had gotten sick. He felt as if his increasing effort was the
distillation of every race he had ever entered, every marathon he had
ever endured. Inhaling deep lung fulls of air, pumping his legs faster,
stretching them farther, he surged between buildings on the opposite
side of the square and kept racing into the darkness behind them.
This was the direction from which he had initially come down off the
ridge and across the meadow, approaching the campus. In a frenzy of
exertion, he managed to increase speed, spurred by the buzz of another
bullet parting air near his side. They've crossed the square, he
thought. They saw where I went and followed me.
From the square, he heard the roar of cars. They'll soon drive behind
these buildings. There's no way I can out run ...
He changed direction just in time, almost banging into the side of a
building. His eyes, stung by the glare of the arc lights in the square,
were only now adjusting to the darkness, and in confusion, he took a
moment to realize that he'd reached the stables.
Men shouted behind him. A bullet struck the stone side of the building.
Pittman whirled, went down on his left knee, propped his right arm on
his other knee to steady his trembling aim, and fired toward the men
pursuing him. They cursed and dove to the ground. A car fishtailed
around a building, its headlights blazing, and Pittman fired toward
them, missing the headlights but shattering the windshield.
Immediately he ducked back, knowing that the muzzle flashes from his
pistol had made him a target. More bullets struck the side of the
building, splintering stone. From somewhere on the other side, horses
whinnied in panic. Pittman swung around a corner, approaching them. He
reached a fence and opened its gate, scrambling back as horses charged
through, escaping into the night. The more confusion, the better. He
had to keep distracting his pursuers.
Then racing across the horse pen toward the opposite fence, he heard the
roar of the cars speeding toward the stables. Have to get ahead of
them.
A horse had stopped on the other side of the fence. With no other
choice, Pittman clambered onto the rails. He'd once written a story
about the stables near Central Park. He'd taken a few lessons. His
instructor had emphasized: "When afraid of falling, keep your legs
squeezed as tightly as you can around the horse's sides and clamp Your
arms around the horse's neck. "
Pittman did exactly that now, leaping off the fence, landing on the
horse, startling it, clinging as it reared, but he was prepared and the
horse wasn't. Compacting his muscles in desperation, he managed to stay
on, and now the horse wasn't rearing. It was galloping, hoping to throw
off its burden. Pittman clung harder, jolted by the horse's rapid
hoofbeats. He leaned so severely forward, clutching the horse's bobbing
neck, that he didn't think he provided a silhouette for the gunmen.
From behind, the headlights of several rapidly approaching cars lit up
the meadow around and ahead of him. The roar of the engines and the
noise Of the galloping horse were too great for Pittman to be able to
hear if bullets whizzed past him. but he had to assume that his
pursuers were shooting at him, and he furiously hoped that the uneven
meadow, its bumps and rises and dips, would throw Off the gunmen's aim
in the darkness.
Without warning, the horse changed direction. UnPrepared, Pittman felt
his grip slipping, his body shifting to the right. About to topple, he
clamped his legs so tightly around the horse that the Pain Of the effort
made him wince. His arms completely encircled the horse's nec as cars
sped nearer, bumping across the meadow, their headlights bobbing,
gleaming, as the horse changed direction again, but this time Pittman
anticipated, and although his body shifted, he felt in control.
He was wrong. Deeper shadows loomed before him, suddenly illuminated by
the headlights. The forest seemed to materialize out of nothing, a wall
of trees and bushes forming an apparently unbreachable barrier that so
startled the horse, it reared up, at the same time twisting sideways,
and Pittman's grip was finally jerked free. As the horse's front hoofs
colliding with the trees, Pittman flew in the opposite direction.
Frantically praying that the horse wouldn't kick backward, he struck the
ground, flipped, and rolled, the wind knocked out of him, the pistol in
his jacket pocket slamming against his ribs.
He rolled farther, urgently trying to avoid the panicked horse, to save
himself from being trampled. Immediately the horse galloped away, and
Pittman faced the headlights speeding toward him- He stumbled to his
feet, struggled to breathe, and lurched toward bushes, stooping to
conceal himself. Bullets snapped twigs and shredded bark from trees. He
crouched lower, hurrying among the thickly needled branches of pine
trees. Bullets walloped into trees and sliced needles that fell upon
him. Hearing car doors being opened, he spun, saw the headlights
through the trees, and fired, surprising himself that he actually
shattered one of the lights.
