He nodded. I gunned the bike and roared away, up the narrow road after Jupiter.
There was a pair of goggles on the handlebars and I put them on, swinging around a shrub-lined curve. I didn't bother to keep to the left but used the whole road. I had to catch Jupiter and I knew he was pushing his bike to the limit.
It was dark now, and I switched on the lights. There was no one ahead of me. Suddenly, a pair of headlights appeared in my rear-view mirror. They swiftly loomed larger, then an MG sedan drew up to me. Behind the driver's seat was Heather. She must have commandeered the car after seeing to the wounded pilot.
I accelerated, trying to keep up with her, but her machine was too powerful for my Ariel. Then, somewhere in the distance I heard the tortured squeal of brakes and a sickening crash. A lump caught in my throat. The crash was too loud for a motorcycle. It had to have been Heather.
I passed her overturned MG up the road just past a curve. It was wrapped halfway around a tree. The wheels were still spinning eerily. I slowed, determined that no one could have survived that crash. Heather, in her less maneuverable vehicle, must have attempted to take the curve at the same speed Jupiter had. Only she hadn't made it.
Blind hatred caused the blood to pound in my ears. Until now, Jupiter had been just another opponent. Now he was something more: Heather's murderer.
I drove for several miles, watching the side road. Just when I was sure Jupiter had given me the slip, I rounded a curve and there he was, not two hundred yards ahead of me. He was running without lights.
He turned and saw me coming up on him. His speed increased somewhat but I was still closing in. He disappeared around a curve and I lost him for several minutes in a series of blind turns. On the next straightaway I found him again, only a hundred yards ahead. He turned and fired wildly at me twice. It was ridiculous at that speed and in the dark. I had closed to fifty yards now.
Suddenly, Jupiter turned into a dirt road to the left, kicking up a long cloud of dust in the darkness. I managed to stop the Ariel just in time, skidding its rear end around as I roared down the road after Jupiter.
A half mile and we crossed a small arched wooden bridge. Our momentum lifted the bikes into the air on the far side of the bridge and dropped us back down hard. Jupiter almost lost control when he hit, his bike weaving wildly. The Ariel was heavier and I held it better. A couple of hundred yards later, we crossed the same stream by a natural ford, splashing through the shallow water and sending it up in sheets on both sides of the bikes. There was a steep hill-climb on the far side of soft sand. My Ariel squirmed around in the soft stuff for a moment, then broke free.
On the other side of the hill, Jupiter made a sharp left turn and headed out into open country. I followed, hoping the Ariel wasn't too big for the job. Jupiter gained some ground on me over the next couple of miles, bumping wildly over hillocks, into ruts and dodging small trees. Then we topped a low rise and suddenly I knew where we were. Before us on a flat plain, only a few hundred yards away, stood an eerie circle of towering flat stones, dark and massive against the lighter sky. We were riding toward the ancient archaeological site of Stonehenge, either by accident or by Jupiter's design.
Whichever it was, it was clear that Jupiter intended to make his stand here. He had already reached the spot and as I closed the distance to a hundred yards, he dismounted and let his cycle drop. Then he moved quickly toward the ancient ceremonial ruin.
I stopped my cycle and turned the engine off. I got off and stood facing the forbidding ruin warily. Stonehenge was an ancient pre-Druid temple, erected for worship of the sun and moon, geared in its design to measure the movements of the heavenly bodies. What was left of it was actually a circle of massive cut stones set inside a circle of similar stones, plus a few outlying markers. Some of the stones were in pairs with a third lying across the tops to form a primitive arch or lintel. The sun and moon rose and set through those arches on particular days of the year converting the temple into a gigantic sidereal clock. But none of that interested me at the moment because there was a madman hidden here now, intent on killing me.
I moved slowly toward that ring of giant stones, watching the shadows. The sky was clear but the moon was not up yet so there was little light. The night was completely silent.
I moved to an isolated stone and stopped, searching the darkness. Then Jupiter's voice came from somewhere in the shadows, ahead of me.
"Now, Mr. Carter, you're playing on my home court," he said. "Being an American, I suppose you're not overly familiar with Stonehenge. You're standing by the ancient Slaughter Stone. Isn't that appropriate?" A shot whined off the rock inches from my head.
I ducked down and saw Jupiter's figure leave the cover of a massive stone and run to another. I fired twice and hit nothing. I moved to another set of stone and stopped to listen. I heard Jupiter's unnerving, quiet laughter:
"It's a fascinating place, Mr. Carter. Did you know, for instance, that it's just thirteen steps between the trilithons on this side of the circle?" The shadow moved again and Jupiter took running steps to the next bulky silhouette. Again I fired after him and again I missed. The light simply wasn't good enough.
"It also might interest you," Jupiter's tight, high voice came again, "that the angle formed by the Altar Stone here, the trilithon beside you, and the distant Heel Stone is forty-five degrees and that you're in line with the Heel Stone." Another shot; the slug tore past my left shoulder.
I ducked and swore. I was beginning to understand why Jupiter had chosen the place to make his stand. Here he could not only kill me but also enjoy the formalities of the execution. I moved quickly to another large stone, out of his range of fire. He already had me on the defensive.
"I'm maneuvering you, Mr. Carter," he called out "How does it feel to be the mouse for a change instead of the cat?"
The Browning automatic fired again. I jerked back and ran for what appeared to be a safe location. Suddenly shadows began changing and a growing light brightened the ground. At that moment, Jupiter called out from cover nearby:
"Excellent, Mr. Carter! You're just where I want you. The great clock is working against you behind your back."
I glanced behind me and saw what he meant. I was standing under the arch of the famous Moonrise Trilithon which was at right angles to the Heel Stone. Jupiter had manipulated me, all right. A full moon was rising behind me, the brilliant light made me a perfect target.
I turned back to Jupiter — too late. He was standing out in the open, his Browning aimed at my chest.
"Goodbye, Mr. Carter!"
He was taking time with the final stages of the execution. He sighted along the barrel and slowly tightened his trigger finger. I closed my eyes, and a shot reverberated in the night. But I wasn't hit. I opened my eyes. Standing next to a stone pillar, her Sterling PPL in her hand, was Heather. She had escaped the crash alive, and it was her shot I had heard.
Jupiter cursed loudly, swung the Browning in her direction and fired once. But Heather had ducked behind the pillar and the bullet ricochetted harmlessly off the stone. With a lightning movement Jupiter swung the Browning back to me. He pulled the trigger before I could react, but the only sound was a loud click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber. Jupiter had played the cat-and-mouse game too long.
He swore violently and threw the gun to the ground. I aimed the Luger at him as he dived for the ground. My shot dug into the calf of his right leg. But when I tried to fire Wilhelmina again, I discovered that I, too, had run out of ammunition.