Firebreak

Wiss climbed in front with Lloyd, the other two in back, where there was a narrow long space between two made-up stretchers. Parker sat on the right, Elkins on the left.

Wiss slammed his door and then, astonished, said, 'Larry? What the hell are you doing?'

'I figured,' Lloyd said, 'I'd see how you guys were, if everything was okay we could carry the paintings in the back.' Looking in his interior mirror, he said, 'You two set back there?'

'Turn it around,' Parker told him. 'Get us out of here.'

Lloyd's jaw dropped. 'What? We need those paintings!'

Wiss said, 'Larry, there's law all over that place up there.'

'No,' Lloyd said. The muscles of his jaw were bunched. 'That's the only score I've got. I need to do my face, I need to set myself up.'

'Larry,' Elkins said, 'let's discuss this a hundred miles from here.'

'I can't leave this mountain without the paintings,' Lloyd insisted. He sat hunched over the steering wheel, glaring sidelong at Wiss.

Mildly, Parker said to Wiss, 'Ralph, he's beginning to sound like those other friends of yours.'

'Wait, wait a minute,' Wiss said. 'Let's talk this over.'

'Not here,' Parker said.

'I tell you what,' Wiss said. 'The sentry house, just down the road. There's nobody in there now, no reason for anybody to go there. We can move ourselves in just long enough to talk.'

Parker said, 'Just so we're moving away from the lodge.'

'Exactly.' Wiss said to Lloyd, 'Do it, Larry.'

Lloyd unclenched. 'Fine,' he said.

As Lloyd K-turned the blocky ambulance, Elkins said, 'Going down, Larry, use your flasher and siren. There's gonna be more cops coming up.'

'I'm not sure where those controls are,' Lloyd said.

Wiss told him, 'You drive, I'll find them,' and leaned close to the dashboard.

As they started down the slope, Elkins said, 'How do you manage to promote yourself an ambulance?'

'The hospital was only a few blocks from the motel,' Lloyd explained, 'and this was parked by itself.'

Ahead, two more state cars were coming up. Wiss

ducked low, and the state cars pulled to the side to let the ambulance roar on by.

A minute later they saw the sentry house down below them, to the left of the road, with the driveway angling in toward the wide three-car attached garage. As Wiss cut the siren and lights and Lloyd slowed for the turn, Parker said, 'Cut over the lawn, take it around back, where they won't see it from the road.'

Lloyd said, 'What about the garage?'

'Later, if we have to. Now, we'd have to bust in, and we can't bust into this building.'

As Lloyd steered the ambulance around the sentry house, Wiss said, 'That's right, this place is still wired, we could set off alarms down in the police station in Havre.'

'We'll ease in,' Elkins said. 'The house won't even know we're there.'

Lloyd stopped the ambulance close to the rear of the house. He reached for his door, but stopped when Parker said, 'Lloyd.'

Lloyd looked around at him. He looked apprehensive, but determined. 'Yes?'

Parker said, 'I don't like to leave empty-handed either, but it would be worse to leave in a prison bus. If we work something out* good. If not, I don't mind leaving you right here.'

Lloyd slowly nodded. 'I understand,' he said.

11

Wiss did the easing, through the back door. He took nearly ten minutes at it, and during that time more cars ran up the road, invisible from here, and two ran down it. Then finally Wiss said, 'There you are, you son of a bitch,' and the door swung open.

Not yet noon on a bright but sunless day; they didn't need a light to find their way around the rooms. This was a much more utilitarian structure, with a simple kitchen and dining room, a combination living room and recreation room with sofas and a Ping-Pong table and television set and bookshelves, plus the security room, all downstairs. They didn't bother to go upstairs, which was presumably all bedrooms, but clustered into the security room.

The alarm systems were all still functioning. Eighteen monitors showed the inside and outside of the lodge, and another cluster of twelve monitors showed the views from the perimeter cameras. They stood and looked at the different pictures of the lodge, and every one of them was crawling with police.

'Bad guys go in,' Elkins commented, 'but bad guys don't come out.'

'There's no cameras in the basement,' Wiss said. 'We don't know if they got in the gallery or not.'