. Hawkins. The marshal struck one of the gunmen in the face and fought to pry his weapon away. In front, the gunman in the pa.s.senger seat started climbing over the low barrier to get to the back. The husky man fired again, another bullet bursting through the roof as Decker shoved and the entire group thrust forward. The press of bodies knocked the gunman in front back into the pa.s.senger seat. The struggling bodies thrust even farther forward, toppling over the barrier, sprawling into the front, squeezing the driver against the steering wheel.

”No!” the driver screamed as the van struck the rear of a pickup truck. He stomped the brake pedal and tried to swing the steering wheel to avoid hitting the truck again, but the weight of several squirming men wedged him against the steering wheel and he didn't have the leverage to turn it. Out of control, the driver could only watch in horror as the van veered into the next lane, broadsided a car, tipped, fell onto its right side, slid forward, grazed another vehicle, and careened violently to the side of the freeway, striking barrels, smas.h.i.+ng through a barrier, shattering the winds.h.i.+eld, walloping to a dizzying, sickening stop.

Decker's breath was knocked out of him. He lay motionless among a jumble of other motionless men, stunned, seeing double for a moment. He wondered why he was blinking up at the van's left side instead of the ceiling, then realized that the van had overturned and the left side was the ceiling. Time seemed to have halted. With a shock, it resumed, fear urging him into action as he smelled gasoline. The fumes were cloyingly thick. My G.o.d, he thought, the gas tank must have ruptured.

He groped to move, pus.h.i.+ng a body off him. Fear propelled him. Headlights gleamed through the broken winds.h.i.+eld. Hal. Have to get Hal out with me. Have to find Hawkins. With a start, he realized that it was Hawkins he had pushed off him and that Hawkins's blank gaze, in tandem with the grotesque position of his head, made it obvious his neck was broken. Hal! Where is- One of the gunman groaned. As Decker searched for Hal, his mind cleared enough for him to understand that the front doors were jammed with bodies and that the van had fallen onto its side door. Amid overpowering gasoline fumes, feeling trapped, Decker prayed that the back doors hadn't been jammed.

Another gunman groaned. One of them weakly raised an arm. Decker groped on his hands and knees toward the back and found himself staring down at Hal, whose mouth- revealed by headlights rus.h.i.+ng past the broken winds.h.i.+eld- was open, trickling blood. His eyes were open also, sightless. But maybe he's just knocked out! Maybe he's not dead! Decker fumbled to try to find a pulse, not succeeding.

With a curse, one of the gunman gained more strength. Simultaneously Decker smelled something else besides gasoline. Smoke. The van was hazy with it, making Decker cough. The van's going to blow up, he realized, and scrambled toward the back doors. His abrupt movement caused the van to tilt toward the rear. Why? What was it resting on? He reached the back doors. Because the van was on its side, the doors were horizontal. Gripping the bottom latch, turning it fiercely, he exhaled in triumph when it moved, grateful that it wasn't jammed. He pushed the bottom door open and squirmed out onto it, again feeling the van tilt. Unexpectedly he slid downward. In a frenzy, he grabbed the edge of the back door just before he would have tumbled toward the headlights of cars speeding below him.

He gasped as he understood that the van must have crashed through barriers on a section of the freeway that was being repaired. That section was on a bridge. The back end of the van projected into s.p.a.ce, delicately balanced on the sideless rim of the bridge. He was dangling over a busy underpa.s.s, oncoming traffic roaring beneath him. If he let go, he would probably break his legs when he hit the highway twenty feet below him. Not that the pain would matter. He would be killed an instant later when a vehicle struck him.

He struggled to pull himself back up, but responding to each of his motions, the van bobbed. It threatened to tilt all the way over and topple with him onto the underpa.s.s, crus.h.i.+ng him. His heart pounded so fast that it made him nauseous. He stopped his frenzied attempt to climb back into the overturned van and instead hung motionless from the horizontal back door, calculating whether he could reach beneath the back of the van and clutch the rim of the bridge, whether he could grope along the bridge until he came to the side. Beneath him, wreckage blocked one of the lanes. Horns blared as the traffic in the blocked lane swerved between vehicles in the open lane. Meanwhile, the van bobbed again as a sound above him made him flinch.

