Book Deal

by Les Standiford

  …when he glanced ahead, saw the patrol car, a couple hundred yards ahead now, its brake lights blooming suddenly bright, two red nova bursts diffused by the blowing snow. As he watched in concern, the car swerved, its headlamps jouncing as it veered off the road at a sharp angle.

  Deal fought the urge to slam on his brakes, forced himself into a series of gentle taps that gradually brought the Toyota down to forty, thirty-five, then thirty. He was close enough to see what had happened now: a series of spindly-looking barricades were strung across the highway, one bearing a sign, “BRIDGE OUT,” an arrow pointing off in the direction the patrol car had taken.

  Deal cursed under his breath, brought the Land Cruiser to a crawl, edging off the pavement in the direction of the wallowing patrol car. Still a hundred yards or so ahead, the black and white piled through a fresh drift, sending a mighty wave of white that obliterated it for a moment. Then, like a surfer emerging from the aftermath of a wipeout, the patrol car emerged into view once again, churning up a steep incline now, past a massive outcropping of rock and a clutch of miserable-looking trees, wrenched nearly to the ground by their burden of ice and snow.

  Deal felt a chill just seeing it, even though the Toyota’s heater was pumping out a steady blast of hot, dry air. Not another car, not a street-lamp, not a house light in sight. Where in God’s name were they? Omaha was a city, wasn’t it? A few minutes ago he’d been in its airport. Didn’t that mean there had to be people around? Buildings. Houses.

  The patrol car topped the rise above just as Deal plowed through the drift himself. Snow flew up against the windshield as if a blanket had been tossed over it, and he jerked levers, punched buttons hurriedly until he managed to switch the wipers on, clearing the mass enough to see. The way ahead was vacant now, the patrol car disappeared again, over the rise, nothing but a pair of rutted tracks and an angry whirl of snow boring at him through his headlights.

  He felt a jolt of panic, but the tires of the big Land Cruiser bit surely into the icy tracks and the big vehicle climbed steadily up the steep incline as if it were born to such work. One thing working out right, Deal thought, patting the thick, leather-wrapped wheel. Maybe when this was over, when they were back safely in Miami, he’d get rid of the Hog once and for all, buy a rig like this, sit up high where trouble couldn’t touch you, churn through sand drifts and boggy job sites without a care. Sure, Deal, sure. Take a pill, quick.

  He gave the Toyota a little extra pedal then, held on tightly as the nose of the big machine bucked up over the rise and came down with a jolt. He caught a glimpse of the patrol car, already far down the opposite hillside, and wondered about it, how quickly the road fell away on the opposite site, he was thinking…

  …and that was when he realized what was happening and began to pump his own brakes frantically, his hands clamped to the wheel.

  The patrol car was hurtling out of control, caught in a runaway slide down the steep incline, spinning around now so that its headlights washed briefly across his face. The car slid backwards for a second, leveling out, the headlamps revealing a set of guardrails whisking away in its wake.

  A bridge, Deal realized, the patrol car now sliding backwards across a frozen bridge. It veered momentarily, a rear fender striking one rail, whipping the front around against the opposite rail, the process repeating itself as if the car were rattling like a marble down a loose track.

  He’ll stop in a moment, Deal thought, a couple more bounces, friction would eventually take over. He was also thinking how fortunate he’d been, if he hadn’t seen the patrol car lose it, he might have ended up in the same skid. As it was, they’d have one workable vehicle, he’d ease on down, get the cop out of his car…they could get the hell out of this miserable place…

  …and then he stopped, staring in disbelief as the patrol car skidded out into nothingness, its lights tilting straight up into the snow-swirling sky for a moment, then falling away into an abyss, just as the Toyota leveled out on the bridge approach and slid gently, finally, to a stop.

  Stunned, Deal caught a glimpse of ragged concrete up ahead, twisted steel reinforcement rods curling out, tendril-like, into space—there had been a roadway there once, a bridge, but now it was gone, ripped away by who knew what calamity…

  “BRIDGE OUT, BRIDGE OUT,” the sign he remembered out on the highway now flashing behind his eyes as if his brain had etched it there in neon…and he then began to understand.

