Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

unbuttoned his shirt part of the way, slipped the rock inside against

his belly, and rebuttoned.

With the semiautomatic Remington twelve-gauge in his right hand, he

stealthily traversed the embankment, moving south until he felt that he

was just below the rear end of their Chevrolet. Edging up to the top of

the slope again, he found that he had estimated the distance perfectly,

The rear bumper of their sedan was inches from his face.

Sharp’s window was open-standard government cars seldom boasted

air-conditioning-and Ben knew he had to make the final approach in

absolute silence. If Sharp heard anything suspicious and looked out his

window, or if he even glanced at his side-view mirror, he would see Ben

scurrying behind the Chevy.

A convenient noise, just loud enough to provide cover, would be welcome,

and Ben wished the wind would pick up a bit. A good strong gust,

shaking the trees, would mask his Better yet, the sound of a car engine

rose, approaching from the north, from behind the sedan. Ben waited

tensely, and a gray Pontiac Firebird appeared from that direction. As

the Firebird drew nearer, the sound of rock music grew louder, a couple

of kids on a pleasure ride, windows open, cassette player blaring, Bruce

Springsteen singing enthusiastically about love and cars and foundry

workers. Perfect.

Just as the supercharged Firebird was passing the Chevy, when the noise

of engine and Springsteen were loudest, and when Sharp’s attention was

almost certainly turned in a direction exactly opposite that of his

side-view mirror, Ben scrambled quickly over the top of the embankment

and crept behind the sedan. He stayed low, under their back window, so

he would not be seen in the rearview mirror if the other D.S.A agent

checked the road behind.

As the Firebird and Springsteen faded, Ben duckwalked to the left rear

corner of the Chevy, took a deep breath, leaped to his feet, and pumped

a round from the shotgun into the back tire on that side. The blast

shattered the still mountain air with such power that it scared Ben even

though he knew it was coming, and both men inside cried out in alarm.

One of them shouted, “Stay down!” The car sagged toward the driver’s

side. His hands stinging from the recoil of the first shot, Ben fired

again, strictly to scare them this time, putting the load low over the

top of the car, just low enough so some of the shot skipped across the

roof, which to those inside must have sounded like pellets impacting in

the interior. Both men were down on the front seat, trying to stay out

of the line of fire, a position which also made it impossible for them

either to see Ben or to shoot at him.

He fired another round into the dirt shoulder as he ran, paused to blow

out the front tire on the driver’s side, causing the car to sag further

in that direction.

He pumped one more load into the same tire solely for dramatic

effect-the thunderous crash of the shotgun had unnerved even him, so it

must have paralyzed Sharp and the other guy-then glanced at the

windshield to be sure both of his adversaries were still below the line

of fire. He saw no sign of them, and he put his sixth and final shot

through the glass, confident that he would not seriously hurt either man

but would scare them badly enough to ensure that they would continue to

hug the car seat for another half minute or so.

Even as the shotgun pellets were lodging in the back seat of the Chevy

and the safety glass was still falling out into the front seat, Ben took

three running steps, dropped flat to the ground, and pulled himself

under the Dodge station wagon. When they got the courage to lift their

heads, they would figure he had run into the woods on one side of the

road or the other, where he was reloading and waiting to make another

pass at them when they showed themselves. They would never expect to

find him lying prostrate on the ground beneath the very next car in

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *