God that what he had told the boy was true. Let it be true.
Let it be nothing more serious than a piece of bad road, a section of
rain-tunneled pavement. Don’t let anything happen to the Thunderbird.
it must not break down. They must not be stranded out here in the sand
and the salt flats, not alone, not so far from help, and not with the
madman as their only company.
He tried the accelerator.
The car picked up, hit ninety . . .
And the violent shudder returned, as if the frame and body were no
longer firmly joined and were slamming into each other, parting,
slamming together again. This time, as he lost control of the wheel, he
felt the horrible quaking in the gas pedal as well. Their top speed was
going to be eighty-five. Otherwise, the car would fall apart.
Therefore, they were not going to outpace the Chevrolet.
The driver of the van seemed to realize this the same moment that Doyle
did. He tooted his horn, then pulled away from them, out in front where
he had command of the highway.
“What are we going to do?” Colin asked.
“Wait and see what he does.”
When the Automover was approximately a thousand yards out ahead of them,
wrapped up in the deceptively undulating streams of hot air that were
rising off the superheated pavement, it slowed down to a steady
eighty-five and maintained a consistent half-mile lead.
A mile passed.
On both sides of the road, the land became even whiter, as if it had
been bleached by the raw sun. It was punctuated only by rare, ugly
clumps of struggling scrub and by occasional dark rock teeth that were
all stained and rotted by the desert wind and heat.
Two miles.
The van was still out there, taunting them.
The dashboard vents spewed crisp, cold air, and still the interior of
the Thunderbird was too warm and close. Alex felt perspiration bead on
his forehead. His shirt was sticking to him.
Three miles.
“Maybe we should stop,” Colin said.
“And turn back?”
“Maybe. ”
“He would see us,” Doyle said. “He would turn right around and
follow-and before long, he’d be out in front of us again.”
“Well ..”
“Let’s wait and see what he does,” Doyle said again, trying to keep the
fear out of his voice. He was aware that the boy needed an example of
strength. “You want to get the map and see how far it is to the next
town?
m Colin understood the significance of the question. He grabbed the map
and opened it on his knees. it covered him like a quilt.
Squinting through his Coke-bottle glasses, he found their last known
position, estimated the distance they had come since then, and marked
the spot with one finger. He located the nearest town, checked the key
at the bottom of the map, then did some figuring in his head.
“Well?” Doyle asked.
“Sixty miles.”
“You sure?
“Positive.”
“I see.”
it was too damned far.
Colin folded the map and put it away. He sat like a stone sculpture,
staring at the back of the Chevrolet van.
The highway crested a gentle slope, dropped away into a broad alkali
basin. It looked like an ink line drawn across a clean sheet of
typewriter paper. For miles and miles to the west, the road was empty.
Nothing moved out there.
This complete isolation was precisely what the driver of the van wanted.
He braked hard, pulled the Chevrolet toward the right berm, then swung
it around to the left in a broad loop. The van stopped, sideways in the
road, blocking most of both lanes.
Doyle tapped the brakes, then realized that there was no percentage in
slowing down or stopping altogether. He put his foot on the accelerator
again. “Here we go!”
Holding at a steady eighty-five, the Thunderbird bore down on the van,
aimed straight at the center of the green-and-blue advertisement painted
on its flank. Seven hundred yards lay between them. Now only six
hundred-five, four, three hundred . . .
“He isn’t going to move!” Colin said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“We’ll hit!”
“No.”
“Alex-” Fifty yards from the truck, Doyle wheeled to the right.