At once his pistol no longer worked. In dismay, he pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The .45 felt off balance in his hand. Its slide
remained back, its firing chamber open. Heart sinking, he understood.
He had used all his anmiunition. He had more in his jacket pocket, but
his pursuers were so close that there wasn't time for him to reload, and
he. didn't have confidence in his ability to remove the pistol's
magazine and refill it in the dark.
Not while men were shooting at him.
Not while he was on the run, which he immediately began doing, scurrying
uphill through the murky forest. Several times he bumped painfully
against trees. In the darkness, he failed to see deadfalls and stumps
and tripped, losing his balance, hitting the ground. Each time, he
ignored his pain and surged upward, moving faster, harder, spurred by
the noises of gunmen chasing him. Flashlights blazed. Men shouted.
Pittman strained to figure out where he was. He had entered on this
side of the valley-that much he was sure of. But there the trees had
stopped on a ridge, giving way to grassland that sloped toward the
meadow. Here the trees were at the bottom of the slope. In which
direction was the grassy hill? He had to find it. He had to get to that
ridge. Because past the trees and the fence beyond it, Jill was waiting
with the car. "I hear him!"
"Over there!"
"Spread out!"
Pittman raised his right arm to shield his eyes from needled branches.
Enveloped by darkness, he climbed with less energy, his legs weary, his
lungs protesting. He kept angling to the right, choosing that direction
arbitrarily, needing some direction, hoping to reach the grassy slope.
Without warning he broke free, nearly falling on the open hill. Hurry.
Got to reach the top before they're out of the trees, before they see
me. His only advantage was that he was no longer making noise, snapping
branches, crashing through bushes, scraping past trees. But the gunmen
were definitely making noise. Pit could hear them charging through the
underbrush behind him, and responding to an intense flood of adrenaline,
he braced his legs, took a deep breath, then struggled up the slope, its
incline becoming steeper, its wet grass slippery.
Briefly his senses failed him. The next thing he realized, he was
lumbering over the top of the ridge, men were yelling below him, their
flashlights silhouetting him, and then he was past the ridgeline,
entering more trees, colliding with the fence, clutching it, gasping.
"Here!" a man yelled behind him, flashlight bobbing.
Pittman strained to climb the wooden fence, dropped to the other side,
and staggered ahead, enveloped again by trees.
"Jill!" His voice was hoarse, his words forced. "'Jill, it's me! It's
Matt!"
"He's not far ahead!" a man yelled.
"Jill! Where are you? I can't see you! It's me! It's Matt!"
Flashlights reached the fence, their beams stabbing into the darkness,
revealing Pittman among the trees.
A bullet nicked his jacket. Another singed his hair.
Gunshots roared among the trees. Pittman didn't understand. His
pursuers had been using silencers. Why would they have taken them off?
Why would they want to make noise?
They didn't. They hadn't. The gunshots came from ahead of him. The
men were sprawling on the ground behind the fence, yelling to one
another to turn off their flashlights, to stop making themselves
targets. Bullets struck the fence. The shots"continued from ahead of
Pittman.
"I'm here!" Jill screamed.
Pittman saw the muzzle flashes from the pistol she fired. "I see you!"
"Stay down!" she yelled.
Pittman dropped to his hands and knees, scurrying among bushes, reaching
her.
"Hurry! Get in the car!"
He opened the passenger door and flinched as the interior light came on,
revealing him. After diving in, he slammed the door shut and watched in
amazement as Jill-who was already in the car and had been firing through
her open window turned the ignition key, stomped the accelerator, and
rocketed from a gap in the trees onto the narrow, winding country road.
"Thank God, thank God," was all he could say. The words came out
between his urgent attempts to breathe, his chest heaving, falling, his
body shaking as sweat streamed off his face and soaked his clothes.
The Duster skidded around a sharp corner. Expertly controlling the car,
Jill immediately increased speed. The car's headlights revealed the
twists and turns of the two-lane road.
Quickly Pittman turned to see if headlights followed them.
"Not yet," Jill said. "They have to go back anduse the lane from the
school. The gate's two miles away. By the time they get onto this
road"
She reached another straightaway and again increased speed.
"Thank God," Pittman continued to murmur. "When I didn't see you, when
I yelled but you didn't answer - "I didn't know what to do. I heard
shooting from the school, then something that sounded like fire alarms."
"Yes." Pittman caught his breath, explaining.
