the chemistâs.
âDrop your weapon,â commanded a cold voice behind him.
Hart froze.
His testicles crawled up into his body; his belly turned to lead. His own goddamned fault. He had followed the will-oâ-the-wisp, tempted from his safe path like a fool. He had not heeded the fortune-tellerâs warning â and from somewhere far away, across the years, she cackled laughter.
Time slowed, turning thick and golden and sweet. He wondered if he could spin around quickly enough to snap off a shot before the man fired. One way to find out â¦
âDrop your weapon,â the voice ordered again.
The moment lingered, suspended. Something in the back of Hartâs mind made an odd humming sound.
Then he spun: almost offhandedly, dropping to one knee, lifting the Browning. A thunderclap rent open the night. He reeled onto his back, the Browning spinning from his limp hand, into the road and then over the side, vanishing into the ravine. A tremendous pressure rose in his right shoulder. His numb hand was trying to fire a gun it no longer held, to empty thirteen Parabellum rounds in the direction of the silhouette he could now see standing not ten feet away: a dark shadow against darker trees, feet planted wide, fedora pushed back, pistol held unshaking in a two-handed grip.
Rolling, Hart reached to unloop the Springfield from over his shoulder. Isherwood fired again and a hot new pressure bloomed in Hartâs arm. The rifle fumbled, dropped with a clatter.
When Hart reached stubbornly for the fallen rifle, a third shot rang out, kicking him meanly again in his poor right arm, the report echoing antically across the valley. Then he was tumbling backward, over the same guard rail against which the Studebaker had ridden. The metal was gouged and scratched and still warm. Yelping, he pitched down the steep drop. This wasnât right; it was Isherwood who was supposed to go over the edge, down this rocky slope, Isherwood in his Studebakerâ
But it was Hart going down, flipping over now as gravity took more solid hold of him. His wounded arm bounced off a jagged rock, and he cried out sharply.
The world narrowed; time skipped, like a phonograph needle jumping a groove.
When awareness returned he was lying on his back, looking up at stars and an almost full moon. At first he didnât know where he was, although a sense of general urgency enveloped him. Trying to gain his feet, he found his head swimming. His right arm throbbed. One leg twisted beneath him at an unnatural angle. Falling onto his back again, he considered that angle with clinical distance. If that limb really belonged to him, then it was broken in at least one place. Thankfully, he felt no pain.
The world blackened again, like a sheet of paper catching fire from the edges inward. When he returned to himself, he had shifted position slightly on the cold ground. Now only half his field of vision was comprised of moon and stars. The other half was a dark, rocky mountainside, stretching up to a faraway guard rail. A silhouetted and fedora-topped figure leaned over the guard rail, small with distance, searching.
Hart almost giggled. He had tumbled down the hill, suffering the fate he had meant for his target. The bright side: here at the bottom of the rocky slope, he was beyond Isherwoodâs reach. There was an undeniable dark humor to it all, a certain poetic justice.
Drifting for a time, he had difficulty separating fantasy from reality. A truck or similarly large vehicle stopped on the road overhead, brakes squealing; he heard tinny voices engaged in discussion. Or was that just a dream? The night sky wheeled dizzyingly, streaking the stars until they looked like shreds of tinsel hanging from a Christmas tree. He felt warm, then cold. A shooting star crossed his field of vision; and he took aim through his scope at a Nazi commander who wore glistening black boots and many decorations; and he took aim from a ridge above the
âDrop your weapon,â commanded a cold voice behind him.
Hart froze.
His testicles crawled up into his body; his belly turned to lead. His own goddamned fault. He had followed the will-oâ-the-wisp, tempted from his safe path like a fool. He had not heeded the fortune-tellerâs warning â and from somewhere far away, across the years, she cackled laughter.
Time slowed, turning thick and golden and sweet. He wondered if he could spin around quickly enough to snap off a shot before the man fired. One way to find out â¦
âDrop your weapon,â the voice ordered again.
The moment lingered, suspended. Something in the back of Hartâs mind made an odd humming sound.
Then he spun: almost offhandedly, dropping to one knee, lifting the Browning. A thunderclap rent open the night. He reeled onto his back, the Browning spinning from his limp hand, into the road and then over the side, vanishing into the ravine. A tremendous pressure rose in his right shoulder. His numb hand was trying to fire a gun it no longer held, to empty thirteen Parabellum rounds in the direction of the silhouette he could now see standing not ten feet away: a dark shadow against darker trees, feet planted wide, fedora pushed back, pistol held unshaking in a two-handed grip.
Rolling, Hart reached to unloop the Springfield from over his shoulder. Isherwood fired again and a hot new pressure bloomed in Hartâs arm. The rifle fumbled, dropped with a clatter.
When Hart reached stubbornly for the fallen rifle, a third shot rang out, kicking him meanly again in his poor right arm, the report echoing antically across the valley. Then he was tumbling backward, over the same guard rail against which the Studebaker had ridden. The metal was gouged and scratched and still warm. Yelping, he pitched down the steep drop. This wasnât right; it was Isherwood who was supposed to go over the edge, down this rocky slope, Isherwood in his Studebakerâ
But it was Hart going down, flipping over now as gravity took more solid hold of him. His wounded arm bounced off a jagged rock, and he cried out sharply.
The world narrowed; time skipped, like a phonograph needle jumping a groove.
When awareness returned he was lying on his back, looking up at stars and an almost full moon. At first he didnât know where he was, although a sense of general urgency enveloped him. Trying to gain his feet, he found his head swimming. His right arm throbbed. One leg twisted beneath him at an unnatural angle. Falling onto his back again, he considered that angle with clinical distance. If that limb really belonged to him, then it was broken in at least one place. Thankfully, he felt no pain.
The world blackened again, like a sheet of paper catching fire from the edges inward. When he returned to himself, he had shifted position slightly on the cold ground. Now only half his field of vision was comprised of moon and stars. The other half was a dark, rocky mountainside, stretching up to a faraway guard rail. A silhouetted and fedora-topped figure leaned over the guard rail, small with distance, searching.
Hart almost giggled. He had tumbled down the hill, suffering the fate he had meant for his target. The bright side: here at the bottom of the rocky slope, he was beyond Isherwoodâs reach. There was an undeniable dark humor to it all, a certain poetic justice.
Drifting for a time, he had difficulty separating fantasy from reality. A truck or similarly large vehicle stopped on the road overhead, brakes squealing; he heard tinny voices engaged in discussion. Or was that just a dream? The night sky wheeled dizzyingly, streaking the stars until they looked like shreds of tinsel hanging from a Christmas tree. He felt warm, then cold. A shooting star crossed his field of vision; and he took aim through his scope at a Nazi commander who wore glistening black boots and many decorations; and he took aim from a ridge above the
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