Night Flight

by Donna Ball

  She took a breath, and squared her shoulders. "So," she said, looking up at him in the dark, "what do we do now?"

  Dave thought he had never admired anyone as much as he did Cathy Hamilton at that moment, and he wished he had a better answer. "The best we can," he said.

  She swallowed hard and looked away. "What if it's not good enough?"

  "It will be." His hands tightened on the wheel. "This time, it will be."

  **************

  Dave pulled onto a rutted dirt trail that might once have been a logging road, or perhaps simply a farmer's access track, and switched off the lights. He monitored the police band as long as he dared, hoping to find out where the roadblocks were being established. But he should

  have known Kreiger wouldn't make a mistake like that. He, and the county police who were undoubtedly under his command, were maintaining radio silence.

  He knew that every minute they stayed with the car only increased the danger they were in, but he hated to abandon it. The radio might not be much use now, but it could mean life or death down the road. So would the dome light. They were safe here for now but come daylight the woods would be thick with uniforms, and a dragnet like that could keep them trapped indefinitely. Except Cathy Hamilton would not let herself be trapped, and she wouldn't stay here.

  Dave glanced at her. Cathy Hamilton had an agenda that was more important than anything he could explain to her, more important even than her life, as she had proven more than once tonight. She was not going to stay still and hide while her brother lay dying. If Dave wanted to keep her with him and keep her safe, he was going to have to keep moving —and moving in the right direction.

  He said, "We're going to have to walk from here."

  Cathy jumped when he spoke, and instinctively her hand darted to the door handle, preparing for flight. She saw the surprise in his eyes when he noted the movement, and guilt rushed in to replace the panic that had surged so briefly. While he listened to the radio, she had been sitting there trying not to remember that other police radio, that other law official, that other dark road. This man had given her no reason to distrust him ... but neither had Kreiger, until it was almost too late. And she could be foolish for believing what he said just because he had a kind voice. Yet . . . who else was there? Jack would have known what to do, but Jack was not there, and Cathy was so tired; she couldn't think straight any more .

  That was when he spoke, startling her.

  Ashamed, she shifted her eyes away and tried to slide her hand unobtrusively to the arm rest. She cleared her throat. "Where?"

  He opened his own door. "We're going to have to switch vehicles. There was a used car lot just off the freeway. If we cut across country here we should come up behind it in about half a mile."

  Cathy hesitated. "In the dark?"

  He surprised her then with a grin. "Don't worry. I was a boy scout."

  It seemed like a lifetime since Cathy had last seen anyone smile, since there had last been anything in the world to smile about. And before she knew it she felt her own lips softening in a weak response. It felt good.

  Dave took from the car a couple of flashlights and some maps. He zipped the maps into the front pocket of his windbreaker, and handed one of the flashlights to Cathy. He unlocked the trunk and hesitated a moment, looking down, then he took out a shotgun. He glanced at

  Cathy, but she said nothing and neither did he. They set off through the woods, Dave leading the way.

  Even if Cathy had wanted to talk, she could not have found the breath, and merely staying on her feet required all the concentration at her command. Until that moment she had not realized how close to the mountains they were; the terrain was rocky and sometimes so steep that it was easier to slide down an incline than walk. At Dave's warning she kept her flashlight hooded and pointed directly at the ground beneath her feet, but even then she was certain the lights would be spotted, bobbing along the hillside, particularly as they moved close enough to hear the freeway again.

  When Dave signaled her to turn off her flashlight she did so, and was surprised to find that her eyes had adjusted to the night enough to allow her to see without it. After a moment she realized it wasn't just her eyes; the night was fading, and it was almost dawn.

  "We're cutting it close," Dave muttered.

  He led the way out of the shadow of the woods and down a sloping bank to a dirt cutaway. Less than five hundred yards away was the chain-link fence that marked the back of the car lot.

  Cathy was breathing hard as they reached it. She watched Dave grab the mesh and give it a shake, as though testing its strength, and that was the first time she realized what he intended to do.

