I didn’t want him searching me too closely. I said, “It’s in my belt behind my back.”
“Shut up!”
The man on my left pushed my head forward almost into my lap, flipped up my shirttail and found Reilly’s .38 revolver. He let me sit up again.
Norfolk poked his head in through the open door on my side of the car.
“This is as good a place as any,” he said.
It was pretty clear that they had no intention of taking me to Bradford. Norfolk’s words were the final proof — if I needed any. My gamble hadn’t paid off.
The Ford station wagon came up behind us, jouncing heavily on the ruts of the narrow lane. Its headlights were on high beam as it rolled to a stop a few feet in back of us. The glare came through the glass of the big rear window of the Mercury, shining directly into the eyes of the driver facing me. It must have been like looking full into a battleship searchlight at that short distance.
The driver winced involuntarily, closing his eyes and ducking his head away from the blast of light. In that instant I whipped my right forearm across his head, jabbed my left elbow into the ribs of the man next to me and made a flying leap out the open door. I dived headlong into Norfolk, sending him stumbling against the other man who’d been on my right. They both went down. I was out in the open, away from the dangerous confines of the sedan.
They could see all this very clearly from the station wagon, because the Ford’s headlights lit up the scene brilliantly. But they hadn’t as yet opened the doors.
There’s one thing about a pro. He doesn’t care what he smashes when he’s out to do a job. Amateurs have an ingrained respect for property that they haven’t been able to shake.
There I was in the full glare of the headlights. Bumping into Norfolk slowed me for a second or two. It took another three or four seconds for me to race to the security of the trees to the left of the sedan. And yet, in all that time — and four or five seconds is long enough to give you time to draw, aim and fire — no one thought of shooting at me through the window glass of the station wagon!
The six of them got in each other’s way as they tried to throw open the doors and pile out into the open before they began shooting. As I plunged into the underbrush, I heard them shouting at each other.
“He’s getting away! God damn it, shoot!”
By the time the first shot came, I was ten feet into the brush, angling away so that the trees would protect my back. I had one other advantage. They had been light-blinded by the headlights, and I’d been facing away when the station wagon came up. I still had most of my night vision.
When they finally started shooting, they were wide. Twenty yards wide. I took a rolling dive under the cover of a fallen oak tree, stretched out and lay absolutely still.
“Hold it! Damn you, hold that fire!”
The gunshots died away.
“Where the hell’d he go?”
“Shut up and let me listen!”
There wasn’t a sound. The night noises had died away. The gunfire had frightened the night creatures into silence.
“We lost him!”
“No, we haven’t. He hasn’t had time to get far enough away.”
“Well, there aren’t enough of us to go chasing him in the dark!”
One of the voices took command. “You three stay here. Keep him pinned down. He must be close by. You hear a noise, you start shooting.”
Another voice spoke up. The accent was deep South. “Mr. Essex, Ah got me a hi ol’ sniperscope rifle in the back of that wagon. Ah kinda think Ah oughta stay, ’steada Greg. Ah kin shoot the head off n a squirrel at a hundred yards even if it’s blacker’n a coal mine at midnight without no lights.”
There was a flurry of talk. Mr. Essex — whoever he was — cut it short. “Charlie’s right. He stays. He’s got the rifle. George stays, too. He’s a Nam vet. If he could take care of himself in the jungles, then this patch of woods is just his meat. Jerry comes with me. We’ll go back and get more men. We’ll need them to pin down this son of a bitch! The rest of you — spread out along the lane! Don’t move around. Just keep him from getting out of the area! Got it?”
I saw Charlie open the tailgate of the station wagon and take out a U.S. Army rifle with an infra-red sniperscope mounted on it. He slung the battery pack over his shoulder. George, the Viet Nam veteran, pulled out an M-14 carbine. Christ! You’d have thought they were taking on an army instead of just one man!
The green station wagon started up, backed out of the lane and disappeared. Charlie and George took off into the woods, one striking out to my left, the other to my right. They were going to outflank me and trap me between them. The other men remained where they were.
Charlie worried me. He was dangerous with that infra-red sniperscope. He could use it like an invisible searchlight to sweep the woods hunting for me, and I’d never know when the beam lit me up as a target for him. Not until a bullet came slamming into me!
George was an unknown factor. I didn’t know how good a woodsman he was. I heard Charlie crashing around to my left. If he were that clumsy in the woods, he’d give me ample warning if he came anywhere near me.
I went after George.
Not directly. Even though I knew that time was on their side, I couldn’t be impatient. I had to lure George into a trap.
The leader had been wrong. There’s one hell of a difference between the jungles of Southeast Asia and the forests of New England. The jungles are wet and damp and thick. They hide footsteps, swallowing up sound, so that you can’t hear a man until he’s right on top of you. I know. I’ve been there. New England forests are dry, except right after a rain. Leaves rustle; fallen twigs crackle when you step on them.
I took off Raymond’s boots. His socks were thick enough to give me the protection I needed and still let me feel my way. I was going to discard them, but as I was loosening the long rawhide laces, I had another thought. I took time to pull each lace free and tucked them into my hip pocket.
Then I set out after George.
I made a long sweep in his general direction. I wanted to get as far away as I could from Charlie with his dangerous sniperscope rifle. It took me about ten minutes to get where I wanted to be. Occasionally I heard movement. George wasn’t living up to his reputation as a jungle fighter.
I finally found the spot I wanted. It was next to a small clearing. Two trails led into it. They were both narrow and lined with young, second-growth trees. As quietly as I could, I used Hugo to trim some of the branches from one of the saplings. Then I bent it in an arc, fastening it with a slipknot to a fallen log with one end of a rawhide lace. The other end was in my hand. I lay down behind the log.
When you set a trap, you’ve got to bait it. The bait was me. I had to be sure that Charlie and his damned sniperscope were nowhere around. About five minutes went by. I heard a shot come from about 200 yards away.
Faintly I heard someone shout, “You get him?”
There was no answer. The only sound came from more than a mile away. So faintly you could hardly hear it, the strains of the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing a Brahms concerto came floating across the valley on the light breeze. I wondered what the audience would think if they knew about the deadly manhunt going on within a mile or two of them!
Charlie had sense enough not to give his position away by answering. But now I knew that he was nowhere nearby.
I tossed a rock into the middle of the glade. I wanted some noise, not too much. Just enough to make it sound as though I’d stumbled.
Nothing happened.
I let another few minutes go by and then baited my trap again. The stone landed, rolling a few feet. The noise was barely discernible.
Then I heard the soft scrape of a boot on the trail. I tightened my grip on the rawhide lace whose other end slipknotted the bent sapling. The second rawhide lace was doubled, the ends wrapped around each of my fists with two feet of slack hanging down.