wide enough, not at the speed he was going. At that speed it looked suicidal. He wasn’t sure that even without trying any fancy tricks he could stop in time to avoid crashing into the roadblock.
The cops must have thought so, too, because they jumped out of their cars and hustled to the sides. There were two of them, one per car. One was carrying what looked like a rifle. Jack’s calculations were carried out in split seconds. They weren’t so much calculations as reactions. He knew that if he stomped on the brake pedal the brakes were likely to seize up and cause him to lose control of the car. He pumped the brakes instead, manhandling the steering wheel to minimize the inevitable slide.
The tires howled, leaving twin snaky lines of burnt rubber on both sides of the street’s painted yellow centerline as the pickup shimmied, fishtailed, and skidded.
The machine slid sideways a good part of the way down the hill, leading with the driver’s side. Multiple collisions would have been inevitable if any cars had been parked on either side of the street. Jack needed all the space on both sides of the street to wrestle some kind of control into the pickup.
It was close, very close. The pickup skidded sideways toward the twinned police cars, lurching to a halt less than six feet away from them. The engine stalled out.
The radio still worked, though. Every now and then it squawked out another frantic, near-unintelligible query from the dispatcher at Central.
Jack felt like he’d left his stomach somewhere back on the downgrade, probably at the point where he’d first started working the brakes. The stench of burnt rubber and scorched brake linings was overpowering, stifling. He felt like he could barely draw a breath.
He could see now that what he’d thought had been a rifle in the hands of one of the cops who’d jumped clear of the roadblock was actually a shotgun. It was pointed at his head.
The cop who was wielding it stood on the passenger side of the truck cab. He looked unhappy. He gave off the impression that pulling the trigger might make him happy.
Jack raised his hands in the air, showing they were empty.
A second cop appeared on the driver’s side of the truck, brandishing a long- barreled.44 magnum. Both cops wore Western-style hats that heightened their resemblance to cowboys.
The cop with the handgun was shouting at Jack to get out of the truck. Jack stayed where he was because in order to comply with the command he’d have to use his hands, and he was afraid that if he moved them one or both cops would think he was reaching for something and use that as an excuse to open fire on him.
The cop with the gun used his free hand to open the driver’s side door. Pale gray eyes were wide and bulging in a flushed, angry red face. He said, “Get out! Get out of the vehicle!” He pronounced it “veehickel.”
Jack said, “I can’t — the seat belt.”
The cop shook his head in seeming disbelief as though this was some new, undreamed-of height of criminal audacity. He stuck the gun muzzle against the underside of Jack’s chin and said, “If I see you reaching for anything but that seat belt fastener, I’m gonna see your brains all over the inside of this truck cab.”
Jack said, “I’m going to unfasten it now.”
“You do just that, mister.”
Jack moved very slowly, like he was in a sequence filmed in slow motion. He lowered his arms and worked the seat belt release. It came undone with a click.
The cop grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him out of the cab, flinging him out on the street. Jack hit the pavement sprawling, skinning his hands and knees.
The cop with the shotgun circled around the front of the pickup, holding his shouldered weapon so that it pointed down at Jack.
The pale- eyed, red- faced cop said, “Lie facedown on the street and don’t you move, boy; don’t you even breathe.”
Jack did as he was told. He could see that the cop with the.44 wore cowboy boots under his tan pants. The boots had sharp, pointy toes and lots of fancy leatherwork and embossing. They looked expensive.
The cop twisted Jack’s arms behind his back, wrenching them as though he’d like to tear them out of the sockets. Steel bracelets encircled Jack’s wrists, biting deep, cinching tight.
He grabbed Jack by the back of the neck and hauled him one-handed to his feet. Not by the back of his collar but by the back of his neck. He was strong. Jack stood there with his hands cuffed behind his back.
He looked across the police roadblock, north up Nagaii Drive. There was no sign of the sedan, not even a glimmer of its taillights. It was long gone.
The cop with the shotgun held it pointing muzzle-down. The pale-eyed, red- faced cop was holstering his sidearm. His gun belt was fancy and hand-tooled.
A third police car was on the scene, halted in the middle of the street behind Jack’s pickup. It must have been the one that had been beside the cafe and chased Jack along Nagaii Drive into town.
It yielded two more cops, a male officer and a female one. They both wore Western-style hats. The woman wore her hair pinned up in a bun at the back of her head, below the hat brim.
Her partner was a big, hulking specimen, about six-four with shoulders as wide as an axe handle is long. He was in his mid-twenties, with hair so black it had blue highlights. His hair seemed long for a police officer’s. He was clean-shaven, with smooth, bright pink skin. He looked more enraged than the two cops from the roadblock who’d actually made the arrest. That might have been because he had a big, dark patch of wetness staining the crotch and upper thighs of his trousers.
The cop with the shotgun flashed a wolfish grin, showing a lot of teeth and little mirth. He said, “Holy cow, Fisk! What’d you do, piss your pants?”
Fisk said, “Never you mind about that, Cole Taggart! I spilled a cup of coffee on myself when we took off after this lawbreaking son of a bitch!”
“Sure you did.”
Fisk indicated the female officer. “It’s true! Ask her— ”
Taggart said, “Of course Trooper Stallings will cover for you, her being your partner and all.” Taggart was the type who obviously liked working the needle, at least on Fisk.
The pale- eyed cop said, “That must’ve been some hot coffee, Fisk, from the way you’re walking around all hunched over and bowlegged, like a little old man.”
Fisk said, “Hot? I’ll tell the world it was hot! I like to scalded my— ”
“Spare me the details. Save it for the medical report.”
Taggart chuckled. “That should be some report. Good thing Bryce and me was here to catch this speed demon.”
Fisk said, “We’d have caught him. No way he was getting away after causing me to ruin a perfectly good pair of pants!”
Taggart said, “Let’s hope that was all that was ruined. Ain’t that so, Sharon?”
The female officer said coolly, “You’re the one who’s interested in what’s in his pants, not me, Cole.”
Taggart said, “Ouch! That’s one on me. Though I guess it’s Fisk who’s the one who ought to be saying ouch.”
The pale- eyed cop, Bryce, said, “All right, can the back chat.” The others fell silent. Bryce was in charge.
Jack thought that this was hardly the time or place to try explaining that he was a CTU agent who’d been chasing an accomplice to murder. He said to Bryce, “You’ll find my ID in my wallet.”
Bryce said, “Shut up.” There was no rancor in his tone, which was the same as when he’d told the officers to can the chatter.
Fisk sidled up alongside Jack, peering narrow-eyed at him. “He’s got a gun, Lieutenant.” He was speaking to Bryce.
Bryce said, “Is that a fact? That’s a fine piece of detective work, Fisk. Keep it up and you’ll make sergeant in no time.” His voice drawled with mild sarcasm. He reached under Jack’s coat, freeing the pistol from the shoulder rig. He turned it over in his hands, eyeing it. “Nice piece.” He held it under his nose and sniffed it. “Been fired recently, too.”
Taggart said, “Looks like we got us a real desperado.”
Jack said, “I can explain—”
Bryce said, “That’ll take some pretty tall talking, stranger. But you’ll get your chance.” He handed the pistol
