Night Magic Part 6

When she reached the police car, he was already in the driver's seat. As she hurried around the hood to get in beside him, he turned the ignition over. The motor roared. Clara barely had the door shut when he pulled out with a spray of gravel. The force of it threw her back against the seat. Puff scrambled out of her arms and swarmed to perch on the headrest right behind McClain's head. McClain gave her a demonic look and reached behind him to sweep Puff off with a blind push. He received a smack on the wrist from a razor-clawed paw for his pains.

"Ouch!" McClain put his damaged wrist to his mouth, sucking on it. The look he turned on Clara was positively evil.

"I hate that d.a.m.n cat," he ground out.

Clara could not repress a grin, which made McClain look more furious than ever. Puff settled himself firmly on his new perch, purring like a lawn mower, tail twitching against McClain's neck. Even as Clara reached for Puff, McClain let loose with a sneeze that almost shook the steering wheel with its violence. Clara grinned again, but nonetheless pulled Puff away from his perch and into her lap, where he settled down with a sigh for his after lunch nap. McClain sneezed, swore, and sneezed once again. Clara giggled. And Puff purred.

X.

McClain drove for about an hour in glowering silence, directing the car along twisting country roads in a westerly direction. Clara jumped every time a car came into sight, which fortunately happened with less and less frequency. Puff had curled up into a contented ball in her lap and was fast asleep.

"McClain," Clara finally ventured, "do you think they've found that cop yet?"

"Probably."

"Won't they be looking for us? They must know we're in his car."

"Which is why we're going to dump it. Soon now."

Clara was silent for a moment as she digested that.

"Then what?"

"Then we walk until we find another form of transportation. Something not so conspicuous."

"Couldn't we just take a bus? You have some money, don't you?"

"Every airport, train station and bus depot on the entire Eastern seaboard is being watched right now, I guarantee you. That would be the easiest way I can think of of giving them what they want. Which is us."

Clara was silent again. Then she said in a small voice, "What do you really think our chances are of getting out of this mess?"

McClain looked at her. His eyes were grim in his battered face.

"If we make it to Michael Ball, and if he is not involved in this, and if he believes me and manages to convince the powers that be that this is not just a bag of moons.h.i.+ne from a flipped-out agent, and if they are then able to quickly identify and neutralize Bigfoot, then our chances are pretty good."

"That's an awful lot of ifs."

"Yeah."

"McClain, what would happen if we just drove away? To California or Mexico or somewhere? Just left Bigfoot alone? Would he leave us alone?"

McClain's eyes flickered in her direction again. "Never in a million years. There's too much at stake here. Having a high-level operative in our intelligence service is too valuable to the Reds to leave him vulnerable. They'll never rest until we're neutralized. Believe me."

"Neutralized? That's a nice word for it. Why don't you say what you mean- dead."

"All right, dead."

McClain was silent for a moment, and then he added, "And don't forget the cops. They think I shot up that emergency room. And you're probably pegged as some sort of accessory. They'll never let us alone, either."

Clara sighed. She'd known there wasn't an easy way out of this. McClain continued softly, "Even if I could, I wouldn't turn tail at this stage. I owe Bigfoot a debt."

"What are you talking about?"

He turned to look at her, his eyes emerald green. "Tim Hammersmith was a friend of mine. I mean to do my best to see that the men responsible for his death pay the price."

Clara s.h.i.+vered. He sounded cold and hard and capable of anything- including murder. She wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that icy rage.

"So what happens after we get to Michael Ball? a.s.suming he believes us?"

"We try to identify Bigfoot."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"About who Bigfoot might be? I can probably narrow it down to a dozen or so, if I work on it a while."

"Great."

McClain grinned suddenly, his black mood fading. He looked over at Clara, a decided twinkle in his eyes at her acerbic tone. "But I do know who can help us figure it out."

"Who?"

"Big Floyd."

Clara snorted. "That's very helpful. Just who is Big Floyd? A pop star? A clown?"

"A super-computer. Big Floyd can do things you wouldn't believe. To begin with, he can access the agency's files and find out who had access to the information that Bigfoot has pa.s.sed on. That should narrow the field somewhat. Then he can give us background on the short list of candidates: childhood, education, affiliations, family, bad habits such as gambling or women, that kind of thing. We should be able to narrow it down even more from that. Then he can give us a profile of the kind of guy our mole would most likely be."

"Then what?"

"Then we use the computers we were provided with at birth: our brains. And we pray a lot."

