Double Image

1

I HAVE TO PUT MYSELF IN ILKOVIC’S PLACE, Coltrane thought. If I’m going to get through this alive, I have to imagine what I’d do in his situation.

In the dark, lying next to Jennifer, he couldn’t get his mind to shut off. He strained to fix his imagination on the woman’s haunting face, but it melted into a fleshless skull, which swiftly became Ilkovic’s big-boned features. Terror overcame him. He kept worrying about his grandparents. He kept wondering how he was going to survive on Wednesday.

Maybe Nolan’s right. Maybe it’s foolish to offer myself as bait.

At once a part of him said, But the cemetery’s one of the few places where Ilkovic is likely to show up. He won’t be able to resist the pleasure of watching Daniel’s mourners. He’ll be hoping to see one mourner in particular: me. The police and the FBI will have a chance to catch him.

But what if they fail?

I have to think like Ilkovic. Is he just going to show up on Wednesday and wander around?

Of course not. He’ll assume the police are there. He’ll change his appearance or hide or watch from a distance.

And what’s the safest way for him to figure out where to hide?

The answer felt like an electrical jolt. In a rush, Coltrane sat up. My God, he’ll want to get to the cemetery a day ahead of time so he can scope it out and make sure he protects himself.

A day ahead of time meant…

Today.

2

“THREAT MANAGEMENT UNIT,” a crisp voice said.

“Give me Sergeant Nolan. It’s urgent.”

“Who’s calling?”

Coltrane quickly gave his name. He and Jennifer were at a pay phone on Hollywood Boulevard.

“Well, well. Just the man I want to talk to.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“This is FBI Special Agent James McCoy.” The voice became crisper. “I want you and your friend to report here at once.”

“Why? What’s the-”

“We’re taking you into protective custody.”

“But I already told Sergeant Nolan I think we’re safer on our own.”

“When he offered protection, he was making a suggestion. In my case, I’m giving you an order.”

“You remind me of my father. He liked to give me orders.”

The special agent seemed not to have heard. “We’re going to guard you around the clock.”

“Sure, right. And how long is that going to last?”

“Until we catch Ilkovic.”

“Three months? Six months? A year?”

“I certainly hope we’ll have caught him in a matter of days.”

“Is that a fact? And how many leads do you have?”

The special agent didn’t answer.

“You’ve got one lead – you’re hoping he’ll show up at the cemetery on Wednesday.”

The special agent still didn’t respond.

“And if I’m not there,” Coltrane said, “he’ll never tip his hand. He’ll go to ground and wait until the bureau runs out of money and patience guarding us and puts us back on the street.”

“I’m afraid I don’t agree with your assessment.”

“Well, since it’s not your life at risk, I don’t much care what you agree with.”

“In that case, you leave me no choice. There’s been a new development you need to know about.”

“What’s happened?”

“It’s better if I inform you about it in person rather than on the phone.”

“Tell me now.”

“It would be more humane if we discussed this in person.”

“Humane?”

“It’s about your grandparents.”

3

THE THREAT MANAGEMENT OFFICE HADN’T CHANGED MUCH since Coltrane had last been there two years earlier – an additional desk, a couple of new computers – but it could have been painted scarlet instead of white and have had a pool table instead of filing cabinets for all he noticed when he stormed into the room. Two detectives, their jackets draped over the back of their chairs, peered up from monitors they were studying. A third man, his blue suit coat neatly buttoned, crossed the room.

“Mr. Coltrane?”

“I want to see Sergeant Nolan.”

The rigidly postured man was slender, with thin lips and narrow eyes. He held out his hand. “I’m Special Agent McCoy.” He glanced toward Jennifer, who was standing behind Coltrane.

Coltrane didn’t shake hands. “I said I want to see Sergeant Nolan.”

McCoy reached for his shoulder. “Why don’t we go over to the Federal Building and-”

“Stay away from me.”

“Mr. Coltrane, I realize you’re under a lot of stress, but-”

“Get your hand off me, or I’ll break it.”

The room became still. The two detectives braced themselves to stand. McCoy’s mouth hung open in surprise. As Coltrane’s face reddened, Jennifer stepped between them.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Nolan appeared at the entrance to the office, his tan blazer slightly oversize to compensate for his weight lifter’s shoulders. “Getting acquainted?”

McCoy stood straighter. “More like threatening a federal officer.”

“You implied something terrible had happened to my grandparents. You refused to tell me over the phone. You forced me to risk my life by coming here.”

“I hardly think coming to the police qualifies as risking your life,” McCoy said.

“If it was just a ploy to get me here, if there’s nothing wrong with my grandparents-”

“Time out, gentlemen.”

“Did something happen to my grandparents?”

“Yes.” Nolan glanced toward the floor. “I keep giving you bad news. I’m sorry.”

Coltrane felt as if a cold knife had pierced his heart.

“Did you phone the New Haven Police Department yesterday evening?” McCoy asked.

Coltrane directed his answer toward Nolan. “I called my grandparents several times, but I kept getting their answering machine. So I got worried and asked the New Haven police to send a patrol car over to their house to make sure everything was okay.”

“Your call was logged just after eight P. M. eastern time,” McCoy continued.

“Not you. Him.” Coltrane pointed toward Nolan. “If I’m going to hear something terrible about my grandparents, I want it to be from somebody I know.”

“There was a major freeway accident in New Haven shortly after your call,” Nolan said. “Most patrol cars were called in to sort out the confusion. By the time a car was free to go to your grandparents’ house, it was after eleven at night.”

“Quit stalling and tell me.”

“They found newspapers for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on the front porch. The mail hadn’t been picked up, either.” Nolan paused, uncomfortable. “They broke in and searched the house… Your grandparents were in the basement.”

Coltrane could barely ask the next question. “Dead?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Nolan clearly didn’t want to say it. “Ilkovic hanged them.”

Coltrane wanted to scream.

“The reason we’re sure it was Ilkovic,” Nolan said, “is that Federal Express tried to deliver a package to your town house yesterday. When there was nobody to receive it, the driver delivered it to a secondary address that the sender had specified.”

“Secondary?”

“Here. It arrived at the station in midafternoon, but because it was addressed to you, it went from office to office, after an all clear from the bomb squad, until someone in the Threat Management Unit recognized your name.”

Coltrane sounded hoarse. “What’s in the package?”

“A videotape.”

4

THE ROOM BECAME SMALLER. Coltrane glanced from Nolan to McCoy to Jennifer to Nolan. He felt as if he was spinning. “Videotape?”

“Like the audiotape of…” Jennifer’s voice trailed off.

“I want to see it,” Coltrane said.

“No,” Jennifer said. “Take their word for what happened.”

“I have to see it.”

“What will that accomplish?” Jennifer asked. “You know how devastated you felt when you heard Daniel on the audiotape. That’s exactly what Ilkovic wants. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

“She’s right,” McCoy said.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Nolan said. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or-”

“Let me understand this,” Coltrane said. “Are you telling me you refuse to show me the tape?”

“No, but-”

“Then where is it?”

The group exchanged glances.

McCoy shrugged fatalistically. “A man ought to know what he wants.”

Nolan shook his head in frustration. He opened a desk drawer and removed a videocassette. “There’s a room down the hall that has a TV and a video player.”

Coltrane waited for him to lead the way.

“But I want to emphasize-” Nolan said.

“That you don’t think this is a good idea,” Coltrane said. “Fine. Now let’s go.”

Jennifer held back.

“You’re not coming?”

“No.”

“I understand,” Coltrane said. As she sank into a chair, he placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Take it easy. I won’t be long.”

He considered her another moment, his emotions in chaos, then followed Nolan and McCoy out of the office.

In the corridor, Nolan said, “You might be wrong about how soon you’re going to be back.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ilkovic set this tape for a six-hour recording speed.”

“So?”

“All six hours are full.”

5

THE SHADOWY ROOM WAS NARROW. It had no windows. The TV was a battered nineteen-inch with a video player on a shelf underneath it. As Nolan put the tape into the player, Coltrane shifted a metal chair in front of the screen.

Solemn, McCoy shut the door.

Although the image, recorded on slow speed, was grainy, it struck Coltrane with horrifying vividness. The yellow glare of an overhead bulb in his grandparents’ basement – how well Coltrane remembered the time he had spent down there in his youth – showed his grandmother and grandfather standing on tiptoes on a bench. Their hands were secured behind their backs. Their mouths were covered with duct tape. Their aged eyes bulged from panic and from the rope that was tied around each neck, secured to a rafter in the ceiling. Coltrane’s grandfather was wearing pajamas, his grandmother a housecoat. Both had slippers, their bare heels angled upward as they braced themselves on their toes.

“My grandmother has asthma.” Coltrane could hardly speak. “That duct tape on her mouth must be agony. Look at her chest heave.”

A guttural voice with a Slavic accent spoke from behind the camera. “Are we comfortable? Are the ropes too tight? I hope I haven’t cut off your circulation.”

Coltrane’s grandfather strained to speak through the duct tape.

“Please,” the guttural voice said. “My instructions were clear. Don’t make any unnecessary motions.”

Coltrane’s grandfather stopped trying to speak. He closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate on controlling his breathing.

“Good,” the voice said. “Now I’m going to have to be rude and leave you alone for a moment. I haven’t had breakfast. I’m sure you won’t mind if I go upstairs and make a plate of those waffles you didn’t have a chance to eat. Blueberries are my favorite. I’d bring you some, but you’re occupied.”

Wood creaked, the sound diminishing, as if someone was climbing stairs.

Coltrane’s grandfather and grandmother exchanged looks of desperation. And other emotions: determination to survive, sorrow for what the other was suffering, most of all love.

The image blurred. Tasting salt, Coltrane realized that he was crying. He wiped his shirt sleeve across his eyes, one of the most effortful things he had ever done. But not as hard as the effort his grandparents were making to stand on their toes. Their posture wasn’t exaggerated. They weren’t in the extreme stance of ballet dancers on their toes. The space between their heels and the bench they stood on was only about an inch and a half. Nonetheless, Coltrane inwardly cringed at the thought of the effort they would have to make to stand in that position for any length of time, especially because each had arthritis.

Wood creaked, but this time the sound grew louder, someone returning down the stairs. Coltrane’s grandfather and grandmother tensed.

“There,” the guttural voice said. “I hope you didn’t get into mischief while I was gone.”

Coltrane identified the sounds of a plate being set onto something, then a knife and fork scraping on it, food being cut.

“I can’t recall when I ate waffles this delicious,” the voice said. “You’re a lucky man to have a wife who’s such a good cook.”

From behind the duct tape on his mouth, Coltrane’s grandfather made a sound that might have been “Please.”

“Six hours of torturing them like this?” Coltrane’s emotions tore him apart.

“I’m afraid so,” Nolan said. “I told you this would be rough. I think it would be best if I turned it off.”

“Give me the remote control.”

Coltrane aimed it toward the video player and pushed a button that fast-forwarded the tape while still allowing him to see the image. The picture quality became more grainy. Streaks ran through it. But Coltrane was still able to see his grandparents. What disturbed him was that normally, when a tape was fast-forwarded, the motions of the people on the screen became frantic and jerky. In this case, there was virtually no movement at all. His grandparents were struggling to stand perfectly still on their toes.

The counter on the tape machine showed that the elapsed time was forty-six minutes. Coltrane released the button on the remote control. The picture returned to normal, if that word could possibly be applied to what Coltrane was seeing. At first, nothing seemed to have changed, but as he looked closer, concentrating on his grandparents’ feet, he could see that their heels were lower. The effort of standing in that position, combined with the pain of arthritis, had weakened his grandparents. They were lowering their weight, and as they did, the rope that stretched from their necks to the rafter became tighter. Not taut. Not yet. Ilkovic had made sure to leave enough slack that the process would be prolonged.

In dismay, Coltrane fast-forwarded the tape again. Except for the increased grain and the streaks, nothing seemed to change on the screen. At an elapsed time of one hour and forty-eight minutes, he again released the button.

Now his grandparents were standing flat on their feet and the rope was tighter and their breathing was more labored. But by comparison with the fast-forwarded image, everything seemed to be in torturous slow motion. Coltrane could barely imagine what the passage of time must have felt like to his grandparents. An eternity. The force of the rope made their eyes bulge. Their faces, which had been gray with fear, were now red from the pressure around their throats.

“Mr. Coltrane, I really think,” McCoy started to say.

“Shut up.” Coltrane pressed the fast-forward button. When the indicator on the tape machine showed two hours and fifty-one minutes, he returned the tape to normal speed and saw a urine stain on his grandfather’s pajamas.

McCoy left the room.

On the tape, the guttural voice said, “Well, accidents happen.”

Their knees began sagging.

After three more fast-forwards, Coltrane saw his grandmother’s chest stop moving at an elapsed time of 4:07. His grandfather managed to last until four forty-nine.

“Photographer,” the guttural voice said. “This is nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

Coltrane’s scream brought McCoy rushing back into the room.

“I’m going to kill him!” Coltrane screamed. “I’m going to get my hands around his throat and-”

Other officers rushed in. By then, Coltrane had hurled the remote control at the television screen and was trying to pick up the TV so he could throw it across the room.

6

“HE’S GOING TO BE AT THE CEMETERY TODAY.” Coltrane quivered from the rage that consumed him. His voice was strained, his vocal cords raw. “He’ll need to check out the area before he risks showing up there to look for me tomorrow.”

Nolan and McCoy glanced at each other.

“Then we have a second chance to grab him,” McCoy said. “We have a team at the cemetery right now.”

“Now?” Coltrane said.

“They’re inspecting it so we know where to place our men tomorrow.”

“No! Get your men away from there.”

“What?”

“Don’t you understand? If Ilkovic sees your men there today, he’ll realize you’re anticipating him to be there tomorrow. He’ll back off and go to ground. God only knows when he’ll decide to make another move.”

“But there’s no other way for us to do this. We have to be able to protect you tomorrow,” Nolan said.

“Not tomorrow. It’s going to be today.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Call your men off,” Coltrane said. “What time is it? Jesus, one o’clock. It might be too late. When is Daniel’s funeral tomorrow?”

“The same time as now,” Nolan said.

“Which means the burial will be around two-thirty.” Nerves in turmoil, Coltrane rushed to stand. “If I hurry, I can get there by then.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re talking about,” McCoy said.

“Ilkovic will want to check out the area today at the same time the burial will happen tomorrow,” Coltrane said. “It doesn’t make any sense for him to see what it’s like at ten in the morning if the patterns in the area are likely to be different by midafternoon. If I can get there by two-thirty, there’s a good chance he’ll see me.”

“It’s still the same deal,” McCoy said. “When he tries to follow you, we grab him. Nothing’s changed, except that we’ve moved the schedule up twenty-four hours.”

“It’s not the same deal,” Coltrane said. “If you were Ilkovic, would you try to follow your target if you saw law-enforcement officers in the area?”

“But how’s Ilkovic going to know who they are?” Nolan raised his hands, frustrated. “They’re not wearing uniforms. They’re not going around staring at everybody. These men are trained to blend in. They look like they’re mourners. They look like they’re groundskeepers. Ilkovic isn’t going to spot them.”

“The way they look isn’t what bothers me,” Coltrane said.

“What do you mean?”

“Ilkovic is an electronics freak. He likes to play with microphones. He doesn’t need to see your men. All he needs to do is listen to them.”

“Listen?”

“Your men have to stay in contact with one another, right?” Coltrane asked. “They’re wearing miniature earphones. They’ve got button-sized microphones on their sleeves or their lapels.”

“Of course,” McCoy said.

“Well, how hard do you think it would be for someone as clever as Ilkovic to get his hands on one of those units, set it to the same frequency, and overhear what you’re planning?”

“He’s right,” Nolan murmured.

“Tell them to turn the damned things off and get out of there,” Coltrane said. “Now.”

“Then how are we going to protect you?” McCoy demanded.

“You’ll be waiting somewhere else. Where I lead him.”

7

“YOU HAVE TO PROMISE ME,” Nolan said. “If you have even the slightest suspicion that Ilkovic knows what you’re trying to do, get away from there.”

They were hurrying through the police building’s parking garage.

“There’ll be unmarked cars two blocks in every direction,” Nolan said. “That’s as far back as we can put them and still hope to give you backup. For God sake, don’t take any chances. Drive straight to where we’ll be waiting for him.”

“I still don’t like this,” McCoy said. “Endangering a civilian.”

“I’m volunteering,” Coltrane said.

“But it isn’t bureau policy,” McCoy said. “I don’t have time to clear this with my superiors. I want to go on record – this isn’t sanctioned by the FBI.”

“I’m glad you told me that.” Coltrane stopped where he’d parked his car. “For a while, I was beginning to think I’d misjudged you, that you weren’t the self-serving jerk I first thought you were.”

McCoy’s eyes widened.

Coltrane turned to Jennifer. “Take Sergeant Nolan and the SWAT team to Packard’s house. Explain the layout. They won’t have time to size up everything on their own before I get back there.”

“I hope to heaven Ilkovic doesn’t move against you before then,” Jennifer said. “Be careful.”

“Count on it.” Coltrane kissed her. “Just keep reminding yourself – by tonight, this will all be over.”

Hugging herself, Jennifer glanced toward the police cars in the garage. “I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be safe.”

Nolan handed him a walkie-talkie. “Take this. Just in case. If you need backup in a hurry, it won’t matter if Ilkovic can overhear.”

Coltrane was setting out from downtown Los Angeles. When he glanced at the Saturn’s dashboard clock and saw that the time was 1:31, he realized that he had less than an hour to get to the valley. All he could do was hope that the Golden State Freeway wouldn’t be congested.

His thoughts in a frenzy, he accessed the freeway, relieved when he saw that traffic was moving easily. Now that he was on his own, he couldn’t get over his eagerness. Instead of being afraid, he was filled with anticipation. For a moment, it puzzled him.

Do you miss dodging bullets in places like Bosnia and Chechyna so much that you can’t wait to put yourself in danger again?

What I can’t wait for is this to end. In fact, I’m going to make sure it ends.

I’m going to kill him.

There, Coltrane thought. I’ve put it in words again.

What he had screamed after seeing the videotape of what Ilkovic had done to his grandparents was exactly what he hoped to do. Nolan and McCoy had seemed to think that he was exaggerating, that he was merely venting his rage. They had cautioned him about losing control. They had warned him about taking the law into his hands, and he had told them yes, that he was sorry for overreacting.

It had all been a lie. He couldn’t recall ever having been so seized by an emotion. Not fear. He was absolutely released from fear. The rage within him as he watched the tape of what Ilkovic had done to his grandparents negated his fear. It made him feel liberated. Eager? He was so eager that he trembled. For what Ilkovic had done to Daniel, Greg, and his grandparents, he was going to make Ilkovic pay. He was going to trick Ilkovic into following him. He was going to make Ilkovic think he had taken Coltrane by surprise. He was going to see the big smile on Ilkovic’s face, then the frown of confusion when Ilkovic realized that Coltrane had caught him by surprise.

8

IT WASN’T UNTIL COLTRANE HEARD THE ROAR OF ARRIVING AND departing jets that he realized Everlasting Gardens was near the commotion of the Burbank airport.

As he steered through the cemetery’s entrance, he became viscerally aware of entering Ilkovic’s territory. The hairs on his neck bristled like antenna, his survival instincts possessing him. To get even with Ilkovic, he warned himself, he had to be as cautious as he had ever been in any of the war zones he had photographed. He couldn’t take anything for granted.

