"Where the hell are we?" I demanded. "This doesn't even look like Arizona."
"It's the San Raphael Valley," Rhonda answered. "It's usually one of my favorite places, but not right now. How will we ever catch them?"
Her question was answered with terrifying immediacy. Like anxious flight controllers watching the separate blips of planes on a radar screen, our hearts sank as the blips suddenly merged, as the two clouds of dust became one that billowed skyward in an explosive eruption.
"Jesus!" I exclaimed.
"What happened?"
I knew instinctively what had happened although I couldn't have explained how. Thinking the Trooper was his only pursuer, the driver of the Blazer must have rounded a blind corner and then stopped, lying in wait until the Trooper rounded the same corner and then ramming it as it came by.
"Hurry," I commanded. "But don't get too close. Try to stop while we're still out of sight."
Following directions. Rhonda slowed and stopped in the middle of the narrow, rutted road just before the crest of a small hill. We left the Beretta where it was and scurried up the bank, using a small stand of scrub oak for cover. In the basin ahead of us, the smashed Trooper lay on its side with the two upper wheels still spinning, but the attacking Blazer hadn't escaped unscathed.
It stood drunkenly on two flattened tires, steam spilling from a ruined radiator. I wondered hopefully if maybe the driver had been injured, but just then the door swung open and a giant of a man emerged. He opened the back door and reached inside, dragging out something that could have been a helpless kitten for all the ease with which he picked it up and tossed it over his shoulder.
And then he was walking in my direction, striding toward the lifeless Trooper. As he came closer, I realized with a clutch of despair that the limp form slung across his shoulder was the inert body of Michelle Owens. Behind me, I heard Rhonda's quick intake of breath, but I turned and motioned her to silence, because in the crook of his other elbow he carried another death-dealing AK-47.
"Shit!" I whispered.
"What are we going to do?" Rhonda returned.
"He's got another rifle," I told her. "Guy must be injured or unconscious. I'll have to try to get closer, to get within range."
With that I started running through the trees. They were situated beside a small streambed that ran parallel to the road for about a quarter of a mile. I half expected Rhonda to follow, but when she didn't, I could hardly blame her. Why should she put her life on the line?
Monty-that had to be the giant's name-dropped Michelle on the ground and went to the disabled Trooper. He tried the back door, but it was apparently jammed. Next he looked inside. Setting his gun down so it leaned against the roof of the crippled vehicle, he clambered up onto the side. With nothing but his bare hands, he wrenched the door from its hinges. He plunged his arm down into the interior, but whatever he wanted was farther away than his outstretched arm could reach. Shaking his head in disgust, he dropped into the Trooper and momentarily disappeared.
Maybe he went to get the money, I thought, all the while dreading the bark of a gunshot that would tell me he had also had some other, more murderous purpose.
I ran then, straight out, breaking across the open field. The sheltering trees had allowed me to get even with the Trooper and go a little beyond it, so now as I cut back toward the road, I was coming from the south and slightly toward the west, the place from which he was least likely to expect an attack.
Monty and I must have heard the sound of the approaching vehicle at exactly the same time. His head popped out of the top of the Trooper like a gopher peeking out of its hole. He looked back up the road the way he had come. Just as quickly, he disappeared back inside without even glancing in my direction.
I looked to see what was coming and was astonished to see the Beretta hurtling down the rutted road toward the Isuzu. I still wasn't quite within range when he reappeared in the door of the wrecked car. As soon as I saw him the second time, I knew what was in his hand-Guy Owens' cannon-sized Colt. 45.
Cringing, I thought about how a powerful slug from the Colt would slice through the thin metal shell of the Beretta and through the soft flesh of Rhonda Attwood as well.
Monty was leaning on the frame of the Trooper, using it to steady his hand and arm. There's a moral decision to make the first time you fire a weapon at another human being. You make that decision once. That's the hardest. It's never as tough the second time.
He fired and I fired. With a yelp of pain, he jerked back into the Trooper while the. 45 spun away into the dirt.
Mine was a bad shot. A terrible shot. I'd aimed for his heart and hit him in the goddamned arm.
Beyond the Isuzu, the wounded Beretta clanked and clattered as the timing belt broke and the pistons pounded into the valves. Mortally injured, it kept on coming, making no attempt to brake, no attempt to stop even when the seizing motor quit with an explosive bang.
She's dead, I thought wildly. Rhonda's dead! The son of a bitch killed her!
The Beretta, caught in the ruts of the road, waddled on past me like a faltering drunk, then scrapped to a stop against an uphill bank ten yards away.
I ran like a man on fire, ran to the car and ripped open the door, but the car was empty. No one was there. A flat river rock the size of my shoe was duct-taped to the gas pedal.
I'll be damned! I said to myself.
Turning, I looked back up the road. Rhonda Attwood was running toward me, waving my. 38 over her head in triumph. In the other hand she carried Guy Owens' much-used roll of duct tape.
"We got him," she crowed as she came down the hill. "We flat out got him!"
CHAPTER 20
As suddenly as it had come, the triumphant grin on Rhonda's face vanished, displaced by an expression of stunned fear. She stopped, frozen in place like a headlight-blinded deer. I turned and looked in the same direction just in time to catch sight of the briefcase erupting straight up from the hatch-like opening in the side of the disabled Trooper.
The case landed flat in the dirt several feet away, kicking up a small flurry of dust. And behind the briefcase came Monty himself. His one arm hung broken and useless. Still, he dragged himself up and was getting ready to vault out of the vehicle.
"Stop right there," I shouted, raising the semiautomatic. "Freeze!"
He did.
"Hands over your head," I continued.
He turned and regarded me with calculated insolence as if gauging whether or not I'd be tough enough to pull to trigger a second time. I was, but he didn't know that. He had no way of knowing I was a police officer. I had underestimated him, made an almost fatal mistake. It chilled me to think how close he'd come to retrieving his own AK-47. He wouldn't get another opportunity like that, not if I could help it.
"I can't raise my arm," he called back. "I think my arm's broken."
"Get the other one up, then," I said. "Behind your head and keep it there."
While holding the semiautomatic on Monty, I directed Rhonda to bring back both the AK-47 and Guy Owens' Colt. Once she did so, I motioned Monty out of the Isuzu. One-handed and wounded, he still made it out in only one try. That son of a bitch was tougher than nails.
Hurrying over to where Michelle lay motionless on the ground, Rhonda shook the girl and spoke her name, but there was no response. Anxiously, Rhonda looked to me for advice.
"Is she still alive?" I asked.
Rhonda took Michelle's wrist and checked for a pulse. "Passed out, I think. Maybe drugged. What should I do?"
"Leave her for now," I replied.
"Hey, man," Monty interrupted. "How about helping me with my arm before I bleed to death? At least let me sit down."