There was no approach to the garage that avoided open ground. I guessed there would be windows on every side of the house, to take advantage of the views. Six or seven horses were loose in the field, but there was no evidence of dogs and the house itself seemed quiet enough. Maybe everybody was still tucked up in bed.

"You stay here," I whispered to Sarah.

"I'm going to go and get a wagon. When you see me drive out, move up to the road."

"Why aren't I coming over with you?" She sounded suspicious, as if she thought I'd get in a vehicle and just leave her stranded. If only she knew.

She was in no position to question my decisions, but I answered.

"Number one, it's quieter if I go on my own I know what I'm doing, you don't. Number two, I don't want you killing anybody else. And number three, you have no choice. I have your doc.u.ments in here." I half turned to show her the bag on my back.

"You want me to help you, you wait here."

The plot of land was as flat and green as a pool table, not a single fold in the ground. Checking the road for vehicles and the sky for helis, I set off across gra.s.s that was about three inches high and full of moisture, running but trying to keep as low as possible. I didn't know why, because it didn't make me any less visible, but it just seemed the natural thing to do. I was leaving a clear track in my wake through the wet gra.s.s, but I couldn't do anything about that.

I kept looking at the windows for movement. As I got closer I could see that the upstairs curtains were drawn. I wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Redneck were sitting in bed watching the news about last night's events down the road. For sure, there'd be more news crews at the lake by now than there were police.

Reaching the house, I bent down below a side window with open curtains.

In this weather there would have been a light on if people were up and about, and there wasn't, but even so I didn't chance looking inside. I held it there for a few seconds and listened. Nothing. Now that I was close up to them I could see that the slats weren't wood at all, but aluminium painted to look that way, and the roof was just felt, masquerading as tiles.

I moved around to the opposite side of the house, toward the garage extension, making sure that I kept low to avoid the windows.

I shook my head to get the rain out of my face. There were no wet tire marks on the garage floor or rain on the wagons. There had been no movement since at least last night.

The first thing to do was check whether any of the vehicles were alarmed. I couldn't see any warning signs, flashing LEDs, or other telltales.

An alarm would probably have cost more than the two cars anyway.

I tried all the doors on the vehicles, starting with the pickup truck, then the two others a small, rusting red Dodge, a bit like a bottom-of-the range Rover, and an elderly, olive-green estate car, with fake wood paneling along the sides that made it look like a stagecoach. Everything was locked. The rain was drumming on the garage roof as I went back to the muddy white Nissan pickup. It had a double cab, with a flat bed on the back, protected by a shaped, heavy plastic liner. I had a quick mooch in the boxes next to it against the wall, then moved aside the plastic bottles of two-stroke mix for the boat engine, looking for something to jimmy the door open with.

I found a toolbox and was bending over it, moving the tools really slowly and carefully so I didn't make any noise, when there was a shout that made me jump.

"Don't move! Freeze, yo' sum of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Whoever it was, he must have spent his life stalking animals in the woods, because I hadn't heard a sound. I didn't move a muscle.

"Keep still or I'll shoot yer so'ry a.s.s," he said in a really cool, calm, deep Southern drawl. He was directly behind me.

f.u.c.king right I stood still. I also made sure he had a good view of my hands. I had a pistol tucked down the front of my jeans, and another in my jacket, but they were staying where they were. I didn't know what he was pointing at me, or even whether he had anything at all, but I wasn't going to take the chance. I stayed bent over the toolbox and kept my mouth shut; I didn't want to say anything that might antagonize him, especially in my bad American accent.

I could hear his feet sc.r.a.ping on the concrete floor of the garage. I listened intently; I wanted to estimate how far away he was.

"Sum of a b.i.t.c.h, stay whar yare." He sounded an oldish man, maybe in his early sixties.

He was shuffling toward me. I moved my eyes so that I could catch his reflection in the door window of the pickup. As he moved closer I could clearly see an outstretched hand holding a snub-nosed revolver.

"D'ya know whose truck this here's is, feller?"

I shook my head very slowly.

"Muh sum's. Muh sum's a state trooper. He's out thar lookin' fer yer a.s.s right now. But yer in muh house. You belong time. Sums o' b.i.t.c.hes, s.h.i.t, dammit..."

Either I was right they had been watching breakfast TV or Mr. and Mrs. Redneck's little boy had been on the telephone to fill him in on events.

He carried on.

"The troopers is comin' now t'drag yer a.s.s in, feller.

s.h.i.t, thet's muh sum's truck, he worked dadb.u.med hard fer thet .. .

m.u.t.h.e.rf.u.c.ker, s.h.i.t..."

I kept watching the reflection in the window. He took another couple of steps toward me, but he shouldn't have done; you never get too close to someone when you're holding a pistol what's the point, it's designed to kill at a distance.

Another step and I could see the detail of the weapon. It was a .38, the same type as the young black guy had been buying at Jim's. As the salesman had told him, "Just point it like your finger at the center ma.s.s and it will take them down." The hammer was back, which wasn't good for me.

Revolvers work on a double action: to fire, you have to make a very positive squeeze on the trigger, which works both actions, pulling the hammer all the way back, and letting it then go forward. That serves as the safety device on a revolver, instead of having a safety catch, which you get on most semiautomatics. But he'd c.o.c.ked it; the hammer was pulled back, the first action had already been taken up all he had to do now was gently squeeze that trigger with less than seven pounds of pressure and the thing would go off. A year-old baby can exert seven pounds of pressure with his index finger, and this was a big old boy who was p.i.s.sed off and sparked up.

I remained pa.s.sive. He had me; what could I say?

The reflection moved and he was almost on top of me, and then I felt cold metal in the back of my neck. He jabbed the pistol, moving it up and down, and, knowing that he had his finger on the trigger, I started to flap. I closed my eyes, ready to die.

"f.u.c.kin' sums o' f.u.c.kin' b.i.t.c.hes," he ranted.

"Why dim't you f.u.c.ks git a job like ev'ry other m.u.t.h.e.rf.u.c.ker? .. . s.h.i.t.. . not jest come an' take .. .

yer not gonna take here ..."

I opened my eyes and looked in the window. He had his arm fully extended and the muzzle was still in contact with my neck. Either he was going to kill me by accident if that second pressure was pulled, or I was going to get f.u.c.ked over well and truly once the son and his trooper mates arrived on the scene.

If I was quick enough on the initial move, I'd be safe for a second; it was what I did afterward that would decide whether or not I lived. I was going to get caught or I was going to die, so anything I did before that was a bonus.

I didn't want him to see me taking the three deep breaths to fill my lungs with oxygen, so I just let him get on with jabbing the muzzle into my neck while I closed my eyes and got ready. He cackled at his own humor as he said, "Muh sum's gonna kick yer sorry a.s.s, you f.u.c.k." He was getting more angry as he gained confidence.

"Why is you here doin' yer kinin'? Git home an' do yer kinin' thar ... s.h.i.t..." He was thinking of something to add. He found it: "sums of b.i.t.c.hes."

I took the final breath and opened my eyes. f.u.c.k it, just go for it.

ARRGGGHHHHHH!.

Stepping forward with my right foot, and at the same time swiveling left on the other, I raised my left arm, bellowing like a lunatic. I was hoping for two things: that it would confuse him, and that it would also spark me up. It didn't matter to me which part of my left arm hit his weapon arm, as long as it did. My arm connected and I could no longer feel cold metal against my head.

My left forearm now had to keep contact with his weapon arm as I carried on swiveling around so that I was facing him. He was bigger than I'd expected. His unshaven face looked like crinkled leather and it was topped with a riot of uncombed gray hair. I grasped the material of whatever he was wearing on his weapon arm, trying to keep the .38 facing anywhere but at me.

A round went off, and the report echoed around the garage. He probably didn't even realize he had pulled the trigger.

I kept turning, and he started to scream back at me and holler for "Ruby." His face was no more than six inches from mine, and I could smell his bad breath and see his toothless mouth, wide open.

For the full two seconds my move had taken, my eyes had never left the pistol. In theory, the rules of squash apply: never take your eye off the ball. But I'd always found it hard; sometimes I reckoned it was just as effective to look at the other player, because just before he hits the ball his eyes will tell you if he's bluffing a hard one and is in fact going to hit it gently. It wasn't something I'd been taught, it was just something I found myself doing instinctively in that situation; maybe that was why I was such a c.r.a.p squash player.

