know this woman sitting in the woods in a car, and I’m not somebody else watching her, and it’s not a dream I dreamed. I am in trouble. I may very well die in a few minutes. I may die. Why does it matter so much that I’m alone in this car when it happens?
Immelmann appeared beside her, and she jumped. A wave of heat seemed to slide down her spine, but she said, “Oh.”
“Follow me.” He started trotting again, and she put the car in gear and drove after him. At first she felt as though it really was a dream, watching his muscular back bobbing up and down as she drove. It was as though she were floating after him among the trees. After the first few turns her body wasn’t cold anymore, it was just hands and eyes gauging the space she had to weave along the meandering path, her touch on the wheel precise and accurate. Once she steered between two trees that nearly touched the fenders, but miraculously the car passed without scraping.
Finally they were through the woods, and Immelmann was standing in a clearing, waiting. She stopped the car and he got in and closed the door. “Driver, take me to the bank. Lots of room up there,” he said.
Margaret’s eyes followed his finger, and she drove toward the spot. It was a path, old and overgrown with weeds and grass, but now she could drive faster.
“Margaret, you’re a genius,” Immelmann said.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Yeah, it’s really a good thing,” he went on, “because I’ve been thinking. This definitely is an old horse path. What if it leads back to the ranch house?”
“That would be annoying.”
“It’d ruin my day.”
KEPLER SAT IN THE RENTED CHEVROLET on the shoulder of the highway, three hundred yards past the park entrance. He had folded his jacket into a thick pad on the sill of the window to hold the foregrip of the rifle. There was nothing esoteric about this kind of shooting. It was all a matter of adequate preparation; keeping your pulse rate low, and making deliberate, economical movements.
The Mannlicher Model ST rifle’s clip held only three of the thick, heavy cartridges, so it wasn’t a question of squeezing off a few rounds to get the feel of things. He knew he wouldn’t need to. All he had to do was hit something. The Winchester .458 Magnum steel-jacketed five-hundred-grain bullet would still be traveling at well over fifteen hundred feet per second when it arrived. When it got there it would still easily pierce a car door. Kepler stared into the eyepiece of the Weaver T-25 scope. The entrance to the park drive was a strange, circular scene that consisted of only about twenty feet of glittering green leaves and bristling grass, all supernaturally bright and clear because of the scope’s optics, but from this distance silent, like a world seen through a closed window.
He held the crosshairs on a dandelion for a few seconds, then slowly moved down the stem and across to a rock on the drive at the entrance. He would have to use the time after the shot and before the report of the rifle reached their ears to recover from the vicious recoil, chamber the next round with the bolt, and aim again.
He rested the rifle on the windowsill and watched the traffic on the highway. Already there were cars that must have come from the baseball fields and picnic groves on the other side of the park. When he heard the airplane engines he knew something must be wrong. There was supposed to be only one airplane, and it sounded like more. A few seconds later he saw Chinese Gordon’s van pass him, going toward Sunset in the midst of a line of small foreign cars. He thought of signaling, but something else caught his eye. Already cars were streaming out of the park, much faster than he’d expected. He stared through the telescopic sight at the faces of the drivers, but their expressions didn’t seem to show alarm or even worry. The third one out was laughing, and the girl next to him leaned over to kiss his cheek as he skidded around the curve. They weren’t running from something, he decided. They were just idiots. Still, there should be only one airplane.
Kepler held the crosshairs on a level a few inches below the side window of the next car, and he left them there after the car whisked past. Something was wrong, and if there was a trap, this was where it would have to be. Then he saw it. A dark blue sedan pulled up beside the highway, then drifted slowly across the park entrance. Inside were four men wearing sportcoats and tinted glasses. Two got out, and one of them opened the hood of the car and stood looking down at the engine.
Almost immediately Kepler heard the faint honking of the distant cars trapped in the park. Overhead he could see four airplanes circling and swooping over the field. There were only a few choices, and none of them seemed to fit. With the elephant gun he could immobilize the car, but he couldn’t move it. Something had to change, and there was only one way to do it. He emptied his lungs halfway and lined up the crosshairs on the man standing in front of the car. He wished he’d brought something smaller. There wouldn’t be much left of this man’s chest. He couldn’t even aim low and just take a leg off, or the slug might pass through and into the engine. But when the others saw it they’d move as fast as they could, and that meant the car would be out of the way.
He grasped the stock and started to squeeze the trigger, then remembered. It would be smart to have his own engine running before he did it, even if it shook the car a little. All he had to do was hit any part of the man, and he’d be such a gruesome sight the others would drive over his body to get out of there. Kepler turned around in the seat and reached for the key, but as he did, he looked through the windshield and smiled.
Through the woods beside the road a yellow Volkswagen was bouncing along slowly, making its laborious and choppy progress over roots and stones and ruts, the weeds parting at its bumper. As it reached the highway it flashed its headlights at him and he laughed aloud. He reached over to click the safety catch on the rifle and muttered, “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
CHINESE GORDON WATCHED THE LINE of small, bright cars rocking on the curves of Sunset Boulevard toward the canyons. He cursed himself for what he was doing. Kepler would give him another lecture on urban commando operational procedure. Nobody was supposed to change plans in the middle, no matter what happened. Now he was parked in front of the Seven-Eleven on one of the busiest corners of Los Angeles, with his motor running and his eyes on the rearview mirror.
He had to hope that at least one of the cars had gotten out. He hoped that Margaret had gotten out. It was different for Immelmann and Kepler. He knew that was a lie, too. The whole thing stank so much it didn’t matter who couldn’t get out of it, but the thought of Margaret in danger made him feel frantic. It wasn’t his fault, he was the only one capable of firing the gun in the van. Margaret and Immelmann had to be the ones to take out the money. It wasn’t his fault. Yes, it was his fault.
If only one of the cars made it out. If only Margaret made it to the highway. He watched the line of foreign cars sputtering at the traffic light. Maybe the thing to do was create a diversion. It would be easy to line up the van with the gas station across the street and make this corner look like a war zone, but not yet, not while there was still a chance they’d made it the easy way.
Finally he saw the yellow Volkswagen drive up to the intersection and swing into a right turn. Behind it was Kepler’s rented car. Kepler was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to some inaudible rhythm of the car radio. Chinese Gordon pulled the van out onto the street two cars behind him and followed.
Chinese Gordon was in a better mood now. He sang a verse of “Let My People Go” as he drove along, his eyes flickering upward to the rearview mirror every few seconds to search for the wrong kind of car with the wrong kind of passengers. He knew that in his present mood some part of him was wishing for it, so it wouldn’t happen. He hoped Margaret hadn’t taken too many chances to pick up the sacks they’d dropped from the airplane. As soon as he’d seen the second airplane he’d given up any thought that the sacks contained money. These people couldn’t be trusted, it was as simple as that. He hoped the others wouldn’t be too disappointed, but there was no getting around the fact that some things just didn’t come easily. Chinese Gordon resolved to say that to them, if necessary, and any other platitudes that seemed likely to raise their spirits and ease the strains to come. As he drove the smooth, winding highway, he reflected on the enormity of human folly. He had always considered himself a reasonable man, and he’d offered these people a chance to buy him out safely for a sum that must be petty cash for them. This time he was going to demonstrate that a few of his other choices had big, sharp teeth.
At the end of the table Goldschmidt whispered to Porterfield, “We both said it wouldn’t work. Do you think it