Driving past tombstones, noticing mourners gathered around a casket at an open grave site, seeing groundskeepers trimming hedges and mowing grass, he wondered if Nolan had kept his end of the bargain. He thought about the officers who had come here to check the cemetery in preparation for tomorrow’s surveillance. What if some of them hadn’t left? What if Ilkovic had seen them and snuck away and Coltrane was wasting his time? Or what if they had left and it was Ilkovic who was pretending to be one of those mourners?

One thing was certain: Coltrane couldn’t make it obvious that he was searching the area. The result would be the same as if Ilkovic realized that there were police officers in the area. He would suspect a trap and leave. It had to seem the most natural thing in the world that Coltrane would be at this cemetery today, and Coltrane knew exactly what his reason for coming here would be. He followed a lane around the treed cemetery, eventually coming back to where he had entered, making it seem that he was trying to orient himself, which was actually the truth. He passed a solemn-looking building that resembled a church but that didn’t have any symbols and would be suitable for services in any religion. Or perhaps it’s a mausoleum, Coltrane thought. When he felt that the movement was natural, he glanced around, appearing to assess his surroundings, all the while alert for anyone who paid attention to him. No one did.

His muscles tight, Coltrane stopped at a building that reminded him of a cottage. It had sheds and a three-stall garage in back, the open doors revealing large riding lawn mowers and other maintenance equipment. He locked his car and again glanced around in apparent assessment of his surroundings – still no one unusual. Sprinklers watered a section of the cemetery, casting a fragrance in his direction. As a jet roared overhead, he opened a screen door and knocked on a wooden one.

He knocked again, then studied a sign that read OFFICE HOURS: 9-5. He tried the knob. The door wasn’t locked. Easing it open, he peered into a compact, well-lit office and asked, “Anybody here?”

Apparently not.

“Hello?” he called.

What in God’s name am I doing? he thought. For all I know, Ilkovic is in there. He stepped quickly back into the sunlit air, only to jolt against someone.

He spun, startled.

It wasn’t Ilkovic. The dignified gray-haired man was tall and thin. He wore a somber suit and touched Coltrane’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Coltrane tried not to seem uneasy. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“I just stepped out of the office for a moment. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes, I’m looking for a grave site.”

The somber man nodded. “It’s always wise to plan ahead. Step into my office and I’ll explain our services.”

“Excuse me?” Coltrane suddenly realized that he had misunderstood, that the man was actually asking him if he had come here to buy a grave site. “No, what I meant was, a friend of mine is going to be buried here tomorrow.”

“Ah.” The man now realized that he had misunderstood.

“I can’t come to the burial,” Coltrane said, “but I thought, if I found out where his plot was, I could drop by later and pay my respects without having to ask someone from his family to come and show me where he is.”

“Of course,” the man said. “Please accept my condolences about your friend.”

“Thank you,” Coltrane said. “Believe me, it wasn’t his time.”

“If you’ll tell me what your friend’s name is…” The man started toward his office.

“Daniel Gibson.”

“Oh.” The man stopped.

“Is something the matter?”

“Not at all. But I don’t need to look up your friend’s name in my records. Earlier this morning, someone else asked me where his plot is. I distinctly remember the location.”

“Someone else?”

“Yes. A phone call. Like you, he said he was a friend who couldn’t attend the burial but wanted to know where the grave would be so he could pay his respects later.”

“I think I might know him. Did he happen to have an Eastern European accent? Slavic?”

The man thought a moment. “I really can’t remember. I was too busy concentrating on the deceased’s name and his plot number.”

“Sure. Maybe I’ll see him here later.”

“Possibly. One never knows. Your friend’s grave site is…” The long-legged man walked onto the lane and pointed toward the middle of the cemetery, toward activity beyond various gravestones, two lanes over. “Our maintenance staff is preparing it.”

Across the distance, Coltrane saw the descending claw of a yellow backhoe and heard the rumble of an engine.

“You might want to reconsider going over there. We discourage the bereaved from seeing this part of the procedure. It might seem unfeeling.”

“But it has to be done,” Coltrane said.

“Exactly.”

“I understand practicality,” Coltrane said. “Thanks for your concern.”

“If there’s anything else I can do for you…”

“I’ll definitely remember how helpful you were.”

As the man stepped into the cottagelike building and closed the door, Coltrane stared beyond the various grave markers toward the rumbling backhoe in the distance. He got in his car and tried not to glance around as he drove down the lane. His stomach churned. His palms sweated, making his grip slick on the steering wheel. Had it been Ilkovic who phoned, wanting to know the location of Daniel’s grave? Ilkovic would need that information. He would have to find out which section of the cemetery to watch. Around this time tomorrow, Daniel’s hearse would arrive. His mourners would walk along this lane and gather among the tombstones, directing their mournful gazes toward the coffin supported on braces above the open grave. Of course, the mourners wouldn’t actually see the open grave, Coltrane thought as he stopped his car near the clank and rumble of the backhoe. There would be a sash of some sort covering the pit; probably it would be colored green, just as imitation grass would cover the nearby pile of earth that now grew larger as the backhoe deposited another clawful.

Coltrane’s tear ducts ached as he got out of the car and locked it. Come on, Ilkovic, get a good look at me. I know you’re here. It’s two-thirty. It’s dress-rehearsal time. You want to find out where the best view is for tomorrow. I bet you’re surprised to see me here. You’re looking sharply around to find out if anybody else is with me – like the police. You’re ready to run at the first sign of trouble, but you’re hesitating – because you don’t see anybody who’s a threat and you can’t believe your luck that I showed up, and you wonder what I’m doing here. But in a minute, it’ll be obvious, and then you really won’t believe how lucky you are.

The workman on the backhoe glanced with puzzlement toward Coltrane as he maneuvered the machine’s controls and the claw dropped back into the grave-sized trench, digging up more earth. A bitter cloud of exhaust floated from the engine, irritating Coltrane’s throat. He had never felt so exposed and threatened, totally certain that Ilkovic was somewhere close watching him, but at the same time absolutely confident that for as long as he stood next to Daniel’s grave, he was safe. Ilkovic didn’t want to shoot him. He wanted to torture him. For that, Ilkovic needed privacy and leisure.

He certainly isn’t going to try to rush up, grab me, and drag me to his car, Coltrane thought. Not in plain sight. Not when I have a chance of fighting back. He’ll watch and follow. He’ll make his move when he has every advantage. But he’s still suspicious, wondering if he should run.

Coltrane folded his hands in prayer, so immersed in sorrow that it took him a moment to realize that his gesture was exactly what was required to make Ilkovic understand why he had supposedly come here. Ilkovic would conclude that Coltrane feared it would be too risky to show up at the cemetery the next day, that he felt compelled to come a day early to pay his respects and participate in his own private ceremony.

When he lowered his gaze from the sky, the backhoe’s claw slammed into the trench again, gouging up earth. Unnerved, Coltrane seemed to be back in his gravelike pit on the slope above the mass grave in Bosnia, staring through a telephoto lens at an identical yellow backhoe, except that it wasn’t gouging up earth, but skulls and teeth and rib cages and shattered leg bones. The overlapping of the past on the present was so powerful that he shuddered and feared for his sanity. He watched the backhoe drop its burden, a welter of bones onto…

A pile of earth. It was only a pile of earth. And the trench was apparently now deep enough, for the driver didn’t drop the claw back into the trench. Instead, he directed it into a neutral position and drove from the grave, rumbling along the lane. Later, Coltrane knew, someone would come around with a winch to lower a concrete sleeve into the grave, to shore up the sides and prevent earth from falling in. Eyes stinging, Coltrane stepped between other graves, plucked up a few blades of grass, and came back, dropping the blades into the grave, watching them flutter to the bottom.

I won’t forget you, Daniel.

When he stepped away, he made no attempt to look around as he returned to the car. Either Ilkovic was here or he wasn’t. Either Ilkovic would follow or he wouldn’t. Unlocking his car, he had the sense that events were controlling him, not the other way around. When he got in and started the car, he was surprised to see that the dashboard clock showed 3:06. He had been standing there, grieving, far longer than he had thought. I can’t let that happen again. I can’t let myself lose track of time like that. I have to pay attention to what I’m doing. But then, in a sense, that was exactly what had happened – he had been paying attention to his grief.

Now it was time to pay attention to his rage.

9

THE PLAN HE AND NOLAN HAD AGREED UPON WAS THAT HE would lead Ilkovic to Packard’s house, where Nolan and a SWAT team would be waiting. Jennifer would come out of the house as Coltrane arrived. Ilkovic would see the two of them and conclude that Coltrane hadn’t wanted Jennifer to go with him to the cemetery, that he’d needed to be alone. With Jennifer’s absence explained and with Coltrane’s hiding place now discovered, Ilkovic would take time to reconnoiter the area, to assure himself that the police weren’t around (they would be in the house, but Ilkovic wouldn’t know that until it was too late). He would plan his entry onto the property, presumably through the back. He would make his move at night, after the house lights had been turned off and his targets had plenty of time to drift off to sleep. As soon as he was in the house, the police would spring their trap.

It’s a perfectly feasible plan, Coltrane thought as he drove across the valley. It was simple. It had the merit of surprise. It had only one flaw. Ilkovic might be captured instead of killed. The UN tribunal might sentence him to life imprisonment instead of having him executed.

That’s not good enough. I know another way, Coltrane thought. He accessed the San Diego Freeway and drove south, grateful for the congested traffic, needing a reason to drive slowly so that Ilkovic wouldn’t have trouble keeping him in sight. He exited onto Sunset Boulevard, where traffic was only slightly less congested, and headed toward the Pacific Coast Highway. There, he proceeded north. He had always enjoyed this drive, the majesty of the Palisades on his right, the allure of the ocean on his left, the glinting waves, the gliding sailboats. But not this time. The only thing that occupied his attention was a plan that he rehearsed. Past Malibu, just when he began to fear that he wouldn’t find the road he was looking for, he saw it on the right, next to a weathered wooden sign that read MAYNARD RANCH. The road hadn’t changed since the first time he had used it three months previously. It was unpaved and narrow, and it led him up into the Santa Monica Mountains.