As I turned farther, so did he. The look on the old boy's face was not a happy one. A couple of seconds ago things had been going really well for him, and yet now he thought he was about to meet his maker. His head and body were turning away from me, presenting his back, and with my right hand I was able to slam his head against the wagon. There was a thud on the window as he made contact, with me still gripping what I could now see was the blue overall sleeve on his left arm. I pushed him hard against the pickup with the weight of my whole body, knocking the air out of him. I pushed with my right knee against the back of one of his kneecaps and he buckled. I held his head to control his fall.

I didn't say a word. I didn't have to. He was on his knees, spreadeagled against the wagon, his face pressed against the door. I gripped his weapon arm and shook it. The .38 clattered to the floor.

But that wasn't the end of it. This boy wasn't giving up. Spit and blood flew out of his mouth as he raged, "You sum of a f.u.c.kin' b.i.t.c.h, thet's all yer want t'do, come here an' take .. . s.h.i.t."

I was worried about his wife; was Ruby on the phone to the police, or getting out the shotgun? I stepped back and drew my own pistol, kicking his left arm to get him right down on the floor. Then I delivered a couple of persuaders for him to get under the pickup. Now what? I ran.

I sprinted out of the garage, turned left past the front of the house and legged it across the gra.s.s, following the track I'd made on the way in. The rain was pelting down.

I heard a woman shout behind me, but I didn't look back. There were no shots.

I vaulted the fence and made my way through the woods to Sarah. She was on her haunches, against a tree. I collapsed next to her, panting on my hands and knees. I looked up and we exchanged a glance. What could I say? I'd f.u.c.ked up. You can be so close to civilization, yet when you're wet, cold, hungry and don't exactly know where you are, it can seem so far.

There was a gap that she filled.

"What now?"

"Let me think ..." I looked back at the house. There was no movement.

Ruby was probably in the garage, dragging her husband out from under the pickup before heading back to the phone.

My mind was racing through all the options, but the decision was made for me. A cruiser ripped along the road from the opposite side of the house, a blue and white blur in the driving rain. No sirens, no lights, just a foot flat down on the gas pedal. If it was Mr. and Mrs. Redneck's little boy responding to the call, he wasn't going to be happy with the way I'd abused his father's Southern hospitality.

I got up and started to move. They would be following up big time, tracking the sign I'd left in the gra.s.s. I ran back the way we had come, then hung a right toward the road. At that moment I heard the helicopter rattling through the sky. We got into tree hugging again. The moment it had flown past, and not even bothering to look behind me to check for Sarah, I started motoring through the forest. She would just have to keep up.

Reaching the edge of the wood near the road, I dropped onto my hands and knees, watched and listened. The only sounds I could hear were my own labored breathing and the rain hammering on the tarmac and leaves.

Sarah flopped down beside me.

I crawled to the very edge of the tree line and looked out. The wet, potholed, single-carriage way road was deserted.

e both lay there in the mud, lifting our heads and checking for movement like a pair ofmeerkats. I couldn't see anything, just solid walls of rain.

Finally I nodded to her. She acknowledged. I got up and sprinted across the road, but instead of going into the tree line, I cut left and started following the edge of the tarmac.

She shouted, "Nick, what are you doing? Come on, let's get under cover!"

I turned and waved her toward me.

She hesitated a moment, then understood and ran to join me. I kept to the roadside for another thirty meters, checking backward, forward and upward for movement. I chanced about ten meters more and knew I was tearing the a.s.s out of it. I ducked to the right and moved into the tree line.

Even if they followed up with dogs, it would take them a while to reestablish our trail, for the surface scent would be washed off the tarmac by the heavy rain, slowing the dogs down severely. It would then be up to the trackers to cast for sign in both directions and along both sides of the road, because for all they knew I might have doubled back. Only when, or if, they refound our trail could they get the dogs back on the scent.

For the next half hour I picked my way through dense forest. The ground was undulating and littered with knolls; it was hard going, but excellent cover, the sort of terrain that a light aircraft might crash into and never be found. I was heading in this direction for no other reason than that I wanted to; sometimes there is no absolutely correct answer.

Every ten minutes or so the heli clattered across the sky, casting around for movement or visible sign. This time it got a bit too near. We stopped and hid, using the chance to catch our breath. Both of us were still soaked to the skin with rain and sweat. As the heli came in low over us, the trees swayed with the downwash and another sixty gallons of rain cascaded through the canopy. My throat was dry and rasping as my chest heaved, the only positive thing being that all this effort was keeping my body core nicely heated.

