David Morrell - Desperate Measures

What the hell is this place?

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

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

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

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

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

Then what are you hanging around for?

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

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

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

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

Before Jeremy’s cancer had been diagnosed, Pittman had been a determined jogger. He had run a minimum of an hour each day and several hours on the weekend, mostly using the jogging path along the Upper East Side, next to the river. He had lived on East Seventieth at that time, with Ellen and Jeremy, and his view of exercise had been much the same as his habit of saving 5 percent of his paycheck and making sure that Jeremy took summer courses at his school, even though the boy’s grades were superior and extra work wasn’t necessary. Security. Planning for the future. That was the key. That was the secret. With his son cheering and his wife doing her best to look dutifully enthusiastic, Pittman had managed to be among the middle group that finished the New York Marathon one year.

Then Jeremy had gotten sick.

And Jeremy had died.

And Pittman and Ellen had started arguing.

And Ellen had left.

And Ellen had remarried.

And Pittman had started drinking heavily.

And Pittman had suffered a nervous breakdown.

He hadn’t run in over a year. For that matter, he hadn’t done any exercise at all, unless nervous pacing counted. But now adrenaline spurred him, and his body remembered. It didn’t have its once-excellent tone. It didn’t have the strength that he’d worked so hard to acquire. But it still retained his technique, the rhythm and length and heel-to-toe pattern of his stride. He was out of breath. His muscles protested. But he kept charging across the golf course, responding to a pounding in his veins and a fire in his guts, while behind him lights bobbed in the distance, motors whined, and men shouted.

Pittman’s effort was so excruciating that he cursed himself for ever having allowed himself to get out of shape. Then he cursed himself for having been so foolhardy as to get into this situation.

What the hell did you think you were doing, following the ambulance all the way out here? Burt wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t bothered.

No. But I’d have known. I promised Burt I’d do my best.

For eight more days.

What about breaking into that house? Do you call that standard journalistic procedure? Burt would have a fit if he knew you did that.

What was I supposed to do, let the old man die?

As Pittman’s stiffening legs did their best to imitate the expert runner’s stride that had once been second nature to him, he risked losing time to glance back at his pursuers. Wiping moisture from his eyes, he saw the drizzle-haloed spotlights on the golf carts speeding toward him in the darkness.

Or some of the carts. All told, there were five, but only two were directly behind him. The rest had split off, one to the right, the other to the left, evidently following the perimeter of the golf course. The third was speeding on a diagonal toward what Pittman assumed was the far extreme of the course.

They want to encircle me, Pittman realized. But in the darkness, how can they be sure which way I’m going?

Rain trickled down his neck beneath his collar. He felt the hairs on his scalp rise when he suddenly understood how his pursuers were able to follow him.

His London Fog overcoat.

It was sand-colored. Just as Pittman had been able to see the light color of the sand trap against the darkness of the grass, so his overcoat was as obvious to his pursuers.

Forced to break stride, running awkwardly, Pittman desperately worked at the belt on his overcoat, untying it, then fumbling at buttons. One button didn’t want to be released, and Pittman yanked at it, popping it loose. In a frenzy, he had the coat open. He jerked his arm from one sleeve. He freed his other arm. His suit coat had been somewhat dry, but now drizzle soaked it.

Pittman’s first impulse was to throw the overcoat away. His next impulse, as he entered a clump of brush, was to drape the coat over a bush to provide a target for the men chasing him. That tactic wouldn’t distract them for long, though, he knew, and besides, if… when … he escaped, he would need the coat to help keep him warm.

The brushy area was too small to be a good hiding place, so Pittman fled it, scratching his hands on bushes, and continued charging across the murky golf course.

Glancing desperately back over his shoulder, he saw the glare of the lights on the carts. He heard the increasingly loud whine of their engines. Rolling his overcoat into a ball and stuffing it under his suit jacket, he strained his legs to their maximum. One thing was in his favor. He was wearing a dark blue suit. In the rainy blackness, he hoped he would blend with his surroundings.

Unless the lights pick me up, he thought.

Ahead, a section of the golf course assumed a different color, a disturbing gray. Approaching it swiftly, Pittman realized that he’d reached a pond. The need to skirt it would force him to lose time. No choice. Breathing hard, he veered to the left. But the wet, slippery grass along the slope betrayed him. His left foot jerked from under him. He fell and almost tumbled into the freezing water before he clawed his fingers into the mushy grass and managed to stop himself.

Rising frantically, he remembered to keep his overcoat clutched beneath his suit jacket. With an urgent glance backward, he saw a beam of light shoot over the top of the slope down which he’d rolled. The whine of an engine was very close. Concentrating not to lose his balance again, Pittman scurried through the rainy darkness.

He followed the rim of the pond, struggled up the opposite slope, and lunged over the top just before he heard angry voices behind him. Something buzzed past his right ear. It sounded like a hornet, but Pittman knew what it was: a bullet. Another hornet buzzed past him. No sound of shots. His hunters must have put silencers on their handguns.