Since the cemetery, everything around him had seemed out of focus, in a haze. But now his perception sharpened. He had the sensation of seeing everything with the intensity of peering through a zoom lens. Every detail of his surroundings seemed magnified. He was struck by an overwhelming sense of the buckthorn, greasewood, and other scrub brush on the hills into which he drove. December rains had caused the chaparral to turn green, in contrast with the sand color of the desert soil, and under other circumstances, he would have stopped to photograph the differences in color and texture. But as he bitterly reminded himself, in place of a camera, he had brought a shotgun.

Near the highway, there had been service stations, restaurants, and motels. Along the base of the hills, there were occasional dilapidated ranch houses. But once the road twisted up into the hills, he had the impression of entering another time, of experiencing the solitary beauty of what Southern California had been like 150 years ago.

Just before steering over a ridge that cut off his view of the sloping land behind him, Coltrane checked his rearview mirror and thought he saw the dust of a following car. It was hard to be sure. The dust might merely have been nudged up by a breeze. Or it might have been the remnants of dust that he himself had raised. Or if the dust had been raised by someone else’s car, there was no certainty that the car belonged to Ilkovic. Someone who lived in one of the ranch houses might be returning home from an errand.

But Coltrane didn’t think so. Soon, he told himself. This is going to end soon. He kept seeing a mental image of his grandparents standing on tiptoes on the bench, with their arms tied behind them, duct tape across their lips, and a noose around their necks. He kept remembering the way his grandfather struggled to plead through the duct tape and how his asthmatic grandmother’s chest heaved. He had never wanted to get even with someone so much.

The road made a dogleg turn to the right, taking him higher and deeper into the brush-covered hills. But Coltrane knew that shortly the landscape would change from a faint December green to an appalling blackness. The section of hills that he drove through had escaped a raging brush fire three months earlier. A valley on the other side of these hills hadn’t been so lucky. Once owned by the western star Ken Maynard and used as the location for numerous cowboy movies in the thirties and forties as well as several western TV series, including Rawhide, during the late fifties and early sixties, the area had been devastated by the fire, which destroyed a replica of a western town that had doubled countlessly as Tombstone, Dodge City, and Abilene, and along whose streets everyone from Randolph Scott to Gary Cooper had walked.

Coltrane knew about the place because, just after the fire, Premiere magazine had asked him to go there and take photographs of the destroyed set, which the editor planned to juxtapose with stills from the famous movies that the set had been used in. With a fondness for some of the classics in which the valley and its set had been featured, Coltrane had turned down an important assignment in the Philippines. He had walked the ash-covered land, climbed burnt-over bluffs, and studied debris-filled streambeds, identifying many of the vistas with scenes he recalled from favorite movies.

The area fit all of his requirements. It was remote. It was abandoned. Equally important, it was familiar. Once he photographed a place, it became part of him.

As the road crested a ridge and the valley lay below him, spindly black skeletons of scrub brush punctuated the thick black ash that stretched in all directions. With the scorched timbers of the town in the distance, it was as thorough a wasteland as many war zones he had photographed.

Minus the corpses, he thought.

But if he had his way, there would definitely be one corpse here by nightfall.

10

JUST MAKE SURE THE CORPSE ISN’T YOURS, Coltrane thought.

At the bottom of the slope, the ash made the road hard to distinguish. He did his best to follow it, sometimes jouncing over rocks at the side. The ash wasn’t powdery. Rain had dissolved it into a paste, which hardened when the sun came out. Crusty, like dried black mud, it made a crunching sound as he drove over it. Glancing at his rearview mirror, he saw the tracks that his tires had made. Then his rearview mirror showed him something else: the bluff behind him, where a car appeared, stopping as its driver surveyed the barren landscape through which Coltrane proceeded.

That barrenness was another reason Coltrane had selected the area. There was only one set of tracks heading toward the blackened town, and those tracks belonged to Coltrane. If other people were in the area – a team of policemen, for example – their presence would be easily detectable because there was no place to conceal them. Their movements would have left scars in the ash, giving them away. Ilkovic would at first be on guard. But as the sterile nature of the site became manifest to him, his confidence would return.

The car, tiny in Coltrane’s rearview mirror, started down the slope.

Coltrane tried to put himself in Ilkovic’s place. What would Ilkovic be thinking? For certain, he’d wonder what Coltrane was doing here. It wouldn’t take him long to suspect that Coltrane might have lead him here. But for what purpose? To invite a confrontation? Apparently, Ilkovic found that notion appealing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be descending into the valley, following Coltrane’s tire marks through the ash.

Coltrane slowed, letting the car, a dark sedan, gain on him. Ahead, the road dipped into a deep trough, then crossed a shallow stream, the site for innumerable movie ambushes. From those movies and from photographs that Coltrane had taken of the area, he knew that his car would be out of sight in the trough. He wanted Ilkovic to think that he was lying in wait for him down there. What he intended to do, though, was something else. The instant he reached the bottom of the embankment, he rushed from the car, opened the back door, and grabbed his shotgun from where he had hidden it under a sleeping bag before leaving Packard’s house. He raced toward a gully where another stream joined this one at a right angle. That second stream paralleled the road along which he had driven. Its bed was low enough that if he stooped, he couldn’t be seen as he ran along it.

Breathing hard, sweating, stretching his legs to their maximum, he charged along, avoiding a channel of water so that he wouldn’t make a splashing noise that would alert Ilkovic if his windows were open. Ilkovic would be wondering why Coltrane’s car hadn’t reappeared. Ilkovic would be slowing, then stopping, waiting until he knew where Coltrane’s car had gone. He wouldn’t go forward again unless he assured himself that he wouldn’t be entering a trap. Meanwhile, Coltrane sprinted closer, so close that he could now hear Ilkovic’s car, the faint drone of its motor. Flash floods had scoured the gully free of ash. There wasn’t any crust that his footsteps could break and cause noise. The only sounds he made were his labored breathing, which he struggled to restrain, and the brittle but subdued scrape of his shoes over gravel and rocks, which lessened when he reduced his pace, hearing Ilkovic’s car thirty yards to his left.

The engine stopped. A door opened. Footsteps crunched on the ash. Ilkovic had evidently decided to circle the trough where Coltrane’s car had disappeared. He was coming at it from an angle, which was leading him toward the gully in which Coltrane aimed the pump-action shotgun.

The footsteps crunched closer. Coltrane’s finger tightened on the shotgun’s trigger. Lining up the sights, focusing along the barrel toward the sound of Ilkovic’s approaching footsteps, Coltrane had an unholy sensation that he was concentrating through a viewfinder, about to press a shutter button, when a face appeared above him, so startling that Coltrane was barely able to jerk the barrel away, recognizing the surprised, lean, thin-lipped features of FBI Special Agent James McCoy.

11

“JESUS CHRIST!” McCoy gaped at the shotgun barrel and lurched back. His feet slipped from under him, his momentum throwing him to the ashy ground. He landed with a groan. “Damn it, put that thing down!”

By the time Coltrane scrambled to the top of the gully, McCoy was squirming to sit up. His blue suit was covered with black ash. He stood awkwardly and swatted at his clothes, belatedly realizing that he was only spreading the grit. He stared at his hands, which were totally black. His face was smudged. He recoiled when he saw that Coltrane still held the shotgun. “I told you, put that thing down!”

His surprise deepening, Coltrane obeyed.

“Look at this suit!” McCoy said. “Look what you’ve done to-”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here? As if it isn’t obvious!” McCoy stepped angrily closer. “You might have fooled Nolan and your girlfriend, but this self-serving jerk, as you called me, didn’t believe for a second that you were going to try to make Ilkovic follow you back to the house where you were hiding.”

Coltrane didn’t flinch.

“Not to the house!” McCoy emphasized. “Somewhere else. I saw that look in your eye. I could tell you had something else in mind. In case you haven’t noticed, you wandered a little off track – about ninety minutes from where you’re supposed to be meeting Nolan in the Hollywood Hills.”

“You were at the cemetery?”

“Hell, yes. You were so convinced Ilkovic was going to be there, I thought I’d be criminally stupid if I didn’t show up, on the chance I’d spot him.”

“The police surveillance team?”

“Were never called off. Did you really think we’d let you go in there without support?” McCoy demanded. “For sure, that would have been criminally stupid.”

Coltrane was sickened. “You ruined my chance.”

“Hey, he wasn’t there, Coltrane. He never showed up. We’d have seen him.”

“Did you at least tell your surveillance team to shut off their radios?”

“Listen to me. Pay attention. You’re a civilian. You don’t tell law-enforcement officers what to do.”

“Answer me. Did they shut off their radios?”

“Yes! For all the good it-”

“Then there’s still a chance.”

“To do what? This entire operation’s a mess. Thanks to you! If there was ever a chance to trap Ilkovic today, you blew it when you didn’t go back to where Nolan had a team waiting at the house.”

“No, you blew it when you followed me here. If Ilkovic sees you, he’ll suspect a trap and back off.”

“Hey, I know my job. I watched for anybody else following you. Nobody. Zilch. Both of us took a ride in the country for nothing. Ilkovic isn’t-”

McCoy’s black-smudged blue suit suddenly had red on it. The next instant, Coltrane realized that the red was blood bursting from McCoy’s right shoulder. The echo of a gunshot rolled over them, about the same time that McCoy’s face turned gray. As the special agent groaned and dropped, Coltrane grabbed him before his face would have struck a rock. He tugged him backward. At once, a second bullet ricocheted close to McCoy, dirt and ash flying, the gunshot echoing. Frantic, Coltrane felt his right shoe slip over the gully’s rim. He dropped to his knees, lowered himself into the streambed, and dragged McCoy down out of sight after him. A surge of adrenaline made his hands and feet turn numb as blood rushed to his chest and muscles.

“How bad are you hit?”

“Don’t know.” McCoy lay among rocks beside the trickling stream. He shuddered, as if he was freezing. “Don’t feel anything.”

“You’re going into shock.”