  "You're—not going to break in?"

  "No need."

  He moved quickly along the perimeter of the fence and Cathy had to run a little to keep up. Even then she didn't want to believe it, she tried not to think it, she tried not to let it matter.

  The fence ended at the sides of a narrow prefab office building. Even Cathy could see that all a burglar had to do was break into the office, walk out the back door, and drive away with anything on the lot. Dave moved toward the building but Cathy stopped where she was.

  She said flatly, "You're going to steal a car."

  He went up the two narrow steps and rattled the knob, testing the lock and the weight of the door. "You have a better idea?"

  Cathy stood still, hugging her arms and trying to keep her voice steady. "You said you were a cop. A policeman wouldn't—"

  "This policeman's going to do what he has to to get out of here."

  "You can't steal a car!" Her voice was growing shrill. "They'll know who did it, they'll follow us! We're in enough trouble already, you can't—"

  "I'll leave a goddamn credit card, all right?"

  He snapped his head around to her, and the minute he spoke he regretted his harsh words. She stood in the yard a few feet away from him, her face white and her eyes huge, unconsciously holding herself together by the force of her arms wrapped around her waist—a lone woman whose world had been jerked out from under her and who was trying to make it right again in the only way she knew how. Policemen don't steal cars. A simple rule that, when all others were shattered, she should have been able to count on. He wished he could tell her that he understood. He wished he could make it right for her. But every minute they delayed decreased their chances of getting out of here exponentially, and he simply didn't have time.

  So he said instead, "Get ready to run. There might be an alarm."

  He wrapped his hand in the hem of his wind- breaker and tapped the glass panel in the door with his fist. The shattering, tinkling sound it made as it hit the floor inside sounded loud enough to wake the dead, but no alarm went off.

  Cathy watched as he reached inside and unlocked the door. She wanted to run. She wanted to run as far away from this place, and him, as she could possibly get. She wanted to stop having to choose who to trust and who to fear, who wore the white hat and who wore the black, at every turn. She knew she was being stupid about the car; after the things she had done tonight she should be the first to admit the old rules didn't apply. She wanted to believe in him; she needed to believe in him. Why couldn't he make it easy for her?

  And then it was almost as though he read her mind. He turned back to her, and he held out

  the shotgun. His voice was gruff with the effort to sound casual. "Here," he said. "Hold this for me, will you?"

  She couldn't see his face in the dark, but she knew the significance of the gesture, and read it in his voice. Trust.

  After a moment Cathy stepped forward and took the heavy weapon from him. She, too, tried to keep her voice casual, as though nothing of significance had happened at all. "Why didn't you just jimmy the lock?"

  "I was absent the day they taught that in rookie school."

  Dave opened the door, using his flashlight in a brief crisscross pattern to find the landmarks he needed, then switching it off. Bob's Used Cars wasn
't much different from Caleb's Super Deals back home: a big desk on the right wall, a couple of comfortable chairs for the customers, some file cabinets, a short hallway leading to the restrooms, and just inside that hallway a peg- board where the keys were hung. The difference was that Caleb had locked those keys inside a private office in back, but that still hadn't kept a couple of kids each year from going joyriding at his expense.

  He moved as quickly as possible toward the shadow that was the hallway. Once there, he felt it safe to turn on his flash long enough to examine the rows of keys. The first one he took was for the padlock on the gate. Almost at random he snatched up the keys for an '07 Tauras. He was

  just about to pocket them both when a sound, horribly unmistakable, deadly in intent, froze him where he stood.

  It was a low, wet growl, only a few feet away, followed almost immediately by the rushing click of claws on linoleum. Dave thought, Shit! and spun away, but too late. The Doberman launched itself at his throat.