"I heard car engines," Jill said. "then there was shooting among the
trees, and suddenly you came over the fence, stumbling toward me,
yelling. The flashlights behind you, those men chasing you ... All I
could think of was that I had to distract them. You told me that to
fire the pistol I didn't need to cock it. I only had to pull the
trigger. I didn't bother to aim. I just leaned out the car window,
pointed the gun up, and started shooting. My God, it holds a lot of
bullets. "
"Fifteen.
"And it jerks, and my ears are ringing from the noise... When I saw
where you were, I pointed the gun away from you and aimed toward the
fence."
She braked, steered sharply around a curve, and pressed harder on the
accelerator.
Pittman shook his head in amazement. "Where did you learn to drive
like... ?"
"My father's a nut about Porsches. One of the few fatherdaughter things
he ever did was teach me about racing. If this car had a clutch and a
standard shift, I could really show you about gaining speed around
curves. "
Pittman's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"And you're bleeding," Jill said.
"What?"
"There's blood smeared on your face, your hands, and your clothes. You
must have scraped yourself on that wall or running through those trees.
Or else .
"Say it."
"I hope you weren't hit."
"No. I don't feel any pain."
Jill stared ahead, speeding under a covered bridge.
"I said, I don't feel any pain."
"That's not always a good sign."
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes a wound traumatizes nerves in the area and stops them from
sending messages.
Shaking worse, Pittman felt along his legs, his torso, his
. "Everything seems to be all right. " Surprising himself, he yawned
and realized that he'd been doing so for quite a while. "What's wrong
with me? I'm worried that you might have been shot and yet I can't stop
yawning."
"Shock. The adrenaline's wearing off. Your body's telling you it needs
a long rest."
"But I don't feel sleepy."
"Right." Jill turned on the car's heater.
Pittman yawned again.
"Just to humor me," Jill said, "why don't you crawl in the backseat,
stretch out as best you can, and close your eyes for a while?"
"The backseat. That reminds me." With difficulty, Pittman squirmed
into the darkness of the backseat and zipped open his gym bag. "What
are you doing?" Jill asked.
"Reloading. Hand me your pistol. I've got other magazines from the
gunmen who were at your apartment. I'd better reload yours, too - "
Jill muttered something. "I didn't hear you."
"Guns. I swore I'd never touch one of the damned things. Now here I .
. . " The Duster's slant-six engine roared as Jill drove faster.
The silence woke him. Piittman blinked, disoriented, realized that he
was slumped in the car's backseat, and squinted ahead toward Jill behind
the steering wheel. The sky was gray with false dawn. The car was
stopped.
"Where are we?" Groggy, he sat up and winced from stiffness.
"A motel in Greenfield, Massachusetts. That's about ten miles south of
Vermont and a hundred and fifty miles from the school. That ought to be
far enough to keep them from finding us." Jill hesitated. "For now."
"You must be exhausted."
"I shouldn't be. Normally I'd be getting off my shift at the hospital
in an hour. I'd work out, eat a light dinner, watch something I taped
on the VCR, and go to sleep around noon. "But this isn't 'normally.'
"No kidding. You'd better stay in the car while I see if the desk clerk
will accept cash to rent a room. With that dried blood on you, you're
not exactly presentable. I'll tell the clerk we
were visiting relatives
in Waterford, Connecticut. We thought we could drive all night and get
home, but finally we're exhausted."
Jill got out of the car, went into the motel's office, and returned with
a key.
The room was on the bottom level, in back of the motel, a location Jill
had requested, telling the clerk they didn't want to be disturbed by
morning traffic.
No one was around when she unlocked the door and Pittman followed her
in. They set the gym bag and small suitcase on the floor, assessing the
unit. It was plain but clean, its air stale but not offensive.
"I asked for a nonsmoker's room." Jill locked the door. "The clerk
assured me the television works. There's no one in the rooms on either
side of us, so we won't be disturbed that way, either. "
"Twin beds," Pittman said.
"Lucky. "
"Yeah." Sex was the last thing on Pittman's mind. Nonetheless, he felt
self-conscious.
"You'd better get in the bathroom and take your clothes off. We have to
find out how badly you were injured." Jill reached into Pittman's gym
bag and pulled out a first-aid kit that they'd bought, along with the
flashlight and Pittman's wool coat, the day before.
"I bet you were a drill sergeant on the ward."