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.In seconds the curtains of heat parted, and thevehicle hove into view as if it were a sailing ship somehow making waythrough that dry sea.The motor home couldn't compete with the Camaro, and Jim was riding itsbumper.It was an old thirty-foot Road king that had seen a lot ofmiles.Its white aluminum siding was caked with dirt, dented, andspotted.The windows were covered with yellow curtains that had nodoubt once been white.It looked like nothing more than the home of acouple of travel-loving retirees living on dwindling Social Security andunable to maintain it with the pride they had when it had been newExcept for the motorcycle.A Harley was chained to a roof rack to theleft of the roof service ladder on the back of the motor home.Itwasn't the biggest bike made, but it was powerful-and not something apair of retirees typically tooled around on.In spite of the cycle, nothing about the Road king was suspicious.In its wake Jim Ironheart was overcome by a sense of evil so strongthere might as well have been a black tide washing over him with all thepower of the sea behind it.He gagged as if he could smell thecorruption of them to whom the motor home belonged.At first he hesitated, afraid that any action he took might jeopardizewoman and child who were evidently being held captive.But the worsething he could do was delay.The longer the mother and daughter were inthe hands of the people in the Road king, the less chance they had ofcoming out of it alive.He swung into the passing lane.He intended to get a couple of milesahead of them and block the road with his car.In the Road king's rearview mirror, the driver must have seen Jim stopat the station wagon and get out to inspect it.Now he let the Camaropull almost even before swinging the motor home sharply left, bashing itagainst the side of the car.Metal shrieked against metal, and the car shuddered.The steering wheel spun in Jim's hands.He fought for control and keptThe Road king pulled away, then swerved back and bashed him again, ?driving him off the blacktop and onto the unpaved shoulder.For a few hundred yards they rattled forward at high speed in thosepositions: the Road king in the wrong lane, risking a head-on collisionwith any oncoming traffic that might be masked by the curtains of heatand sun glare; the Camaro casting up huge clouds of dust behind it,speeding precariously along the brink of the two-foot drop-off thatseparated the raised roadbed from the desert floor beyond.Even a light touch of the brakes might pull the car a few inches to theleft, causing it to drop and roll.He only dared to ease up on theaccelerator and let his speed fall gradually.The driver of the Road king reacted, reducing his speed, too, hanging atJim's side.Then the motor home moved inexorably to the left, inch byinch, edging relentlessly onto the dirt shoulder.Being much the smaller and less powerful of the two vehicles, the Camarocould not resist the pressure.It was pushed leftward in spite of Jim'sefforts to hold it steady.The front tire found the brink first, andthat corner of the car dropped.He hit the brakes; it didn't matter anymore.Even as he jammed his foot down on the pedal, the rear wheel followedthe front end into empty space.The Camaro tipped and rolled to theleft.Using a safety harness was a habit with him, so he was thrown sidewaysand forward, and his sunglasses flew off, but he didn't crack his faceagainst the window post or shatter his breastbone against the steeringwheel.Webs of cracks, like the work of a spider on Benzedrine, spreadacross the windshield.He squeezed his eyes shut, and gummy bits oftempered glass imploded over him.The car rolled again, then started toroll a third time but only made it halfway, coming to rest on its roofHanging upside down in the harness, he was unhurt but badly shaken.He choked on the clouds of white dust that poured in through theshattered windshield.They'll be coming for me He fumbled frantically for the harness release,found it, and dropped the last few inches onto the ceiling of theoverturned car.He was curled on top of the shotgun.He had been damnlucky the weapon hadn't discharged as it slammed around inside thetumbling Camaro.Coming for me Disoriented, he needed a moment to find the door handle,which was over his head.He reached up, released it.At first the doorwould not open Then it swung outward with a metallic popping andsqueaking.He crawled off the ceiling, out onto the floor of the desert, feeling asthough he had become trapped in a surreal Daliesque world of weirdperspective He reached back in for the shotgun.Though the ash-fine dust was beginning to settle, he was still coughingit out of his lungs.Clenching his teeth, he tried to swallow eachcough.he needed to be quiet if he were to survive.Neither as quick nor as inconspicuous as the small desert lizards thescooted across his path, Jim stayed low and dashed to a nearby arroyoWhen he arrived at the edge of that natural drainage channel, hediscovered it was only about four feet deep.He slid over the lip, andhis feet made a soft slapping sound as they hit the hard-packed bottom.Crouching in that shallow declivity, he raised his head slowly to growlevel and looked across the desert floor toward the overturned Camaroaround which the haze of alkaline dust had not yet entirely dissipated.the highway, the Road king finished reversing along the pavement andhalted parallel to the wrecked car.The door opened, and a man climbed out.Another man, having exited fromthe far side, hurried around the front of the motor home to join hiscompanion.Neither of them was the kindly-retiree-on-a-budget that amight have imagined behind the wheel of that aging caravan.Theyappeared to be in their early thirties and as hard as heat-tempereddense rock
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