He slammed a second magazine into the.45 and then peeked out the window. The woman was sitting in the driver’s seat and the man had the rifle propped on the roof of the car, apparently waiting for any motion. Then the car was moving and the man jumped in the backseat and the car screeched in reverse out toward the road.
Lucas stepped to the door, and as the car made a clumsy backingturn onto the highway, he emptied the.45 into it, saw both the driver’s side and back windows blow out; but the car accelerated away. The guy with the rifle fired a burst through the broken-out back window of the car and Lucas dodged back inside.
The car was three or four hundred yards away when Lucas ran out to the Benz and threw it in a circle out to the highway and followed. He didn’t have to catch them, he only had to keep them in sight. Catching them, in fact, would be stupid; he had nothing that would contend with a machine gun.
He had two reserve magazines in the locked center console and he managed to unlock it as he rolled down the gravel driveway and fished the magazines out. The Toyota was perhaps a half mile ahead when he made it onto the highway and started after it.
He would sweat about it later but wasn’t yet frightened. He was angry and excited, and focused on running down the Toyota. He needed to stay in touch, and he needed help.
Forte was at work in Washington. A secretary answered his phone, and Lucas screamed at her, and Forte came up, and Lucas sputtered, “I’m chasing the cartel guys. One male, one female. I’m a half minute behind them on a highway outside the town of Elkmont, Alabama. I need you to get onto the sheriff’s office whatever it is here and have them call me and I’ll vector them in...”
—
HE’D CLOSEDthe distance since he’d turned out of the driveway, and up ahead the Toyota braked and then made a hard right turn onto a dirt side road and started up a hill. Lucas would have the advantage there, with a hefty four-wheel drive, unless...
The “unless” happened. He was halfway up the hill, the Toyota having disappeared over the crest of the hill, when he saw the rim of blue off to one side. The Toyota had stopped and the rifleman was waiting, the gun again braced over the top of the car.
Lucas jabbed the brakes and dropped sideways onto the passenger seat when the windshield blew out, raining broken glass on his face, neck, and arms. He crawled over the center console as more rifle slugs pelted the front of the car, and pushed the passenger-side door, intending to drop onto the ground, where he’d be sheltered by the car’s tires and could return fire. He’d gotten the door open when he realized that he hadn’t shifted the car into “Park,” and it was slowly rolling backward and around toward the roadside ditch.
“Shit! Shit!” He lifted his left leg and poked at the shift lever, which was mounted on the steering column, trying to shift the truck into “Park.” He missed but managed to knock the lever upward, which shifted the truck into reverse and the slow roll accelerated and the truck backed itself into the roadside ditch, where it bounced and tilted and finally shuddered to a stop.
The gunfire had ended, but his phone was ringing. Lucas risked a peek through the shattered windshield, saw nobody on the road, nobody in front of the truck. He sat up and pushed the “Park” button on the shift lever, and crawled out the passenger-side door and dropped into the ditch behind the truck.
He could neither see nor hear anyone moving along the road or through the roadside brush. He edged around to the back of the truck and looked up the road: the blue rim of the Toyota was gone.
His phone had stopped ringing, but then started again.
He answered, as he surveyed his own truck. He was deep enoughin the ditch that he doubted he could get out without help. Into the phone he said, “Yeah? Davenport.”
“This is Aaron Clark, I’m a deputy sheriff in Limestone County, Alabama. We got a call...”
Lucas broke in: “I’ve been in a gunfight at the Sturgill Darling farm off 132. The shooters went west on 132 maybe a half mile, then turned up a hill on a dirt road before they knocked me off the road into a ditch. I can’t get out. They’re driving a blue Toyota that’s probably full of bullet holes. There’re two of them and they’ve got at least one automatic weapon...”
Lucas described the woman and asked that the deputy send a wrecker to get him out of the ditch. The truck was leaning sideways, and he was afraid it would roll if he tried to move it himself.
“I’m going to run back to the Darling farm, make sure Mrs. Darling is okay...”
“We’ll have somebody meet you there,” Clark said, “and we’ll get on that Toyota...”
—
WHEN HEwas off the phone, Lucas moved back into the brush and snuck up the hill, looking for the blue car or any movement. He saw none: the car was gone. His face was burning: he’d been vaguely aware of it, but now blood ran down into one eye and when he wiped it away, his hand came back bloody from the heel to his fingertips, and he realized that he’d been cut up by shrapnel and glass, but hadn’t felt it in the crush of the gunfight and chase.
He turned and started jogging back toward the Darling farm. Sixor seven minutes later, he was on the porch and shouted, “Mrs. Darling? The marshal, I’m coming in...”
He heard a muffled call from the back and then Janice Darling appeared, holding the shotgun like she knew how to use it. She gaped at him: “Oh my God! What happened? You’re bleeding, are you shot?”
“Cut up, I think. We should have some cops coming in... if I could use your bathroom?”
She led him to a small bathroom and he peered into the mirror. He was bleeding from a half dozen puncture wounds on his scalp, forehead, left ear, and the left side of his neck, and could feel more cuts down his back. He took off his jacket; there was blood, but not much, and several small bloody patches on the back of his shirt. One thing was for sure: his two-thousand-dollar suit was ruined.
“You need a hospital,” Darling said.
“Yeah... but it looks worse than it is.”
“You hope. Let me get a washcloth.”
“Better not. I’ve probably got some glass in me, better let a doc take it out. If I rub on it, I might push it in further.”
