After a few moments, his left hand slid free. He scooped his hat up from the counter, slid his wallet and phone back into his pants pockets, and started for the back door.
Footsteps sounded out in the hall, coming closer. ‘I’m getting another beer. Want one?’
‘Yeah. And check on the professor. He should be begging for his life right now.’
‘Maybe I should slap him around a little. Provide a little encouragement.’
The other man laughed.
Lourds tried the back door, but it was locked. Obviously, Von Volker had made certain his ‘guests’ couldn’t escape under any circumstances. Frantic, he looked around for a weapon, then spied a heavy iron frying pan on a woodburning stove. He hefted it and discovered it weighed several pounds. Moving swiftly, he positioned himself by the door and drew back the pan.
His knees trembled slightly as he thought about what he was going to do. He would have preferred to run. He was not a fighter. Fortunately, there wasn’t much time to think or dread.
The man stepped through the doorway and Lourds swung with all the strength in his arms. The frying pan hammered the guard in the face, but the sound was much duller than Lourds had anticipated, more like a thump than a bang.
Knocked out or dead, Lourds wasn’t sure, but there was enough blood from the nose and mouth that it could have gone either way, the guard dropped like a stone. The empty bottles he carried shattered against the stone floor.
‘Walter?’ The television sound muted immediately. ‘Walter?’
Lourds thought briefly of searching the fallen man for a weapon more serviceable than the frying pan, but the flight instinct in him was strongest of all. The ring of keys on the man’s belt made his choice obvious. Grabbing them, he abandoned the frying pan and tackled the back door again. It took him a moment to fumble through the lock.
‘Walter!’ Footsteps pounded toward the kill room.
Lourds got the door open just as the second guard stuck his pistol into the room and followed it around the corner. Just as Lourds charged through the door, two bullets smashed through the glass panes in it. Flying glass shards chased Lourds out into the woodlands behind the jagdschloss.
Aware the gunman could shoot him in the back if he stayed on a straight line, Lourds grabbed the first tree trunk he came to and veered to the left. The bark ripped free and tore at his palm, but he kept his feet under him and lengthened his stride.
In the distance, a road cut through the tree line nearly two hundred yards away at the bottom of the steep incline. Gnarled roots and the rocky soil challenged his footing as he raced down it.
The gunman pursued him, firing periodically. Every instinct Lourds possessed screamed at him to dive for cover somewhere along the way, but he knew that would only delay the inevitable. He was in shape. There was a lot of real estate in front of him. He had a chance to get away if he just kept running.
And don’t break your neck.
An unseen rock rolled under his right foot. He tried to keep his foot straight, hoped he hadn’t turned his ankle, and stumbled in the direction he almost fell in order to keep his feet under him. His rhythm was thrown off for a moment, and he crashed against a tree trunk, the impact driving his right elbow into his side and knocking the breath from his lungs.
Off-balance and in pain, he fell and rolled down the incline. The gunman fired a handful of rounds that kicked up fist-sized clods of earth around him. Still falling and rolling, Lourds managed to get back up on his feet while tumbling. Soccer games had taught him to fight for control and get back up as soon as possible if a whistle hadn’t blown.
There was no whistle while he was running for his life.
Hoping to become a harder target, Lourds charged through the brush. Once, when he suddenly found a downed tree in front of him, and there was no way he could stop or change directions successfully, he stepped up the pace and leaped. Branches and bushes whipped at him, and he couldn’t see what he was going to be landing in when he came down.
On the other side of the fallen tree, the incline plunged ten feet almost straight down. Lourds flailed his arms and tried to pick his landing spot, but he came down in a twisting, flailing fall that rolled him head over heels. As he got to his feet, banged up and sporting new bruises, he reflexively grabbed his hat and ran again.
He’d lost sight of the road, but he marked his passage by landmarks he’d chosen along the way.
The gunman had closed the distance, drawing to within twenty feet. He was still running, too, gaining steadily.
Why couldn’t I have been held by couch potatoes with guns? Lourds ran as hard as he could, but he knew he was outmatched. He was going to die out here in this forlorn wilderness, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
Then the forest melted away in front of him, and the road was there. He ran out across it without hesitation, hoping to get across the narrow two-lane before the gunman had a clear shot at him. Gunshots echoed around him and bullets ricocheted from the road.
A car topped the hill and nearly ran him down. He threw himself forward and got clear. The gunman wasn’t so lucky. He’d come out of the tree line totally focused on Lourds and hadn’t seen the car until it was on top of him.
Brakes shrieked, but the grisly thump told Lourds that neither man nor machine had been able to avoid the collision. Out of breath on the ground, hurting and certain he couldn’t run much farther, he looked back at the road.
A police car sat sideways in the road thirty or forty feet from the point of impact. Two young uniformed officers got out of the car brandishing weapons. The passenger held a shotgun.
Dazed and battered, the gunman drew himself up from the road. Bloody scrapes showed on his face, and his left arm hung crookedly at his side. But his right arm came up with the pistol.
‘Stop! Police!’
The gunman fired at the police officers. The man with the shotgun fired once, and Von Volker’s henchman lifted from his heels and fell backwards. He quivered and was still.
The second police officer sprinted forward with his pistol in both hands. He kicked the gunman’s weapon away and hauled out a pair of handcuffs that couldn’t possibly be needed.
Lourds stared up helplessly as the policeman with the shotgun walked toward him while aiming his weapon. The man looked grim and deadly.
‘Professor Lourds?’
In disbelief, Lourds nodded but didn’t move. His hands were in plain sight for the policeman, and he knew to keep them that way. ‘I’m Thomas Lourds.’
‘Frau Von Volker sent us.’ The policeman lowered his weapon. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I am now. Thank you.’ Lourds took the proffered hand and climbed shakily to his feet.
Hours later, after being grilled by two investigators and a lieutenant of homicide, Lourds was released on his own recognizance. The lieutenant told him they would be in touch if they needed anything more.
‘I would caution you on one other thing, Professor Lourds.’
Lourds looked at the broad, clean-shaven lieutenant with sad eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Based on your statement, and that of Frau Von Volker, we have issued a warrant for Herr Von Volker. But I must tell you, Herr Von Volker is an important person in Vienna. He has many friends. Your continued presence in this city, perhaps even in Austria, will be perilous.’
‘I plan on leaving as soon as I get out of here.’ Lourds had already changed his plane ticket to the evening flight out of Vienna instead of the morning one.