Outside, as Stereo eyed the Scumbucket and readied himself for the hated sound of the engine, they wished Gherosimini well. Ariel told him she hoped he finished Ground Zero, and he said again that it was a work-in-progress. He asked them if they wanted any smokes for the road, and True had never been so tempted in his life but he said no thanks. They got into the van: True behind the wheel, Terry in the passenger seat, Ariel behind him and Nomad on the other side, with Berke in the back. Nobody spoke about the arrangement; it just happened. They would go out the same way they came in.
The engine fired, Stereo barked, Gherosimini waved, and True drove ahead to a place where he could back the trailer up and turn them around. Stereo kept barking and Gherosimini waved again—no, a salute this time—as they passed by. The dust welled up. Gherosimini and his dog were lost from view. True put his gun in his lap. He said, “All this may be for nothing. He may not be there, okay? But when I come out of that curve, I’m going to have my foot to the floor.” He was already gaining speed. The trailer groaned. “I want everybody small. Down on the floorboard. Tuck your elbows in and get your knees up. Hell, get your heads up your butts if you can.”
“Kinky,” said Berke, but her voice trembled.
“Thank you,” Terry said, as they entered the curve.
“For what?” True asked. The engine was roaring, as much as it could. The Scumbucket vibrated and the trailer slewed.
“For giving me time,” came the answer.
True was fighting the wheel. The trailer pulled at the van and wanted to go sideslipping off into the rocks, but he held it on the edge.
< >
They came out of the curve.
Jeremy Pett was not there.
Ariel started to lift her head. True said sharply, “Everybody stay down!” The Scumbucket’s speedometer needle gave up the ghost and started flipping back and forth across the numbers like a runaway metronome. Banners of dust flew back beneath the wheels. They went into another curve and then up a rise from the bottom of a gully. Loose rocks clattered against the Scumbucket’s sides. True kept the speed up, as something in the engine began to emit a high-pitched whine.
They crossed the rough divide between dirt road and cracked asphalt, a jolt that made the van shudder and the trailer wag like Stereo’s tail. Then they were coming around a sharp bend, and True didn’t know if he could hold the van on it at this speed, so he tapped the brake just a fraction, just enough to keep them from flying off into the rocks, and as they whipped around the bend there was the abandoned gas station with its antique pumps and parked at an angle blocking the road in front of it a white car.
A Honda, True thought as he clenched his teeth, determined in the next onrushing second to jerk the wheel to the left and get by that car even if he scraped both vehicles down to the smoking metal.
Bastard stole himself an Accord.
A bullet came through the windshield.
It made a hollow pop as it pierced the glass, and a second pop as it continued through Nomad’s window. With that, True realized Pett was on the right, maybe among the remains of the houses. He heard the front right tire blow, and then the Scumbucket pitched down on that side like a lamed horse and True lost control of the wheel.
They ran up over shale and rubble and crashed into the gas pumps, which sheared away in red whirlwinds of rust. Something metal caught up under the van’s belly and seized it, and the engine screamed like a voice in agony. Another bullet shattered Terry’s window and sent fragments of glass flying over him at True. The Scumbucket dragged itself to a halt, throwing sparks from beneath.
“Stay down! Stay down!” True shouted. He thrust his arm over Terry’s glass-cut scalp and fired two shots at the ruins and the rocks, just to let the sergeant know he was packing. But exactly where the sergeant was, he couldn’t tell, and he thought that by the time his eyes found Jeremy Pett he would be dead.
Berke, the tough girl, was gasping for breath. Nomad called out, “Berke? You okay?” but she didn’t answer. A bullet came through Ariel’s window, making a neat round hole.
True feared Pett was going to pick them to pieces. He felt blood trickling from a glass cut over his right eye. They had to get out of here. Get inside the building. Most of the front of it was wide open to the world. The interior was shadowy, but he could make out a tangle of stone rubble and collapsed roof beams. Make Pett come to him, so he could use the .38 at close range.
Some plan, he thought. And the idea of taking Pett alive, and getting him help…
“Listen up!” he shouted. “We’re going to—”
He paused as a streak of heat zipped past his mouth and put a hole through his window that spread out a spider’s web of silver cracks. He heard the whine of the ricochet off the building’s stones. He slid down in his seat.
“We’re going to get inside there!” he continued. They had a distance of about fourteen feet from the van to the building. “I’ll get out first and cover you! Everybody’s going to have to slide through my door! Fast as you can!” The other option was for them to go out the door on the right side, which would put them directly in Pett’s sights. “Wait for me to tell you to move! Got it?” He burned a few seconds getting his nerves in order, and then his next-best plan went up in smoke because he couldn’t get the driver’s door open. The handle had no tension; the cable was broken. A knifeblade of panic twisted in him. This was the moment every man responsible for human life dreaded. He had to do something, and do it fast.
“John! Watch your eyes!” True put two more bullet holes through the large window on Nomad’s side, and then Nomad got the idea and used both feet to kick the rest of the tinted glass out. True slid down again, opened his bag for more ammo and reloaded four chambers. He had another box of bullets, so he was okay there. “Terry, you stay where you are! I’m shooting over your head! Everybody else out! Go!”
As they scrambled out as best they could, True got off five shots. Pett would know what kind of pistol he had, from the sound. It wasn’t going to put the fear in him, but it might keep his head down. Might.
True reloaded. He heard Pett’s rifle fire, but where the slug went he didn’t know. Shooting into the building, maybe. Shooting at the Band That Will Not Die. This time, they might.
“Terry! You okay, buddy?”
“Yeah. I think.” His voice was shaking. “I’m cut up a little bit.”
“Me too. I want you to crawl between the seats and get out. I’ll cover you. Ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Go!”
Terry crawled back and pushed himself through the window. True began firing through the passenger side, three shots at a ghost. Terry tumbled to the ground like a laundry bag. As he stood up to run for shelter, he was hit in the upper back on the right side and he gave a cry, almost of nothing more urgent than surprise, as he went down.
< >
He is where he needs to be. He is where he has been coming to. He has arrived, and today will belong to him. Gunny is with him in the rocks, close by his shoulder. His rifle is warm and it smells good. He is very glad that their van didn’t hit his car, because he needs it to get to Mexico. His journey will begin after this is ended. Like they say…today is the first day of the rest of your life.
It has been a challenging hunt. Tracking them from city to city, driving past the clubs, marking where they stay, and being very careful not to let those men in the Yukons get a good look at him. He has not been trained for nothing. He knows his business, and he is a prince of his profession. A hero. The Bronze Star says so, and so does Mr. Salazar.