“Yes, Your Majesty,” Boyd said. “That’s the word.” His tone was awed and respectful, and the little old lady gave a nod and became Queen Elizabeth I once more.
“Well,” she said, “the dealer and Mr. Elliott were in cahoots, and the dealer wanted to give the hand to Mr. Elliott. But he made a mistake, and dealt the Jack of clubs to me. I watched him, and, of course, I knew what he was thinking. The rest was easy.”
“My God,” Malone said. “Easy.”
Barbara said: “Did she win?”
“She won,” Malone said with what he felt was positively magnificent understatement.
“Good,” Barbara said, and lost interest at once.
Malone had seen the lights of a car in the rear-view mirror a few minutes before. When he looked now, the lights were still there — but the fact just didn’t register until, a couple of blocks later, the car began to pull around them on the left. It was a Buick, while Boyd’s was a new Lincoln, but the edge wasn’t too apparent yet.
Malone spotted the gun barrel protruding from the Buick and yelled just before the first shot went off.
Boyd, at the wheel, didn’t even bother to look. His reflexes took over and he slammed his foot down on the brake. The specially-built FBI Lincoln slowed down instantly. The shotgun blast splattered the glass of the curved windshield all over — but none of it came into the car itself.
Malone already had his hand on the butt of the .44 Magnum under his left armpit, and he even had time to be grateful, for once, that it wasn’t a smallsword. The women were in the back seat, frozen, and he yelled: “Duck, damn it, duck!” and felt, rather than saw, both of them sink down onto the floor of the car.
The Buick had slowed down, too, and the gun barrel was swivelling back for a second shot. Malone felt naked and unprotected. The Buick and the Lincoln were even on the road now.
Malone had his revolver out. He fired the first shot without even realizing fully that he’d done so, and he heard a piercing scream from Barbara in the back seat. He had no time to look back.
A .44 Maguum is not, by any means, a small gun. As handguns go — revolvers and automatics — it is about as large as a gun can get to be. An ordinary car has absolutely no chance against it.
Much less the glass in an ordinary car.
The first slug drilled its way through the window glass as though it were not there, and slammed its way through an even more unprotected obstacle, the frontal bones of the triggerman’s skull. The second slug from Malone’s gun followed it right away, and missed the hole the first slug had made by something less than an inch.
The big, apelike thug who was holding the shotgun had a chance to pull the trigger once more, but he wasn’t aiming very well. The blast merely scored the paint off the top of the Lincoln.
The rear window of the Buick was open, and Malone caught sight of another glint of blued steel from the corner of his eye. There was no time to shift aim — not with bullets flying like swallows on the way to Capistrano. Malone thought faster than he had imagined himself capable of doing, and decided to aim for the driver.
Evidently the man in the rear seat of the Buick had had the same inspiration. Malone blasted two more high-velocity lead slugs at the driver of the big Buick, and at the same time the man in the Buick’s rear seat fired at Boyd.
But Boyd had shifted tactics. He’d hit the brakes. Now he came down hard on the accelerator instead.
The chorus of shrieks from tne Lincoln’s back seat increased slightly in volume. Barbara, Malone knew, wasn’t badly hurt; she hadn’t even stopped for breath since the first shot had been fired. Anybody who could scream like that, he told himself, had to be healthy.
As the Lincoln leaped ahead, Malone pulled the trigger of his .44 twice more. The heavy, high-speed chunks of streamlined copper-coated lead leaped from the muzzle of the gun and slammed into the driver of the Buick without wasting any time. The Buick slewed across the highway.
The two shots fired by the man in the back seat went past Malone’s head with a whizz, missing both him and Boyd by a margin too narrow to think about.
But those were the last shots. The only difference between the FBI and the Enemy seemed to be determination and practice.
The Buick spun into a flat sideskid, swivelled on its wheels and slammed into the ditch at the side of the road, turning over and over, making a horrible noise, as it broke up.
Boyd slowed the car again, just as there was a sudden blast of fire. The Buick had burst into flame and was spitting heat and smoke and fire in all directions. Malone sent one more bullet after it in a last flurry of action — saving his last one for possible later emergencies.
Boyd jammed on the brakes and the Lincoln came to a screaming halt. In silence he and Malone watched the burning Buick roll over and over into the desert beyond the shoulder.
“My God,” Boyd said. “My ears!”
Malone understood at once. The blast from his own still-smoking .44 had roared past Boyd’s head during the gun battle. No wonder the man’s ears hurt. It was a wonder he wasn’t altogether deaf.
But Boyd shook off the pain and brought out his own .44 as he stepped out of the car. Malone followed him, his gun trained.
From the rear, Her Majesty said: “It’s safe to rise now, isn’t it?”
“You ought to know,” Malone said. “You can tell if they’re still alive.”
There was silence while Queen Elizabeth frowned for a moment in concentration. A look of pain crossed her face, and then, as her expression smoothed again, she said: “The traitors are dead. All except one, and he’s—” She paused. “He’s dying,” she finished. “He can’t hurt you.”
There was no need for further battle. Malone reholstered his .44 and turned to Boyd. “Tom, call the State Police,” he said. “Get ’em down here fast.”
He waited while Boyd climbed back under the wheel and began punching buttons on the dashboard. Then Malone went toward the burning Buick.
He tried to drag the men out, but it wasn’t any use. The first two, in the front seat, had the kind of holes in them people talked about throwing elephants through. Head and chest had been hit.
Malone couldn’t get close enough to the fiercely blazing automobile to make even a try for the men in the back seat.
He was sitting quietly on the edge of the rear seat when the Nevada Highway Patrol cars drove up next to them. Barbara Wilson had stopped screaming, but she was still sobbing on Malone’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” he told her, feeling ineffectual.
“I never saw anybody killed before,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Malone said. “Nothing’s going to hurt you. I’ll protect you.”
He wondered if he meant it, and found, to his surprise, that he did. Barbara Wilson sniffled and looked up at him. “Mr. Malone—”
“Ken,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Ken — I’m so afraid. I saw the hole in one of the men’s heads, when you fired — it was—”
“Don’t think about it,” Malone said. To him, the job had been an unpleasant occurrence, but a job, that was all. He could see, though, how it might affect people who were new to it.
“You’re so brave,” she said.
Malone tightened his arm around the girl’s shoulder. “Just depend on me,” he said. “You’ll be all right if you—”
The State Trooper walked up then, and looked at them. “Mr. Malone?” he said. He seemed to be taken slightly aback at the costuming.
“That’s right,” Malone said. He pulled out his ID card and the little golden badge. The State Patrolman looked at them, and looked back at Malone.
“What’s with the getup?” he said.
“FBI,” Malone said, hoping his voice carried conviction. “Official business.”