“Did you figure that out” – McCoy shuddered harder – “all by yourself?”

Coltrane stared toward blood pulsing from a jagged exit hole in McCoy’s right shoulder. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

“Another bulletin.”

But how am I going to do it? Coltrane thought. He had reached the limit of his first-aid abilities when he had used a tourniquet and a pressure bandage to stop the young girl’s arm from bleeding after the explosion that killed Greg. This wound was much worse. He tried to remember every makeshift treatment he had ever seen a battlefield doctor use on a wounded soldier.

In a frenzy, he groped in McCoy’s pockets and found a handkerchief. He also found a key chain pocketknife, which he used to cut wide patches from the bottom of McCoy’s suit coat.

McCoy groaned when Coltrane tilted him to press a half dozen of these makeshift bandages against the entrance wound in the back of his shoulder. Coltrane set a similar wedge of cloth in front against the exit wound. Rushing, he pulled off McCoy’s belt, cinched it around his shoulder, and tightened it.

The pressure made McCoy groan again.

“We have to get out of here,” Coltrane said.

“Still more bulletins.”

“My car’s about a hundred yards down this gully. Do you think you can stand?”

McCoy winced. “One way to find out.”

“I have to do something first.”

Coltrane turned toward the gully’s rim. His stomach was so gripped with fear, he was sure he was going to throw up. What he did instead, the fiercest he had ever moved, was scurry up the slope, dive over the top, grab the shotgun where he had set it down, and roll back into the gully. As he dropped from sight, a richocheting bullet sprayed dirt across the back of his neck. The gunshot echoed.

Coltrane rolled to a painful stop, bumping his right side against a rock next to McCoy.

“Sounds like a rifle,” the special agent murmured.

“It also sounds closer.”

Struggling, Coltrane put an arm around McCoy’s waist and gripped his uninjured left arm, lifting. With a gasp, McCoy braced his legs and stood, leaning heavily against Coltrane.

“Hang on to me,” Coltrane said. “I need a hand free to hold the shotgun.”

They staggered along the gully. McCoy’s legs buckled, but he cursed himself and stayed upright, lurching farther along the stream.

The Saturn came into view. Staggering toward it, Coltrane scanned the top of the embankment down which he had driven. Ilkovic might have reached here by now, he thought furiously. He might suddenly appear, aiming at us. Have to hurry.

Coltrane leaned the shotgun against the car, yanked open the back door, and eased McCoy inside.

“Cold,” McCoy said.

“Stretch out on the backseat. I’ll cover you with this sleeping bag. Prop your feet up against the door. Keep them higher than your head.”

“My fault.”

Coltrane grabbed the shotgun and aimed toward the top of the embankment.

“My fault,” McCoy repeated. “I shouldn’t have-”

“No! It’s my fault.” Coltrane shoved the shotgun into the front seat, scrambled behind the steering wheel, rammed the car into gear, and roared out of the trough. The car bucked as it reached the crest, causing McCoy to scream in pain. Coltrane stomped his foot on the accelerator, racing along the barely defined road toward the charred ruins of the western town, throwing up a cloud of ash that he hoped would give them cover.

“I should never have tried this! I should never have come here!” The rage that had brought Coltrane here was now the faintest of memories. His obsession with revenge had completely drained from him. In its place was an overpowering fear that surged through every portion of his body. It completely controlled him. “Who did I think I was? Going up against Ilkovic – what was I thinking?”

The dust cloud of ash that the Saturn threw up behind it didn’t provide as much cover as Coltrane had hoped. A chunk burst from the rear window. As safety glass disintegrated into pellets, a bullet slammed through the passenger seat and walloped into the lower part of the dashboard. McCoy moaned.

Sweating, Coltrane pressed the accelerator harder. The car sped to the crest of an incline and soared from the road, slamming down, Coltrane’s stomach dropping, McCoy groaning from the impact, toppling onto the floor. The chassis screeched. As Coltrane fought to control his steering, another bullet burst through the remnant of the rear window. It struck closer to Coltrane, shattering the radio.

“McCoy?” Coltrane shouted to the back.

“Don’t worry about me! Drive!”

The Saturn left the road again, crashed down, veered, regained its traction, and sped closer to the charred remnants of the movie set. Needing to concentrate on his driving, Coltrane nonetheless risked a glance at the rearview mirror, seeing only a cloud of black dust behind him. He heard a metallic whack, a bullet striking the Saturn’s trunk. Or the gas tank, Coltrane thought.

“The more shots Ilkovic fires…” McCoy’s voice was strained. “Someone will hear.” He gasped for a breath. “Maybe call the police.”

“I don’t think so,” Coltrane said, the Saturn jolting over a bump as he urged the car closer to the scorched ruin. “This used to be a movie set for westerns.”

“Westerns?”

“The few people who live in the area used to hear shots in this valley all the time. They’ll probably think another movie’s being made.”

“We’re screwed.”

The road curved to the left. As Coltrane changed direction, he felt chillingly exposed, the dust cloud no longer providing concealment from where Ilkovic was shooting. Abruptly the Saturn lurched, as if it had struck another bump. But instead of jouncing off the ground, it leaned. The steering felt mushy. Distraught, Coltrane struggled to keep the car on the road.

“I think he shot the front left tire!”

The Saturn’s back end fishtailed, then leaned more sharply to the left as another jolt shook the car, this time from the rear left tire.

“I’m afraid we’re going to-”

Coltrane couldn’t control the car. He stomped on the brake pedal, fighting the steering wheel, feeling the Saturn tilt even farther to the left. With a savage leftward twist on the steering, he forced the front wheels into a ninety-degree angle with the car, held his breath as the back end swung to the right, felt time stop as the car threatened to crash onto its side, and breathed out as the car slammed down flat.

12

THE CAR WAS TURNED SIDEWAYS ON THE ROAD. The driver’s door faced the direction from which Ilkovic had been shooting. Move! Coltrane thought, a welter of impulses rocketing along his nerves. He grabbed the shotgun, slid across the passenger seat, shoved that door open, and leapt onto the ash-covered road, the Saturn giving him cover. A bullet blew a hole in the driver’s window, safety glass exploding into pellets that sprayed him. As he huddled next to the car, sweat streamed down his face and stuck his shirt to his chest. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

McCoy groaned from where he had fallen onto the back floor. Coughing from black dust that drifted over him, Coltrane yanked open the rear door and peered apprehensively inside. McCoy’s blue suit coat was soaked crimson. His lips were thinner, his face narrower, squeezed by pain. His face was more slick with sweat than Coltrane’s. His eyes were scrunched shut. At first, Coltrane thought he had passed out, but then McCoy squirmed awkwardly onto his uninjured left side, slowly opened his eyes, and with effort tilted his head toward Coltrane.

“I think you missed a few bumps,” McCoy said.

“You’re going to feel more of them. I have to get you out of there.”

A bullet burst through the far side window, hurling glass over McCoy.

“Yeah, get me out of here,” McCoy said.

Coltrane gripped his uninjured arm and shoulder, pulling as McCoy shoved against the floor with his feet, doing what he could to help. As gently as possible, Coltrane lowered him to the ashy road.

McCoy whimpered.

“Sorry.”

“… Thirsty.”

“The nearest water’s back at the stream where you got shot.”

“I’d probably throw it up anyhow.”

A bullet shattered the remnants of the driver’s window.

“He took out two tires with two shots,” Coltrane said. “That good a marksman… If he wanted to, he could have killed you back at the stream.”

“Occurred to me.”

“Or he could have shot me instead of the tires.”

“Toying with us,” McCoy said.

“Save your strength.”

Coltrane hadn’t shut the front passenger door when he leapt out. Glancing inside, he felt his heart swell as he saw the walkie-talkie that Nolan had given him at police headquarters.

He grabbed it. “I don’t know what kind of range this thing has.” His voice shook. He was almost afraid to hope. “But we might be able to contact the state police with this thing.”

McCoy nodded, guarded optimism showing through his pain.

Coltrane examined the walkie-talkie. It was black, the size of a cellular telephone. He pressed a switch marked ON/ OFF, held the unit to his ear, and heard a reassuring hiss. “This must be set to the frequency Nolan’s men are using. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given it to me.”

McCoy spoke with difficulty. “But that doesn’t mean…”

Coltrane knew the nervous-making thought that McCoy was struggling to complete. “Right, it doesn’t mean it’s set to a frequency the police up here are using.”

His pulse lurched as a bullet shattered more of the back window. It took him a moment to realize the implication. The back window? With the car sideways on the road, Ilkovic had been shooting at the side windows. He must have changed position. He was circling.

Finger unsteady, Coltrane held down the talk button. “Can anybody hear me? Please, if you hear me, answer! This is a police emergency! An FBI agent has been shot! We need help!”

Shaking, Coltrane took his finger off the talk button, the release automatically switching the unit to its receive mode. He pressed the unit tensely against his ears. His spirit sank when he heard only static.

“Lousy…” McCoy murmured.

“What?”

“… technique… Supposed to say, ‘Do you read me?’” McCoy groaned. “And ‘Over.’” His face was alarmingly pale.

“And you’re supposed to save your strength.” Coltrane again pressed the talk button. “Does anybody read me? This is an emergency! An FBI agent has been shot! We need help! Over!”

“There you go,” McCoy murmured.

“But nobody’s answering.” Disheartened, Coltrane listened to the relentless static. “Maybe we’re too far into the hills. Maybe those bluffs cut off the signal to-”

“Photographer, I can barely hear you.” A guttural voice crackled faintly from the walkie-talkie.

Coltrane felt as if a fist was squeezing his heart.

“There must be something wrong with your radio,” the faint, deep Slavic voice said. “Your signal’s so weak, no one outside this valley will receive it.”

“How the hell-” Coltrane’s voice dropped. Immediately he knew the answer. “He must have a police scanner in the car he’s using!”

