Blood risk Read Free

said.
        Bachman tried it anyway. He was still in the middle of a job, still calm and greased, quick and calculating. He realized that he had only one chance of pulling this off successfully, and no matter how infinitesimal that chance was, he took it. The Cadillac had come to a complete halt now, pretty badly crumpled on the one side, and the Chevy plowed into its rear door like a pig nosing in the turf, reared up and caught its front axle on the top of the ruined door, simultaneously sliding to the left toward the three-hundred-foot chasm. The back wheels jolted off the berm and swung over empty air, spinning up clouds of yellow dust. For a second Tucker was sure the Chevy would break loose and fall, but then he saw it would hold, halfway up the other, larger car like a dog mounting a bitch. Bachman had tried it; he'd lost.
        Completely undamaged on the passenger's side, the front door of the Cadillac opened and a tall, dark-haired man got out, dazed. He shook his head to clear it, turned and stared at the demolished Chevy angled crazily over him, bent forward with his hands on both knees to be sick. He seemed to think of something more important than that natural urge, for he straightened abruptly and looked into the front seat, reached inside and helped a young woman climb out. She appeared to be as uninjured as he, and she did not share his sickening intimation of mortality. She wore a white blouse and a very short yellow skirt: a big, lovely blonde. Her long hair flapped like a pennant in the breeze as she looked up the road at Tucker and the others.
        "Here!" Jimmy Shirillo shouted. He had turned the Dodge around and was facing uphill.
        "Get in the car," Tucker told Harris.
        The big man obliged, the Thompson held in both hands tenderly.
        "Don't force me to shoot any of you in the back," Tucker said, backing to the open rear door of the Dodge.
        Baglio's men remained silent.
        He slid into the car, still facing them, raised the shotgun and fired at the sky as Jimmy tore rubber getting out of there, slammed the door after they were moving and dropped onto the seat below window level until he felt the car swinging around the upper curve.
        "Are we just leaving Bachman there?" Harris asked.
        Tucker peeled off his mask and pushed his sweat-slicked hair out of his face. His stomach was bothering him worse than ever. He said, "We don't have the means to get him out and hold off Baglio's whole army at the same time." He belched and tasted the orange juice that had been his entire breakfast.
        "Still…" Harris began.
        Tucker interrupted him, his voice tense and bitter. "Bachman was right-we did need a fifth man."
        
        _
        
        "We're boxed," Shirillo said.
        From here on out, the private road no longer hugged the edge of the ravine, struck toward the broad interior slopes of the mountain with land opening on both sides. Flanked by pines, it fed ruler-straight into the circular driveway in front of Rossario Baglio's gleaming white many-windowed monstrosity of a house only another mile ahead. Just exiting that drive, a black Mustang arrowed directly for them.
        "Not boxed," Tucker said, pointing ahead and to the left. "Is that a turn-off?"
        Jimmy stared. "Yeah, looks like it."
        "Take it."
        The boy wheeled hard left as they came up on the dirt track, braked, barely avoided ripping through several small, sturdy pine trees, slammed brutally across a series of wet-weather ruts, apparently unperturbed by all of it. Tramping down on the accelerator, he grinned into the rear-view mirror and said, "It's not my car."
        Despite himself Tucker laughed. "Just keep your eyes on the road."
        Jimmy looked ahead, straddled a large stone in the middle of the way and built more speed.
        The wind hissed at an open wing window, and insects smacked against the glass like soft