  He felt more than heard the impact of the patrol car as it struck something far below, rocks, or maybe support pilings. He flung himself out of the Toyota, ran across the slippery surface. He caught hold of the icy railing, glanced down in time to see the patrol car, now a ball of orange and yellow flames, catapulting off the side of a rocky gorge. It struck the rocks again and again, then finally came to rest, a burning pyre that cast its glow all the way up the gorge to where he stood.

  He stood gaping at the sight for a moment, his mind racing through an explanation—she is still alive, Deal, they think you know something, one of you has to stay alive until they can be sure of what you know—another part of himself shouting orders, “Into the truck, into the truck while you still can…”

  …and finally, he listened to his own commands, and tried to do just that. He half-ran, half-slid back to the Toyota, found reverse, swung the vehicle into a tight arc, dropped the shift into low. He was fighting the urge to floor the accelerator—you’ll dig yourself into a grave that way, Deal—when he saw him, standing like a specter in the middle of the road, arm upraised. In the same instant, he saw the muzzle flash. He threw up his hand to ward off the spray of glass as the Land Cruiser’s windshield exploded, and knew then it was too late to run.

  Chapter 23

  As he dove beneath the dashboard of the Land Cruiser, Deal heard two more shots ring out, heard the rending of metal, a thudding sound as one slug tore through leather and seat padding somewhere above him. He had only a few seconds, he knew. No return fire, Kittle would realize there was nothing to stop him, he’d move in, finish the job.

  Deal reached up, unlatched the driver’s-side door, prayed Kittle would choose that side to approach. He grasped the steering wheel, pulled himself into as tight a ball as he could, his knees drawn toward his chest, soles of his shoes poised by the door panel. He reached up, found the key, killed the ignition, slapped his palm about until he saw the dashlights die. All those unfamiliar switches, all the blather from the Driver’s Ed manuals—“Take a moment to familiarize yourself with your car’s control panel.” He could only hope he’d managed to douse the headlamps as well.

  He lay quietly, hardly daring to breathe, his ears straining for the slightest sound. He heard the whistling of the wind, the creak of metal as the body of the truck swayed in answer. If there were footsteps out there, they were lost in the storm, in the smothering snow. He might have an instant to react, or he might not, Deal thought. Perhaps one shadowy glimpse before the shots came. And if Kittle approached by the passenger door…then he would die without knowing it had happened.

  So dark now, he wasn’t sure if he could see, or even if the man were standing there peering in through the driver’s-side window. Maybe he could perceive a vaguely glowing sky out there, maybe not. Maybe it would be best to make a run for it, pull himself out, hope he could find cover…but he knew it was no good to think that way.

  Pay your money, take your choice, Deal. Another of his old man’s sayings. A million of them. His old man’s way of stipulating his authority. He could hear him now, if you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t be in the fix you are now.

  Right. Deal could be drunk somewhere, in the middle of a card game or urging the ponies to fly, he wouldn’t have given a red apple crap if Janice had left him, come back home, or flown to the moon. He could be free as the breeze that threatened to topple the Land Cruiser on its side, send it down the same final plunge the patrol car had taken.

  He might have seen a vague shadow then, or it m
ight have been a trick of his eyes, the sort of thing staring hard into darkness could conjure up all on its own, and he hesitated, blinking, because he would have only this one chance.

  “Deal!” He heard the scream then. “He’s there, Deal.” Janice’s voice, carrying shrilly over the howling of the storm, and Deal let fly, kicking with everything he had, a death grip on the steering wheel for leverage.

  The door rocketed outward, thudding into Kittle before it had swung open a foot. Deal heard a cry, and came up from behind the wheel in the same motion. He threw himself out of the truck, still holding on to the door frame for balance. He glanced around, his eyes finally adjusting to the darkness, saw Kittle’s truck a few yards away, backed into a grove of oaks, but strangely, no sign of Janice. He heard scuffling sounds at his feet, looked down to find the dark lump that was Kittle fumbling about in the snow nearby.