"Fantastic."

"You got any better ideas?"

Clara had to admit that she didn't.

"There's just one thing," she said after a moment, looking over at McClain suspiciously. "How are we going to get to use Big Floyd? I doubt that anyone is just going to let us."

McClain grinned an evil grin. His green eyes were glowing. Clara thought again that he was enjoying himself, and felt a little frisson of fear. A man who enjoyed such a life-and-death predicament was not a man to trust to get one out of it in one piece.

"We're going to break into it, of course. All we need is a PC with a modem."

"Is that all? Just a minute, let me check my pockets. Oh darn, I seem to have left my PC and modem at home." Her tone was definitely sarcastic. His grin broadened.

"Michael Ball has a PC and modem. He gets briefed on all the agency's doings that way. That's another reason we're going to Florida."

"How do you know Michael Ball isn't Bigfoot?" Clara was getting so she didn't think it was safe to rely on anybody.

"I don't."

"You don't?"

He shook his head. "How could I? But I don't think so. My gut instinct tells me he's clean. You trust my gut instinct, don't you?"

"Like h.e.l.l," Clara said. Under stress, it was amazing how years of careful upbringing fell away. Sometimes a swear word was all that would do to express the way she felt. Like now. Trust his gut instinct, indeed! Not when her life was at stake!

"You're hurting my feelings." He looked anything but hurt. In fact, he was laughing at her. Clara gritted her teeth. It was his fault she was in this mess; it was his fault that everything kept getting more and more complicated; it was his fault that umpteen people had been murdered, and the two of them might be next. And he was laughing at her?

"I want to go home," she muttered distinctly. He grinned. And started whistling a tuneless song that sounded vaguely like "Ghostbusters!"

They were climbing now, high into the mountains. Despite the bright beauty of the day it was cold out. The thick forest of trees boasted foliage of scarlet and gold and every shade in between. The scenery was absolutely magnificent. Looking out at it, it was almost impossible for Clara to believe that she was riding in a stolen police car with a renegade secret agent beside her and every police and federal officer in the vicinity- not to mention Rostov and his KGB thugs- on their trail. She kept having the feeling that she was trapped in some kind of nightmare.

Puff, curling up into a tighter ball in her lap, kneaded her thighs with contentment. She yelped as his needlelike claws penetrated the denim jeans, and disengaged the offending paws with a reproving tap. He purred, McClain looked disgusted, and Clara gave up hoping that she would awaken soon. This was no dream. Incredibly, it was her life.

A small roadside sign bore the legend Blue Ridge Parkway , 2 miles. McClain pulled off just past it, idling the car on the side of the road. Clara looked nervously around.

"Why are we stopping?" She didn't even like to ask. Every time they stopped there seemed to be more trouble.

"It's time to ditch the car. Get out."

With a sigh, Clara got out, clutching Puff to her. He ordinarily didn't like being awakened, but he was apparently still feeling good from his purloined lunch. He purred, stretching. Clara scratched his head, watching as McClain backed down the road. She frowned. What was he doing? The thought occurred that he might just leave her there, only to be immediately dismissed. She was sure he wouldn't do that. Strangely enough, in that particular way she did trust him...

The police car with McClain at the wheel went whizzing by her with a screech of tires. Openmouthed, Clara whirled to stare after it as it disappeared around the bend in the road that was some little way ahead. Seconds later, the sound of crunching undergrowth was followed by a tremendous crash. For a moment longer Clara just stared in the direction of the noise. Then she began to run. The sounds of an auto accident were unmistakable.

She was half walking by the time she got around the bend. A st.i.tch in her side had slowed her, and she was clutching that and Puff as she limp-trotted over to where a bare spot in the undergrowth lining the road indicated that something had recently pa.s.sed through it. Something like a car. With dawning horror, Clara made it to the bare spot and stared down into a leafy ravine. At its bottom, some twenty feet below the road, the police car rested on its top. Its wheels were still spinning.

"You'll catch flies," said a voice behind her. A square, blunt-fingered hand reached around her to gently tap her sagging jaw. Clara's mouth shut with a snap as a wave of relief washed over her. Of course she had known he hadn't gone down with the car, but...

"Here, you carry Puff," she said, thrusting the cat at him in the best revenge for her momentary fright she could devise on an instant's notice. Instinctively he accepted her hand-off. She didn't wait for his sputtered protest before turning on her heel and marching off down the road. A mighty sneeze followed by a series of curses told her that he followed, but she didn't even much care. He had scared her to death, the- "What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you?" he demanded, catching up and thrusting a growling Puff at her. Clara crossed her arms over her chest and marched on. McClain sneezed again, cursed, and followed.

