The big solemn cat, his tail lying quiet, had fixed its yellow eyes on Peter. It almost seemed to Jon the cat actually understood the words. Whatever it was-words or tone or body language-the cougar stepped close, reached out its neck, and gently nudged Peter on the nose.
“Good-bye, boy.” Peter nudged back.
He stood. They exchanged a look, and the cat turned and bounded lightly off into the trees. Peter headed toward Jon.
“Will he be okay?” Jon wondered. “Can he survive alone?”
“Stan’s only partly trained, Jon. Not tame. I’m not sure any cat is actually tame, but that’s a different discussion. Stanley will tolerate and protect me and the cabin, but he actually lives something of a double life. He’s got his territory, hunts as usual, mates, and has cubs, but for some reason has accepted me and my spread as part of his responsibility. He eats the food I give him as compensation for taking time off from the hunt, I think, not because he needs it. He’ll be fine.”
“He won’t try to attack those cops out there?”
“Only if I told him to. Otherwise he’ll avoid humans, as any lion will unless he’s threatened. But he’ll protect the place against other animals— bears, for example, who’d destroy it.” Suddenly he raised his head, cocked an ear. “Right! They’re in the ravine and starting up. Time to dust.”
__________
Moments later, loaded and electrically charged, the RV was bouncing away down the mountainside among the tall pines and cedars and the occasional black oak. Behind them, a series of muffled explosions sounded inside the cabin.
“J-o-n! What’s that?” Marty’s head swiveled.
“They’re in the house!” Jon swore. “Damn.”
“Hardly,” Peter told them. “A little self-destruct device. Can’t leave the control and computer room for them, can we? It’s imploding now. Everything in there will be destroyed, but the rest of the house will be fine. Untouched. Clever, eh? Work of an old sapper I know gone electronic.”
With winter late in the Sierras, white patches from early snowfalls sparkled among the trees. Exposed rocks and ruts from past rains jarred the RV. They made decent time as they swayed, dipped, and jounced down serpentine switchbacks.
Jon hung on. “Did you get me set up for Iraq?”
Peter reached into the pocket of the bush jacket he had put on over his flannel shirt. He handed Jon an envelope. “Printout’s inside. Follow the instructions to the letter, or the trip will be over long before you know it. To the letter.”
“I understand.”
Peter glanced sideways. “There was talk of a task for me.”
“What about me, Jon?” Marty asked from behind.
“You know what we have to do,” Jon told them. “Find where the virus came from, how to treat it, who has it, what they plan to do with it, and who killed Sophia.”
“And how to stop them,” Peter said grimly.
“Especially how to stop them.” Jon hung on as a deep pothole hurled them off their seats, shaking their bones. “Every Bio-Level Three and Four lab around the globe is working on the treatment, so we’ve got help there. But that still leaves the other questions. In reality, it’s all one big one: Who has it? But information about any one of the others could lead to the final answer. I’m counting on Iraq as the best chance to discover where it came from and what they’re planning to do with it.”
“And the answer to who killed Sophia could also tell us the rest, too,” Peter decided. “My assignment, right?”
“Yes. Yours and Marty’s.” He looked back. “You keep trying to pull up any missing phone calls, Mart, and locate Griffin. But hit and run this time. Don’t stay on the same line long. Switch routes. Those are two important assignments.”
Marty’s face was guilty. “I’m sorry, Jon.”
“I know.” Jon paused. “We’ve got to have some way to stay in touch.”
“The Internet,” Marty said promptly. “But not regular E-mail.”
“Right you are,” Peter agreed. “But perhaps there’s somewhere we can leave a message.”
Jon smiled. “I know— right under their noses, where they’ll never see it. We can use the Asperger’s syndrome Web site.”
Marty nodded enthusiastically. “That’s great, Jon. Perfect.”
They continued to discuss the site’s Web ring and what kind of coded messages to leave until Peter suddenly shouted: “Hold fast! Bogies at ten o’clock!”
The RV gave a wild lurch to the right, swaying so far over for a second it rode on two wheels. A volley of shots exploded from the forest. Glass flew and metal ripped at the back of the RV. Marty cried out.
“Mart?” Jon looked back.
Marty sat huddled on the floor of the careening RV, clutching his left leg and trying not to be flung from side to side like a sack of flour. A bloody sack of flour. Jon could see a spreading pool of red on Marty’s trouser leg, but Marty grinned feebly and said in a shaky voice, “I’m all right, Jon.”
“Get a towel,” Jon called back, “fold it and press it hard against the wound. If the bleeding doesn’t stop soon, yell out.”
He needed to stay in the cab where he could use Peter’s Enfield if any of the attackers cut them off.
Peter was too busy to use a weapon as he turned the wheel with a vise grip, his pale eyes cool. The unwieldy vehicle bounced off the road through the trees and brush, miraculously hitting nothing as Peter guided it with the precision of an astronaut docking at a space station. Twice he plunged the massive vehicle through streams, kicking up sheets of water and tilting dangerously on rocks hidden beneath the surfaces.
On the road, two men ran with rifles trying to get a clear shot at the RV, but the bone-jarring, unpredictable lurches and bounces of the vehicle frustrated them. They dodged branches and leaped over rocks. Behind them, a gray SUV battled to turn on the narrow road so it could join the pursuit.
As the runners fell farther behind, Jon spotted a deep ravine looming straight ahead. “Peter! Careful!”
“Got it!” Peter slammed the brakes and pivoted in a half J-turn. The top-heavy vehicle threatened to flip over as it skidded sideways, sideswiped two giant boulders, and finally came to a shuddering stop barely feet from the chasm.
On the road, the runners were far back but closing in again. In the distance, the SUV had almost succeeded in turning.
Tension in the RV was thick. Jon stared down at the deep ravine and wiped sweat from his face.
“Here we go.” Peter gunned the engine, and the big vehicle leaped ahead parallel to the ravine and straight toward the road.
Jon watched the two pursuing attackers, who were trying to shortcut the road by sprinting among the trees. “They’re getting close!”
Peter gave the running men a quick glance. The ravine made a sudden sharp turn away, and he angled the RV out of the trees and onto the road once more. With a relieved grin, he jerked the clumsy vehicle around and roared away down the dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust.
A final fusillade rang out, and bullets slashed through the trees around the fleeing vehicle. Jon forced himself to take a long breath and relax his hands on his weapon. He checked the side-view mirror: The two men had been joined by a third, and they stood angry and frustrated, their weapons dangling at their sides, in the center of the dusty road.
Jon recognized the short, burly man who had joined the first two.
“It’s them,” he said angrily. “The people who’ve been trying to kill me.” He looked at Peter. “There’ll be more of them somewhere.”
“Of course.” Peter studied the rough road as the vehicle continued to shake and bounce. “Evasive strategy, I should say. Knowledge of the terrain. Trust the enemy to overrate the element of surprise.”
Jon climbed back to Marty, hanging on to anything he could hold. But this time Marty was right— the flesh wound in his left leg was superficial. Jon applied antibiotic and a bandage. One of the RV’s windows had been shot out and the outer shell ripped with bullet holes in three places, but nothing had penetrated, and nothing important was damaged, especially not the computer that was part of Peter’s standard equipment.
He rejoined Peter up front, and five minutes later heard the sound of traffic.
“What do you think?” He scrutinized the dirt road ahead as it wound down among the trees. “Will they be waiting where we join the highway?”
“Or sooner. Let’s disappoint them.” Peter smiled his almost dreamy smile.
Ahead was a track that led off from the road to the left. Even narrower than the road they traveled, even more deeply rutted, it was only inches wider than the RV. But it was a road, not a trail.