Still the helicopter didn't move out of the area. He was there, somewhere; low and slow. I looked back the way we'd come and saw the ground sign we'd left. It would be easy enough even for the untrained eye to follow, but for anybody who knew what they were doing, possibly with dogs, it was a floodlit motorway.

Deep down, I knew it wouldn't take them long to find where we'd crossed the road. From there it would be simple; we were traveling through wet forest, over stinking ground, in rain and fog perfect terrain and conditions for keeping a scent glued in position. What was more, they would be following on fresh legs and able to call up reinforcements at will, and after a while they'd be able to predict our direction of travel so that others could intercept us. Then again, maybe they didn't have dogs or trackers on the case yet; it wasn't as if such things were on twenty-four hour standby. Visual tracking is not the most popular skill for a person to take up, and exponents are in short supply; maybe it would take them hours to mobilize somebody, and maybe they lived on the other side of the state. Maybe ... maybe. Whatever, every man, but hopefully not his dog, would be out looking.

I had to admit to myself that I had no idea where we were going, and we were gradually exhausting ourselves. A decision had to be made: Did we hide up and wait until dark to move out of the area, preferably by vehicle?

Or did we take our chances now?

The heli's blades chopped the air above us. It didn't seem to be going anywhere. This was strange; it wouldn't be able to see a thing under the canopy, and in a backwoods area like this it was unlikely to be fitted with thermal-imaging equipment. It was a full ten minutes before I heard a change in engine pitch, and the aircraft rattled off into the distance. I moved from under the tree and continued running. Our pace was slowing perceptibly. I was f.u.c.ked. My footprints were getting closer and closer together as my strides shortened: to a visual tracker or trained dog it would be the encouraging sign of a slower-moving quarry. I glanced behind me.

Sarah looked like death on legs.

I tried to think of positives. If you run at 10 mph for one hour in an unknown direction, you could be anywhere in a circle of just over 300 square miles. An hour later that will have become an area of 1,256 square miles.

In The Lone Ranger, Tonto used to stop and say, "Five wagons, two hours ago. That way, kemo sabe." Luckily, real life isn't that easy and Tonto lives in Arizona.

I decided to lie up and wait until last light. With no compa.s.s or stars to guide us, I could be going around in circles for weeks. During darkness, the plan would be to move to a known quant.i.ty the road and parallel it until I could get my hands on a vehicle.

I carried on for another ten minutes or so, with Sarah now up with me.

About sixty or seventy meters away to my half right, there was something that looked as if it could work: a fallen tree on higher ground, its branches still intact but decaying. It had fallen down a sharp bank. It would give us ideal cover from view from the air as well as the ground and, just as important, it would give us cover from the elements. If the police didn't get hold of us, I didn't want the weather to finish us off. It wouldn't be long before exhaustion and cold would take their toll.

"What are we doing now?" Sarah asked.

"Why have you stopped?"

I didn't bother replying; I was looking back at the route we'd taken.

Then I turned around again and looked forward at the tree, off to my half right. The ground ahead was the same as behind, rises, with lots of dead ground beyond.

I turned half left and started kicking my feet, leaving obvious sign. I wanted them to see my direction change away from the fallen tree. Sarah followed on behind, puffing and panting, struggling to keep the size eleven trainers on her size-five feet.

Over a rise, and in the dead ground beyond, was a stream a couple of meters wide. I headed down and waded straight into the freezing water. I checked behind me and couldn't see the tree.

Sarah stood her ground on the bank.

"What are you doing?"

"Get in."

The water came over my knees. I turned left and moved downstream, stopping every dozen or so paces and looking back to make sure I couldn't see the tree. I had trudged about fifty meters, with Sarah splashing along behind me, before I decided this was far enough. I didn't know why, it just felt right. I got out on the far side of the stream and stood still. I could hear Sarah's trainers squelching as she came up beside me, visibly thankful for the rest.

I gave myself a minute to collect my thoughts, looking at her, soaked and bedraggled, fir needles splattered on her face, twigs in her hair. Not exactly how she'd choose to appear at one of her emba.s.sy parties, but she was doing well; she'd obviously kept herself in shape.

"Ready?"

She nodded and took a deep breath to prepare.

We moved up and down for another 300 meters or so, in a direct line away from the stream. Sarah was starting to feel the strain, and I could move only at her speed. I decided that this was far enough; it was time for one last bit of deception. I stopped and moved over to an outcrop of rock.