Desperate Measures

25

Exhaling forcefully, Pittman struck the ground sooner than he anticipated. The ground was covered with grass, mushy from rain. He bent his knees, tucked in his elbows, dropped, and rolled, trying desperately to minimize the impact. That was the way a skydiver he had once interviewed had explained how parachutists landed when they were using conventional equipment. Bend, tuck, and roll.

Pittman prayed it would work. If he sprained an ankle, or worse, he would be helpless when his pursuers searched this side of the wall. His only hope would be to hide. But where? As he had swung toward the top of the wall, his impression of the dark area behind it had been of unnerving open space.

Fortunately he had an alternative to being forced to try to hide. Using the momentum of his roll, he surged to his feet. His hands stung. His knees felt sore. But that discomfort was irrelevant. What mattered was that his ankles supported him. His legs didn’t give out. He hadn’t sprained or broken anything.

On the other side of the barrier, Pittman’s hunters cursed and ran. Noises in a tree suggested that one of them continued to climb toward the top of the wall.

His chest heaving, Pittman charged forward. The murky lawn seemed to stretch on forever. In contrast with the estate from which he’d just escaped, there weren’t any shrubs. There were hardly any trees.

What the hell is this place?

It felt unnatural, eerie. It reminded him of a cemetery, but in the darkness, he didn’t bump into any tombstones. Racing through the drizzle, he noticed a light patch in the lawn ahead and used it as a destination. At once the ground gave away, a sharp slope that caused him to tumble in alarm, falling, rolling.

He came to a stop on his back. The wind had been knocked from him. He breathed heavily, wiped wet sand from his face, and stood.

Sand. That explained why this section of the ground had been pale. But why would…?

A tingle ran through him. My God, it’s a golf course. There’d been a sign when the taxi driver brought him into the subdivision: SAXON WOODS PARK AND GOLF CLUB.

I’m in the open. If they start shooting again, there’s no cover.

Then what are you hanging around for?

As he oriented himself, making sure that he wasn’t running back toward the wall, he saw lights to his left. Specterlike, they emerged from the wall. Pittman had heard one of his pursuers talk about a gate. They’d reached it and come through. His first instinct was to conclude that they had found flashlights somewhere, probably from a shed near the gate. But there was something about the lights.

The tingle that Pittman had felt when he realized that he was on a golf course now became a cold rush of fear as he heard the sound of motors. The lights were too big to come from flashlights, and they were in pairs like headlights, but Pittman’s hunters couldn’t be using cars. Cars would be too heavy, losing traction, spinning their wheels until they got stuck in the soft wet grass. Besides, the motors sounded too small and whiny to belong to cars.

Jesus, they’re using golf carts, Pittman realized, his chest tightening. Whoever owns the estate has private carts and access to the course from the back of the property. Golf carts don’t have headlights. Those are handheld spotlights.

The carts spread out, the lights systematically covering various sections of the course. As men shouted, Pittman spun away from the lights, darted from the sand trap, and scurried into the rainy darkness.