"Maybe you should go to the state police, Robby."
"I've given it a lot of thought. That option could lead to a lot of sticky complications. For one thing, what-and how much- can we tell them? And would they believe it? I don't want to risk having you arrested and charged with the murder of those two charmers back there."
"But those men were taking us out to be killed, Robby."
"Sure, but we can't prove it. There's no guarantee they'll believe us. I could be charged along with you, or held as a material witness."
"Robby, I'm more than willing to risk facing charges if it means your brother will be safe."
"There's no guarantee of that at all. If I get entangled with the law around here, Garth could be dead by the time I get untangled. Also, Zelezian almost certainly is being sponsored- protected-by some heavy-duty agency in Washington or very powerful individuals. It's possible local law enforcement people wouldn't be allowed to move on the circus until it was too late. I don't know if that's true, but I don't want to take the chance. There are just too many questions, too many uncertainties. It's why I have to go myself and hope that I get lucky. If it doesn't work out, and they nab me again, then you'll still be free to exercise the option of calling the troopers."
"Robby, they may be looking to nab you now, to trap you the same way they trapped Garth. And if they do, they may just kill you out of hand. Even if they do go ahead and put on a show tonight just to keep up appearances, they're certainly going to be on guard, watching for you."
She was probably right. "Maybe," I said. "Maybe not."
"Not only will they be looking for you, Robby, but you'll be going right back into the loboxes' sensory range."
"We don't know where they are, Harper. In any case, I don't feel I have any other choices."
"Okay," she said evenly. She paused, staring at the shotgun, then continued, "How did I do last night, Robby?"
"You did real good."
"Then there'll be no argument about my going to the circus with you tonight."
"Harper," I said with a sigh, "if I were to tell you that having you with me would be a distraction because I'd be worried about you, you'd call me a sexist, and then remind me that it was you who saved our asses last night. Right?"
"That's very good reasoning," she said, and smiled. "So thank you for not being a sexist, and thank you for not forcing me to remind you that it was me who saved our asses last night."
"I need you some place safe, Harper, so that you'll be able to call the police if I don't come back."
"In some motel nearly a hundred miles away? I want to be there, Robby. This time I promise I will wait in the car, but at least I'll be close by, close enough to actually hear or see- maybe-if anything goes wrong. You know I'm right. We're in this together. I'll be useless a hundred miles away, and you know it. I just might mean the difference between you and Garth living or dying."
"Harper, the loboxes … As you pointed out, we will be going back into their sensory range."
She wrapped her hands around the shotgun, hefted it. "I won't pee in my pants next time, Robby. If a lobox comes after me again, I'm going to have me a lobox rug. Let me watch your back. I really will feel safer if I'm with you."
I reached across the seat, took her hand, and squeezed it hard. "Thank you, Harper," I said simply. I didn't know what else to say. The fact of the matter was that she was right, and I was grateful to her for her resolve and courage.
I'd definitely had just about enough of dread and circuses, but this was a command performance. It was show time-both for World Circus and for me.
If the Zelezians were worried about anything-dead gunmen, missing multimillion-dollar assassin-beasts, or their cranky intended victims on the loose-it wasn't evident in the setup or atmosphere on the county fairgrounds outside the town of Stonebridge; lights blazed on the midway, where all the rides and games were in progress, and music blared from inside the Big Top, where the show had just begun. It could mean that they weren't at all concerned about what Harper and I might tell the authorities-or anything else we might do-and that tended to make me even more nervous.
As it was, I was soaked with sweat, although it was a relatively dry, cool night; walking around knowing that at any second horrible, clawed death may leap out from the shadows to rip out your throat and bowels can have that effect on a man.
We'd left the ruined Plymouth in an alley beside a supermarket and rented a station wagon, which was now parked, with Harper and her loaded shotgun inside it, at the edge of one of the three parking fields where there was enough radiated light for her to be able to see anything and anybody that might approach. With the Colt in my suit jacket pocket and the.45 automatic in my right hand, I was working my way through lines of parked cars and pickup trucks toward a roped-off area behind the Big Top. There I knew I would find the penning enclosures as well as the parking field containing the trailers and the enormous Mack semis that hauled the circus around the country.
There was a man in a gray suit standing in the moonlight near the roped-off area. He was holding a walkie-talkie near his mouth, and there was a pronounced bulge in his suit jacket, near his left armpit. He was definitely not a circus roustabout, and I strongly doubted that he was a plainclothes state trooper. Rather, the man's presence suggested to me that the Zelezians had appealed to their government or corporate sponsor for a little additional help in case of any emergency I might try to cause. As I watched, the man spoke into the walkie-talkie, in English, and there was a crackling response.
In the section of the field just beyond the gunman in the gray suit, a dozen semitrailers were parked in rows of four, virtually nose-to-nose, with one row flush to the rear of the Big Top. That was where I wanted to go. I had been kept inside an old circus wagon, but there were no more of those in evidence. Garth was too big and obstreperous to try to keep in any mobile home, so I figured they might have him locked up in an animal cage inside one of the semis. In any case, the rows of parked trucks seemed the logical place to start looking. He would, at least, be in a position to return a signal.
If he was conscious.
Trying not to think of what might be slinking toward me in the darkness of the parking lot, I angled to my right, away from the gunman in the suit. I stopped fifty yards away and waited for him to look in the opposite direction, then darted out from behind a car, ran across a narrow dirt track, and ducked under a rope into a dark area near where the semis were parked. I crouched down in the night, forcing myself to take deep breaths and try to relax as I looked around me in the darkness and wiped sweat away from my eyes.
I had to hope Garth hadn't been drugged into unconsciousness; I had to hope he could respond to a signal. I could only start worrying about how to get him out after I found out where he was.
It was time to get off the ground, where I was vulnerable to a lobox attack from all sides. I hustled on over to the trucks, climbed up on the running board of the first one in the first line, clambered up onto the roof of the cab. Then I put the.45 in my other suit jacket pocket, jumped up, and caught the edge of the roof of the box with my fingers. I hauled myself up and over the edge onto the corrugated steel roof, then lay down in the darkness and again forced myself to take a series of deep breaths, seeking release from the terror that had gripped me from the moment I had left the relative safety of the station wagon. I kept reminding myself that I was safe from the loboxes, at least for the time being. The suited gunman was still pacing back and forth on the dirt track, speaking into his walkie-talkie, which meant that I hadn't been seen. I was still in business.