Don Pendleton - Run to Ground

The drab linoleum that she had mopped a hundred times rushed up to meet her, but the impact failed to put her under. Amy Schultz was conscious when the rough hands turned her over, pinned her to the floor, and started ripping at her clothes. She thought of Rick, for just the barest fraction of an instant, and then, hopelessly, began to scream.

Johnny Bolan picked the trooper up a few miles east of Yuma, clocking close to eighty-five on Interstate Highway 8. He had been careful in the towns, obeying posted limits and avoiding notice, but the interstate had been his chance to make up time, unwind the Jimmy's power plant and let his mind free-float toward possible solutions for his problem. Thus preoccupied with private thoughts, he missed the tiny winking lights at first, receiving no warning from his radar detector. The cruiser had been parked along a side road, screened by billboards and accumulated tumble-weeds. Its driver had been on the verge of dozing when the Jimmy hammered past him, giving him a final chance to make his quota for the day.

The patrolman had closed his distance to a hundred yards when Johnny caught it, and the younger Bolan spent a heartbeat weighing possible reactions. He could always stop and take the ticket, but there might be other problems if he did. The radar-sensitive "fuzz buster" mounted on his dashboard was illegal in several states, and if the cop took umbrage to it now, there might be an arrest, a comprehensive search that would uncover weapons and explosives, sundry other gear. Above all else, an interruption of his journey put more heat on Mack, and that was Johnny's prime consideration as he floored the 4x4's accelerator.

He would have to lose the tail, and while that would involve a detour, some wasted time, it had to be a damn sight faster than submitting to a search and possible arrest. Whatever, he was in it now, the Jimmy pulling slowly but inexorably out in front, the squad car dwindling in his rear-view mirror as he held the pedal to the floor.

The patrolman would not be shaken off easily. Engaging the Police Pak in his cruiser, he was after Johnny like a shot, his siren whooping in syncopated rhythm with the flashing colored lights. A straight shot into Pima County on the interstate would gain him nothing but a caravan of cruisers, Johnny knew, and long before he got that far, there would be roadblocks waiting for him on the highway. He would have to lose his tail, and soon, then settle down somewhere to wait it out while troopers scurried up and down the highway, searching for their prey. They would grow tired of it eventually, but it was a nuisance, and he didn't like to think what might be happening in Santa Rosa while he dawdled in the desert, wasting time.

Above all else, he did not want to think about what might already have transpired in Santa Rosa. Knowing that he might be too late, that the aborted phone call might have been the last that he would ever hear from Mack, he could not let it go. While there was any hope at all, he would continue, and when hope was gone, he would begin the task of dishing out revenge.

But at the moment he was searching for a side road, anything to get him off the interstate and offer him some room to run. A half mile farther he caught one, cranked the Jimmy through a hard left turn, fishtailing as his tires bit into dirt and gravel, spewing shrapnel in his wake. The trooper nearly overshot his turnoff, but he made it with a scream of tortured rubber, jouncing after Johnny on the one-lane track. The younger Bolan was already generating clouds of choking dust, and while it would not put the trooper off his track, it had to slow the opposition down a little.

Johnny took advantage of his lead, accelerating, conscious of the fact that if he blew a tire or fouled his engine with accumulated dirt and sand, he would be finished. No more speeding ticket, now; he would be on the hook for reckless driving, resisting arrest and any other charges the trooper could dream up before they reached the local jail. A search of his belongings would be mandatory, and from there, the list of charges would begin to snowball, adding felonies to misdemeanors, piling time on top of time.

And time was something the younger Bolan did not have.

Another dirt road branched off the first, and Johnny took it on an impulse, following the rutted tracks that other off-road drivers had prepared for him. The cruiser on his tail was built for highway driving, flat-out speed, but it was not a rover. Lacking the Jimmy's four-wheel drive, stronger springs and armored undercarriage, it should not be able to compete long-distance over rugged, rocky ground.

John lost him at the next branch in the road. It came upon him suddenly, without a hint of warning, and he took the south fork, curving back in the direction of the interstate by slow degrees. A quick glance through the driver's window showed him that the narrow track lay close beside a deep ravine, all choked at the bottom with tumbleweeds and cactus, the remains of some forgotten, prehistoric stream. Behind him, choking on his dust and blinded for the moment, his pursuer overshot the track, his squad car losing traction, nosing into empty space and tilting crazily before it made the twelve-foot drop. The highway patrolman might scramble free with only minor whiplash to serve as a reminder of the episode, but it would take a wrecker to extract his cruiser from the steep ravine.

They would be hunting for him on the highway, soon, from Yuma eastward, all eyes searching for a Jimmy bearing California plates. It had to figure that the trooper had his number, that it had been broadcast well before the cruiser had been taken out. It was a problem he could live with, given time to make some superficial changes to the 4x4, and while he was reluctant to invest the time, he was not willing to accept the grim alternative.

He drove another seven miles on dirt and gravel, running roughly parallel to Highway 8. He found a row of dunes to screen him off from prying eyes along the road and pulled between them, shutting down the Jimmy's engine and climbing out to stretch his legs. He opened up the back and rummaged underneath the spare for tools and backup plates, selecting Arizona's from the several sets he kept on hand against emergencies. Five minute's work, and they were mounted, California tags sequestered with the other spares beneath the Jimmy's carpeting. He couldn't change the paint job, but there had to be a thousand similar vehicles on the road in Arizona, and the troopers would be looking for specific plates. Before he reached the highway, the new tags would be as dusty as the car itself, and no one would be able to detect the switch without a thorough search.

When he was finished, Johnny returned to the highway, drove another twenty miles to Wellton and found a drive-in restaurant. He killed an hour with a burger, fries and milk shake, watching squad cars rocket past, westbound for Yuma. When Bolan was halfway through his meal, a motorcycle officer pulled in behind him, eyed him hard for several seconds, then revved up his Harley and continued on his way.

The younger Bolan felt as if he might have aged a decade in that hour, waiting for a fraction of the heat to dissipate.

He would be forced to watch his speed from here on, avoiding further contact with the state patrol. He had already used his quota of luck for one day, borrowing against tomorrow, and he didn't need another run-in with the law to make that point. He still had miles to go before he reached the killing ground in Santa Rosa, and he had already wasted too much time.

Grant Vickers returned the microphone to its hook, frowning as he leaned back in his swivel chair and cocked his boots up on a corner of his desk. The sheriff's deputy had been properly solicitous, reminding Vickers that there wasn't much for them to do without at least a general description of the suspects or their vehicle. It was a not-so-subtle way of telling Vickers he was wasting everybody's time, and they would doubtless share a laugh at his expense in Tucson, but he had been left with no alternatives. Emergency receiving would report Bud Stancell's injuries, and it would be peculiar if the local law did nothing in a matter of felonious assault. His contact with the sheriff was routine, and he would let the matter rest right there unless somebody on the home front started asking questions. If it came to that, he knew that he could always stall them, falling back on lack of evidence, descriptions, and the like to camouflage his own deliberate inaction on the case.