  The gun, Deal thought, he’s looking for the goddamned gun. He strode forward, delivering a kick just as Kittle found it, raised his hand to fire. Deal’s foot caught Kittle higher than he intended, burrowing into the man’s upper arm, but it was a solid blow and the gun soared away into space.

  Kittle still had his head turned when Deal hit him, one step forward and a solid right that started low and caught him flush at the hinge of the jaw, the perfect punch that sent him toppling into the snow with a groan. Deal’s hand went numb with the shock of the blow and the cold, but he ignored the pain, took another step, aimed a kick at Kittle’s ribs, ready to send him over the side, send him to oblivion…

  …but Kittle saw it coming, and rolled away. Deal felt his feet fly out from under him, and then the ground came up to meet his back, shoulders, and then his head slammed down with stunning force. He meant to roll over once, get his feet under him, get up, get back to Kittle, but instead of stopping, he was picking up speed, tumbling over and over, head below his feet and launching into the air again. He soared for one second, two, then three or four, stunned, too disoriented even to be afraid, until finally he came back to earth, or something like it, a sideways plunge into a deep drift of snow, where he floundered breathlessly, sucking in nothing but great mouthfuls of feathery, suffocating snow.

  Swim, Deal, swim. Swim your way out. The ski instructor’s decade-old advice for escaping avalanche filtering vaguely up through his consciousness. Something he’d thought of as terribly incongruous at the time, how in God’s name could you swim through frozen water…

  Don’t try to climb…wiggle out sideways…it’s Nebraska for God’s sake, how deep could snow be here…

  And then he felt his hands strike solid ground, a rock, a tree limb, which he grabbed like a lifeline, one hand, then the other. He wrenched himself out, gasping, saw a shadow of hillside above, a glimpse of clouds and broken sky. Then came the wash of headlights through falling snow, a vehicle up there turning around, the sound of a motor grinding hard, grinding away.

  By the time he had struggled back to the Toyota, Kittle’s vehicle had topped the rise, headed back toward the highway where the barricades had been switched. Deal caught a brief glimpse of its boxy silhouette, then saw it slide away below the ridgeline. He took a moment to scour the surroundings, check the area where Kittle had hidden his truck.

  He cupped his hands, called out her name, bellowing above the wind, “Janice, Janice,” twice to each point of the compass. But there was no answer, only the soughing of the wind through the trees and the clatter of ice crystals off the new paint of the Land Cruiser at his side.

  He stared about, eyes straining, tearing in the wind. In the Land Cruiser, beneath it. He ran to the end of the bridge, stared out into the abyss where the patrol car had gone down. He’d heard her call to him, warn him, he was certain of it. But there was no place she could have gone. She must have been inside Kittle’s truck, maybe she’d only made it to the window, had only enough strength to call to him…

  He was already back at the Toyota, up into the seat, glass nuggets crunching beneath his feet, at his seat, the odd sensation of wind in his face, no windshield to stop it anymore.

  He found the ignition, turned the engine over. He used the headlights until he was close to the ridgeline, then doused them again, navigating the last fifty feet in darkness, his hand held up against the stinging wind.

  He paused as he came over the rise where he’d seen Kittle’s truck minutes before. The storm actually seemed to be breaking up. A wan moon slipped out from behind a mountainous cloud, illuminating the countryside for a moment, could have been a scene from Currier & Ives. Below him was the plain they’d crossed following the false detour, a mile or more of desolate country dotted here and there by clumps of trees, broken only by the vague line of their tracks. And there, toward the horizon, one lone vehicle making its way up the embankment toward the place where they’d left the deserted highway.

  Deal saw the truck regain the pavement, saw it stop, then Kittle’s figure crossing the path of the headlights, and the man struggling to drag the barricades out of the way. Deal took his foot off the brake, guided the Land Cruiser carefully down the deep ruts in front of him. The moon had ducked behind another cloud bank, but there was a soft glow that was enough to keep the roadway in sight. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill and started up the gradual incline toward the highway, Kittle was back in his truck, fishtailing through the opening he’d made in the barricades.

