The Olds ahead was still being driven at headlong speed. They had come over the rim of the plateau and saw the city stretched out below them. As they dropped, Rubino began closing the gap.
“I’ll tell you something. It is supposed that no one was with him in the plane when it crashed except the personal pilot, who is now in the hospital with a cracked skull and can say nothing. But I think Dante was with him. Before the police arrived she had enough time to dismount and disappear. I have a private piece of information that a woman walked rapidly away from the wreck, not his wife. I’ve wondered what I could do with this information. Probably nothing.”
When the Olds came up onto the city freeway he closed with it and hung just behind as it whirled across town in the high-speed lane.
“The autopista,” he said. “To the airport. Mr. Shayne, this presents a problem.”
The Olds leaned into the cloverleaf, taking the curve too fast. Rocking, it drifted off on the outside shoulder, swerved and recovered. Rubino dropped further behind as soon as the other car committed itself to the northbound lanes.
“Because at the airport,” he went on, entering the cloverleaf, “there will be police. I wish there was time to change cars. They know by now to look for the Jaguar.”
“Keep thinking about it. If they arrest us, there won’t be any more hundred dollar bills. What else can you tell me about this woman? Was she mixed up in politics?”
“Not at all.”
After another moment, watching Rubino carefully, Shayne remarked, “Mejia thinks there’s a sizeable chunk of money floating around.”
He saw Rubino’s grip on the wheel tighten. “This is not, as I told you,” Rubino said softly, “much of a spiritual city. Ninety-nine percent of Caracans are daydreaming about that subject.”
“Including you?”
Rubino laughed again. “Why else are we following?”
“Do you think you have a chance at it?”
“By myself, no. I am too small. But together with you, there are attractive possibilities.”
“This Lenore Dante must know something about it.”
Rubino laughed again. “Why else are we following her? Mr. Shayne, I am sure she knows a great deal about it. That relationship, on Alvares’ side, was becoming always more scandalous, more intense. She would figure in his future plans. And now what do you think? Should we overtake her here in the open countryside or find out first if she is meeting someone?”
“You decide.”
Rubino considered, squinting into the glare. He pursed up his lips.
“I think that first we establish if she turns to the airport. Then we can come up alongside and force her to pull over. We should seem cruel and merciless. I will conceal my ordinarily sunny nature. She was frightened leaving the Senora’s farm, we will frighten her more. If she decides to collaborate, to tell us all she knows about the bombing, about the money-fine. If not we will take physical possession and look for buyers. I think she will be in demand. We can be an excellent partnership. I with my knowledge of the Venezuelan mentality, you with your Embassy connection, the excuse of being interested only in getting Mr. Rourke out of prison-”
He broke off suddenly. “There are binoculars in the compartment. Look at that turning red light. A police car?”
Shayne found the binoculars. Bracing himself with his elbows against the dashboard, he moved the focusing knob and picked up a revolving beacon on the roof of a black sedan parked at the mouth of an exit ramp.
“Yeah, it looks like it.”
“At the airport exit,” Rubino said. “Damnation. They will be watching for Jaguars, certainly. If we had taken the trouble to borrow an anonymous car.”
He shifted down, rattling his fingers against the steering wheel. Shayne watched the car they were following. Its brakelights came on for the exit, but it passed the police beacon and continued another hundred feet to the next ramp.
“Going east!” Rubino said, his voice tight. “To a boat. But there is a roundabout way.”
He signaled for a turn, climbed the divider and headed back toward Caracas. Shayne said nothing. Rubino pushed the Jaguar hard, getting the maximum speed out of each gear. He darted down into the next exit.
“Hold on with both hands,” he advised. “This is shorter, more primitive. From an older century.”
The concrete ramp spewed them onto a narrow two-lane road, unpaved and rutted.
“Now you will meet Venezuela,” he shouted happily, “and if the axles hold-”
He hit a pothole and the rest of the sentence was jolted away. He stayed in third, avoiding the worst irregularities with subtle changes in speed and direction.
“Can you see the car?” he demanded.
The road here was depressed between high banks. Until it turned and dived downward, Shayne was unable to see the ocean. He located the coastal road, which hugged the shore in places but most of the time ran inland through dense undergrowth.
“Mr. Shayne,” Rubino said urgently, “do you have a gun?”
Shayne pulled his bag over from the back seat and took out his. 38. Rubino snapped the catches holding the top in place and let it fly up and back.
“At the next bend. Show them the gun and fire once.”
Shayne still had seen nothing that required a gun. Rubino threw the wheel over and started into another long downward curve. The curve tightened. The road doubled back on itself and they went into their own dust cloud. At the bottom of the loop, an old flat-bed truck was parked so that it nearly blocked both lanes. There was a man on the runningboard with a rifle, two bandoliers of ammunition crossing his chest. In the shadow cast by his wide hat brim, he was faceless.
Shayne pulled himself up and brought the pistol to bear. The Jaguar fishtailed in the loose dirt.
The man on the truck watched without shifting the rifle. Shayne fired, and he dived out of sight. The Jaguar swerved while Rubino sawed at the wheel. For a moment they headed straight down the mountain. The rear wheels rode out of the rut. Rubino pulled the wheel sharply to the left, missed the edge by an eyelash and came back around the truck into the road. Shayne fired again, at the truck’s tire, but the bullet went into the dirt.
He sat down and refastened his seatbelt.
Rubino was very excited. “How they would love to get hold of this car. It would make their fortunes.”
The road’s surface improved as they came out on the flat. He stayed in third, watching carefully to avoid the frequent holes.
“I fear we are still bouncing too badly for binoculars.”
He glanced behind, then skidded to a stop and took the binoculars out of Shayne’s hands. He began panning from left to right, looking for the green Olds.
“Yes,” he said. “I was right. She is going to Macuto. She can charter a boat there. Do you see her at the end of the long cove? Keep your eye on her, please, while I pay attention to this wretched imitation of a road.”
Part of the next section had washed badly, and he slowed to a crawl. Shayne lost the Olds briefly, picking it up again as the road improved. Then all at once they were rolling on blacktop. It was pocked and broken, but a big change after the difficulties of the last few miles.
Seeing the main road ahead, Rubino slid to a stop.
“We are here first,” he announced. “Now we spring out at her as she comes past and give her a small heart attack, perhaps. She thinks she is almost safe.” He peered down the winding road. “She will appear in one moment.”
But he became impatient quickly. “There are so many places for boats! If she had one waiting, in two seconds she could lose herself on the Caribbean. And that would be too bad, after all the time we have invested. I think we should go meet her.”
When Shayne didn’t disagree, he turned out on the shore road in the direction of the airport. There was little traffic, an occasional truck, one or two small European cars. A distant tanker, a smudge on the blue water, headed west toward Maracaibo.