Desperate Measures (27 page)

Pittman hid his weapon and waved his right arm in fierce encouragement, as if he was their benefactor, his only interest their safety.

"Hurry up! The place is on fire!"

The students surged past, and Pittman went with them, storming into the arc lights that blazed in the night. He saw gunmen to his right but knew that they didn't dare shoot with so many students in the way, and as the students dispersed in turmoil, Pittman darted toward the next building on the left, lunging inside.

There, he again broke the glass that shielded the fire-alarm switch. Activating the alarm, wincing from the ferocity of the noise, he rushed back in the direction he had come, toward the front door.

They'll expect me to go out the back. They'll try to cut me off, some of them coming through here while the others wait in the darkness behind the building.

He pressed himself against the wall next to the front door, building. In the same instant, students came scurrying down the stairwell. Amid the confusion as the gunmen and the students collided and tried to pass one another, Pittman scrambled out the front door, students swirling around him. But instead of continuing the pattern he'd established to race' toward the next building on this side of the square, he took what he felt was his best chance and sprinted directly across the square, veering among students who milled sleepily, their bare feet obviously cold, frost coming out of their mouths in the glare from the arc lights.

He heard the fire alarms and students swarming out of adjacent buildings and gunmen shouting, chasing him.

Can't hide in here. They'll search until... they ... and at once it was banged open, gunmen charging into the Even allowing for his being out of condition, he didn't think he'd ever run so fast. His jogging shoes hit the ground perfectly, his legs stretched, his sweat suit clung to his movements as it had so many mornings when he had gone jogging before heading to work-before Jeremy had gotten sick. He felt as if his increasing effort was the distillation of every race he had ever entered, every marathon he had ever endured. Inhaling deep lung fulls of air, pumping his legs faster, stretching them farther, he surged between buildings on the opposite side of the square and kept racing into the darkness behind them.

This was the direction from which he had initially come down off the ridge and across the meadow, approaching the campus. In a frenzy of exertion, he managed to increase speed, spurred by the buzz of another bullet parting air near his side. They've crossed the square, he thought. They saw where I went and followed me.

From the square, he heard the roar of cars. They'll soon drive behind these buildings. There's no way I can out run ...

He changed direction just in time, almost banging into the side of a building. His eyes, stung by the glare of the arc lights in the square, were only now adjusting to the darkness, and in confusion, he took a moment to realize that he'd reached the stables.

Men shouted behind him. A bullet struck the stone side of the building. Pittman whirled, went down on his left knee, propped his right arm on his other knee to steady his trembling aim, and fired toward the men pursuing him. They cursed and dove to the ground. A car fishtailed around a building, its headlights blazing, and Pittman fired toward them, missing the headlights but shattering the windshield.

Immediately he ducked back, knowing that the muzzle flashes from his pistol had made him a target. More bullets struck the side of the building, splintering stone. From somewhere on the other side, horses whinnied in panic. Pittman swung around a corner, approaching them. He reached a fence and opened its gate, scrambling back as horses charged through, escaping into the night. The more confusion, the better. He had to keep distracting his pursuers.

Then racing across the horse pen toward the opposite fence, he heard the roar of the cars speeding toward the stables. Have to get ahead of them.

A horse had stopped on the other side of the fence. With no other choice, Pittman clambered onto the rails. He'd once written a story about the stables near Central Park. He'd taken a few lessons. His instructor had emphasized: "When afraid of falling, keep your legs squeezed as tightly as you can around the horse's sides and clamp Your arms around the horse's neck. "

Pittman did exactly that now, leaping off the fence, landing on the horse, startling it, clinging as it reared, but he was prepared and the horse wasn't. Compacting his muscles in desperation, he managed to stay on, and now the horse wasn't rearing. It was galloping, hoping to throw off its burden. Pittman clung harder, jolted by the horse's rapid hoofbeats. He leaned so severely forward, clutching the horse's bobbing neck, that he didn't think he provided a silhouette for the gunmen.

From behind, the headlights of several rapidly approaching cars lit up the meadow around and ahead of him. The roar of the engines and the noise Of the galloping horse were too great for Pittman to be able to hear if bullets whizzed past him. but he had to assume that his pursuers were shooting at him, and he furiously hoped that the uneven meadow, its bumps and rises and dips, would throw Off the gunmen's aim in the darkness.

Without warning, the horse changed direction. UnPrepared, Pittman felt his grip slipping, his body shifting to the right. About to topple, he clamped his legs so tightly around the horse that the Pain Of the effort made him wince. His arms completely encircled the horse's nec as cars sped nearer, bumping across the meadow, their headlights bobbing, gleaming, as the horse changed direction again, but this time Pittman anticipated, and although his body shifted, he felt in control.

He was wrong. Deeper shadows loomed before him, suddenly illuminated by the headlights. The forest seemed to materialize out of nothing, a wall of trees and bushes forming an apparently unbreachable barrier that so startled the horse, it reared up, at the same time twisting sideways, and Pittman's grip was finally jerked free. As the horse's front hoofs landed heavily and the animal twisted again, more sharply, to avoid colliding with the trees, Pittman flew in the opposite direction.

Frantically praying that the horse wouldn't kick backward, he struck the ground, flipped, and rolled, the wind knocked out of him, the pistol in his jacket pocket slamming against his ribs.

He rolled farther, urgently trying to avoid the panicked horse, to save himself from being trampled. Immediately the horse galloped away, and Pittman faced the headlights speeding toward him- He stumbled to his feet, struggled to breathe, and lurched toward bushes, stooping to conceal himself. Bullets snapped twigs and shredded bark from trees. He crouched lower, hurrying among the thickly needled branches of pine trees. Bullets walloped into trees and sliced needles that fell upon him. Hearing car doors being opened, he spun, saw the headlights through the trees, and fired, surprising himself that he actually shattered one of the lights.

