The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

"He's changed lanes and is accel

erating a little."

He wouldn't like not seeing me, I reflected.

I heard, "Hold on . . . hold on."

I would remember to tell my protege to mind the unnecessary verbal filler; while the words were scrambled by our phones, the fact there'd been a transmission could be detected. He'd learn the lesson fast and retain it.

"I'm coming up on the exit. . . . Okay. Here we go."

Still doing about sixty, I eased into the exit lane and swung around the curve, which was surrounded by thick trees. The chicken truck was right on my bumper.

My protege reported, "Good. Subject didn't even look your way. He's got the decoy in sight and the speed's dropping back to the limit."

I paused at the red light where the ramp fed into Route 18, then turned right. The poultry truck turned left.

"Subject is continuing on the route," came my protege's voice. "Seems to be working fine." His voice was cool. I'm pretty detached about this business but he does me one better. He rarely smiles, never jokes and in truth I don't know much about him, though we've worked together, often closely, for several years. I'd like to change that about him--his somberness--not for the sake of the job, since he really is very, very good, but simply because I wish he took more pleasure in what we do. The endeavor of keeping people safe can be satisfying, even joyous. Especially when it comes to protecting families, which we do with some frequency.

I told him to keep me updated and we disconnected.

"So," Alissa asked, "we're safe?"

"We're safe," I told her, hiking the speed up to fifty in a forty-five zone. In fifteen minutes we were meandering along a route that would take us to the outskirts of Raleigh, where we'd meet the prosecutor for the depositions.

The sky was overcast and the scenery was probably what it had been for dozens of years: bungalow farmhouses, shacks, trailers and motor vehicles in terminal condition but still functioning if the nursing and luck were right. A gas station offering a brand I'd never heard of. Dogs toothing at fleas lazily. Women in stressed jeans, overseeing their broods. Men with beer-lean faces and expanding guts, sitting on porches, waiting for nothing. Most likely wondering at our car--containing the sort of people you don't see much in this neighborhood: a man in a white shirt, dark suit and tie and a woman with a business blond haircut.

Then we were past the residences and on a road bisecting more fields. I noted the cotton plants, shedding their growth like popcorn, and I thought of how this same land 170 years ago would have been carpeted with an identical crop; the Civil War, and the people for whom it was fought, were never far from one's mind when you were in the South.

My phone rang and I answered.

My protege's voice was urgent. "Abe."

My shoulders tensed. "Has he turned off the highway?" I wasn't too concerned; we'd exited over a half hour ago. The hitter would be forty miles away by now.

"No, still following the decoy. But something just happened. He made a call on his mobile. When he disconnected, it was odd: He was wiping his face. I moved up two car lengths. It looked like he'd been crying."

My breath came quickly as I considered possible reasons for this. One credible, disturbing scenario rose to the top: What if the hitter had suspected we'd try a decoy and had used one of his own? He'd forced somebody who resembled him--just like the elfin man in our decoy car--to follow us. The call my protege had just witnessed might have been between the driver and the real perp, who was perhaps holding the man's wife or child hostage.

But this, then, meant that the real hitter could be somewhere else and--

A flash of white streaked toward us as a Ford pickup truck appeared from the driveway of a sagging, deserted gas station to the left and bounded over the highway. The truck, its front protected by push bars, slammed into our driver's side and shoved us neatly through a tall stand of weeds into a shallow ravine. Alissa screamed and I grunted in pain and heard my protege calling my name, then the mobile and the hands-free flew into the car, propelled by the deploying air bag.

We crashed down a five-foot descent and came to an undramatic stop at the soupy bottom of a shallow creek.

Oh, he'd planned his attack perfectly and before I could even click the seat belt to get to my gun, he'd swung a mallet through the driver's window, shattering it and stunning me with the same blow. My Glock was ripped off my belt and pocketed. Dislocated shoulder, I thought, not much blood. I spat broken glass from my mouth and looked to Alissa. She too was stunned but didn't seem hurt badly. The hitter wasn't holding his gun, only the mallet, and I thought that if she fled now she'd have a chance to tumble through the underbrush and escape. Not much of a chance but something. She had to move immediately, though. "Alissa, run, to the left! You can do it! Now!"

She yanked the door open and rolled out.

I looked back at the road. All I could see was the white truck parked on the shoulder near a creek where you might hunt frogs for bait, like a dozen other trucks I'd seen en route. It perfectly blocked anyone's view from the road. Just like I'd used a truck to mask my escape, I reflected grimly.

The hitter was now reaching in to unlatch my door. I squinted in pain, grateful for the man's delay. It meant that Alissa could gain more distance. My people would know our exact position through GPS and could have police here in fifteen or twenty minutes. She might make it. Please, I thought, turning toward the path she'd be escaping down, the shallow creekbed.

Except that she wasn't running anywhere.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, she was standing next to the car with her head down, arms crossed over her round chest. Was she hurt more badly than I'd thought?

My door was opened and the hitter dragged me out onto the ground, where he expertly slipped nylon restraints on my hands. He released me and I sagged into the sour-scented mud, beside busy crickets.