eyes shut and then opened them, desperately trying to see as he moved carefully toward the back, of the car. Karen was stretching, trying to lean into the car.
“Karen, wait a minute,” he called as the phone rang again. And then he froze when he recognized what was on the rear bumper. A lighted cigarette was dangling from a string tied to the bumper, about eighteen inches over the shimmering puddle in the ditch. The ash had burned almost back to the string.
“Karen! Karen! Get, out! Get away, now!” he shouted, and then began to backpedal sideways across the hill, trying to get to her.
Karen had been halfway into the hole in the driver’s window when she heard him yelling. She turned, saw the look on his face, dropped back off the car, and bolted up the bank, where Train grabbed her. Together, they scrambled up the hill. An instant later, the car exploded behind them in a bright red-and-yellow fireball. They both hit the ground as the hot compression wave seared the night air over their heads, and then bits of hot metal and flaming plastic were’ clattering around them on the wet hillside. Down on the road, the remains of the Suburban burned furiously, hot enough to keep them backing UP the hill, hands held by the sides of their faces to ward off the intense heat. The road and the surrounding trees were thrown into stark visual relief in the yellow-orange glare. They stopped, about fifty yards up the hill and sat down in the underbrush.
Karen examined her torn skirt, ragged stockings, and uniform jacket. “Remind me never to go parking with you in the woods again,” she muttered.
Train grinned weakly in the firelight. “Well,” he said, “I try to give all the girls a hot time. The good news is that fire ought to bring somebody..”
“The good guys this time, I hope,” she said, trying to cover her thighs with the tom skirt. “I’ve got to go buy some fatigues if you and I are going to keep seeing each other like this.”
He grinned again and put -his arm around her. But then he grew serious.
“We were lucky. Very damned lucky.
Again.” He described the cigarette hanging off the bumper.
“It’s the oldest time-delay fuse in the business, and it leaves no trace. Once the cigarette burns back to the string, it drops.
In our case, into that ditchful of gasoline.”
“Then he meant to kill us this time.”
“No doubt in my military mind,”
Train said, shifting his bulk in the grass. She noticed for the first time that there was a cut on his forehead. Down below, the burning hulk was settling now as the frame deformed and bits of the interior fell out onto the road. The hood popped open as they watched, revealing several glowing engine components. The night breeze was raining soot all over the hillside where they crouched under a small tree. Finally, the fire began to diminish.
“How did he know where to find us?” Karen said.
Train rubbed his eyes and thought about that. It had to be the phone lines at his house. Mcnair had described where the hospice was, and he’d also intimated that Sherman would be there, that they would all be there. “He got it from Mcnair’s phone call. My phones must be tapped.”
Karen nodded in the flickering light, knowing the feeling.
Then she realized what had been tickling the edge of her memory. “That stuff-on the windows. I know what that is. It’s that plastic compound they were using to cover that helicopter-at the Quantico air base.”
Train looked at her and swore softly. A jet of intense n-orang I e flame hissed out of the engine compartment en the fire found the air conditioner’s Freonflask. Karen shivered in the wet darkness.
“So young Jack Sherman did his old man another little favor,” she said.
“He said he’ would. I wish I’d shot him when I had the chance.”
Train squeezed her hand. “Mcnair will have to move now. After this.”
Twenty minutes later, they heard a siren approaching, and then a second one. Train got up, helped Karen get to her feet, and put his arm around her. They began to walk sideways down the hill, keeping their distance from the burning hulk. The distant flickering of blue and red lights over the trees was a welcome contrast to the glowing metal carcass on the road.
Three hours later, they were in Mcnair’s car, headed back Washington.
Karen was lying crosswise in the backseat, to her legs up on the seat, her sleeping form wrapped in one of the Fenster County EMT blankets.
Train sat up front with are Mcnair, who had been listening c fully to Train’s debrief of the incident on the county road for the second time.
Train finished with the arrival of the first EMTS. Their clothes still smelled of char.
“Pissed me off,” he said. “Burning up my Suburban.”
“Goddamned lucky you both aren’t toast,” Mcnair replied, accelerating to pass a semi. “This wasn’t a warning.
You know’t ‘ hat, don’t you? This was for real.”
“Message received,”
Train said. He looked back over his shoulder at Karen, but she was still sleeping. “I think it’s time we went over to the offensive. I’m beginning to feel like the settlers barricaded in their cabin. I want to get out in the woods and start killing some Injuns.”
Mcnair shot him a skeptical look.
“Yeah, I know,” Train said. “But we need to break the pattern here. We need to act instead of always reacting.
What I can’t figure is why he upped the ante.”
“Maybe the commander’s little courtesy call on the Sherman kid had something to do with it.”
Train nodded silently. He had been thinking the same thing. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s look at that. Galantz wants us out of the way now because we’ve attracted daylight to Sherman’s son. If this is still all about Sherman as the target of revenge, why’s the kid important? Guy like Galantz surely doesn’t need help.”
Mcnair did not reply. Train let him think about it.
“Okay, I give up,” Mcnair said. “I can see the ‘what’ part of it but not the ‘why’ part.”
“My theory,” Train said, “is that Galantz has been planning to fold the kid into his little scheme for a long time.
From what the kid told Karen, they met back when Jack was still in the Corps, at recon school, where Galantz was probably an instructor. That’d be a good stash for a sweeper.
Then something happened, maybe even something his new I old man’ engineered, and then Jack was out with a BCD.
The only friend he’s got in the world now is the guy that got him through recon training.”
“But what’s the game?” Mcnair said. “Like you said, it’s not like Galantz would need the help of a shitbird like that to off the admiral.”
“It’s not about killing Admiral Sherman,” Train said.
“This is about destroying him. Ruining his reputation. Provoking a Navy rubbed raw by a string of scandals to force him out, right when he’s made it to the top. Using the guy’s‘ son would be icing on the cake in that program.”
“But how?”
“Picture the headline: ADMIRAL’S SON A MURDERER. Galantz has been thinking ahead of us. He knows you guys will never catch him, so you’ll settle for what you can catch Sherman’s son. Hell, it’s already working.
Sherman did nothing but attract a homicide cop., and they’ve stashed him sideways over in the Bureau. Then he gets spooke . d and bolts for the hospice. Goes A.W.O.L.. An admiral, for crying out loud. And after this caper tonight, you guys are going have to move. And you’ll move against Jack Sherman, because you know you can pick him up anytime you want.
Arresting Jack Sherman’ gives the Fairfax County cops a: suspect in custody,’ and any potential political heat dies away.”
Mcnair shot him a look. “We’re desperate guys,” he grunted. “But not that desperate. And we’re just supposed to forget about Galantz?”
Train glanced back at Karen, but she was still asleep.
“Isn’t that what certain federal agencies have already asked you to do?