“I warned you, photographer.” The gravelly voice was almost a whisper. Coltrane had to press the walkie-talkie hard against his ear. “What I did to your doctor friend… what I did to your grandparents… that was quick compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

“Listen to me, you bastard.” But Coltrane had forgotten to press the talk button. Ilkovic couldn’t hear him.

Besides, Ilkovic had not yet released the talk button on his own unit. His gruff voice continued to whisper. “I’ve been promising myself this pleasure for a long time. I’ll be sure to take pictures.”

Furious, Coltrane pressed the transmit button. “My friends didn’t do anything to you! My grandparents didn’t! You didn’t need to kill them!”

Suddenly his voice box didn’t want to work. He seemed to have been struck mute, straining to listen for Ilkovic’s response.

Nothing.

“The button.” McCoy groaned. “You’ve still got your finger on…”

As if the button was on fire, Coltrane released it.

“Photographer, you didn’t say ‘Over,’” Ilkovic taunted.

You son of a bitch, Coltrane thought.

“No, your friends didn’t do anything to hurt me,” Ilkovic said. “Your grandparents didn’t. But you did, didn’t you? It’s your fault for prying and meddling and taking pictures of things that aren’t your concern.”

“His voice sounds…” McCoy took a painful breath, struggling to complete his agitated thought.

“Louder. My God, he must be coming closer.” Coltrane glanced frantically around the car. “We can’t stay here. We’re protected only on one side. We have to…”

His vision focused on the charred ruins down the road behind him. He had intended to drive past them and up into the hills on the valley’s far side. The road continued beyond them – to where, Coltrane had no idea, but he had hoped to find a town or a highway. Now the only town available to him was a jumble of fallen burned-out timbers.

Fifty yards away. The distance could as easily have been fifty miles.

“McCoy, do you think you can stand again?”

“No choice.”

In alarm, Coltrane saw a pool of blood when he gripped McCoy’s uninjured left shoulder and worked to lift him. Despite his trim body, McCoy seemed heavier, his body less responsive.

“Here.” Coltrane shoved the walkie-talkie into a pocket in McCoy’s suit coat. “Hang on.” Coltrane grabbed the shotgun. “I hope you’re good at the fifty-yard dash.”

It was more like a fifty-yard crawl. McCoy wavered. Coltrane lost his balance under McCoy’s awkward weight. The two of them collapsed on their knees, the sudden awkward movement preventing one of them from getting hit as a bullet zipped past at shoulder level, sounding like a bumblebee, the gunshot echoing. But Coltrane was absolutely certain that whomever the bullet would have struck would not have been killed. Ilkovic had been vividly clear about his determination to prolong this.

That might work in our favor, Coltrane thought.

“Leave me,” McCoy said.

“No.”

“Save yourself.”

“Not without you,” Coltrane said.

Their first effort had taken them about ten yards. They staggered another five before McCoy collapsed again. Sprawling onto the ashy road, Coltrane tried his best to absorb McCoy’s fall. Another bullet zipped over their heads.

“Photographer.” The guttural voice came faintly, eerily, from the walkie-talkie in McCoy’s pocket. “I see you.”

“Come on,” Coltrane urged McCoy, dragging him to his feet. “He can’t aim a rifle if he’s holding a radio.”

Staggering, they managed another ten yards before a bullet nicked the left elbow of Coltrane’s denim shirt. He felt its hot tug and pushed McCoy flat.

“He’s shooting lower,” Coltrane said.

“Photographer,” the gravelly voice said in a singsong imitation of a child playing a game of hide-and-seek. “I see you. I aimed slightly to your left, but you twisted in that direction. I hope I didn’t hit you. Did I? Is it serious? I don’t want to spoil this.”

Coltrane groped along his left arm, feeling the nick in his shirt, fearing he would touch blood. He became weak with relief when he didn’t find any. The weakness lasted barely a second – only until Ilkovic’s deep voice again sounded from the walkie-talkie in McCoy’s pocket.

“Answer me, photographer! How bad are you hit? Describe the pain!”

Coltrane tugged McCoy forward, urged him upright, and lurched forward with him. They were halfway to the jumble of scorched timbers. Two-thirds. Closer. The collapsed buildings loomed, filling Coltrane’s frantic vision. He had the disorienting sensation of seeing them through a lens. The illusion ended when McCoy stumbled and took Coltrane with him. Toppling forward, Coltrane tried to cushion McCoy as they fell over a tangle of blackened beams and crashed among scorched boards. He feared he would cough his lungs out from the thick layer of ash into which he landed. Feeling smothered, he thrashed to get onto his back. He coughed deeper. His eyes stung, watering.

Panicked, he saw McCoy facedown in a pile of ash and grabbed him, twisting him, directing his soot-covered face to the sky. Each time McCoy coughed, he groaned, shuddering from pain. His blood was stark against the blackness.

13

THEY WERE IN A CHARCOAL- FILLED CRATER that was formed by the collapsed walls of an incinerated building.

The shotgun, Coltrane thought. Where is it? I dropped it.

Groping among the brittle burnt ruins, he saw an unscorched chunk of wood protruding from a blackened pile and grabbed the shotgun’s stock, tugging it free. He squirmed in a frenzy toward the crater’s rim, peering warily above it, ready to shoot if he saw Ilkovic coming.

McCoy coughed behind him, straining to say something. “… arrel.”

“What?”

“Barrel. Ash in it.”

Coltrane’s stomach convulsed when he realized what McCoy was trying to tell him. The shotgun had fallen barrel-first among the burnt timbers. Ash and chunks of grit would have been wedged up the barrel. If Coltrane pulled the trigger, the plug might be tight enough to make the weapon backfire. Imagining an explosion of buckshot into his face, he hurriedly reversed the weapon and tensed when he saw that the barrel was indeed jammed.

Hands shaking, he opened the pocketknife he had taken from McCoy and shoved the blade into the plugged barrel – only to flinch when he realized, What am I doing? I’m staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Desperate, he put on the safety catch. But he still felt nervous about peering down the barrel, and he racked the pump slide under the barrel, ejecting shells without firing them.

Now! he told himself. After peering urgently toward the valley to make sure Ilkovic wasn’t in view, he raised the pocketknife to free the jammed grit from the barrel.

A ballpoint pen appeared before him, McCoy’s left hand trembling as he offered it.

Coltrane understood. The plastic pen would go deeper.

As he pried a thumb-sized chunk of charcoal from the barrel, he marveled at McCoy’s determination. The wounded man shakily withdrew his revolver from the shoulder holster under his suit coat and aimed it toward the valley.

Coltrane was equally shaky. Staring intermittently toward the wasteland beyond where they had abandoned the car, he freed the barrel, wiped each shell before he shoved it into the weapon, and pushed the safety catch to the off position. Feeling a surge of triumph, he aimed toward his unseen target.

“Pump it,” McCoy forced himself to say.

“What?”

“You need to rack a shell into…”

Coltrane’s surge of triumph dissipated. In its place, he felt a dismaying humility. He had forgotten that after loading the shotgun, he had to work its pump to insert a shell into the firing chamber. Otherwise, the weapon was useless.

“Right.” Pulling toward him on the handgrip beneath the barrel, Coltrane heard the satisfying snick of a shell being seated in the firing chamber. “Good to have you along.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

Coltrane aimed toward the wasteland, reminding himself that a shotgun was a short-distance weapon. Ilkovic would have to come within fifty yards before Coltrane’s gun would be effective. In the meantime, Ilkovic’s rifle gave him the advantage.

“Where is he?” Coltrane demanded.

“Maybe…” With tremendous effort, McCoy finished his sentence. “… coming behind us.”

A shadow loomed, but when Coltrane whirled, he saw only a continuation of the wasteland. The shadow had been caused by clouds – dark clouds. Throughout his effort to reach the scant cover the ruin provided, Coltrane had paid no attention to the roiling clouds drifting from the west. The ground, not the sky, had been what concerned him. But now the sky was definitely a concern. It was going to rain.

Hearing something scrape behind him, he whirled again. And again he saw nothing. The sound had been caused by a breeze against two charred boards.

The breeze turned into a wind. The clouds darkened.

“The storm will keep us from seeing him.” Coltrane kept glancing nervously toward the area behind him. “Do you have the strength to watch this side while I watch over there?”

“No.” McCoy’s barely audible answer made Coltrane’s scalp prickle.

“Dizzy.” McCoy lowered his head.

“Feel strange.” McCoy dropped his revolver and sank onto his chest.

Alarmed, Coltrane saw that the belt had slipped off McCoy’s shoulder. The blood-soaked pressure bandages had fallen loose. Grabbing the knife, he cut off the left sleeve on McCoy’s coat, slashed it apart at four-inch intervals, made two equal wads of the bandages, and eased them against McCoy’s entrance and exit wounds. He found the belt where it had slipped down McCoy’s right arm. Breathing hard, he again cinched it tightly around McCoy’s right shoulder, pressing the bandages against the wounds, hoping to stop the blood.

McCoy made no response. His only movement was from his chest as it raspingly took in air.

“Don’t die on me,” Coltrane said. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”

Sporadic drops of water pelted Coltrane’s face.

Get you out of here? Coltrane thought. How?

The drizzle intensified. Staring toward the dimming wasteland, Coltrane watched the drops hit the ash, raising puffs. Apart from that and the seething of the clouds, he detected no other movement.

“Photographer,” Ilkovic said.

Coltrane whirled, although an agitated part of him knew that he was only hearing a voice crackle from the walkie-talkie.

“It’s too bad you didn’t bring rain gear,” Ilkovic said. “This morning, you should have listened to the weather report as I did. A military surplus shop sold me an excellent camouflage rain slicker. I know that getting wet will be only a minor discomfort for you compared to what I intend to do, but every little bit counts.”

The deep, raspy voice was louder than it had been during Ilkovic’s last transmission. He was getting closer.

But from which direction?

The drizzle became a downpour. Soaked, his clothes sticking to him, his hair pasted to his scalp and his neck, Coltrane peered around uselessly, his vision so severely reduced that a gray wavering curtain seemed to surround him. He couldn’t see twenty feet away from him.

