Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"It's a truck!" Bravo said. "Donatella's truck!"

"Kavanaugh, you bastard, where are you?" Jenny said as she turned the wheel hard to her right and simultaneously took her foot off the accelerator.

The truck came on at the same trajectory. Bravo, risking a look behind them, saw the tall broad-shouldered figure of Kavanaugh step out into the light from behind them. His feet were planted wide and his arms were held rigid as he began to fire into the driver's side of the truck's windshield. Calmly, with a kind of serene confidence, he squeezed off three-four-five shots. They all struck the windshield within six inches of one another.

It was at that moment, as Bravo was marveling at the man's marksmanship, that he heard Jenny say, "Dear God, there's no one behind the wheel!"

"She's dead," Bravo said. "Look at where he shot. She's already dead."

Jenny swerved again, and the truck passed by them, slammed into the streetlight. In a shower of sparks, the pole came down and with it, the utility junction box. When the box struck the tarmac, it smashed open and the line was pulled from its connectors, the live end sending sparks eerily through the low-lying mist.

Kavanaugh had turned to watch the final outcome of his neat handiwork when a bullet slammed into his chest. He spun around, his mouth open in shock, and a second bullet took off one side of his face.

"Someone's firing from that copse of ash across the road," Bravo said. "I saw the flashes."

"Oh, that evil bitch, she deadmanned the truck," Jenny said. "She taped down the accelerator and threw it in gear. That's why the truck never changed course even when I did."

Jamming on the brakes, she drove off the side of the road into dense blackness. Before Bravo had a chance to say a word, she had bolted out of the Lincoln and had vanished into the misty gloom.

Donatella, bent on one knee in the copse of ash trees, watched with an inexpressible bliss the second bullet she had sent flying take off the side of her enemy's head. The resulting spray cut through the mist, coloring it, and she let out a tiny sigh. But her work was hardly done, and she slung the 7.62 SVD Dragunov sniper's rifle across her back.

There was a certain poetic justice in how the situation had changed, she thought as she faded back deeper into the copse. And, yes, a form of beauty that perhaps only she and Ivo could understand. She moved swiftly and silently to her right. Ivo had warned her that the Order would not leave the safeguarding of Braverman Shaw to their lone female Guardian. This argument she had attributed to his inveterate chauvinism, but he had been right. The Order had assigned another Guardian as a backup. Not that it mattered to her now. She knew how to handle Guardians, male or female.

As she moved through the slippery darkness, she smiled grimly to herself. Retribution was laid out in the palm of her hand. She had left the truck several hundred yards north of here along the lower road, to which she had driven in low gear and with all her lights off. It had taken her six minutes to wire the accelerator-longer than she would have liked, but the light was very bad and she could not afford to switch on her searchlight even for an instant. It was essential that her quarry be given no advance warning of her whereabouts.

She reached the battered PT Cruiser without incident. It was precisely where she had been told it would be. Climbing in, she placed the rifle at her feet and her handgun on the seat beside her. Then she drove slowly and without lights toward the nearest of the road's turnouts.

She was south of her quarry. Her intention was to drive north, come at them from behind while they were looking for her up ahead or, if they had been observant, within the area around the copse of ash. But just as she was approaching the turnout, she felt a weight on the off-side of the car and without a moment's hesitation she whipped up the gun and shot three times through the passenger's side window. A moment later, there was a shattering of the window's safety glass and something had her by the throat.

It was a combination of good luck and instinct that caused Jenny to head due south as she left the Lincoln. She knew that it would be a mistake to look for Donatella in the copse of trees. She had fired from there, according to Bravo, which meant the moment she knew Kavanaugh was dead, she'd have left the trees. She was now a moving target, and it was imperative that Jenny find her immediately because it was in the first few minutes after a shoot that the sniper was most vulnerable. To do that, Jenny knew, she had to put herself in Donatella's head. Where would the Knight go now, what would she do? Her job was incomplete; she'd be coming after Jenny and Bravo, but now she would have to substitute speed for the element of surprise. To Jenny, that meant she would not approach them on foot.

Jenny was looking for a vehicle when she heard the sound of an engine coming toward her. The instant she saw the PT Cruiser swing into view she leapt onto the running board.

Through the window she saw Donatella reaching for her gun and she ducked down. The shots passed over her head and she came up, slamming her elbow into what was left of the window. Then, gripping the door handle and using it as a fulcrum, she launched herself feet first through the opening, slamming her shoes into Donatella's face.

Donatella's torso arched up in reflex, and her right arm swept around, her forefinger itching to pull the gun's trigger. But, prepared for this, Jenny took hold of her wrist and twisted. Donatella grunted and the gun dropped from her nerveless fingers onto the seat. Jenny locked her ankles around Donatella's neck, squeezed her legs together, creating a vise. Donatella screamed, tried to reach for her weapon, but Jenny tightened the lock on her neck and, gasping, she abandoned the intent.

Jenny's head and shoulders were still outside the car, and as Donatella stepped on the accelerator, the PT Cruiser leapt forward, slewed on the loose gravel of the turnout and gained the road. Jenny was slammed against the window frame but maintained her choke hold on her foe.

On her side of the road there was a narrow verge and then the almost sheer rock face above, which was the precipice over which she and Bravo had tumbled. Donatella turned the wheel to the right and the car crossed the verge toward the rock face. Sparks shot off the front fender of the PT Cruiser as the metal-work made contact with a stone outcropping, so that Jenny was obliged to grip the top of the open window in order to lever herself the rest of the way inside. In so doing, her ankle grip loosened and, with a violent wrench, Donatella extricated herself. At the same time, she leaned over, her outstretched fingers reaching for the gun.

Jenny kicked out, her heel striking Donatella's rib cage with such force that Donatella lost her grip on the wheel. The car slammed into the rock face, bounced off, shot wildly forward, then struck an outcropping and spun around in two complete circles before its rear end struck the rock wall for the final time. With a harsh grinding of gears and screaming of rent metal, it rode up on two wheels. Skidding back onto the road, it traveled another five hundred feet on its side until it struck the fallen utility pole and then the high square grill of the truck Donatella had rigged.

The two passengers, shaken up and bruised by the short but heart-stopping flight of the careening car, fought groggily for the upper hand, but during the final jarring few feet, Jenny's head struck the dashboard. Even before the car had come to rest, Donatella had grabbed her by the front of her shirt and slammed her back against the door. She struck Jenny once, twice, three times.

A burst of white stars clouded Jenny's vision and searing pain filled her head. She tried to retaliate, but she didn't seem to have the strength. Like a hammer blow about to fall on her, she could feel a manic energy coming off Donatella and was terrified. Groping desperately behind her, she pushed down on the door handle even as Donatella drew back her arm to throw another punch. The door opened, and she fell backward out of the PT Cruiser.