"Jesus Christ, Culhane, would you believe that you actually have the capacity to make me feel sorry for you? You really do believe all that shit you say you believe, don't you? You can actually make yourself believe anything you want, and reason has nothing to do with it. Elysius Culhane in Wonderland. And here I thought you were just a hypocritical con man who'd learned to make a good living spouting garbage and waving the flag."
"That's the communist in you talking, Frederickson; that's Russian propaganda. People like you are what's wrong with this country. And don't count on your friend, Mr. Lippitt, who everyone knows dotes on the Frederickson brothers like sons. The Defense Intelligence Agency is small potatoes compared with the FBI and CIA. If Jay Acton is a KGB spy like you say he is, then the proper authorities will take care of the matter. But if you try to interfere any longer in any way, if you dare to even whisper a word to anyone about a KGB agent on my staff, I will sue you for slander and libel for everything you and your big creep of a brother have. And those powerful friends of mine will make sure I win. Cross me on this, Frederickson, and I will see that you lose your licenses, as well as all your possessions. You and your brother will be ruined. You are definitely to take this as a threat. If you try to use the information you have to harm this country that I love, I will crush you. Do I make myself perfectly-?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Culhane," I said mildly. "You've got throw-up on the front of your shirt. It's really disgusting."
"Huh-?"
That seemed as good an exit line as any, and as Elysius Culhane looked down at the front of his shirt, I walked around him and out of the office. I gave the door at the entrance to the town hall a good kick on my way out, but only managed to hurt my toe. Still seething, I walked quickly to where Beloved Too was parked on the street, got in, started the motor, and popped the clutch. Beloved Too's tires spun, and I left twin swaths of rubber behind as I shot away from the curb.
I started calming down and feeling considerably better by the time I reached the Cairn town limits. It was close to 5:00, but my flight out of LaGuardia wasn't until 9:15. Figuring I had plenty of time to pack and brief Garth on what I was up to before leaving for the airport, I stopped in Nyack-in my opinion the finest, and certainly the funkiest, of the riverfront towns-to get a liquor-laced ice-cream cone at a small ice-cream shop called Temptations. Then I sat on one of the two wood-and-iron benches outside to eat my cone and watch the weekend day-trippers from the city wandering by while I considered my position. All in all, I decided, things were not going all that badly.
I had been outraged by what I considered a lack of professionalism, cowardice, and a betrayal of my trust on the part of Dan Mosely. But on reflection, I decided that the policeman had probably done me a favor, albeit unwittingly; he'd certainly done Elysius Culhane no favor by informing him that his top aide was probably a KGB agent. In effect, Mosely's phone call had made Culhane a conscious, responsible player, and then Culhane, by confronting and threatening me, had dealt himself even deeper into the game. He now shared responsibility for what happened to Jay Acton. Despite all his bluster and self-delusion, I was fairly certain he knew that I was going to proceed apace. I was also fairly certain that Culhane, by the time he paused long enough to change his shirt, would realize that, under the circumstances, he really had no choice but to help catch the spy he had hired, and then try to capture as much of the credit as he could in order to defend himself against the ridicule and other hits he was certain to take. If anyone could pull strings to keep Acton safely behind bars for two or three days, it was Elysius Culhane; in the end Culhane, for his own reasons, could end up my strongest ally.
I finished my cone, climbed back into Beloved Too, and went south on Broadway to 9W, then headed for Exit 4 of the Palisades Parkway. To my left, the Tappan Zee Bridge bisected the Hudson River, which appeared unusually blue and sparkling in the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun. Farther on, the grand earthen dam that had given Piermont its name jutted halfway across the river, a relic of World War II. It had been a busy weekend, and I was starting to feel tired, lazy. That feeling didn't last long. I perked up considerably when I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a bulky pickup truck with a heavy steel plate welded to its front end come zipping up behind me to settle in only inches from my rear bumper. The man behind the wheel was wearing a ski mask-a bright red one, with Ho Ho Ho embroidered in green across the forehead.
Tailgating truck drivers wearing ski masks in August tend to make me jittery. I snapped on my seat belt and shoulder harness, tightened the straps as far as they would go, then took my Beretta from the glove department and laid it on the seat beside my thigh before tromping on the accelerator. My abrupt acceleration saved me from the full force of impact as the steel plate welded to the truck's front end struck me in the rear, but it was still enough to send me into a slight power skid. I straightened out, floored the accelerator again. The man behind me obviously had a few horses under his hood, because he immediately started gaining on me again.
Route 9W along this section was two-laned, winding and very narrow, with virtually no shoulders; trees lined the highway to my right, and to my left was all steep, tree-covered embankment with small houses nestled in alcoves all the way down to the river. There just wasn't that much room to maneuver. The next town was perhaps five or six miles ahead; there I could power slide off the highway into the parking lot of a restaurant or service station. But I was going to have to get there first, before I was shoved off the road into a tree.
Hoping to give my oversized partner in bumper tag something else to think about besides the fun of ramming me, I picked up my Beretta, switched it to my left hand, reached around, and winged a shot over my right shoulder. The rear window shattered, but when I looked into my rearview mirror I could see that I had missed the truck's windshield entirely. The driver was once again coming up on me fast.
There was a car coming the other way. I furiously honked my horn and flashed my headlights; the driver of the other car, apparently thinking that I was warning him of a speed trap ahead of him, honked and flashed back, waved cheerily as he sped past. I fired again, this time half turning in my seat and taking my eyes off the road for an instant in an effort to get off a better shot.
I turned back just in time to see the armored front end of a huge semi-trailer cab easing out into my lane from a side road. The driver of the second truck wore no ski mask, either because it would have hurt his heavily bandaged face or because he saw no need to hide his features from the man he intended to see dead. The grimly leering, bruised and bandaged, but clearly recognizable face of Gregory Trex was visible in the truck cab's side window. Crashing into the cab meant certain death for me and probably wouldn't do more than slightly addle the granite-headed Trex. My options were the ultimate in slim pickings.