commanded Rhinemann’s lieutenant, taking his pistol from inside his jacket
as he spoke.
The Bentley skidded into a sudden turn, swerving diagonally to the right,
throwing David and the German into the left section of the back seat. The
Argentine gunned the engine, starting up a hill, slamming the gears into
first position, reaching maximum speed in seconds. There was a slight
leveling off, a connecting, flatter surface before a second hill, and the
driver used it to race the motor in a higher gear for speed. The car
pitched forward in a burst of acceleration, as if it were a huge bullet.
The second hill was steeper but the initial speed helped. They raced
upward; the driver knew his machine, thought David.
‘There are the lights!’ yelled the German. ‘They follow!’
‘There are flat stretches … I think,’ said the driver, concentrating on
the road. ‘Beyond this section of hills. There are many side roads; we’ll
try to hide in one. Perhaps they’ll pass.’
‘No.’ The German was still peering out the rear window. He
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checked the magazine of his pistol by touch; satisfied, he locked it in
place. He then turned from the window and reached under the seat. The
Bentley was pitching and vibrating on the uphill, back country road, and the
German swore as he worked his hand furiously behind his legs.
Spaulding could hear the snap of metal latches. The German slipped the
pistol into his belt and reached down with his free hand. He pulled up a
thick-barreled automatic rifle that David recognized as the newest, most
powerful front-line weapon the Third Reich had developed. The curved
magazine, rapidly inserted by the German, held over forty rounds of -30
caliber ammunition.
Rhinemann’s lieutenant spoke. ‘Reach your flat stretches. Let them close
in.’
David bolted up; he held onto the leather strap across the rear of the
front seat and braced his left hand against the window frame. He spoke to
the German harshly.
‘Don’t use that! You don’t know who they are.’
The man with the gun glanced briefly at Spaulding, dismissing him with a
look. ‘I know my responsibilities.’ He reached over to the right of the
rear window where there was a small metal ring imbedded in the felt. He
inserted his forefinger, pulled it up, and yanked it toward him, revealing
an open-air slot about ten inches wide, perhaps four inches high.
David looked at the left of the window. There was another ring, another
opening.
Rhinemann’s car was prepared for emergencies. Clean shots could be fired at
any automobile pursuing it; the sightlines were clear and there was a
minimum of awkwardness at high speeds over difficult terrain.
‘Suppose it’s American surveillance covering me?’ David shouted as the
German knelt on the seat, about to insert the rifle into the opening.
‘It’s not.’
‘You don’t know that!’
‘Sehors!’ shouted the driver. ‘We go down the hill; it’s very long, a wide
bend. I remember it! Below there are high-grass fields. Flat…. Roads.
Hold on!’
The Bentley suddenly dipped as if it had sped off the edge of a precipice.
There was an irnmediate, sustained thrust of speed so abrupt that the
German with the rifle was thrown back, his body suspended for a fraction of
a second in midair. He crashed
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into the front seat support, his weapon held up to break the fall. David did not
– could not – hesitate. He grabbed the rifle, gripping his fingers around
the trigger housing, twisting the stock inward and jerking it out of the
German’s hands. Rhinemann’s lieutenant was stunned by Spaulding’s action. He
reached into his belt for his pistol.
The Bentley was now crashing down the steep incline at an extraordinary
speed. The wide bend referred to by the Argentine was reached; the car
entered a long, careening pattern that seemed to be sustaining an
engineering improbability: propelled by the wheels of a single side, the
other off the surface of the ground.
David and the German braced themselves with their backs against opposite
sides, their legs taut, their feet dug into the felt carpet.
‘Give me that rifleV The German held his pistol on David’s chest. David had
the rifle stock under his arm, his finger on the trigger, the barrel of the
monster weapon leveled at the German’s stomach.
‘You fire, I fire,’ he shouted back. ‘I might come out of it. You won’t.
You’ll be all over the car!’
Spaulding saw that the driver had panicked. The action in the back seat,
coupled with the problems of the hill, the speed and the curves created a
crisis he was not capable of handling.
