Dreamcatcher(201)

'Push it harder, Freddy.' Directly in front of Kurtz, Perlmutter was snoring ever deeper into his coma.

'Pretty greasy underfoot, boss.'

'Push it anyway. I've got a feeling we're almost - '

He saw a pink stain on the clean white curtain of the snow, as diffuse as blood from a facial cut seeping up through shaving cream, and then the ditched Subaru was right in front of them, nose down and tail up. In the following moments Kurtz took back every unkind thought he'd had about Freddy's driving. His second in command simply twisted the steering wheel to the right and punched the gas when the Humvee started to skid. The big vehicle took hold and leaped at the break in the road. It hit with a tremendous jouncing crash. Kurtz flew upward, hitting the ceiling hard enough to produce a shower of stars in his field of vision. Perlmutter's arms flailed like those of a corpse; his head snapped backward and then forward. The Humvee passed close enough to the Subaru to tear the doorhandle off the car's passenger side. Then it was bucketing onward, now chasing a single pair of relatively fresh tire tracks.

Breathing down your neck now, Owen, Kurtz thought. Right down your everloving neck, God rot your blue eyes.

The only thing that worried him was that single burst of fire. What was that about? Whatever it was, it wasn't repeat?ed.

Then, up ahead, another of those blotches in the snow. This one was olive-green. This one was the other Hummer. They were gone, probably gone, but -

'Lock and load,' Kurtz said to Freddy. His voice was just a trifle shrill. 'It's time for someone to pay the piper.'

13

By the time Owen got to the place where East Street ended (or turned into the northeast-meandering Fitzpatrick Road, depending on your interpretation), he could hear Kurtz behind him and guessed that Kurtz could probably hear him, as well  -  the Humvees weren't as loud as Harleys, but they were a long way from quiet.

Jonesy's footprints were entirely gone now, but Owen could see the path which led down from the road and along the shore of the Reservoir.

He killed the engine. 'Henry, it looks like we're walking from h - '

Owen stopped. He had been concentrating too hard on his driving to look behind him or even check the rearview mirror, and he was unprepared for what he now saw. Unprepared and appalled.

Henry and Duddits were wrapped in what Owen first believed was a terminal embrace, their stubbly cheeks pressed together, their eyes closed, their faces and coats smeared with blood. He could see neither of them breathing and thought they had actually died together  -  Duddits of his leukemia, Henry perhaps of a heart attack brought on by exhaustion and the constant unrelieved stress of the last thirty hours or so  -  and then he saw the minute twitch of the eyelids. Both sets.

Embracing. Splattered with blood. But not dead. Sleeping.

Dreaming.

Owen started to call Henry's name again and then reconsidered. Henry had refused to leave the compound back in Jefferson Tract without freeing the detainees, and although they'd gotten away with that once, it had only been through the sheerest luck . . . or providence, if you believed that was any more than a TV show. Nevertheless, they bad gotten Kurtz on their tail, Kurtz had hung on like a booger, and now he was a lot closer than he would have been had Owen and Henry simply crept away into the storm.

Well, I wouldn't change that, Owen thought, opening the driver's door and getting out. From somewhere north, away in the white blank of the storm, came the scream of an eagle bitching about the weather. From behind, south, came the approaching racket of Kurtz, that annoying madman. It was impossible to tell how close because of the f**king snow. Coming down this fast and hard, it was like a sound-baffle. He could be two miles back; he could be a lot closer. Freddy would be with him, f**king Freddy, the perfect soldier, Dolph Lundgren from hell.

Owen went around to the back of the car, slipping and sliding in the snow, cursing it, and popped the Humvee's back gate, expecting automatic weapons, hoping for a portable rocket-launcher. No rocket-launcher, no grenades, either, but there were four MP5 auto-fire rifles, and a carton containing long banana-clips, the ones that held a hundred and twenty rounds.

He had played it Henry's way back at the compound, and Owen guessed that they had saved at least some lives, but he would not play it Henry's way this time  -  if he hadn't paid enough for the Rapeloews' goddam serving platter, he would simply have to live with the debt. Not for long, either, if Kurtz had his way.

Henry was either sleeping, unconscious, or joined to his dying childhood friend in some weird mind-meld. Let it be, then. Awake and by his side, Henry might balk at what needed to be done, especially if Henry was right in believing his other friend was still alive, hiding out in the mind the alien now controlled. Owen would not balk . . . and with the telepathy gone, he wouldn't hear Jonesy pleading for his life if he was still in there. The Glock was a good weapon, but not sure enough.

The MP5 would rip the body of Gary Jones apart.

Owen grabbed one, plus three extra clips which he stuffed into his coat pockets. Kurtz close now  -  close, close, close. He looked back at East Street, almost expecting to see the second Humvee materializing like a green-brown ghost, but as yet there was nothing. Praise Jesus, as Kurtz would say.

The Hummer's windows were already glazing over with snow, but he could see the dim shapes of the two men in the rear seat as he passed back along the body of the vehicle, trotting now. Still locked in each other's arms. 'Goodbye, boys,' he said. 'Sleep well.' And with any luck they would still be sleeping when Kurtz and Freddy arrived, putting an end to their lives before moving on after their main quarry.