  **************

  After standing alone and exposed in the yard for approximately twenty seconds, Cathy moved up onto the porch and then, hesitating, she stepped over the threshold. She could see the brief glint of Dave's flashlight in the hallway, backlighting his face as he examined the keys. Her teeth were tightly clenched with the effort to keep from urging him to hurry. She darted her eyes from the backdoor exit opposite the desk, through which they would have to leave, to the door she had come through, from which anyone could sneak up behind her. She thought about silent alarms and routine patrols and night- watchmen with sawed-off shotguns. She never once thought about guard dogs.

  When it happened it was over in an instant, though it seemed to spin out forever. Dave turned off the light as he started back toward her, and Cathy breathed a little easier. She edged toward the back door. Then the dog seemed to come out of nowhere, a blur of fur and gleaming teeth and the blood-curdling sounds of a carnivore at a feast. When Dave burst into the small front office where she stood she wasn't sure whether he was running or had been thrown; she couldn't tell whether the animal had fastened itself to him or was inches away from doing so. Dave had hunched his shoulders and flung his arms over his head to protect his throat and face, and the dog was at his shoulder.

  Cathy did not even have the breath for a scream. As instinctively as she would slap at a stinging insect or kick at a thorny vine, she lunged forward with the stock of the shotgun and shoved hard at the dog. The movement was not enough to do any real harm but it distracted the dog for the split second it took for Dave to wrench away before the animal's powerful jaws could get a firm grip on his flesh. Dave shouted "Run!" and propelled her toward the back door.

  She reached it before he did and the dog was on him again. She could hear growls that were worse than furious barking, growls that should have been accompanied by the rending of flesh and the spurting of blood; she could hear Dave's grunts and gasps for breath as he tried to fight off the dog and she could hear her own cries, for she was screaming now, sobbing as she fumbled with the door knob with one hand, gripping the shotgun in the other. Dave stumbled and fell against her, hard. She lost her grip on the door knob and heard Dave cry out in pain, but she dared not look at him. She grabbed the door knob but it wouldn't turn. She pulled it, pushed it, she couldn't find the lock .

  Her hand fumbled over the deadbolt, recognized it, twisted it left, then right, then left again. The door flew open and she stumbled through. Dave flung himself after her, twisting around, trying to dislodge the dog long enough to reach the pistol in his holster, or the one zipped in his windbreaker. The dog broke for an instant, only to charge again, and this time the teeth were aimed for Dave's eyes.

  If Cathy had started to run she could have reached the fence and been over it before the dog started after her; there was never any doubt of that. She was, in fact, already running, but she wasn't aware of making a conscious decision when she veered away from the fence, back toward Dave. She grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and swung it, with all the force of her forward momentum, toward the dog. The impact knocked the weapon from her hands. There was a horrid, high-pitched, staccato animal scream, and the thunk of the stock against the dog's ribs. That, of all the things she had had to do that night, was the hardest. The dog fell still, whimpering.

  Dave pushed her from behind, and they ran for the gate. Dave's breath was as harsh as hers as he fumbled to get the key in the padlock. When he dropped the key Cathy wanted to scream at him, until she saw that the reason he had lost his grip was because his hand was slick with blood. She sank to her knees beside him, sweeping the gravel-strewn ground with fingers that were shaking and numb. But she found the key first, grabbed it, and got it into the lock. Dave pushed and the gate swung open.

  Pulling her by the arm, he moved swiftly down the rows of cars. Cathy's heart was pounding so hard now she couldn't even hear the gasping sobs of her breath. They both knew that the open lot would be a far more likely spot for an attack dog than the inner office had been.

  Finally Dave, glancing back and forth between the numbers on the key tag and the numbers on the dealer's plates, said, "Here." He stopped before a white Tauras and jerked open the driver's door.

  Cathy started around to the passenger side, but suddenly her legs wouldn't carry her anymore. Suddenly she heard again in her mind that high, cut-off squeal, felt the ache in her biceps where the force of the blow had traveled through her arms and sent the weapon spinning, and she was seized with a chill that left her shaking. She staggered a few feet away, fell to her hands and knees in the gravel, and was violently sick.

