spotted. The windows were covered with yellow curtains that had no
doubt once been white. It looked like nothing more than the home of a
couple of travel-loving retirees living on dwindling Social Security and
unable to maintain it with the pride they had when it had been new
Except for the motorcycle. A Harley was chained to a roof rack to the
left of the roof service ladder on the back of the motor home. It
wasn’t the biggest bike made, but it was powerful-and not something a
pair of retirees typically tooled around on.
In spite of the cycle, nothing about the Road king was suspicious.
In its wake Jim Ironheart was overcome by a sense of evil so strong
there might as well have been a black tide washing over him with all the
power of the sea behind it. He gagged as if he could smell the
corruption of them to whom the motor home belonged.
At first he hesitated, afraid that any action he took might jeopardize
woman and child who were evidently being held captive. But the worse
thing he could do was delay. The longer the mother and daughter were in
the hands of the people in the Road king, the less chance they had of
coming out of it alive.
He swung into the passing lane. He intended to get a couple of miles
ahead of them and block the road with his car.
In the Road king’s rearview mirror, the driver must have seen Jim stop
at the station wagon and get out to inspect it. Now he let the Camaro
pull almost even before swinging the motor home sharply left, bashing it
against the side of the car.
Metal shrieked against metal, and the car shuddered.
The steering wheel spun in Jim’s hands. He fought for control and kept
The Road king pulled away, then swerved back and bashed him again, ?
driving him off the blacktop and onto the unpaved shoulder.
For a few hundred yards they rattled forward at high speed in those
positions: the Road king in the wrong lane, risking a head-on collision
with any oncoming traffic that might be masked by the curtains of heat
and sun glare; the Camaro casting up huge clouds of dust behind it,
speeding precariously along the brink of the two-foot drop-off that
separated the raised roadbed from the desert floor beyond.
Even a light touch of the brakes might pull the car a few inches to the
left, causing it to drop and roll. He only dared to ease up on the
accelerator and let his speed fall gradually.
The driver of the Road king reacted, reducing his speed, too, hanging at
Jim’s side. Then the motor home moved inexorably to the left, inch by
inch, edging relentlessly onto the dirt shoulder.
Being much the smaller and less powerful of the two vehicles, the Camaro
could not resist the pressure. It was pushed leftward in spite of Jim’s
efforts to hold it steady. The front tire found the brink first, and
that corner of the car dropped. He hit the brakes; it didn’t matter any
more.
Even as he jammed his foot down on the pedal, the rear wheel followed
the front end into empty space. The Camaro tipped and rolled to the
left.
Using a safety harness was a habit with him, so he was thrown sideways
and forward, and his sunglasses flew off, but he didn’t crack his face
against the window post or shatter his breastbone against the steering
wheel. Webs of cracks, like the work of a spider on Benzedrine, spread
across the windshield. He squeezed his eyes shut, and gummy bits of
tempered glass imploded over him. The car rolled again, then started to
roll a third time but only made it halfway, coming to rest on its roof
Hanging upside down in the harness, he was unhurt but badly shaken.
He choked on the clouds of white dust that poured in through the
shattered windshield.
They’ll be coming for me He fumbled frantically for the harness release,
found it, and dropped the last few inches onto the ceiling of the
overturned car. He was curled on top of the shotgun. He had been damn