Ilkovic could be anywhere.

Immediately a corollary occurred to him. But if I can’t see Ilkovic…

He can’t see me.

McCoy’s car. While Ilkovic stalks toward these ruins, I can head for the car. I can get help.

As the warmth of hope fought the chill of the rain, Coltrane braced his legs to crawl out of the crater, then stopped instantly. No, I can’t leave McCoy.

But I can’t take him with me. I’ve got to move as fast as I can.

Coltrane surveyed the crater, squinting toward a jumble of charred beams behind him, to his left. They seemed to be a collapsed section of the roof. Dragging McCoy toward them, he came close enough to see a hollow underneath. Fearful that Ilkovic would find him as he worked, he tugged at one of the beams and created an opening. Despite his efforts to be gentle, he was dismayed by McCoy’s moan as he shoved the unconscious man into the hollow. He rearranged the beams, protecting McCoy from the rain, blocking him from view.

There were two things he did before shoving McCoy in there: He removed McCoy’s car key from his pants and the walkie-talkie from his coat, careful to shut if off. Slipping in the muck that the rain created, black from head to toe, he returned to the rim of the crater, where he grabbed McCoy’s revolver. Mindful of the mistake that he had made with the shotgun, he took care that the revolver’s hammer wasn’t cocked before he shoved the weapon under his belt. Try to think the way McCoy would, he told himself. He picked up the pocketknife, folded its blade, and put the knife in his jeans. He gripped the shotgun in one hand, the walkie-talkie in the other, and concentrated on the downpour. The slime of ash on him was so greasy that it wouldn’t wash off. He imagined he looked as if he’d risen from hell. Unable to detect any motion beyond the gray curtain of water, he told himself that he might as well die trying to do something instead of hiding.

He crept from the ruins.

14

THEN HE RAN, unable to tell if he shivered from fear or the cold rain lancing against him. His wet clothes sticking to his skin, he felt exposed, naked. His rib cage tightened in anticipation of a bullet that would blast his chest. But a frantic part of his mind tried to assure him that Ilkovic wouldn’t shoot him in so vital a spot. The impact would probably be in an arm or a leg, disabling him, rather than killing him, so that Ilkovic could have his fun. That’s some consolation, Coltrane told himself. Don’t think about it. Move.

But as he tried to hurry through the cloak of the storm, his mind wouldn’t stop working. He kept wondering if he’d made a good choice by heading straight from the ruins in the direction from which he had come. Maybe he should have snuck away on an angle. But wouldn’t Ilkovic be more likely to suspect that he’d try something indirect? Perhaps heading straight out from the ruins was so obvious that it wasn’t obvious at all. For that matter, would Ilkovic even suspect that Coltrane would abandon McCoy and try to sneak away? The possible guesses and counterguesses were maddening.

A dark shape loomed before him. Coltrane dropped the walkie-talkie and aimed the shotgun, or tried to. Rain blurred his vision. His water-heavy eyelids blinked repeatedly as he struggled to peer along the barrel. If his first shot didn’t hit Ilkovic, he would give away his position and make himself a target. He had only one chance to -

The shape wasn’t moving. The shape didn’t resemble a man. It’s my car, Coltrane realized.

But that didn’t mean Ilkovic wasn’t hiding behind it. Retrieving the walkie-talkie, Coltrane backed away, simultaneously veering to his right, wanting to take a wide arc around the disabled vehicle. When he was far enough away that he couldn’t see it anymore, he increased speed, once more running in a crouch.

The air became darker. This time of year, sunset was around five. Soon it would be night.

And if this storm keeps on, I won’t be able to see a thing, Coltrane thought. He raced harder, knowing that he would eventually reach the gully that bisected the valley. A noise louder than the rain, the rush of water along the streambed, alerted him that he was getting closer. He stopped as the sound from the streambed intensified.

Peering down, he saw white-capped water churning along the gully. Not a flash flood. But if the storm persisted, the stream could easily turn into one. Even at its present strength, the flow of water looked dangerous. The problem was that to get to where McCoy’s car was on the other side, Coltrane would eventually have to cross it. But not here. The bank was too steep, the channel too narrow. The water would have too much strength.

Concerned that the bank might give way, he stepped back, then hurried along it. Although wary of Ilkovic, he couldn’t keep glancing around him. He had to concentrate on the stream. He had to find a shallow section where he could cross. But as he searched, he couldn’t help thinking of McCoy back at the ruin. Will he stay alive long enough for me to bring help? Maybe I shouldn’t have left him. What if Ilkovic searches the ruins and finds where I hid him? What if -

Coltrane tripped over a rock and landed on his shoulder. No! Rolling through a thick layer of mud, he banged against another rock and shivered from the chill of a puddle. He spat out gritty water. He restrained the impulse to cough, almost choking on fluid in his throat. He had no idea how much noise he had made when he fell, but he knew without doubt that he couldn’t risk making further noise, especially something so distinctive as a deep lung-clearing cough. Distraught that he had dropped the shotgun and the walkie-talkie, he crawled, pawing among the muddy puddles through which he had rolled. What if I can’t find -

His left hand trembled when he grasped the walkie-talkie. His right knee grazed the shotgun. Had they been damaged when they fell? Had the mud clogged them? In the darkening rain, he brushed them off. He fingered mud from the shotgun’s barrel. As for the firing mechanism, he had no way to check it.

Keep moving! If the stream gets higher…

Stumbling along the gully, he reached where it curved. Ahead, in the shadows, the embankment was less pronounced. Puddles filled what seemed to be wheel tracks coming out of it. Coltrane tingled as he told himself that he had reached where the road descended into the trough and then rose from the stream.

He started down. Near the bottom, the churning stream tugged at his calves. He waded farther, determined, feeling the rushing water strengthen. He lost his footing, regained it, willed his legs to move harder, felt the mushy ground tilt upward, and reached the other side.

He had only a hundred yards to go before he would reach McCoy’s car. His pulse swelling his veins, he anticipated the excitement of scrambling into McCoy’s car, starting it, and fleeing back to the Pacific Coast Highway to get help. By the time Ilkovic realized what was happening, it would be too late for him to do anything. If I can find a police car quickly enough, Coltrane told himself, the authorities might even be able to trap Ilkovic in the valley.

Hurry.

But just before he crested the slippery embankment, his body moved less willingly, a dark suspicion holding him back. From the distance of the ruins, it had seemed a good idea to come here. But now that Coltrane was actually close, doubts seized him. Wasn’t McCoy’s car an obvious target? Wouldn’t Ilkovic assume that if Coltrane got the chance, he would head for it, the only means of escape? Rather than risk getting shot stalking toward the ruins, wouldn’t Ilkovic want to wait at McCoy’s car and shoot Coltrane when he stalked toward the vehicle?

He felt paralyzed, unable to decide what to do. He wouldn’t accomplish anything by returning to the ruins. But he couldn’t stay where he was. A sense of déjà vu again possessed him. He was taken back to when he had driven into this valley, hidden his car in this trough, and crept toward McCoy’s car, although at the time he had thought that it was Ilkovic’s car. He had followed a stream that connected with this one at a right angle. That other stream paralleled the road on which McCoy’s car was parked. The stream and the road were thirty yards away from each other. Retreating from the crest of the trough, heading to the right, Coltrane approached the other stream as he had done earlier – with the major differences that now dusk was setting in and the stream’s gully was swollen with rain. This time, he couldn’t hurry along the bottom. He had to ease up the side and shift along the muddy incline.

He unbuttoned his soaked shirt, shoved the walkie-talkie under it, and rebuttoned the shirt. With his left hand free, he could now better balance himself and hold the shotgun as he proceeded cautiously along the side of the gully.

The rising stream licked at his mud-caked sneakers. His feet felt cold, the tips of his fingers numb. Inching higher to get away from the stream, reaching the limit of where he could crouch and still not be seen from McCoy’s car, he counted his steps, trying to calculate when he had gone a hundred yards. Just to be certain, he went a little farther, but his mounting sense of urgency finally compelled him to stop and peer over the top of the gully.

He couldn’t see the car. As the rain increased and the air became grayer, he wiped water from his eyes and stared harder, but he still couldn’t see it. Is it farther away than I guessed? Did I go too far?

Easing over the rim, pressing himself flat, he crawled through mud, using his elbows for traction, keeping his hands and the shotgun they held out of the water. The revolver under his belt and the walkie-talkie under his shirt gouged against his stomach, but he hardly noticed the pain, too intent on what was before him.

After squirming forward for what he estimated was ten yards, he saw a vague hulking shape in the wavering curtain of the storm. McCoy’s car. To his left. He had indeed gone past it while he made his way along the gully. Adjusting his direction, trying not to make noise in the mud, he crawled toward it.

He stopped as the vehicle became more distinct. He was about fifteen yards from the car’s left-rear fender. There wasn’t any sign of Ilkovic behind the car or on this side. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t on the other side.

Changing direction, Coltrane kept a distance and warily maneuvered around the back of the vehicle. All the while, he strained to see beneath it. If Ilkovic was hiding on the other side, his legs might be visible through the gap underneath. But the myriad splashes of rain made it impossible for Coltrane to see anything that close to the ground. Cautious, he reached a place where he had a view of the opposite side of the car. Still no sign of Ilkovic.

Coltrane dared to hope.

But what if Ilkovic is inside the car? I can’t just keep lying in the rain. McCoy needs help. Rising to a crouch, he braced himself to run toward the car. When he reached the rear window, he planned to aim the shotgun and blast the backseat, spraying it with buckshot. If Ilkovic was inside, that would be his likely hiding place. If he wasn’t in the car, the blast from the shotgun would bring him running, but not before Coltrane could rush into the car, start it, and escape.

Mustering his nerve, Coltrane couldn’t help worrying that the car wouldn’t be able to get traction in the mud. He never got the chance to find out.

The car burst into flames.

