Basil was not yet in sight. We came over the crest again, turning about five thousand in third gear-about fifty m.p.h.-and saw him just approaching the passing place that we'd used to avoid the Morris. I suppose I should have let him reach it, but I remembered a girl who'd died of poison, probably at his orders, and I saw no good reason to be nice to Mr. Basil. Besides, sitting in an open car, a perfect target, I had to keep him too busy to use a gun until we were out of range. He might shoot better than he drove.
I raced him for the white diamond, therefore, taking the revs clear up to six thousand before I grabbed high gear. He wasn't a real driver, as I've said. He couldn't see that if he slowed down, he was lost. He had to reach the wide place first, if he wanted to avoid a real sudden-death showdown, but still he tried to hedge his bets and make the crash a little less terrifying if it should come.
"Chicken!" I heard myself shout like a crazy kid. "Get off my road, chicken!"
I was aware of Vadya glancing at me, presumably contemptuous of this childishness. Basil couldn't hear me, of course, but he eased off irresolutely nevertheless; and the passing place flashed by us. He'd lost the race, and now the red Spitfire was hurtling at him downhill at seventy-five, crowding eighty, wide open, and there was no room for him to dodge on that one-track road, and nothing left for him to do but ditch or die. He ditched.
I had a glimpse of the Austin going over the edge as we roared past. I drew a long breath and carefully let the roadster slow down, and I looked at the steering wheel to see if I'd actually squeezed finger marks in the hard plastic. I hadn't.
I said, "Some bottle, with a coward for a cork. Did he crack up hard, I hope?"
Vadya said calmly, "Unfortunately, not too hard. He was not going very fast. The car bounced a couple of times and hit a big stone and fell over on its side. I think it is seriously damaged. But he was getting out when we turned the corner." She glanced at me. "What would you have done if he had not got out of our way, Matthew?"
"Hit him head on," I said, "and he knew it."
We drove in silence for a little, and then she said softly, "You are a surprising man in many ways, darling. Or are you just a reckless boy? And do you not care at all whether you live or die?"
I said, "Hell, everything indicated that he'd weaken if I came at him hard enough. Look at his record. The only real risk was that he might panic completely and freeze at the controls. I wouldn't have tried it on you. You're too stubborn. You'd have hung on and got us all killed, out of pure meanness."
She laughed, and pulled her scarf off her hair, and used it to pat her forehead. "I do not know, darling. I am not so sure. You were bluffing in London, but you were not bluffing here." She sighed. "Well, what do we do now?"
I shook my head ruefully. "That wasn't much of a trap. I couldn't let them get away with it. Madame Ling either has a very low opinion of me, or she was testing me to see if, perhaps, I really wanted to get caught. It looks as if you're going to have to call that emergency number. Bawl her out. Tell her I don't really suspect anything yet, but she'd better make her next setup good." I looked around, seeing no landmarks, nothing but rocky hills, and a few sheep. The sheep over here had white faces, I noticed. They didn't have the sturdy, independent, go-to-hell look of the black-faced ones. I said, "Well, we'd better hunt up a phone. I don't see any booths around here."
Vadya had the map out. "Kinnochrue should be the closest place from which to call. There's another road we can use. Turn left up ahead."
I followed her directions mechanically. I was feeling a little drained, I guess, as the adrenaline wore off; you get yourself all keyed up to put your life on the line and there's bound to be a reaction afterwards. Presently I found myself negotiating a small dirt road on which the Spitfire scraped bottom no matter how hard I tried to maneuver around the high spots. It got progressively worse. At last I pulled off to the side and turned off the engine.
"As a navigator," I said, "you make a swell secret agent. Let me see that map. Where the hell are we? I mean, where the hell do you think we are?"
She put her finger on the map. "I think we are here, darling."
"Nuts," I said. 'We haven't crossed the main highway, have we? I'd have noticed that."
I got out to stretch and spread the map on the hood of the car-the bonnet, in the local parlance. There was a rustling of waxed paper in the car; I looked up to see Vadya munching a sandwich.
"Want one?" she asked.
"No, but I could use a cup of coffee."
She brought it to me, and reached up to pat my cheek lightly. "You're a funny man, Matthew. Chicken, you shouted, get out of my road, chicken. Your road! What arrogance!"
I said, rather abashed, "I got a little carried away, I guess. I-" I looked beyond her. "My God, what's that?"
She whirled, putting her hand to her bosom where her little gun, apparently, still reposed. Then she let her hand fall, and we stood looking at the fantastic creature that had appeared on the ridge to the west of the road. It was big as an ox-in fact it was an ox, but like no ox you ever saw. It had long, shaggy, ragged, yellow-orange hair, and great, spreading horns like an old-time trail steer. It looked at us calmly for several seconds before it turned and moved deliberately out of sight.
I glanced at Vadya, and we scrambled up there like two kids at a zoo, rather than two ruthless secret operatives on a mission upon which might depend the fate of the Western world. We stood watching the great beast walk slowly away from us, hairy and prehistoric-looking. Far beyond it, I saw, was the ocean, and at the edge of the coastal cliffs were some piles of rock that looked as if man might have had a hand in getting them there. I looked at the yellow Highland ox again, and gulped my coffee, and turned to Vadya, grinning.
"Well, all I can say is that if it gives milk, somebody else can have the job of-"
I stopped. Her expression was very odd, and suddenly I remembered something. A very old castle, crumbling into the sea, she'd said, only a few stones left at the edge of the cliff… the ancient home of the Clan McRue. We'd found Brossach, and I didn't for a moment think we'd stumbled on it by accident. She'd been instructed to bring me here, somehow, If I should escape the picayune trap on the Kinnochrue road, as I'd been expected to do. But there had been more to her instructions, I knew. I glanced at the plastic cup in my hand, and at the husky girl in the black leather jacket, waiting. I remembered that she'd always been a fast girl with a Mickey.
I'd already drunk plenty. I knew I had only a few seconds left. Whether I would then die, or merely be unconscious for an interval, depended on the arrangement she'd made with Madame Ling-the real arrangement, not the one she'd told me about. This didn't really shock me. I'd expected a double-cross somewhere along the line. It was the way she'd gone about the betrayal that took my breath away. Because she'd left me no choice, absolutely no choice at all.
I mean, the standing orders are quite explicit on the subject of several standard situations. There is the one where you're holding a man at gunpoint, for instance, and some misguided moron who's seen too many movies and wants to help his friend comes up behind you and sticks a pistol in your back. The standard, mandatory response is very simple: you instantly shoot the guy in front of you dead-the guy your gun is already aimed at, who else? It is presumed that you wouldn't be pointing a firearm at him if you weren't prepared to kill him; and you can do it without losing more than a small fraction of a second before you pivot and take care of the guy behind you by one of several prescribed methods.
Similarly, if you realize you've been drugged, you are required to get the person who fed you the dope before you pass out, if it is at all feasible-meaning if the guy's foolish enough to stick around and watch the show. The theory here is that people who go to the trouble to feed poison or knock-out drops to agents like us are obviously up to no good. They should be stopped and the practice should be discouraged.