Ahn-Kha let out a gentle cough. "My David. I saw headlights hit the clouds far back. I believe we are being followed."
How far would the Ordnance chase them into Kentucky?
"Stop the car. I'll drive," Valentine said. "Doc, check out Ahn-Kha. Do what you can for him."
Valentine slipped into the driver's seat, and got the sport-utility vehicle moving as soon as he heard the back door close. Boothe switched places with Pepsa in the cargo area. Ahn-Kha kicked out a bullet-starred window.
You can do this. Nothing to be afraid of. You've driven before. Badly, but you've driven.
He could see farther than Boothe, and pushed the engine up past forty miles an hour. They ate miles. Every now and then the Lincoln hit a pothole with a resounding thump.
A flash blinded him. "You need help," Boothe said.
"Watch the light back there," Valentine said. Boothe had been using a flashlight to look at Ahn-Kha. Sudden increases in light gave him an instant headache.
Valentine spotted a legworm trail, the distinctive rise and thick vegetation cutting across a field.
"I'm going to go off-road," he told Thatcher.
Thatcher pushed a button on the center console, engaging the four-wheel drive. "Slow down. They'll see tire marks otherwise."
Valentine applied the brake, felt the Lincoln change gears. Automatic transmission made a huge difference in driving effort.
He turned onto the legworm trail. Any tree big enough to stop the Lincoln was avoided by the creature. The ground looked easier to the east, so he followed another legworm trail leading that way. He listened to the car cutting through weeds and grasses.
"I've done all I can," Boothe said. "The external bleeding's stopped, for now."
Valentine found another road, got on it, and took it for a mile until it intersected with one in even worse condition, but at least he was heading south.
"We're still being followed," Duvalier said. "Looks like a motorcycle."
Valentine didn't need the confirmation. He felt them behind, a presence, the way you felt a thunderstorm long before its first rumble.
"Stop the car, my David," Ahn-Kha said. The Golden One hoisted his puddler, then waited until they could hear the faint blatt of the motorcycle engine.
"Cover your ears," Ahn-Kha said.
The gun boomed. Gail screamed. Valentine watched the motorcycle light shift, wink out.
"That'll learn 'em," Duvalier said.
Valentine put the car in gear again. He watched the colon blink on the dashboard clock. Had all this happened in only twenty minutes?
He pushed the Lincoln, daring himself to wreck it, locked on to a distance a hundred yards in front of the car as if watching for downed tree limbs was the be-all, and end-all of his life. Which it might be, if he struck a big enough object in the dark.
"They're still behind," Ahn-Kha observed ten minutes, or six hundred or so clock flashes, later. "Gaining, it would appear. Perhaps they have Hummers."
"Shouldn't have shot that poor Cup," Thatcher said. "They wouldn't be after us like this otherwise. I bet there's a locator in this rig."
"You people are crazy," Gail said. "They say I'm the one who causes problems. They must have never met you." Her voice sounded raw and tired.
Valentine crossed legworm trail after legworm trail, recent mounds with just the beginnings of growth on them.
Ahn-Kha coughed again. "My David, I have a suggestion."
"I don't want to hear it," Valentine shot back.
"They are going to catch up with this truck sooner or later. Would it not be better if we weren't all in it when they did?"