“Okay, the window’s down, now what? We can’t exactly jump for it.”
Shaw reached down, undid his belt, and slid it off. “Please tell me you’re wearing a belt.”
“I am.”
“Take it off and give it to me. But slowly.”
She did so, but it seemed like even moving her arms made the car wobble on its precarious perch. She finally got it off and handed it to him.
Using very slow and careful movements Shaw made a loop with her belt and then slid his belt through that circle, cinching it tight and leaving a stretch of leather about four feet long in his hand.
“What’s that supposed to be?” she asked.
“A lasso.”
“What exactly are you going to lasso?”
“That tree branch outside the car window.” He nodded at the short but thick piece of wood. “If I can pull myself through the window, with my weight out of the front seat, the rear should settle back down. And I can get something to wedge under the front tires. And then get you out.”
“Should? Should settle back down? What if it doesn’t? What if you getting out makes the car go hurtling down to those trees? Are you just going to wave bye-bye while I plummet to my death?”
Shaw thought for a minute. “Okay. We’ve got one shot at this. Just one. If we get out we get out together. If we go down, well…”
“Trust me, I get the picture. What’s the plan?”
“Basically a thousand-to-one shot.”
“Okay, I’m already loving it,” she said sarcastically.
“As soon as I get the loop over that branch, you grab on to me like you’ve never held on to anything in your life. Got it?”
Katie’s breaths were coming quickly now as the car started to tilt forward even more. “We’re going over, aren’t we?”
“Katie, did you hear me?”
“Yes, yes I did. Grab on to you, never let go. Got it.”
“But wait until I get the loop over the branch.”
“And you’re going to do all that in the millisecond you’ll have before we fall to our deaths? Pull us to safety using a belt I bought at the Gap for ten bucks?”
“Katie, don’t go hysterical on me. I know you’ve been in plenty of tight places before. This is just one more of them.”
She gazed fearfully out the windshield and then looked away. “Okay.”
Shaw eased sideways and eyed the branch trying to convince himself that it would not necessarily be a miracle if what he was about to do worked. It would actually constitute more than a miracle, he realized. It would take divine intervention plus luck, plus some unknown element of cosmic wizardry.
“You ready?” he said.
Katie was breathing so hard she sounded like she was about to deadlift a ton of iron as she prepared herself to escape a two-thousand-pound car as it fell away from them at speed. She looked at the window opening. It seemed about three inches in diameter. They were never going to make it. I can do this, she said to herself. I can do this. Oh please God let me do this.
Shaw tossed the loop. It missed.
Katie cried out, “Maybe I can try it from back here.” She hit the window button and the panel of glass slid down.
And then the car suddenly snaked forward.
“Oh shit!” Katie said.
“Hold on!” Shaw called out.
“It’s going, Shaw. It’s going over. Oh my God!”
The car was indeed going and there was nothing between it, them, and a hundred tons of oak. From where he was sitting Shaw could no longer even reach the branch with his belt rope.
“Shaw!” Katie screamed, gripping the seat with all her strength as the front of the car shot downward and the rear lifted up into the air like the Titanic about to take the final plunge.
Shaw swore, flipped backward over the seat, turned in mid-roll, and let the belt lasso fly out Katie’s window.
It somehow snagged the branch and Shaw pulled it tight.
Miracles did, it seemed, happen.
The car’s momentum had pulled Shaw, who was holding on to the belt with both hands, halfway out of the window.
“Katie, grab hold of my legs. Now!”
He felt her grip his legs. The car was going all the way, no stopping it now.
Shaw slid neatly out of the window but then something felt wrong.
“Katie!”
She wasn’t there. He hit dirt hard; a jut of rock nailed him right in the gut. The belt slipped out of his hand and he tumbled down the steep hill. He looked in front of him and watched as the car gained more and more speed. His momentum caused him to flip over and land hard on his back. When he managed to sit back up he saw the car slam into the trees at the bottom. A second later an explosion ripped the air as the gas tank ignited.
Shaw grabbed on to everything he could get hold of, bushes, branches, dirt, and rock to stop his slide. If he went another twenty feet, there was no stopping and he would end up in the inferno down there too. He finally slammed against an old stump.
“Katie!” he yelled. “Katie!”
She didn’t answer him.
CHAPTER 91
THE PHONE CALL WOKE FRANK from a sound sleep.
It was the FBI agent they’d been working with.
Frank sat up, already groping around for his clothes that he’d dropped on the end of the bed when he’d turned in. “What’s up?”
“One of the people on the St. Albans list, Richard Pender, was just found murdered in his home.”
Frank’s feet hit the floor. He pinched the phone against his ear with his shoulder while he hopped into his pants. “Sonofabitch!”
“And that’s not all.”
“Yeah?” Frank said warily.
“A neighbor of Pender’s phoned the police; that’s how they discovered the body.”
“Why’d they phone? Did they see something? Pender’s killer?”
“He saw what looked to be two people being carried out of the house and put into a car.”
“Two people! Could they ID them?”
“It was dark. He couldn’t be sure. But the man was big. It took three guys to carry him. And the other appeared to be a woman.”
“Did they see anything else?”
“He got the license plate of the car they were put in.”
“And?” Frank slid into his shirt and tucked it into his pants and then slipped on his socks. “Oh shit, don’t tell me.”
“We traced the plate. It was James’s rental car.”
Frank stuck his feet in his shoes and roared, “What the hell were they doing there? We hadn’t gotten a search warrant yet.”
“Looks like they were doing a little independent snooping.”
“Have the police tracked the car down yet?”
“No. They put out an APB, but nothing yet.”
“Has anyone tried to call Shaw or Katie?”
“Yes. No answer. We sent people to their rooms. Nothing.”
“When did the neighbor phone this in?”
“About two hours ago.”
“Christ! They could be already dead. They probably are already dead. What’s the take on Pender? When did they pop him?”
“Twenty hours ago or more, according to the prelim.”
“Shit, that trail’s cold. Wait a minute, if they killed Pender that long ago, what the hell were they doing watching his house?”
“Waiting for someone to come by?”
“You mean waiting for Shaw and Katie to come by. Just like the funeral in Wisbach. What the hell were they thinking going there?”
“The officers on the scene at Pender’s home said it looked like a burglary gone bad.”
“Burglary my ass. So what’s the story on this Pender? Who is he?”
“He owns a firm called Pender amp; Associates based in northern Virginia. The picture isn’t completely clear, but it seems to be some sort of PR firm.”