Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,69
them all would be a bitch, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t just let them drive away—at least not until he knew what was going on.
The plinks! of the cutters snipping the chainlinks sounded crisp in the night.
Howard had almost made it to the Ford’s passenger door when the driver looked up and saw him.
“Incoming!” the driver screamed. “Incoming!”
Howard zigged to his left, toward the car’s rear, just as a gunshot exploded inside the Explorer. An orange tongue of fire reached from the driver, the passenger window shattered, and the bullet passed somewhere to his right, close enough so he heard it whistle by.
Bad guys—no goddamned doubt about it.
The noise inside the SUV must have been deafening. The driver took his foot off the brake, and the brake lights went out, plunging the scene back into darkness.
Howard still had the after-image of the gunshot seared into his retina, and his rods and cones or whatever weren’t doing their job. He rounded the back of the Explorer, dropped prone, and looked for a target.
“Move the car,” somebody said. They didn’t sound the least bit excited.
The driver stepped on the gas. The smell of burned tire filled the air as the Explorer screeched and lurched forward.
Howard’s central vision was still fogged, but he turned his head to the left and caught a peripheral movement. They had shot at him, therefore they were bad guys. He hesitated for maybe a quarter second, then lined the revolver up on the movement and squeezed the trigger. He remembered to close his eyes as the shot went off, to save what vision he had left, and then he rolled to his left as fast as he could, three complete revolutions.
Somebody screamed, and somebody returned fire. The dragon’s tongue muzzle blast lit the scene just enough for Howard to see there were two men standing next to a hole clipped through the fence, a third man lying on the ground. A bullet spanged off the road where he had been and the ricochet whined off into the trees.
Howard scraped his elbows on the road as he swung the revolver sideways and pointed it where he’d seen the flash—
“Move,” a man said, insistent, but not panicky.
Whoever he is, he’s a lot calmer than I am—
The scream of brakes forced Howard to glance away from his target zone just as he cranked off two more shots. He rolled again, and saw the Explorer’s headlights flash on as the SUV did a rubber-burning one-eighty.
The driver was going to put some light on the subject, and that was bad—
An answering pair of shots spewed more orange, and two more bullets hit the road inches away. If he hadn’t rolled, he’d have eaten both of them, and even so, the shooter had almost anticipated enough to hit him.
Howard leaped up. He had to get off the road before—
Too late. The SUV’s headlights found him. He took three steps then dived for the side of the road, hit in a sloppy shoulder roll, came up, and ran for the trees. More gunshots reached for him, but missed. The roar of the SUV’s engine increased as it headed back in his direction. The driver angled the vehicle, trying to find him with the light.
Howard slipped on something, fell, and rolled, ending up on his back, feet facing the oncoming Explorer. He pulled his feet toward his butt, propped the revolver on top of his left knee, got a nice clear sight picture outlined against the oncoming headlights. He aimed at the windshield on the driver’s side. The SUV was fifty meters away and closing. He pulled the trigger, one, two, three, four—
The gun stopped shooting after three times, clicked empty, but the SUV slewed off the road and angled into the fence, bowing a big section before it took out a post and stopped.
His piece was empty, and there was still too much reflected light out here; he felt like a bug under a microscope. He scrabbled up and into the trees, managed to run into one with his right shoulder and spin himself around, but at least he was hidden. He dropped to the ground on his butt, thumbed the cylinder latch, shoved the cylinder out with his left hand, hammered the extractor rod with the palm. Empty shells flew. He grabbed a speed strip and started to reload. One, two, three—
The SUV’s motor raced, and there came the sound of metal tearing. The motor roared louder, the tires screamed—