Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,70
he could make it to the highway. Romstead’s face was savage as he slammed the car into gear. It leaped forward. He gunned it and heard rubber shriek. He didn’t know whether the rifleman would try to get him or not. If it were Top Kick he might; he’d know how to disarm the explosive charge. He could take it over here, though it was dangerously close to where the country would be swarming with police ten miles to the south. And Tex was stupid enough, on the other hand, for anything to be possible. They were doing sixty-five when they came abreast of the near end of the ridge. He became conscious then that Pauline was shouting something at him, over and over.
“Aren’t you going back? For the love of God, aren’t you going back?”
“No,” he said. Then the wing window shattered just in front of her. A hole appeared in it, it cracked in a crazy pattern like a spider web, and fragments of glass showered into the car. She screamed, took a long, shuddering breath, and screamed again. She slumped forward. Romstead heard another bullet strike the car somewhere else as they tore ahead. They couldn’t go back. The minute he started to turn around, Kessler would blow it. He’d have nothing to lose then, acid or no acid, because the money would be gone anyway, and he’d have everything to gain. They knew who he was, and even if he got out of here, the FBI would pick him up within days. But as long as he was going ahead, into their country, they’d hesitate to blow it.
At least for a few more minutes, he thought. Then they’d begin to have second thoughts about it, whether anybody would destroy two million dollars as casually as that; once this credibility gap appeared, it would widen, and he had to break his way out of the car before it did because they’d be able to hear what he was up to. Of course, there was an excellent chance that what he was going to do would blow it up anyway, but after a certain point you’d reached saturation in the possibilities for disaster, so one more didn’t matter much.
He looked back. He couldn’t see the pickup anymore, but there was too much dust to be sure it hadn’t stopped or gone off the road. There appeared to be no other dust plume behind them yet, but again you couldn’t be certain of that either through the shifting curtains of their own. Rougher country was just ahead; somewhere in there he should find what he was looking for.
But he was going too fast. They hit a bump, and for an instant all four wheels were off the ground; he seemed to be somewhere far off, watching with clinical detachment and arriving at a decision: if they came down without exploding, he’d better cool it a little. He eased the throttle. There was a rocky ridge on the right now with a scattering of large boulders on its slopes, and just ahead the road dived into a shallow canyon between two of them. He cut his speed to thirty, and then to twenty, as he entered it. Kessler couldn’t see them now, no matter where he was. But he could still hear, he thought.
Up ahead the slopes on each side closed in and steepened, but he saw what he was looking for before that. He slammed on the brakes. Along the base of the slope to his left, just off the road, were several large boulders, some bigger than the car, shrugged off the hillside in some seismic upheaval of the geologic past. They were in a variety of shapes, but one of them had a configuration he thought would do. He put the car into reverse, shot backward a few yards, and pulled over beside it. This side was practically vertical, with a slight outcropping approximately where he wanted it. He leaned his head out the window and looked down.
They’d left at least an inch and a half of the threaded rod protruding beyond the washer, and the nut on this side. He’d have to attack it in reverse, however; going ahead would push the rod back against them if he managed to tear it at all, and it could cut them in two. He pulled ahead about ten feet, cut the wheels, and looked back to line it up. Paulette Carmody had raised her head now and was