"d.a.m.n razor-clawed fiend!" This was a shout, followed by a truly tremendous sneeze. Clara halted her march, and looked back over her shoulder to see McClain rubbing at his shoulder while Puff, every bristling bit of fur indicating his outrage, disappeared into the undergrowth beside the road.

"Now just look what you've done!" Thoughts of murder and mayhem flashed through her mind as she marched back toward where McClain alternately sneezed and glared. "You can just catch him!"

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I will! That thing's meaner than a sewer rat! I don't think he's a cat at all! He's some kind of fiend in cat clothing!"

"Don't you say that about Puff!"

"I'll say anything I d.a.m.n well please about anything I d.a.m.n well please!"

"Oh, you will?"

"Yes, I will!"

They were standing nose to nose, shouting at each other, when all of a sudden a frighteningly familiar sound caused them to look up simultaneously.

"Helicopters!"

"Get into the bushes!"

McClain grabbed her arm and shoved her into the small forest of scrublike shrubs at the side of the road. His hand on the top of her head to force it down was needless. Clara was already crouching, cowering from the threat that whirled from the sky. McClain crouched beside her. Both of them stared up. They could see only the narrow patch of sky above the roadway; everywhere else the trees were too dense to permit them to see the sky. But from the sound of it the helicopters were close- there were definitely more than one.

"Do you think they'll see us?" Clara's question was whispered. Which was silly, when she thought about it, because certainly whoever was in that helicopter was not going to be able to hear them. She could barely hear her own words over the blasted thing's roar.

"No." But she detected a note of worry in his voice. Then Clara realized that, while the helicopter's occupants were unlikely to be able to pick out two individuals cowering in the bushes, there was a far greater chance that they would be able to see an overturned police car.

A helicopter came into view. It was the familiar blue and white of the Virginia State Police, and it was following the road. Behind and slightly to the north of it trailed another one. From the volume of the droning beating down on Clara's ears, the two that she could see were not alone. It sounded as if there was a veritable air force of helicopters searching the forest.

"Apparently they found our cop friend." McClain was whispering too. Clara was both glad and sorry that the situation unnerved him as much as it did herself. She didn't feel like such a coward, but on the other hand, would James Bond whisper in a situation like this? Her stomach sank even further as it occurred to her that her secret agent just might be fresh out of secret agent tricks.

"Good thing we got rid of the car."

"Yeah.If they don't spot it."

"They would have spotted it for sure if we'd been driving it down the road."

"True. Hide your face. It'll reflect the light."

The first helicopter was flying almost directly above them now. Clara was on her knees, her back bent so that her face was parallel to the ground. McClain's hand was on her head, presumably so that she wouldn't forget and look up at the wrong moment. He was in a similar position by her side. Clara pressed against him, feeling the strength of him, the warmth of his body. Despite the fact that he was the reason she was in this mess, she found his presence comforting.

Moments later both helicopters had disappeared from view. Clara straightened cautiously and looked up at the sky to make sure it was really all clear. When she looked back down, McClain was frowning. The helicopters' drone was still clearly audible.

"Do you think they saw us?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

"Wouldn't they have done something if they had?"

"Called for ground support.Which we would have no way of knowing they had done."

"Do you think they did?"

McClain got to his feet abruptly, his hand ungentle on her arm as he hauled her up beside him.

"I sure as h.e.l.l don't mean to find out the hard way. Grab the furball and let's go."

Mildly surprised that he would even remember Puff, she stared at him.

"Hurry up!"

Clara called, but Puff remained stubbornly absent. Bending over, she spied him crouched beneath a tangle of bushes. She dropped to her knees, reaching for him, but Puff backed up, eluding her stretching fingers by inches. Apparently he hadn't forgiven her for pa.s.sing him to McClain.

"May G.o.d d.a.m.n all cats and all women who own them," McClain said bitterly, and dropped to his knees beside her to haul a hissing, spitting Puff out from under the bush. "Ouch!"

He got to his feet, glowering as he thrust Puff at her, sneezed, and stuck the side of his hand where tiny beads of blood were beginning to form in his mouth.

"Thank you," Clara said. He responded with a glare, still sucking on his hand, then turned on his heel and marched off through the undergrowth. Clara, clutching Puff to her breast, followed.