The rear window was shallow and the glass was darkened so I couldn't see the people inside. Mental note: If it came to a showdown the Person, would normally be relied on to pile in with a will, but he was probably being kept under mild sedation for that reason and would have to be counted out.
It was bound to be awkward when the time came to get him out of the Shadow because at the last minute Kuo would throw the ace and use his prisoner as a hostage for his own protection. It might even be his plan to get through the Nontaburi roadblock on those terms. With one small-caliber pistol held – and seen to be held -at the Person's head they could pass right through the thick of a machine-gun battery and dare the first man to shoot.
The only thing against that plan was that if Kuo shot his prisoner it would be his own suicide and he would die with his limbs torn off.
But I didn't like it and part of the sweat that was gathering on the rim of the wheel was because of these considerations. It was no ordinary' prisoner riding in state out there ahead of me behind the dark-glass window, and to free him would be as chancy as picking the detonator out of a delayed action bomb.
The traffic grew less thick as we cleared the suburbs because only those people with urgent business outside the city were prepared to suffer the delay in being cleared at the roadblock north. The police patrols were less in evidence too: the sections between the city limits and the Nontaburi block had become a deserted no-man's-land.
Situation at the end of the first half hour: speed now a little lighter, direction north along Route 5, almost no other traffic, sun lowering in the west to five or six diameters above the rice-field horizon. E-type: all readings normal, tank three-quarters full. Distance from Shadow three hundred yards.
A single knock vibrated through the bodywork and a chip of paint flew up into the, slip stream from the nearside front wing and the shape in the mirror was identifiable as it closed up very fast and sat there at fifty feet. Honda.
The light was difficult because of windshield reflection, but a compilation of sightings gave me a solid image. Only one man in the Honda. Kuo.
Very sharp sound above my head to the left as the second shot pierced the hardtop twice and traveled on, leaving a hole an inch above the windshield. I whipped down to third, second, foot on the floor, rear wheels power-spinning a fraction as I closed hard on the Rolls-Royce and evened off at thirty feet. Kuo would have to be more careful now to avoid hitting anyone in the leading car. He wanted to get his prisoner to the exchange point alive.
I slid the driving seat back a notch and my buttocks forward to bring my head low, sighting through the top arc of the wheel. The situation was bad now and I let myself admit it so that fear could alert the brain to survival pitch. There was no point in overtaking the Shadow: it would expose me to a battery of five or six guns. I had to stay where I was, within fifty yards' easy range of a top-flight professional marksman whose intention was to kill.
He was having to fire without sighting; in the mirror I saw his hand at the side of the windshield with the gun steadied against the pillar. He had fired a third time when I had reached up to tilt the mirror to suit my new position, but a bump in the road sent the shot wide. That was all right: he had time and he would have enough ammunition. He had seen the E-type somewhere along Plern Chit when I'd begun the tag and he had done as I had done, keeping two or three cars, between us and waiting until he could close up on me out here in no-man's-land, where there were no more police patrols. He had moved in for the kill as a shark moves in when it is satisfied that there is no danger to be expected from the prey.
The rear window went snowy, and the bullet came on with force enough to shatter the windshield and I had to punch a hole through the opaque fragmentation so that I could see. The wind pressure took the rest of it away and the small hailstorm struck my face and left me driving blind for some seconds. Then the rear window blew out to the air-rush and I could see the Honda again, filling the mirror. He had closed up.
I didn't shift down for motor assist because the exhaust note would warn him; I just hit the brakes for maximum drag a degree below locking point so that a skid wouldn't carry me on. The mirror went dark as the Honda came piling against the back of the E-type and his tires howled as he used the brakes too late and smashed into me so hard that I was worried about the fuel tank. Then he was smaller again in the mirror, rocking badly and then straightening and coming on, taking up his position again. No go.
There was nothing else I could do now. He would be ready the next time if I tried it again. I was inside a trap and moving with it at an easy forty-five miles per hour and there was no way out. A pale blur showed permanently in the darkened rear glass of the Shadow; they understood the situation and they were observing it closely. Even if the shunt-trick had sent the Honda into an uncontrollable series of skids and turned it over it wouldn't have done much good because they would have pulled up and forced me to stop and they would have got out of the Shadow with their guns raking me in a crossfire. I had tried it only because Kuo might have been smashed up as the Honda overturned and it would have evened the score a bit before they finished me.
They weren't firing back at me from the Shadow because they could be certain of a killing hit and Kuo might not be ready when I smashed. They didn't want to involve him in a pile-up. In addition they knew they could rely on him to make the kill, and when he made it he would be ready to avoid the mess. They were working as a perfectly disciplined cell controlled by a professional of talent; only men like these could take possession of a man so great in rank that the free world flinched as it watched for the headlines in a score of languages.
There was no chance now for me to save him or to prevent the exchange. Action by the armed forces manning the roadblock ahead of us might do it, though Kuo must have planned a foolproof operation for getting through Nontaburi or there would have been no point in his making the breakout from Bangkok.
A sudden rattle of shots sounded from somewhere aft: he had changed to a bigger-caliber arm and was going for the tires.
The sun was one diameter above the horizon and the sky was a sheet of amethyst and very beautiful. Herons flew up from the flatlands, startled by the crack of the gun.
The big Shadow rode rock-steady along the perspective of the road. The air rushed against my face. The shape of the Honda sat squatly in the mirror. Numbness was coming into my body, into my brain. It would happen soon. So be it.
Sooner even than I had thought. In the mirror the gun flashed again and the sharp crack was echoed as a rear tire burst, and already I was fighting instinctively to keep on a straight course as the whole tire broke up and jammed the wheel rim and sent the E-type slewing badly without any hope of correction because the rim was plowing into the tarmacadam. No response from the steering: she ran on at an angle and set her own course.
The Honda was suddenly smaller in the mirror: he was slowing to avoid the wreck when I smashed. The terrain to the right of the road was stony – a few small rocks and some timber and then a drop to the rice-fields. I tried for the last time to correct the course but it was no go so I cut the ignition and snapped the doorlock home and waited with my knees bent double and my feet braced against the fascia board.
She hit the first rock and shuddered, and hit the next and flicked over and there was thunderous sound as the first roll slung her against a timber pile. A lot of sound, a lot of pain, vision disorientated, partial blackout as the blood was piled to one side of the brain by centrifugal force, my voice shouting something against the shriek of metal on stone, then it was over and the world grew still.