me just any old story? I take what you did as a personal insult, Frederickson.'
'Captain, I-'
'Shut up! I don't want to hear any more lies! That first number you gave me isn't even working. There is no 'Mr. Lippitt,' is there?'
So Mr. Lippitt was still out to lunch, and apparently intended to stay there until the Archangel matter was resolved, one way or another. The old man who had played such an important part in our lives, the irascible and tenacious fighter whom even Garth had come to consider a friend, had even unplugged his phone. Perhaps, I thought, it was understandable. Lippitt and Madison were, after all, colleagues in the close-knit covert intelligence community, and had been for years. Lippitt had probably known Madison longer than he had known Garth and me, and the two men could well be drinking buddies. Mr. Lippitt just didn't want to get involved.
Strike one.
'Senator Wyndham says you're trying to make a fool out of me,' McGarvey continued. 'She just laughed when I asked if her committee had hired you to investigate Madison.'
'Did you mention the Archangel?'
'She didn't know what I was talking about.'
So much for what I'd dared hope might be a thorough Senate investigation.
Strike two.
McGarvey continued, 'The fact that Orville Madison was confirmed as secretary of state this morning made it seem even funnier to the senator, Frederickson. She didn't ask how I felt. Now I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place, which is to turn you over to the people who know how to deal with spies.'
Orville Madison's men must have been camped out in the parking lot all night, because it wasn't ten minutes after we'd received the bad news from the captain when a trooper came into our cell, cuffed our hands behind our backs, and led us out of the lockup area to the front of the building where four big, unshaven men in business suits were waiting. The exchange was short and simple. Nothing was said. Papers were signed, and Garth and I were led outside to separate cars, both late-model Chevrolets.
Madison's men were apparently not interested in our personal belongings or the contents of our backpacks, for there was no sign of them. There was always the possibility that the packs had already been placed in the trunk of one of the cars, but I doubted it; the men had gotten what they'd come for. Whatever was in the yellow oilskin packet I'd taken off Gary Worde's body, I was glad I hadn't told McGarvey about it. Someday, in some way, the truth about Orville Madison might still come out.
There was also some consolation, if not a great deal, in the knowledge that the men who killed us would almost certainly die themselves, in a most unpleasant fashion. Veil was still free. I suspected that Orville Madison's tenure as secretary of state was going to be a short one, which made me happy. What made me unhappy was the thought that he would almost certainly be honored as a martyr after Veil killed him.
As we approached the cars, I turned to look at Garth, to say goodbye, but I was rudely shoved forward, slammed into the back seat of the first car. One of the two men accompanying me slid onto the seat beside me, while the other got behind the wheel. The driver started up the car, pulled out of the parking lot. I looked back, saw the car with Garth in it following close behind.
'I take it we're finally going to meet Secretary Madison,' I said carefully. 'I assume he wants to know all we have to tell him about where to find Veil Kendry.'
Fat chance. The man beside me, who was red-eyed from lack of sleep and smelled slightly of body odor, just kept staring straight ahead. We pulled onto the southbound lanes of the Thru way and drove along at exactly fifty- five miles per hour, as silent as the funeral cortege we were. Orville Madison would know that we didn't have the slightest idea where Veil was, and so it was only a question of where, and in what manner, they intended to kill us.
As we drove along, I found myself looking out the window at the passing landscape, savoring the sight of trees and grass and sky for what I assumed would be the last time. It was an exceptionally bright day for February, and I was sorry I would not see spring.
It seemed an excellent time for the cavalry to arrive, but there wasn't even a car in sight, much less a horse. There was the sound of sirens far in the distance, behind us, but that didn't seem important; it wouldn't make much sense for the State Police to turn us over to the bad guys only to try and get us back a few minutes later.
But the sirens kept coming closer, and no car that the State Police might be pursuing sped past us. In the rearview mirror, I could see the driver glance up nervously, while the man beside me turned around in his seat and looked back.
'Something's gone wrong,' my seat partner said tensely. 'They're after us.'
'Kill him,' the driver said in a flat voice.
'We can't! What excuse can we give?!'
'Not our problem; Madison will get us out, probably on some national security angle. But we have our orders. We don't want bullet holes or blood; use your hands.'
He used his hands, leaning over in the seat and wrapping them around my neck. I used my foot, or more precisely the toe of my shoe, kicking up hard into the man's groin. His eyes bulged, his breath exploded from his lungs in a kind of whoop, and his hands came away from my throat and went to his crotch. As he bent forward, his throat was exposed. I lunged forward and sank my teeth into his jugular.
I heard the driver's startled shout over the strangled cries of the man whose throat I was biting. He clawed at my back and head, but I stayed fastened to his throat and bit down hard. I felt my teeth sink through his flesh, then into the tough walls of the carotid artery. Working my head back and forth like a terrier, I kept gnawing. Then blood spurted, filling my mouth and splashing over my face. I jerked my head back and ducked away just as the driver, struggling to control the speeding car with one hand, reached over the back seat with his gun and fired off a shot. The bullet missed me, hit the shoulder of the man whose life was gushing out through the tear in his throat.
I could hear two distinct sets of sirens now, two trooper cars continuing to gain on us. I had no way of knowing what was going on in the car behind, but I had to assume that those men had made a similar decision, to kill Garth. Considering my brother's size, I didn't think they'd be overly concerned about blood or bullet holes; they'd simply shoot him, if they hadn't already. Sooner or later the driver of the car I was in was going to put a bullet in me, unless I could find a way of putting him out of commission. With my hands cuffed behind my back, I had no choice but to use my whole body as a weapon and shoot for the moon.
I stood up on the back seat, then, as the driver's revolver again swung around in my direction, bounced up and over into the front seat, landing head first in the driver's lap and stripping his hand from the wheel. The car immediately went out of control, into a shrieking power slide. I rolled over into the passenger's seat, slid down onto the base of my spine, and planted both feet on the dashboard just as the car hit the shoulder, abruptly stopped skidding, and began to roll. Pushing with all my might against the dashboard, I closed my eyes and held my breath as the car bounced and rolled in a bone-jarring, kaleidoscopic cascade of nauseating motion and a cacophony of shattering glass, snapping plastic, and tearing metal. Through it all, I somehow managed to stay braced in my position.
Finally, what was left of the car came to a rest. Glass tinkled, metal groaned, steam hissed. Slowly, I opened my eyes, saw the reason why my back felt ready to break and the muscles in my legs ready to tear loose from their joints; I was upside down. I couldn't see the man who had been in the back seat with me, but I thought it quite safe to assume he was dead. I also found it immensely satisfying to see that, while the driver's seat belt had kept him securely fastened in his seat, the steering column had collapsed in on him and crushed his chest. Powdered safety glass was everywhere, covering the interior of the car-and me-like sharp, scratchy snow. There was pain in every muscle and bone in my body, but it was welcome pain; it meant my back hadn't been broken. Indeed, I doubted that anything major was broken; if it were, I wouldn't have been able to remain braced. I accepted the pain as a celebration of life.
From somewhere outside my disoriented, upside-down universe, I heard the sound of gunfire and felt sick at the thought that my brother might be dead. At the same time I smelled gasoline, and knew I was likely to be dead very soon myself if I didn't get out of the wreck fast. I relaxed the tension in my legs and dropped the short distance to the inverted roof of the car, landing on my left shoulder and crumpling into a heap.
