She said, “Come to think of it, all of life is a blackjack game with God as the dealer, isn’t it? So this is no worse. Get in the car, Chris. Let’s get on with it.”
As she drove through the western neighborhoods of the resort city, Laura’s nerves were as taut as garroting wire. She was alert for trouble on all sides, though she knew it would come when and where she least expected it.
Without incident they connected with the northern end of Palm Canyon Drive, then state route 111. Ahead lay twelve miles of mostly barren desert before 111 intersected Interstate 10.
Hoping to avoid catastrophe, Lieutenant Klietmann lowered the driver’s window and smiled up at the Palm Springs policeman who had rapped on the glass to get his attention and who was now bending down, squinting in at him. “What is it, officer?” “Didn’t you see the red curb when you parked here?” “Red curb?” Klietmann said, smiling, wondering what the hell the cop was talking about.
“Now, sir,” the officer said in a curiously playful tone, “are you telling me you didn’t see the red curb?”
“Yes, sir, of course I saw it.”
“I didn’t think you’d fib,” the cop said as if he knew Klietmann and trusted his reputation for honesty, which baffled the lieutenant. “So if you saw the red curb, sir, why’d you park here?”
“Oh, I see,” Klietmann said, “parking is restricted to curbs that aren’t red. Yes, of course.”
The patrolman blinked at the lieutenant. He shifted his attention to Von Manstein in the passenger’s seat, then to Bracher and Hubatsch in the rear, smiled and nodded at them.
Klietmann did not have to look at his men to know they were on edge. The air in the car was heavy with tension.
When he shifted his gaze to Klietmann, the police officer smiled tentatively and said, “Am I right—you fellas are four preachers?”
“Preachers?” Klietmann said, disconcerted by the question.
“I’ve got a bit of a deductive mind,” the cop said, his tentative smile still holding. “I’m no Sherlock Holmes. But the bumper stickers on your car say ‘I Love Jesus’ and ‘Christ Has Risen.’ And there’s a Baptist convention in town, and you’re all dressed in dark suits.”
That was why he had thought he could trust Klietmann not to fib: He believed they were Baptist ministers.
“That’s right,” Klietmann said at once. “We’re with the Baptist convention, officer. Sorry about the illegal parking. We don’t have red curbs where I come from. Now if-—”
“Where do you hail from?” the cop asked, not with suspicion but in an attempt to be friendly.
Klietmann knew a lot about the United States but not enough to carry on a conversation of this sort when he did not control its direction to any degree whatsoever. He believed that Baptists were from the southern part of the country; he wasn’t sure if there were any of them in the north or west or east, so he tried to think of a southern state. He said, “I’m from Georgia,” before he realized how unlikely that claim seemed when spoken in his German accent.
The smile on the cop’s face faltered. Looking past Klietmann to von Manstein, he said, “And where you from, sir?”
Following his lieutenant’s lead, but speaking with an even stronger accent, von Manstein said, “Georgia.”
From the back seat, before they could be asked, Hubatsch and Bracher said, “Georgia, we’re from Georgia,” as if that word was magic and would cast a spell over the patrolman.
The cop’s smile had vanished altogether. He frowned at Erich Klietmann and said, “Sir, would you mind stepping out of the car for a moment?”
“Certainly, officer,” Klietmann said, as he opened his door, noticing how the cop backed up a couple of steps and rested his f right hand on the butt of his holstered revolver. “But we’re late for * a prayer meeting—”
In the back seat Hubatsch snapped open his attache case and snatched the Uzi from it as quickly as a presidential bodyguard might have done. He did not roll down the window but put the muzzle against the glass and opened fire on the cop, giving him no time to draw his revolver. The car window blew out as bullets pounded through it. Struck by at least twenty rounds at close range, the cop pitched backward into traffic. Brakes squealed as a car made a hard stop to avoid the body, and across the street display windows shattered as bullets hit a men’s clothing shop.