He checked the mirror again, and the lights of the Chevy Suburban were still behind him, although further away now. Nobody in their right mind would have taken a curve at that speed on purpose.
‘Listen,’ said Ed, as he piloted the Lincoln down a fast slalom of alternating bends, ‘They’re chasing us, they’re shooting at us, and you don’t think you really have to shoot back?’
‘I want Peter Kaiser alive,’ said Della. ‘He’s going to be a material witness to this fraud, and he’s more susceptible to legal pressure than Shearson Jones.’
In the back of the car, lolling from side to side as the Lincoln howled around curve after curve, Shearson Jones said, ‘So that’s who you are, my gingery angel. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, incarnate. No wonder they gave me such a cock-and-bull story about you when I asked them to check you out.’
Della twisted around in her seat. With her loosely-tied emerald-green bathrobe and her upraised pump-gun, she looked like some kind of comic-strip Dragon Lady, all silk and cleavage and sawn-off rifle. As he glanced across at her, it occurred to Ed, noi for the first time that night, that she must be naked under that wrap.
‘You know something,’ he said, as he spun the Lincoln through a steep-sloping S-bend, ‘this must be the craziest night of my life.’
‘You’re wrong,’ breathed Shearson, leaning forward and resting his arms on the back of Ed’s seat. ‘Last night was the craziest night of your life. The night you announced to 250 million Americans that they were probably facing imminent starvation. That was the craziest night of your life.’
Ed said nothing. He still hadn’t mentally got to grips with what had happened last night, and right now, pushing this 7-litre Lincoln down a tortuous mountain road, he didn’t have the time to. He flicked his eyes across to the mirror again, and the Chevy’s headlights were still there, still dancing and jiggling close behind him, occasionally obscured by the flapping lid of the Lincoln’s trunk.
They flashed past a sign, and Della said, ‘Fall River, two miles. We’ve almost made it.’
Shearson said, ‘I’ll have your scalps for this. I hope you understand that. You, Hardesty; and you, my dear; and that pontificating Charles Kurnik at the FBI. Three scalps, to add to my collection.’
‘Shut up, senator,’ said Ed, and at the same moment one of the Lincoln’s front tyres burst. There was a loud, flabby report, followed by the slap-slap-slap of tom rubber on the road, and then the huge limousine was swerving and sliding from side to side, with Ed spinning the steering-wheel in a desperate struggle to keep the car out of the trees.
‘Hold it!’ shrieked Shearson, in an unnaturally feminine voice. ‘For God’s sake, hold it!’
The Lincoln’s trunk swung around to the left, and sideswiped the trunk of a roadside pine. Then the car screeched around in the opposite direction, its front wheels banging and shuddering over a line of rocks. Ed, gripping the wheel, saw trees, darkness, sky, and more trees, and then his whole world tilted sideways and he was hit on the bridge of the nose by something as hard as an iron bar.
A whole minute of silence passed by. Ed raised his head. His nose felt as if it had swollen three times its normal size. He looked painfully around him and saw that the limousine had dropped down an eighty foot slope, and was now resting at an angle of forty five degrees in a narrow rock-strewn gully. There was no sound but the ticking of the engine as it slowly cooled down, and the whistling of black-capped chickadees in the trees.
Beside him, Della was holding her head in her hands. The pump-gun had dropped to the floor. In back, Senator Jones suddenly started moaning, and saying, ‘My finger. God damn it, I’ve broken my finger.’
Ed said, ‘Della, are you okay?’
Della nodded dumbly. Ed turned to Senator Jones and asked, ‘Is it just your finger? Nothing else broken?’
‘Isn’t a finger enough?’ snarled Shearson.
Behind them, up on the road, the Chevy’s lights had stopped. Ed picked up the rifle, and tried to open his door. The impact of the crash had wedged it back in its frame, so he had to kick it twice with his heels before it would budge, then he climbed out into the sharp early-morning air.
Peter Kaiser and Muldoon were already on their way down the slope. It was still too dark to see clearly, but Ed caught the glint of Muldoon’s nickel-plated automatic as he came down through the trees.
‘I don’t know why you don’t give up now,’ said Shearson, from the back of the car. ‘You don’t stand a chance in hell.’
‘Just shut up,’ said Ed, and crouched his way along the length of the Lincoln’s fender. Then he lay down on the ground, on a slope of pine needles and pine cones, and positioned himself so that he could take a shot at Peter Kaiser or Muldoon as soon as they were in range.
Della slipped out of the driver’s door behind him, and wriggled her way up close.
‘Whatever you do, don’t hurt Peter Kaiser,’ she said. ‘He’s going to be a number-one plea-bargaining witness. Especially when we put some pressure on his mother.’
‘I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep us alive,’ said Ed.
Soon, Peter Kaiser and Muldoon were less than twenty feet away, and their faces were clearly visible against the black shadows of the pines. This is going to be like shooting coconuts at a fair, thought Ed, as he squinted along the rifle. The front Sight of the pump-gun appeared as a dark notch in Muldoon’s pale head.
‘Senator Jones? Are you there?’ called Peter, anxiously.
They could hear the car’s suspension squeak as Shearson moved his bulk towards the opposite window.
‘I’m all right,’ Shearson called out, hoarsely. ‘I’ve broken my damned finger, but that’s all. It’s Hardesty you’ve got to watch out for. He’s around the car somewhere, with the girl.’
There was a pause, and then Peter shouted, ‘Hardesty? You there?’
Ed looked around at Della, but Della shook her head. Don’t answer, not yet. See what they have to offer first.
‘If you can hear me, Hardesty, you’d better listen good,’ said Peter. ‘You’re guilty so far tonight of burglary, theft, criminal damage, kidnapping, and homicide. You hear that? Calvin Muldoon is dead, and you shot him. You’re holding a US senator against his will. You’re in a pretty sticky position, Hardesty, and you’d better understand it’
‘Why haven’t you called the police?’ Ed shouted back, before Della could stop him. He could see Muldoon quickly jerk his head around to see if he could make out where the voice was coming from.
Peter Kaiser took a couple of steps closer. ‘I haven’t called the police because the police are too busy with all the rioting and the looting you started off with that broadcast of yours. Apart from that, you’ve ransacked some pretty sensitive papers there. I wouldn’t like them to get into the hands of somebody who might misinterpret them.’
‘So what’s your offer?’ asked Ed. ‘You want to make a deal?’
‘The offer’s simple. I’ll let you out of here alive, as long as you let Senator Jones go free, and as long as you never mention anything about the Blight Crisis Appeal again.’
‘One more thing,’ said Ed.
‘What’s that?’
‘You take the tail off of my wife and my daughter. Because I warn you, if anything happens to them. I’ll hunt you down and take your head off.’
‘That’s all right,’ Peter nodded. ‘I can agree to that. Now, do you want to come out, with your hands where we can see them?’
Ed turned to Della again. “What do you think?’ he asked her.