‘Taylorville Road heading toward Bucks Mill. Meet me there. I’m going to try to lose the bad guy.’
For the moment at least, they were on their own. ‘Try to focus,’ he said. ‘I figure our friend’s about twenty seconds behind us, maybe less. If I can lose him, I’ll be able to help you. In a minute I’ll be turning fast into a side road. I’m killing the lights before we turn. We’ll be moving fast, so brace yourself as best you can. When we make the turn, I’ll pull up on the shoulder to the left. I’ll get out of the car. When I do, stay low. Keep applying pressure to the wound. I’ll help as soon as I can. Do you understand what we’re doing?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was a guttural whisper. She looked pale. Precious seconds passed. The turn was coming up fast. There were some trees that would provide cover. He glanced in the rearview. The shooter was still following, maybe two hundred yards behind. ‘We’re turning now,’ he said.
McCabe killed the lights, braked, downshifted, and turned hard, almost blind, to the left. The Bird skidded into a ninety-degree-plus turn. McCabe adjusted, hit the accelerator, narrowly missed a tree to his left, and shot forward onto the side road. He pulled onto the left shoulder and killed the engine.
As he jumped from the Bird, he saw the blackened silhouette of an SUV roar past the turnoff. The car’s lights disappeared for a moment. If they kept going, McCabe could help Sophie. If not, he had to be ready for the worst. He opened the Bird’s trunk and pulled out the Mossberg. Through the trees he saw the lights of the SUV stopping and then reversing. The shooter was coming back. Sophie was losing strength, blood oozing out. The SUV backed past the crossroads, turned left, and surged forward.
McCabe shouldered the powerful Mossberg and stepped onto the road. The SUV’s headlights were closing fast, aiming right for him. He pumped and fired, pumped and fired again. Four shots filled with 12-gauge buckshot slammed straight into the SUV’s front end, splintering the windshield, shredding both front tires and shattering the headlights. He leapt out of the way. The crippled SUV swerved first left, then right, finally crashing head-on into a big maple on the opposite side of the road. The air bag deployed. Coolant poured from a hundred holes in its radiator.
McCabe rushed the vehicle. ‘Out. No weapon. Now.’
It was the far side door that burst open. Using the vehicle and the tree to shield him, a man leapt from the passenger side. He was clutching a scoped rifle. He vaulted a low stone wall and ran into the field. Holding his rifle high, he followed a zigzag pattern. Even in the dark, from the rear McCabe could tell it wasn’t Philip Spencer. This man was a couple of inches shorter, with a shaved head and weight lifter’s shoulders. He was moving fast. By the time McCabe could reach the wall and aim, the man was beyond the fifty or so yards that marked the effective range of the Mossberg. McCabe fired off a couple of rounds anyway. The man ignored them and kept running, disappearing into the darkness.
McCabe rushed back to the Bird, laid the Mossberg on the ground by the driver’s door, and climbed in. Raising Sophie’s head, he slipped under it and lowered it into his lap. He pushed the fingers of his right hand against her inner arm above the wound, replacing her fingers, allowing her other arm to rest, applying direct pressure, compressing the brachial artery against the humerus. This effectively stopped the bleeding. Sophie was conscious but pale even in the faint light of a moon-filled night. Her skin felt cool and clammy. He hit redial on his cell and told them to hurry.
Following the sniper across the field wasn’t an option. Armed with a shotgun and a pistol, he’d be up against a skilled shooter with a sniper rifle and night-vision scope. More important, Sophie would bleed to death. All he could do was wait for help and hope the shooter didn’t double back to finish them off.
McCabe leaned down and slipped his .45 out of the seat holster. He laid it on Sophie’s chest, where he could reach it in a hurry. He flicked off the safety. Not that it would do them any good. It just made him feel better.
Sophie was still shivering. Without releasing pressure to the wound, he managed to slip off his light summer jacket and drape it over her. They sat there like that for a while covered in drying blood, Sophie drifting in and out of consciousness. He remembered reading it was important to keep a wound victim conscious. So he started singing an old bar song loudly, over and over, his unmusical voice booming out into the night:
She’s got freckles on her butt,
She is nice, she is nice.
And when she’s in my arms, it’s paradise.
All the sailors give her chase
’Cause they love her naval base.
She’s got freckles on her butt,
She is nice.