‘Sefiors! Madre de Jestis! … You’ll kill us!’
The Bentley briefly struck the rocky shoulder of the road; the jolt was
staggering. The driver swung back toward the center line. The German spoke.
‘You behave stupidly. Those men are after you, not us”
‘I can’t be sure of that. I don’t kill people on speculation.’
‘You’ll kill us, then? For what purposeT
‘I don’t want anyone killed…. Now, put down that gun! We both know the
odds.’
The German hesitated.
There was another jolt; the Bentley had struck a large rock or a fallen
limb. It was enough to convince Rhinemann’s lieutenant. He placed the
pistol on the seat.
The two adversaries braced themselves; David’s eyes on the German’s hand,
the German’s on the rifle.
‘Madre de Dios!’ The Argentine’s shout conveyed relief, not further panic.
Gradually the Bentley was slowing down.
David glanced through the windshield. They were coming out
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Of the hill’s curve; in the distance were flat blankets of fields, miniature
pampas reflecting the dull moonlight. He reached over and took the German’s
pistol from the seat. It was an unexpected move; Rhinemann’s lieutenant was
annoyed with himself.
‘Get your breath,’ said Spaulding to the driver. ‘Have a cigarette. And get
me back to town.’
‘Colonel!’ barked the German. ‘You may hold the weapons, but there’s a car
back there! If you won’t follow my advice, at least let us get off the
road!’
‘I haven’t the time to waste. I didn’t tell him to slow down, just to
relax.’
The driver entered a level stretch of road and reaccelerated the Bentley.
While doing so he took David’s advice and fit a cigarette. The car was
steady again.
– ‘Sit back,’ ordered Spaulding, placing himself diagonally in the right
corner, one knee on the floor – the rifle held casually, not carelessly.
The Argentine spoke in a frightened monotone. ‘There are the headlights
again. They approach faster than I can drive this car…. What would you
have me do?’
David considered the options. ‘Give them a chance to respond. … Is there
enough moon to see the road? With your lights off?’
‘For a while. Not long. I can’t remember. . .
‘Flick them on and off! Twice…. Now!’
The driver did as he was instructed. The effect was strange: the sudden
darkness, the abrupt illumination – while the Bentley whipped past the tall
grass on both sides of the road.
David watched the pursuing vehicle’s lights through the rear window. There
was no response to the signals. He wondered whether they’d been clear,
whether they conveyed his message of accommodation.
‘Flick them again,’ he commanded the driver. ‘Hold a couple of beats …
seconds. Now!’
The clicks were heard from the dashboard; the lights remained off for
three, four seconds. The clicks again; the darkness again.
And then it happened.
There was a burst of gunfire from the automobile in pursuit. The glass of
the rear window was shattered; flying, imbedding itself into skin and
upholstery. David could feel blood trickling down his cheek; the German
screamed in pain, grasping his bleeding left hand.
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The Bentley swerved; the driver swung the steering wheel back and forth,
zigzagging the car in the road’s path.
‘There is your reply!’roared Rhinemann’s lieutenant, his hand bloodied, his
eyes a mixture of fury and panic.
Quickly, David handed the rifle to the German. ‘Use it!’
The German slipped the barrel into the opening; Spaulding Sprung up into
the seat and reached for the metal ring on the left side of the window,
pulled it back and brought the pistol up.
There was another burst from the car behind. It was the volley of a
submachine gun, scattershot, heavy caliber; spraying the rear of the
Bentley. Bulges appeared throughout the felt top and sides, several bullets
shattered the front windshield.
The German began firing the automatic; David aimed as best he could – the
swerving, twisting Bentley kept pushing the pursuing car out of sightlines.
Still he pulled the trigger, hoping only to spray the oncoming tires.
The roars from the German’s weapon were thunderous; repeated crescendos of
deafening boonu, the shock waves of each discharge filling the small,
elegant enclosure.
David could see the explosion the instant it happened. The hood of the
onrushing automobile was suddenly a mass of smoke and steam.