15

IT DIDN’T SO MUCH EXPLODE AS ERUPT, fire spewing from the gas tank, engulfing the car. With a grotesque whooshing sound, a wall of heat struck Coltrane and thrust him backward, the flames so powerful that the storm was powerless to extinguish them.

No! Coltrane’s mind wailed. Stumbling farther back, he turned his singed face from the fire, desperate for the rain to cool his skin. The flames turned dusk into day. The fire exposed him. He had to race for cover, to reach the protection of the gully. Scrambling into it, almost sliding into the raging stream, he pressed his stomach against the mud and peered over the gully’s rim.

From somewhere beyond the fire and the curtain of rain, Ilkovic’s laughter rumbled toward him. “Photographer, did you honestly think I’d let you get away with something so obvious? Do you think I’m that stupid?”

Where is he? Coltrane thought desperately.

The car’s metal hissed as rain poured through the flames.

“Did you think this would end so easily?” Ilkovic shouted. “You have no idea how many ways I can prolong this! By the time I’m finished, you’re going to beg me to kill you!”

Coltrane concentrated to hear where the shouts were coming from. Ilkovic seemed to be moving from the area behind the burning car to somewhere on the right.

The car’s metal hissed more loudly, the rain subduing the flames.

“I tried to reach you on your walkie-talkie! Have you switched it off?”

Coltrane felt it pressing against his stomach.

“Turn it back on, photographer! So we don’t have to shout at each other!”

But I’m not the one who’s shouting, Coltrane thought. What’s he up to? Is he trying to distract me?

Except for the impact of the rain, the rush of the stream behind him, and the diminishing hiss of the car as the flames lessened, Coltrane heard nothing. Ilkovic’s last shout had come from the right. Is he trying to trick me into thinking he’s headed in that direction? Now that he quit shouting, is he going to reverse direction and come at me from the left?

The flames were completely out. Smoke from the gutted car contributed to the deepening dusk. The stench of gasoline, melted plastic, and scorched metal flared Coltrane’s nostrils.

Which direction will he use? Coltrane repeated to himself. Right or left? Fear made him feel so helpless that he could understand why an animal, caught in the glare of swiftly approaching headlights, didn’t flee from the tire that crushed it.

Which way? he demanded. He aimed quickly to the left and then the right. I can’t just wait here until he makes his move!

Choosing what he hoped was the least likely direction in which Ilkovic would expect him to go, Coltrane squirmed from the gully and headed straight ahead toward the cover of the burned-out car. Toward the camouflage of its smoke. The closer he got, the more he felt the lingering heat from the extinguished fire. The smoke had been dispersed somewhat by the rain, but not enough to stop irritating his nostrils. As he entered it, he tried to keep his face down and breathe shallowly.

Throughout, the walkie-talkie continued to gouge at his stomach. Stopping near the gutted car, he unbuttoned his shirt, pulled out the walkie-talkie, and switched it on. A faint crackle told him that the battering it had received hadn’t damaged it. He pressed the transmit button. “Ilkovic, let’s end this face-to-face. Let’s do it now!”

He released the transmit button, set the walkie-talkie near the gutted car, and backed away.

“Photographer.” Ilkovic’s guttural voice crackled from the walkie-talkie. “You keep forgetting to say ‘Over.’”

Coltrane continued to crawl away.

“You want me to break your body with my fists? Is that the punishment you think you deserve? Your lack of imagination disappoints me. I have so many more inventive methods in mind.”

Coltrane was far enough that he could no longer see the walkie-talkie. In the gathering gloom, the static-ridden voice was almost ghostly.

At once, it fell silent.

Coltrane slithered into a depression filled with water. The ground had been so seared by the brush fire that it had formed a nonabsorbent shell. The rain was filling it. Immersing himself in the greasy pool, he allowed only his arms and head to be exposed. Resting the shotgun on a rock, he aimed toward where he had left the walkie-talkie.

Static crackled.

Ilkovic can use that sound to figure out where I’m hiding. That’s why he wanted me to keep the walkie-talkie on.

Coltrane eased his right index finger into the shotgun’s trigger guard.

Static crackled.

He must be pressing the transmit button on and off, creating noise without giving his own position away by speaking.

Coltrane braced his finger against the shotgun’s trigger. From the force of the rain, the smoke had now completely dispersed. But the burned-out car remained obscured, the storm darkening, the wind intensifying. As the pool in which Coltrane lay deepened, he ignored the pressure of the rising water and focused his attention on where he had set the walkie-talkie near the gutted car. Every murky detail appeared magnified. Soon Ilkovic’s shadowy figure would creep into view and -

Static crackled.

That’s it, Ilkovic. Keep listening for that sound. Get closer. Surprise me where you think I’m hiding next to the car.

The shock of surprise was total. From behind, powerful hands grabbed him, yanking him from the pool. Coltrane was so overwhelmed that his finger jerked on the shotgun’s trigger, discharging the weapon, spewing a blast of buckshot harmlessly into the storm. The hands, which had grabbed his shoulders, released him for the fraction of an instant Ilkovic needed to reach under Coltrane’s armpits and across his chest, the hands grasping each other, muscular arms squeezing against Coltrane’s rib cage.

Coltrane’s feet were off the ground. He struggled to breathe. The fierce noise of the shot had battered his eardrums. A terrible ringing in them added to his confusion, but he was still able to hear Ilkovic’s labored grunting as he squeezed harder against Coltrane’s chest.

“Is that what you had in mind, photographer?” Ilkovic murmured against Coltrane’s right ear, his breath so close that Coltrane felt it on his skin.

Coltrane fought for air. His vision became gray, spots of red dancing.

“This is only the start,” Ilkovic murmured intimately against Coltrane’s neck. “I’ll take you close to death a hundred times before you finally bore me.”

Grunting harder, he increased the pressure against Coltrane’s ribs.

I’m going to pass out, Coltrane thought in dismay. He had kept his grip on the shotgun, but the weapon was useless unless he worked the pump to eject the used shell and chamber a fresh one. He tried. He didn’t have the leverage. His arms no longer had the strength. Even if he did manage to pump a fresh shell into the firing chamber, he wouldn’t be able to aim at Ilkovic behind him.

Dropping the shotgun, Coltrane gripped his hands over Ilkovic’s and strained to pry them free, but Ilkovic’s thick fingers were like steel bands welded together. Coltrane couldn’t budge them. More red dots swirled in his vision as Ilkovic’s relentless arms tightened.

No! Coltrane jerked his head back as hard as he could, hoping that the rear of his skull would strike Ilkovic’s face with enough force to stun him and make him loosen his grip. But Coltrane was the one who was stunned. Instead of striking flesh and bone, his skull hit something metallic that had two round surfaces, its sharp edges gouging his scalp. He moaned in pain. A mask? His panicked thoughts weren’t able to identify the object. As his strength drained, he kicked his heels behind him toward Ilkovic’s legs, but they hit a slippery rubber rain slicker that Ilkovic was wearing, the impact absorbed.

McCoy’s revolver. Frenzied, Coltrane drew it from beneath his belt. Feeling the mud that covered it, hoping that it wouldn’t be jammed, that it wouldn’t backfire, he raised it, aimed it over his left shoulder, and felt it fly from his awkward grasp as Ilkovic released his left hand and yanked the weapon away, throwing it into the mud. Throughout, Ilkovic’s right arm was so powerful that he continued to maintain his suffocating grip on Coltrane’s chest.

But not completely. For an instant, while Ilkovic’s left hand was occupied with the revolver, the pressure lessened just enough for Coltrane to manage a gasp of air. It was one of the most purifying sensations he had ever known, erasing the spots in his vision, clearing his thoughts enough for him to remember he had another weapon. As Ilkovic’s left arm snapped back into position around Coltrane’s chest, Coltrane lowered his left hand, fumbled in his jeans pocket, took out McCoy’s knife, used his weakening right hand to open the blade, and mustered his remaining energy to stab the backs of Ilkovic’s interlocked hands again and again. The blade slashed and tore and shredded. Hot liquid spewed over Coltrane’s plunging fist.

Ilkovic screamed. Releasing his grip, he stumbled back, wailing. Coltrane dropped to the mud. Landing on his knees, he gasped to fill his lungs. His crushed ribs didn’t want to respond. He couldn’t inhale fast enough to replenish his strength.

Howling, Ilkovic grasped his mangled hands and cursed. At last, Coltrane was able to see him. But the top of Ilkovic’s face was covered not with a mask, but with a device that resembled the eyes of a giant insect. Night-vision goggles. Ilkovic had been using them to track Coltrane in the gathering gloom. With the hood of his camouflage rain slicker pulled up over his head and with the huge twin lenses of the goggles projecting from beneath the hood’s drooping folds, Ilkovic looked monstrous. Furious, he charged.

Coltrane dove to the side a moment before Ilkovic’s heavy-soled shoe would have collided with his groin. Rolling through the mud, Coltrane tried to keep the knife’s blade away from his own body, the weapon suddenly feeling puny against the massive force raging toward him. Coltrane’s photographs had shown how imposingly solid Ilkovic looked. But in person, he exuded a raw power that was awesome.

As Ilkovic kicked again, Coltrane scrambled to avoid the blow, feeling the rush of Ilkovic’s shoe barely miss him. He almost tripped over the shotgun, grabbed it, spun, and found Ilkovic straightening from where he had picked up McCoy’s revolver.

Coltrane aimed the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“You didn’t pump a shell into the chamber, photographer.” Ilkovic aimed toward Coltrane’s left shoulder.

Helpless, Coltrane watched him pull the trigger.

But the revolver was jammed with mud.

Instead of firing, it blew apart.

Ilkovic stood as if paralyzed, staring through his grotesque goggles at his explosion-mangled hand. Mouth stretched open in a silent wail, he looked dumbfounded.

Coltrane moved as deliberately as if he had been adjusting the focus and shutter speed of a camera prior to taking a photograph. He racked a shell into the chamber, checked that the shotgun’s barrel wasn’t clogged, aimed, and blew Ilkovic’s head off.