The sound came from labored breathing as someone crawled to the back of the van. The husky man who had interrogated him peered down in stupefaction, his face covered with blood. Obviously disoriented, the man seemed paralyzed by the rush of headlights beneath him. Then the man saw Decker hanging from the open rear door, and his senses returned to him. He pawed at his clothes, evidently looking for his pistol. Realizing he had dropped it, he swung toward the van's interior. Again, the van bobbed.

Whump. A flickering bright light burst into view at the front. Fire! Decker thought. The gasoline had ignited. Any second, the fuel tank would explode. The van would blow apart in flames. The husky man quickly reappeared, pursued by the fire spreading rapidly toward him. In panic, he started to climb out onto the open door, then seemed to realize that the door wouldn't hold both Decker and himself. Screaming, he raised a pistol he had picked up, aiming at Decker.

No choice, Decker thought. He peered down, saw a transport truck pa.s.sing beneath him, released his grip, and plummeted as the gunman shot at him. At the same time, the fuel tank erupted, flames enveloping the gunman. Then all Decker saw was the moving transport truck beneath him. Its driver had been forced to reduce speed as he avoided the wreckage in one lane, squeezing between vehicles in the next lane. With a gasp, Decker struck the sixteen-wheeler's roof and instinctively buckled his knees as he had been taught in jump school. If he hadn't rolled, if he had somehow remained upright, his chest and head would have been whacked against the top of the overpa.s.s. Coming out of his roll, propelled by the force of his fall and the momentum of the truck, Decker slammed his hands against the roof of the truck and clawed to find a seam, a ridge, anything to stop him from sliding. The rumbling darkness of the tunnel contributed to his dizziness. He felt his feet slipping off the back of the truck. Behind him, vaguely, he had the sense of a flaming body that streaked from the bridge and hit the highway, more horns blaring, the crunch of impact. But all he paid attention to was the speed with which his knees, thighs, groin, and chest slid off the back of the transport truck. He pressed his fingers harder against the roof, felt himself about to fly into s.p.a.ce, imagined his impact on the freeway just before the crus.h.i.+ng force with which the vehicle behind him would strike him ... and then he snagged the top edge of the truck's rear door. Immediately his left hand lost its grip. He clung more desperately with his right, again snagged his left hand onto the top edge of the door, banged his knees against the center of the door, and touched the huge latch with the bottom of his left sneaker.

The truck sped from the tunnel. Decker heard an explosive crash behind him. Even without looking back, he knew what had happened. The burning van had cascaded off the bridge and struck the remaining open lane on the freeway. Horns blared. Metal crashed against metal. Gla.s.s shattered.

The truck's speed diminished, its driver veering off the freeway toward a breakdown lane. The side-view mirrors must have shown the driver the flames and explosion on the lane behind him. Now he was pulling over to stop and see what had happened. The more the truck reduced its speed, the better Decker was able to hang on. The moment the truck eased to a halt, Decker released his grip and dropped to the gravel at the side of the freeway. He vaulted the freeway's guardrail and disappeared into the darkness near a used-car lot before the driver walked to the rear of the truck and stared back toward the inferno.

5.

”I'll pay you to drive me to Santa Fe.”

Decker was outside a convenience store/gas station. Amid the harsh glare of arc lights, he spoke to three street kids who had just returned to their dark-windowed, low-slung bright red Ford, carrying two twelve-packs of beer.

”Man, we're busy,” the first kid said.

”Yeah, we're havin' a party,” the second kid said.

”Yeah, we're drivin' around, havin' a party,” the third kid said.

As one, the three of them snickered.

”You'll be able to have a much better party with the hundred dollars I'm willing to pay for a ride to Santa Fe,” Decker said.

The three kids scowled at him.

”A hundred?” the first kid asked.

”You heard me.”

”It ain't enough,” the second kid said.

”What is enough?”

”Two hundred,” the third kid said.

Again, they all snickered.

”All right,” Decker said.

The three kids scowled harder.