  Deal, his headlights still off, eyes squinting to keep fixed on Kittle’s taillights, didn’t concern himself with the barricades. He picked up speed, sent one careening sideways off the right fender of the Land Cruiser, blew another into splinters off the front brush cutter. The heavy vehicle didn’t veer, didn’t wobble. Another mark in its favor, he thought. If they ever got out of this, the Hog’s days were numbered.

  The highway was curving southward, and even though they had picked up speed, the wind rushing through the gaping hole in the windshield seemed to have abated. That meant they were running downwind now, he thought, grateful for small favors. The lights of Kittle’s truck illuminated a large traffic sign that spanned the highway, but it was too far away to read. By the time Deal reached it, the sign was simply a looming shadow overhead, and the direction it seemed to mark was an unbroken ramp of snow leading off into darkness at his right. He could make out a distant glow in the sky in that direction and supposed it marked the lights of Omaha, but they were swinging further southward now, a course that only deepened Deal’s anxiety.

  He didn’t have much in the way of a plan in the first place—keep Kittle in sight until they reached civilization, get help, ram the man’s car if he had to, whatever it took—but the direction they were headed now did not seem promising and he wondered how long he could withstand the frigid blast through the windshield, and what would happen if Kittle realized he was being followed. Even worse was the gut-wrenching possibility that he’d left Janice behind, that she was wandering alone in that frozen landscape…

  He commanded himself to stop. She wasn’t back there, he’d heard her, she was up there in that car, Kittle’s prisoner, and the only hope he had of seeing her again rested on his ability to maintain this chase.

  All the rest was fit to worry about another time, Deal told himself. He was alternating one hand with the other on the wheel now, jamming one under his armpit, his thigh, until some semblance of feeling returned to the numbed flesh of his fingers, repeating the process over and over again, thirty-second intervals, then twenty, even less.

  There was a chunk of windshield still hanging on the passenger’s side, and if he leaned across the console in that direction, he got some relief from the wind, could massage some feeling back into his face, though the crazy-quilt web of fractured glass made the already miserable visibility almost impossible.

  And he’d had the effrontery in the past to have cursed the Miami heat, he thought. Never again, he vowed. Never again. A man gets hot in Miami, he can always go jump in the ocean. Another of his father’s aphorisms rattli
ng around in his head, this one on the mark.

  The snow was suddenly thick again, heavy wet flakes that pasted themselves to his face, melted, then froze before they could drip away. He swiped his hand across his face, realized he’d have to hold his free hand up as a shield or his eyes would simply ice over.

  He glanced ahead, felt a surge of panic when he saw he’d lost sight of Kittle’s taillights. A turn up ahead he couldn’t see? A sudden rise? A dip? He fought the urge to flip on his headlamps, to give the Land Cruiser a bit more pedal. Without headlights, with the road conditions as they were and the biting wind nearly blinding him, he was on a suicide mission as it was.

  He saw another road sign flash by, lifted his foot from the accelerator, heard the whine of the engine as it took on the force of the big vehicle’s momentum. He strained into the darkness, looking for signs that Kittle had veered off the highway, but could see nothing.

  If he could just chance a few seconds with his headlamps, he thought, even as hard as the snow was falling, a few moments of light and he could still see if anyone had taken that turn…but he knew he could not risk it. His one hope was that Kittle thought him gone, that sooner or later the element of surprise would pay off…

  He saw movement out of the corner of his eye then, and glanced up—something flying over his head, for God’s sake?—could not stop himself from hitting the brakes. The big vehicle hesitated before its rear wheels broke loose and spun about, leading him in a breathtaking skid down the highway.

  He clung helplessly to the wheel, waiting for the wheels to drift off the pavement, catch some hidden rift or burrow. At this speed, the vehicle was sure to flip. And that, he thought, would be that. He watched the overpass that had caught his eye slide away behind him, felt the Toyota veer left, then right as he fought to bring the wheel into line. How the hell were you supposed to drive backwards, anyway? They’d left that part of driver training out, down in Miami. He’d write a note about it, somebody could deliver it to the Florida politicians, “We found this suggestion in a glacier in Nebraska, guy had it clutched in his mitten…”