  For a long time after the spasm had passed she stayed there, weeping softly while the night spun around her. She felt weak, helpless. Then she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, and Dave passed her a handkerchief. For a moment she just looked at it, oddly struck by what a sweet, old-fashioned gesture that was. So few men carried handkerchiefs any more. Then she took it, blotting her face.

  She looked at Dave, too mentally worn out to be embarrassed, too physically spent to feel much of anything at all. But she was struck — she couldn't help being struck just then, in the low gray light of predawn—by how kind his face looked. As kind as his voice.

  She dropped her eyes. "I lost your gun."

  "Yeah. Well ..." With a gentle pressure on her arm, he helped her to her feet. "I hope you'll understand if I don't go back for it."

  Cathy almost smiled.

  Then his face, and his tone, became very serious. "Cathy," he said. "I've got to ask you to do something. I wish I didn't have to, but I don't see any other way."

  She tensed. No, she thought. No more. Don't ask me to be brave anymore, to think anymore, to do anything more, not tonight. I can't, not tonight. . .

  He said, "There's no way we're going to get out of here without going through at least one roadblock. They might not have very good physical descriptions, but they'll be doing license checks. I have an undercover ID, so I have to drive. They'll be looking for a man and a woman together, so the safest way to do this is for you to get in the trunk."

  She waited. He said nothing more.

  "That's it?"

  He nodded. "It won't be long. An hour at most."

  Again, Cathy almost managed a smile. "I thought it was going to be something hard."

  "If they search the trunk it will be. But traffic's starting to pick up, and I'm counting on their not taking time to do that." He scanned the lightening sky briefly. "There's still a chance we can slide out of this. Maybe even bypass the roadblock."

  Cathy shook her head tiredly. "You're driving, that's all I have to know."

  She walked around to the trunk of the car, but then the false sense of ease she had felt began to evaporate. It was small, and airless, and to be locked in the dark for an indeterminate time . . . maybe forever ... it was a frail plan, a stupid plan. There had to be a better way.

  But when she glanced back at Dave she saw the tension around his eyes and the dark worr
y within them, and she knew they did not have the luxury, or the time, to come up with a better plan. She forced a tight smile, gesturing toward the trunk. "Have you got a key for this thing?"

  *********************

  Chapter Twelve

  Cathy tried not to think about coffins. She tried not to think about how badly she wanted to stretch out her legs, or what would happen if she got a cramp, or how quickly the trunk could fill up with carbon monoxide, or what would happen if Dave were stopped, or killed, and no one ever let her out of there. She tried not to count the minutes. She tried to pretend she was anywhere other than where she was. And it took forever.

  Actually, it took less than ten minutes. Though he hadn't had time to do much more than glance at the map, Dave figured a town the size of Hinesville wouldn't have more than two or three freeway exits at the most, and all of them would be covered. Two cars were waiting to pass the roadblock when he got on the entrance ramp, and he knew he'd been right. The suspense was almost over.

  He had taken off his windbreaker and his hat—two identifying garments Kreiger might remember--and had hidden them in the trunk with Cathy. His shoulder harness and pistol he slipped into the glove compartment. He didn't know whether he'd use the gun if he had the chance. It was too soon to worry about the car's having been reported stolen; they would have at least a three-hour head start before anyone even noticed it was missing.

  It was over in a matter of minutes. He had his license ready—the one that identified him as Jeff Hopper of Portersville, California—and had no trouble putting on the half-annoyed, half-anxious look of the ordinary motorist who was stopped at this hour of the morning. He had, after all, seen that look enough times himself.

  He didn't think about Cathy at all, cramped up in the trunk with the smell of exhaust, and the sound of the road in her ears, without even enough room to turn over or shift her arms. It was almost as though thinking about her would have somehow magically revealed her presence to their enemies, and besides, the only way to play an undercover was to believe it. So he rolled down the window, leaning his elbow on the frame with his license in his hand as he inched toward the waiting officer, and when he reached him he said, "What's going on?"