At once his pistol no longer worked. In dismay, he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The .45 felt off balance in his hand. Its slide remained back, its firing chamber open. Heart sinking, he understood. He had used all his anmiunition. He had more in his jacket pocket, but his pursuers were so close that there wasn't time for him to reload, and he. didn't have confidence in his ability to remove the pistol's magazine and refill it in the dark.

Not while men were shooting at him.

Not while he was on the run, which he immediately began doing, scurrying uphill through the murky forest. Several times he bumped painfully against trees. In the darkness, he failed to see deadfalls and stumps and tripped, losing his balance, hitting the ground. Each time, he ignored his pain and surged upward, moving faster, harder, spurred by the noises of gunmen chasing him. Flashlights blazed. Men shouted.

Pittman strained to figure out where he was. He had entered on this side of the valley-that much he was sure of. But there the trees had stopped on a ridge, giving way to grassland that sloped toward the meadow. Here the trees were at the bottom of the slope. In which direction was the grassy hill? He had to find it. He had to get to that ridge. Because past the trees and the fence beyond it, Jill was waiting with the car. "I hear him!"

"Over there!"

"Spread out!"

Pittman raised his right arm to shield his eyes from needled branches. Enveloped by darkness, he climbed with less energy, his legs weary, his lungs protesting. He kept angling to the right, choosing that direction arbitrarily, needing some direction, hoping to reach the grassy slope.

Without warning he broke free, nearly falling on the open hill. Hurry. Got to reach the top before they're out of the trees, before they see me. His only advantage was that he was no longer making noise, snapping branches, crashing through bushes, scraping past trees. But the gunmen were definitely making noise. Pit could hear them charging through the underbrush behind him, and responding to an intense flood of adrenaline, he braced his legs, took a deep breath, then struggled up the slope, its incline becoming steeper, its wet grass slippery.

Briefly his senses failed him. The next thing he realized, he was lumbering over the top of the ridge, men were yelling below him, their flashlights silhouetting him, and then he was past the ridgeline, entering more trees, colliding with the fence, clutching it, gasping. "Here!" a man yelled behind him, flashlight bobbing.

Pittman strained to climb the wooden fence, dropped to the other side, and staggered ahead, enveloped again by trees.

"Jill!" His voice was hoarse, his words forced. "'Jill, it's me! It's Matt!"

"He's not far ahead!" a man yelled.

"Jill! Where are you? I can't see you! It's me! It's Matt!"

Flashlights reached the fence, their beams stabbing into the darkness, revealing Pittman among the trees.

A bullet nicked his jacket. Another singed his hair.

Gunshots roared among the trees. Pittman didn't understand. His pursuers had been using silencers. Why would they have taken them off? Why would they want to make noise?

They didn't. They hadn't. The gunshots came from ahead of him. The men were sprawling on the ground behind the fence, yelling to one another to turn off their flashlights, to stop making themselves targets. Bullets struck the fence. The shots"continued from ahead of Pittman.

"I'm here!" Jill screamed.

Pittman saw the muzzle flashes from the pistol she fired. "I see you!" "Stay down!" she yelled.

Pittman dropped to his hands and knees, scurrying among bushes, reaching her.

"Hurry! Get in the car!"

He opened the passenger door and flinched as the interior light came on, revealing him. After diving in, he slammed the door shut and watched in amazement as Jill-who was already in the car and had been firing through her open window turned the ignition key, stomped the accelerator, and rocketed from a gap in the trees onto the narrow, winding country road.

"Thank God, thank God," was all he could say. The words came out between his urgent attempts to breathe, his chest heaving, falling, his body shaking as sweat streamed off his face and soaked his clothes.

The Duster skidded around a sharp corner. Expertly controlling the car, Jill immediately increased speed. The car's headlights revealed the twists and turns of the two-lane road.

Quickly Pittman turned to see if headlights followed them.

"Not yet," Jill said. "They have to go back anduse the lane from the school. The gate's two miles away. By the time they get onto this road"

She reached another straightaway and again increased speed.

"Thank God," Pittman continued to murmur. "When I didn't see you, when I yelled but you didn't answer - "I didn't know what to do. I heard shooting from the school, then something that sounded like fire alarms."

"Yes." Pittman caught his breath, explaining.

"I heard car engines," Jill said. "then there was shooting among the trees, and suddenly you came over the fence, stumbling toward me, yelling. The flashlights behind you, those men chasing you ... All I could think of was that I had to distract them. You told me that to fire the pistol I didn't need to cock it. I only had to pull the trigger. I didn't bother to aim. I just leaned out the car window, pointed the gun up, and started shooting. My God, it holds a lot of bullets. "

"Fifteen.

"And it jerks, and my ears are ringing from the noise... When I saw where you were, I pointed the gun away from you and aimed toward the fence."

She braked, steered sharply around a curve, and pressed harder on the accelerator.

Pittman shook his head in amazement. "Where did you learn to drive like... ?"

"My father's a nut about Porsches. One of the few fatherdaughter things he ever did was teach me about racing. If this car had a clutch and a standard shift, I could really show you about gaining speed around curves. "

Pittman's hands wouldn't stop shaking. "And you're bleeding," Jill said.

"What?"

"There's blood smeared on your face, your hands, and your clothes. You must have scraped yourself on that wall or running through those trees. Or else .

"Say it."

"I hope you weren't hit."

"No. I don't feel any pain."

Jill stared ahead, speeding under a covered bridge. "I said, I don't feel any pain."

"That's not always a good sign."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes a wound traumatizes nerves in the area and stops them from sending messages.