"She won," Malone said with what he felt was positively magnificent
understatement.
"Good," Barbara said, and lost interest at once.
* * * * *
Malone had seen the lights of a car in the rear-view mirror a few
minutes before. When he looked now, the lights were still there--but the
fact just didn't register until, a couple of blocks later, the car began
to pull around them on the left. It was a Buick, while Boyd's was a new
Lincoln, but the edge wasn't too apparent yet.
Malone spotted the gun barrel protruding from the Buick and yelled just
before the first shot went off.
Boyd, at the wheel, didn't even bother to look. His reflexes took over
and he slammed his foot down on the brake. The specially-built FBI
Lincoln slowed down instantly. The shotgun blast splattered the glass of
the curved windshield all over--but none of it came into the car itself.
Malone already had his hand on the butt of the .44 Magnum under his left
armpit, and he even had time to be grateful, for once, that it wasn't a
smallsword. The women were in the back seat, frozen, and he yelled:
"Duck!" and felt, rather than saw, both of them sink down onto the floor
of the car.
The Buick had slowed down, too, and the gun barrel was swiveling back
for a second shot. Malone felt naked and unprotected. The Buick and the
Lincoln were even on the road now.
Malone had his revolver out. He fired the first shot without even
realizing fully that he'd done so, and he heard a piercing scream from
Barbara in the back seat. He had no time to look back.
A .44 Magnum is not, by any means, a small gun. As hand guns
go--revolvers and automatics--it is about as large as a gun can get to
be. An ordinary car has absolutely no chance against it.
Much less the glass in an ordinary car.
The first slug drilled its way through the window glass as though it
were not there, and slammed its way through an even more unprotected
obstacle, the frontal bones of the triggerman's skull. The second slug
from Malone's gun missed the hole the first slug had made by something
less than an inch.
The big, apelike thug who was holding the shotgun had a chance to pull
the trigger once more, but he wasn't aiming very well. The blast merely
scored the paint off the top of the Lincoln.
The rear window of the Buick was open, and Malone caught sight of
another glint of blued steel from the corner of his eye. There was no
time to shift aim--not with bullets flying like swallows on the way to
Capistrano. Malone thought faster than he had ever imagined himself
capable of doing, and decided to aim for the driver.
Evidently the man in the rear seat of the Buick had had the same
inspiration. Malone blasted two more high-velocity lead slugs at the
driver of the big Buick, and at the same time the man in the Buick's
rear seat fired at Boyd.
But Boyd had shifted tactics. He'd hit the brakes. Now he came down hard
on the accelerator instead.
* * * * *
The chorus of shrieks from the Lincoln's back seat increased slightly in
volume. Barbara, Malone knew, wasn't badly hurt; she hadn't even stopped
for breath since the first shot had been fired. Anybody who could scream
like that, he told himself, had to be healthy.
As the Lincoln leaped ahead, Malone pulled the trigger of his .44 twice
more. The heavy, high-speed chunks of streamlined copper-coated lead
leaped from the muzzle of the gun and slammed into the driver of the
Buick without wasting any time. The Buick slewed across the highway.
The two shots fired by the man in the back seat went past Malone's head
with a _whizz_, missing both him and Boyd by a margin too narrow to
think about.
But those were the last shots. The only difference between the FBI and
the Enemy seemed to be determination and practice.
The Buick spun into a flat sideskid, swiveled on its wheels and slammed
into the ditch at the side of the road, turning over and over, making a
horrible noise, as it broke up.
Boyd slowed the car again, just as there was a sudden blast of fire. The
Buick had burst into flame and was spitting heat and smoke and fire in
all directions. Malone sent one more bullet after it in a last flurry of
action--saving his last one for possible later emergencies.
Boyd jammed on the brakes and the Lincoln came to a screaming halt. In
silence he and Malone watched the burning Buick roll over and over into
the desert beyond the shoulder.
"My God," Boyd said. "My ears!"
Malone understood at once. The blast from his own still-smoking .44 had
roared past Boyd's head during the gun battle. No wonder the man's ears
hurt. It was a wonder he wasn't altogether deaf.
But Boyd shook off the pain and brought out his own .44 as he stepped
out of the car. Malone followed him, his gun trained.